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.
RACHEL
WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN.
Dear
Sir: —I would like to see an exposition and harmony of Jeremiah 31: 15-17, with
Matthew 2: 17-18. I remain yours in the hope of the
Z. W. LAMPORT.
Aurora, Kane.
The passage referred to in Jeremiah reads thus—“Thus said the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for there is a reward for thy work, saith the Lord; and they shall return from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thine end, saith the Lord, and thy children shall return to their own boundary.”
A
voice was heard in Ramah. Ramah was one of those cities which were allotted
by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin on the frontier of this canton, and that of
Ephraim. The word signifies an eminence. Sometimes it is put simply for a
high place, and then signifies neither a city nor a village. In Ramah, or
on the high places of Benjamin and Ephraim, was a voice to be heard—in the city
of that name, and in all the region round about. This voice or cry was foretold
by Isaiah as well as by Jeremiah. “Ramah,” says he, “is afraid,
Gibeah of Saul is fled. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be
heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.”—Isaiah 10: 29-30. Gallim and Anathoth,
the latter the birthplace of Jeremiah, were cities of Benjamin. Referring to
the same event, Hosea says, “Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, the trumpet in
Ramah; cry aloud Bethaven after thee, O Benjamin. Ephraim shall be desolate in
the day of rebuke: among the tribes of
The
prophecy of this voice of lamentation in Ramah found its initiatory accomplishment
when the overthrow of the twelve tribes was consummated by Nebuchadnezzar, the
Chaldean head of
And
they did return in part as an earnest, so to speak, of the great
restoration in
But
the voice of lamentation and bitter weeping was not stifled by Benjamin’s
return. There was another crisis in Hebrew affairs to be encountered, which
would cause that voice to rend the air with piercing cries of lamentation and
woe. Its echoes would sound from one end of the Roman world to the other, and
be hushed only by a second deportation of Benjamin into the land of the enemy.
After this the cry would be heard no more in Ramah, or on the high places of
the
The
reason why the voice of weeping no more ascends is because there is hope for
Benjamin, Ephraim, and their companions; and this hope is, that they will
return from the land of the enemy to their own border. This restoration is the
subject of Jeremiah’s prophecy found in his thirtieth and thirty-first
chapters. Let the reader peruse them in connexion. They contain the gospel of
the kingdom with its mystery unexplained. The following are a few
quotations from them. “The days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring
again the captivity of my people
In
reference to these “latter days,” the Lord saith, again, “I will
build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of
These
quotations show what the hope is for Rachel’s end; and what is meant by the
return of her children from the land of the enemy to their own border. There is
a mystery, however, connected with this the obvious import of the prophecy,
which I shall explain presently. But before proceeding to this I would remark,
that Rachel is representative of the polity of which Benjamin, Ephraim, and
Manasseh, were important constituents. Rachel was the mother of Joseph and
Benjamin; and literally, or in fact, never wept for her children “because
they were not,” inasmuch as she died long before them. The voice of
lamentation is therefore affirmed of her in a figurative sense. The
voice was a real voice of woe, and declared of Rachel in the case of her
descendants. The appointment of Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as
patriarchs of tribes with Benjamin, made her the mother, or matriarch, of a
fourth part of
Rachel’s
children, then, are constitutionally the whole twelve tribes. She died and was
buried near to Bethlehem-Ephratha, afterwards rendered famous as the birthplace
of David, and his son Jesus Christ. Sleeping in the dust of
But
there is a mystery, or hidden meaning, to this prophecy, which doth not appear
to the careless reader. Hosea, referring to the restoration of
Rachel
being the constitutional matriarch of
But
saith the inquirer, if this exposition be admitted, what does Matthew mean by
saying that Herod’s slaughter of “all the children that were in
In
the fifteenth verse of Matthew 2 there is another example of a prophet’s saying
being fulfilled, or rather applied to an incident to be taken as an earnest of
the fulfilment of the thing predicted. “When
* * *
A Trumpet of Uncertain
Sound—The Journal and “The Coming Struggle”—The Journal denounces the Herald
for Blasphemy—The Journal’s Untruthfulness—Its Notice of Elpis
The
Quarterly Journal of Prophecy is a periodical of about a hundred and
three pages of reading matter, printed in
When
I was in
Before
subscribing for the Journal, I sent a copy of Elpis
That
copy of Elpis
The editor knows how little use I have been able to make of the viands he has “cooked” and served up for his readers’ refreshment; for he has been in the monthly receipt of the Herald as long as I have subscribed for his. There has been a good deal of Greek and Hebrew criticism, which has displayed the respectable acquaintance of the writers with the grammars, lexicons, and uninspired authors in those tongues; and at the same time their very superficial knowledge of “the things of the Spirit”—Hengstenberg, Elliot, &c., to wit. Such essayism may do for the blind men of Oxford, Cambridge, Highbury College, and a College nearer home; but it will not do for my readers, who care more to know the meaning of “the word,” than the opinions of disputatious ecclesiastics, who are ever reading, and writing, reviewing and being reviewed, and yet are never able to come to an individual or mutual understanding of what the truth is! If one gets a few good ideas in a consecutive page or two, presently whole paragraphs of theological foolishness thrust themselves in and throw all into confusion and mystification. Still there is one commendable thing pertaining to this trumpet of uncertain sound—it advocates the literal interpretation of prophecy in opposition to the absurd spiritualism of its pseudo-orthodox contemporaries. With all its faults, I like the Journal for this. There is hope of an editor, even though a clergyman, who admits this rule. Unfortunately the Journal is not over skilful in the use of it. A man may know all the uses of a saw, and yet be unable to skake it aright. He is not a good workman, being literal only where it suits his theology, whatever it be; but more mystical, or even mythical, than literal, where it don’t.
The Journal’s head piece seems to be pretty well “crammed” with the learned lumber of the schools; but this is manifestly a disadvantage to him. It prevents him setting his house in order. Everything is, as the old ladies say, “higgledy piggledy”—without arrangement or neatness. The “philosophy” of his confusion, which Paul has associated with “vain deceit,” is his unhappy ignorance of the gospel when he sees it, whereby he lets it slip, and seizes hold of some church creed which he glorifies in stead thereof. He seems to believe in the kingdom, though his understanding of it appears very limited and confused. This confusion is his weakness; and prevents him from stepping in advance of the rank and file, and saying, “Come on! this is the way; let us charge the foe!” He is the rather content to keep his associates in line. He has an idea that the enemy is lurking somewhere about; he is, therefore, afraid to move from his position for fear of a surprise. Timid as a hare, he screams out like an hysterical maiden, if a man but look at him. We have an illustration of this in his issue for April, No. 19, as I will now relate for the amusement of my readers.
THE JOURNAL OF PROPHECY AND “THE COMING STRUGGLE.”
A
pamphlet has been recently published anonymously in Edinburgh by a friend of
Elpis Israel, entitled “The Coming Struggle among the Nations of the Earth,”
on the fifth page of which the author states that “The position of the world
clearly intimates that the end has come, and events now furnish an explanation
of the hitherto dark visions of Daniel and John, and by a careful examination
of these and other prophets, the political history of the next fifteen years is
spread out before us, nay, we are enabled to pass beyond that period, and trace
almost accurately the regular course of events down to the beginning of the
thousand years. Dr. Thomas of
A copy of this pamphlet was sent to the Journal of Prophecy, whose conductor would learn from the cover that seventy-three thousand copies had been sold. This fact, with the extract just quoted, was too much for his equanimity. He had in 1850, ex cathedrâ “disapproved,” and “discommended,” Elpis Israel; and for it to be brought so extensively into notice, nevertheless, in 1853, was not to be calmly and patiently endured. Besides, was the like ever heard since clergymen began to speculate upon the prophets, that it should be proclaimed to seventy-three thousand people and their friends, that a layman, and a practitioner of medicine, in the wilds of America, was “the first to find the key” to Daniel and John, whose “hitherto dark visions” had foiled them all? Were Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Faber, Bickersteth, Keith, Elliott, the Duke of Manchester, Moses Stuart, Hengstenberg, and last, though not least, the editor of the Journal, and a host of others, convicted of error by the expositions of Elpis Israel? Our editor could not endure the thought. In the excitement of the hour he forgot, that “God hath chosen that the foolish of the world should confound the wise;” and that he hath hid his wisdom from the wise and prudent, and revealed it unto babes; for so it seemed good unto him. But these things were as nothing to him. Zeal for his own craft was the one thing ascendant, which blinded him to everything else. He could restrain himself no longer; but seizing his pen and dipping it into the blackness of darkness, he dashed off the following lines, and printed them for a “review!”
“The Coming Struggle among the Nations of the Earth,” &c.
“As
pure a piece of prophetical quackery or claptrap as we ever read. The author
seems a disciple of Dr. Thomas of
The readers of the Herald well know that its pages are never defaced by Socinianism or Universalism, which, like Calvinism and Arminianism, equally as absurd creeds, are removed from my faith as widely as the poles asunder. The editor of the Journal knows it too. But when craftsmen are roaring hot for their shrines, they would as soon “invent a lie” to serve their Diana, as receive a guinea for a sermon in her praise. This appears to be the case with him. He sticks at nothing, because he hates the truth which identifies his ecclesiasticism with the Apostasy, and converts his sanctimoniousness into the sepulchral whiteness of an ancient Pharisee. Hear the prayer of this Journalist who bears false witness against his neighbour. It is a standing “notice” on the last page of every number. “All readers of the Journal,” says he, “are earnestly besought to give it room in their prayers; that by means of it God may be honoured and his truth advanced; also that it may be conducted in faith and love, with sobriety of judgment and discernment of the truth, in nothing carried away into error, or hasty speech, or sharp, unbrotherly disputation.” It is not difficult to discern hypocrisy by exhibiting in juxtaposition the words and actions of mankind.
The things we advocate we have a
right to call “the truth” until they shall have been proved to be contrary to
the express words of Moses and the prophets, and of Christ and the Apostles. We
have heard of no one who has undertaken this work, not even this specious and
anonymous journalist in
* Since this
manuscript settling up arrears with the Journal of Prophecy was completed, I
have fallen upon the following paragraph in the number for last January, which
throws light on what the editor means by the “low scurrilous Socinianism and
Universalism” designated “these blasphemies.” In his notice of “The Life and
Times of John Calvin,” he refers to that persecuting ecclesiastic’s
“Psychopannychia,” or “Sleep of the Soul,” directed against the Anabaptists of
Germany, whom the editor styles with much bitterness, “these wretched
blasphemers.” After twaddling about “the real world of disembodied spirits,” he
exclaims, —“A soul sleep! A being in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, become
unconscious! A saint cease to love God—cease to be holy—cease to long for the
Lord’s appearing! It is strange that this Arabian fable, this dream of Arian
fanaticism, should have been revived in our day! In Richard Baxter’s time, it
was held by none but Socinians; Baxter frequently refers to it, giving in one
place twenty successive reasons against this Socinian blasphemy. In our
own day, this wretched fable has been revived and advocated in
But
other writers not being blinded by hatred of Elpis
The British Banner says of it, “it is a pamphlet of a somewhat remarkable character. The writer we know not, but he is deeply in earnest, and has written with much feeling and not a little power. The pamphlet is a rush of emotion, the staple of which is an argumentative exposition. Highly improbable as some of its points seem to us, they are worked out with great power. In truth, were we to judge from the merit of the pamphlet, we should be inclined to ascribe it to the eloquent pen of Mr. Wylie. We are giving no hint. We are absolutely ignorant of the authorship.”
The
notice above quoted from the Journal is a specimen of the treatment all works
receive which do not burn incense to ecclesiasticism and its incarnations, if
they find themselves scripturally incompetent to enter the lists against their
opponents. One small octavo line of denunciation is styled a “review” of a
pamphlet of thirty-two pages by an editor who prays for “sobriety of judgment,”
and to be “in nothing carried away into error, or hasty speech!” It is evident
that God pays no regard to the prayers of the editor, or of the Journal’s
friends; and for the obvious reason that that it is not conducted with love to
enemies, sobriety of judgment, and unhasty speech. The readers of the Journal
have a right to know the demonstration which convicts a pamphlet, illustrative
of the interesting and important prophecies of Daniel and John, of “pure
prophetical quackery or claptrap,” seeing that so many thousands of the people
have pronounced in its favour. In speaking of a work called “The Jew,” he says,
“we do not need to commend a work like this, that hath reached a fifth edition!”
Here the number of editions is taken as an indication of so much merit that
even the editor of the Journal cannot benefit it by his praise! But then, “The
Jew” admits, that “the work of redemption” is being “carried on in” what
the Journal recognises as “the church,” while “The Coming Struggle”
refers to “orthodox” interpretations as “a mass of obscurity, contradiction,
absurdity, and error,” completely mystifying both their authors and the
world—as a host of commentaries and opinions, that must of necessity be thrown
off by the present generation, if it would come to a knowledge of the truth.
But, if five editions of “The Jew” be proof of superlative merit, why should
not seventy-three editions of “The Struggle,” of a thousand copies each?
Will the editor explain this? But why impose this task upon him! Truth and
righteousness are not to be expected from an editor hired by a
THE
JOURNAL OF PROPHECY AND ELPIS
Two
thousand copies of Elpis
ELPIS
BY JOHN THOMAS, M.D.
“That there is much truth in this volume, forcibly put forth, we do not deny; but there are so many serious counteractions, both in the errors which it contains and the tone in which it is written, that we cannot but disapprove and discommend it. The author’s contempt for other men, other churches, other sects, is quite unbounded. To differ from Dr. Thomas is to be a fool, if not worse. The advertisement of the author’s portrait need not have formed part of his book, but might have been reserved for a newspaper.”
On
the last page of the number in which this “review” of Elpis
O
the hypocrisy of clerical fellowship with the Lord! They violate all candour,
consistency, impartiality, and honesty of principle, and palm their pious
frauds upon the Lord! This journalist repudiates from public favour the “much
truth in Elpis
I
was glad when this notice of Elpis
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL.
Dear
Mr. Editor. —Accept my sincere thanks for the flattering notice you have given
of Elpis
But
irony aside, your brief notice of Elpis
I
thought, however, that a Journal of Prophecy might possibly be an exception to
the general rule, but I find that the Diana-spirit is as rampant in you as in
the other members of the fraternity. You disapprobate “the errors” and the
“tone” of Elpis
You
might have selected a more appropriate word expressive of my view of
ecclesiastical men and things than “contempt.” It is a principle with me to
treat all men with respect as men; but when men individually and collectively
assume divine honours, and an infallibility known only to a spurious orthodoxy,
and use their usurped authority, and unscriptural position in effect to
hinder the truth, I have no veneration nor regard for them in this character,
nor for their decrees. You say, that “to differ from Dr. Thomas is to be a
fool, if not worse.” No such sentiment as this has ever proceeded out of my
mouth, nor flowed from my pen. If, however, the scriptures sustain the
exposition set forth in Elpis
“Other
churches” and “other sects,” of which you say my contempt is unbounded,
are phrases which imply some particular church and sect of which I am
inferred to be the advocate. Well, I do plead for one in particular. It is for
that church called in the New Testament, the “One Body,” which is
animated by the “One Spirit,” having many individual members, but
only one head, even Christ. But I confess, I am at a loss where to find it
among men, except in so far as I meet here and there a believer of “the
Gospel of the kingdom of God,” waiting for the adoption, even the
redemption of the body, at the manifestation of the King of Israel in his
glory. I plead for this church, or aggregation of believers; and therefore, I
belong to none of what you call “the churches,” because I do not regard them as
churches of Christ. The oracles of God teach me that a church is an
assemblage of men and women, who, “believing the things of the kingdom
of God, and of the name of Jesus Christ,” separate themselves from
sinners, and are imbued with the spirit of truth, as illustrated by the lives
of the prophets and apostles; and who, upon an intelligent, heart-purifying,
and love-working faith, have been immersed into the name of the Holy Ones; and
henceforth perfect their faith by walking in the steps of Abraham’s, which he
had being yet uncircumcised. Where will you find individuals of this
description aggregated into congregations, and bearing the names which
distinguish the sects and parties of “the religious world?” I should be happy
to know of such, that I might cultivate their acquaintance and fellowship. If
you believed in such a church as I have defined above, how much veneration
would you have for “other churches,” which not only differed from it, but
preached other gospels than that preached by the apostles? As to sects,
I read of but one sect in the New Testament approved of God, namely, the sect
of the Nazarenes everywhere spoken against. I have no veneration for any other
sect than this. All “other sects” are denounced by the apostle as carnal and
damnable. The Christian Body will be a sect as distinguished from and opposed
to Gentilism and Modern Judaism, till the time comes for it to take the kingdom
and dominion under the whole heaven. Then all the ecclesiastical factions of
your “Christendom” will be abolished; and the nations will serve the Lord with
one consent—Zephaniah 3: 9. But for the mystical body of Christ to be a sect in
relation to the factions called “names and denominations,” State and
Nonconformist, is a very different thing to itself being cut up into sects.
Sects, or divisions, do not belong to Christ, who is undivided, though trodden
under foot. Real christians “are all one in Christ Jesus;” Christians
only in name belong to the Popish, Protestant, and Sectarian, system; and are
zealous for the traditions of men. These are the “other sects” to which you
refer. I have no faith in them at all. They are extra the fold of Christ, and
have neither part nor lot in the truth, as must be manifest to a babe in him.
They glorify themselves, receiving honour one of another, regardless of the
honour that comes from God only; therefore the gospel of the kingdom is
neither preached, believed, nor obeyed among them. I have proved this in Elpis
The
conclusion of your notice by reference to the advertisement of the portrait is
truly ludicrous. This is an item with which you have nothing to do. It was
addressed to the subscribers, who could not be reached through a newspaper. As
editor and reviewer, your concern is with “the much truth forcibly put forth,”
and what you term the “errors;” not with the author’s notices to his friends.
But your reference to this little incident, shows the spirit of your mind. You
have found Elpis Israel too much for the artillery of your creed; it is too
well fortified with the Law and the Testimony, which you are unable to gainsay
in fair and open combat; therefore you twang your bow, and let fly an unpointed
shaft at the author’s notice to his subscribers, as a random shot, in hope
that, hit or miss, it may help in the fabrication of the unfavourable
impression you would like to get up against the writer and his book! But Elpis
As
to the “tone” of Elpis
There
are several important and interesting prophecies, and chronological problems
unfolded in Elpis
That your eyes may be opened, and that you may attain to the acknowledgment of the truth, irrespective of human authority in matters of faith, is the sincere wish of
Dear Mr. Editor,
Yours Faithfully,
THE
AUTHOR OF ELPIS
In
conclusion, and by way of offset to the Journal’s denunciation, I may quote the
following words from a letter recently received from my worthy agent in
EDITOR.
* * *
A NEW GOSPEL.
The publisher’s of the “Water Cure Journal” say, that “the world is cursed with three great evils—disease, drugs, and drug-doctors. The Water Cure Gospel will ultimately save the race from all three. Help us, good friends, to send it to the ends of the earth!”
This is unphilosophical and anti-scriptural. It is so, because it is unphilosophical to reason against the use of things from the abuse of them; and seeing also that the most successful physician that ever appeared among men, used moistened clay in blindness, followed by baptism in Siloam. I do not mean, therefore, to prescribe this in affections of the eyes; I only refer to it to show that the example of the greatest of physicians does not sanction water-cure-gospelism to the exclusion of every thing else as the panacea of our race.
I do not see that drugs, or drug-doctors are any more curses than water or water-using doctors. It is objected that drugs are poisonous and kill; true, but that depends on circumstances: water is poisonous and kills likewise, under certain circumstances. I have cured a man, who for two years had no use of his upper and lower extremities, nor any sensation in them, in a few weeks, with pills composed of jalap, aloes, calomel, and castile soap. In twenty-four hours after he began to take these “cursed drugs,” sensation like the pricking of a thousand needles, began to return in the palms of his hands, and the soles of his feet; and in two months he was walking about in perfect health. Would he curse drugs and drug-doctors? On the other hand, I have cured myself of intermittent by the use of a single hot bath; and have on another occasion, submitted experimentally to cold-waterism without benefit. Drugs are good, and hot and cold waters are good; but they are often converted into evils of considerable severity by ignorance. Ignorant water-doctors are less dangerous than ignorant drug-doctors, because the tool they work with curatively, is not so easily converted into an instrument of death. I have seen, however, precious time lost to the extreme jeopardy of the patient by water-using inefficiency and ignorance. Gravid-uterine irritation of the chylopoietic viscera, producing incidentally glandular swelling of the throat, was treated for quinsy by a leading writer of “The Journal” in this city! He was dismissed, and a fashionable drug-doctor called in, who pronounced it liver disease, and prescribed extract of taraxacum, &c. Next day he “sounded,” and pronounced it lung disease, and altered his prescription! This satisfied the patient, who, because of cough and dyspnoea, imagined in the fulness of her nescience in pathology, that her lungs must be necessarily diseased. The ingredients of the doctor’s compounds were not killing, and before many days, the irritation having subsided by abstinence, the quinsy, liver, and lung diseases (mere symptoms of uterine disturbance) all vanished; and the patient recovered in spite of “wet sheet packs,” drugs, and the undiscerning users of the same. O, the art and mystery of all sorts of physic, how gloriously uncertain they are, be the pathists whom they may! What these require is not additions to the Materia Medica, but the knowledge of the motive power of living animals; how it may be regulated, and the ability to interpret the signs evolved by its disturbance. But the Pathists are like the Parsons, who undertake to cure “souls” of whose constitution or nature they know nothing. Where is the doctor, even among waterists, who can define what life is—what sets our organs into consentaneous action, and how this is maintained for threescore years and ten—and establish his definition? Or, where is the parson that can define the “soul” he intones with such pious awe? If a man were ignorant of the motive power and working constitution of a watch, would people knowing that fact, entrust him with their watches for repair? Not if they objected to the ruin of the constitutions of their watches. Seeing, then, that pathists and parsons are alike ignorant of “life” and “soul,” why do the people confide themselves to their treatment for cure? Because the people are ignorant of their ignorance. This is the safety of both professions. Pathists and parsons are ignorant, but the people are more so: therefore neither party can stone the other. Pathists “cure diseases” upon the yankee principle of “guessing;” and all classes of them sometimes succeed with all sorts of heterogeneous devices. The parsons, however, never succeed; for all their efforts are directed to the “cure” of a thing they call “the soul,” which has no existence in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth: the thing, therefore, being a nonentity, their prayers and preaching, or their means of cure, must be ineffectual in every case.
There is a closer connection between the vocations of the pathists and parsons than a person might at first suppose. The pathists, by which I mean homeopathists, hydropathists, and allopathists, the last including many names not ending in ist, in treating disorder and disease, tamper with an evil principle within us, diffused through all the particles of our bodies, styled by Paul, a better physiologist than any of them, “sin in the flesh.” It is so called, because it was established in our bodies as the consequence of the sin of the progenitors of “the race,” which sin the scriptures define to be “the transgression of law.” The name of the cause is put for the effect, even as a son bears his father’s name. Hence, while our race continues to be “sinful flesh,” there will be disease in man, which all the drugs, and all the water in oceans, lakes, seas, fountains, and rivers, administered by all the pathists under heaven, will never eradicate. The Journal proclaims the contrary of this; and announces that water, as applied in water establishments, and recommended in its pages, “will ultimately save the race from disease, &c.” The parsons have a different theory. They prescribe a pious belief in their dogmas, which will take effect in the article of death. At this epoch of terror, the thing they call “the soul” separates, they say, from the body, which soon returns to dust. With Dr. Bush’s disciples this is enough. The disembodied soul evolves in the act of separating into a spiritual body, which soars aloft to some sky kingdom—New Jerusalem! It is then an inhabitant of “the Spirit World,” and no more liable to disease. It is cured. Bushite Hydropathists keep its body well washed unto death, and then give its incrusted germ a carte blanche to sky kingdomia. When all the race has got there, none remaining behind to depart, the earth will be empty, and “the race” saved from disease, drugs, and drug-doctors! unless the process is to go on eternally: and then I do not see how “wet sheet packs,” “sitz baths,” “douches,” &c., are to get “sin” out of the bones! But if “disease, drugs, and drug-doctors” are so effectually got rid of by evolving into a spiritual body, I would submit to all Swedenborgians of the Bush school, if the easiest and speediest “death” would not be the best salvation from the cursed evils of disease, drugs and drug-doctors! I would submit this to all the parsons who teach that the things they call “souls”—“immortal, undying souls”—go to celestial bliss at the last breath! The Death-cure Journal might supersede The Water-cure Journal with great propriety. Water-cure is nothing compared with Death-cure; the former may allay a burning in the flesh, called “fever,” which may break out again, while the Death-cure will put out the fire for ever, and send the “purified spirit” to everlasting bliss!
“The Water-Cure Gospel,” like the parson-gospel, is a poor affair for the salvation of the race from any evil that afflicts it. None can eradicate disease from the human constitution but He who planted it there. Disease is not a distinct principle; but irregular or abnormal evolution of one or other of the forces of the body, ultimating in increase or diminution of secretion and temperature, and sometimes in alteration of structure. This irregularity belongs to animal nature which no system of prevention or cure can counteract, so as to say, “see, there is an animal, the forces of whose system cannot be disturbed by anything within or exterior to it!” Before the race can be saved from disease, the flesh of that race must be changed. It is now animal flesh, begotten and born of the same; it must be turned into spiritual flesh by the operation of the power of God. Here are two kinds of flesh, the former of which belongs to men in the present state, the latter to angels, and to those of mankind whom God shall exalt to an equality with them. The nature of angels has no sin, or evil in it; but is clean, glorious, powerful, such as that possessed by Jesus in glory. The animal human nature is unclean, weak, corruptible, vile; and while it remains animal, is incurable. Pathists can do nothing with it, but experiment upon it. They cannot spiritualise a particle of it; but Christ, the great physician, will spiritualise the whole “by the energy wherewith he is able to subdue all things to himself.” Pathists have this truth to learn; and the parsons, the terms upon which men may attain to a condition of body in which they will be no more liable to disease. There is not “a divine” in this city can define these terms according to Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles. They may say “faith and piety are the condition of escaping hell-fire, and going to heaven at death.” This is arrant nonsense. For first, escaping what they call “hell-fire, and going to heaven” is not the question, nor is it a question mooted in the holy scriptures; and secondly, what they call “faith and piety” is not the condition of deliverance from disease. What Paul defines to be “the faith,” and what he styles “the obedience of faith,” are the terms; and it is of these the parsons of the land are as ignorant as the Pope of Rome.
Deliverance from disease implies salvation from “drugs and drug-doctors,” and all the long list of harpies who fatten upon the miseries of mankind. There is but one gospel of deliverance from these, and that is neither the Bethanian Water Gospel, nor the “Water-Cure Gospel” of friend Fowler’s Journal. Paul says there is but one gospel, which he styles his, and the “one faith;” and whosoever offers any other gospel to the world, even if he were an angel from heaven, he pronounces “accursed.” The clericals, and the inventors of these water gospels, do not seem to regard the apostle’s curse, or they would be more chary of dabbling in matters too high for them than they are. Let then the Scribes and Pharisees of our day attend to this, the One Gospel of the Bible announces the deliverance of THE RACE from all political, physical, social, and spiritual evils; and invites all individuals of that race to whom it is made known, to the enjoyment of the blessedness of that deliverance on certain terms: this great deliverance will be effected by the power of God; who in bringing it to pass, purposes to accomplish it through the power of a kingdom to be divinely established in the Holy Land, whose inheritors will be filled with His Spirit to perfect all his will and pleasure. The proclamation of this one gospel with conditions proves, that the salvation purposed is not the deliverance of all the individuals of all the generations of the race that ever lived; but of the race, and so many of that race as accept the terms. In other words, the race saved will consist of all Adam’s posterity that have conformed to the conditions propounded since the world began, till the consummation. This will be a multitude far less numerous, indeed, than the aggregate of mankind who have converted God’s earth into an enemy’s country; yet quite multitudinous enough for its adequate population when there is “no more sea”—Revelation 21: 1.
He, through whom God proposes to accomplish this grand display of power, has once for all announced the terms upon which man may obtain a share in the “glory, honour, incorruptibility and life” of this “great salvation.” His words are these, and when read, let every dog, not dumb, bark their praise—Isaiah 56: 10-11. —“He that believes THE GOSPEL, and is baptised, shall be saved; he that BELIEVES NOT shall be condemned”—Mark 16: 15-16. —Belief of the gospel, and baptism, are the terms of acceptance. This is the affirmative of the case; he that doth not believe the gospel shall be condemned. This is the negative. Those in the negative need not trouble themselves about baptism, that is, immersion of a proper subject in water; for belief of the gospel stands between a sinner and baptism. Though dipped in water a thousand times, or water-cured on the most approved principles of the Hydropathic Gospel, a sinner cannot get at the baptism prescribed by the Son of God without first believing the gospel He preached, and his apostles after him. Believe this or not, as you please, O reader, the terms I have quoted are Christ’s words, and by them you will be judged much sooner than you may be disposed to believe.
You see, then, that the great question to be determined is, —What is the gospel? —for belief or rejection of this will fix our destiny for all future ages. Read Acts 8: 12, and that will tell you what the good news is about, and what the Samaritan sinners did when they believed it. If you will not take the trouble to turn to this testimony, you are not worthy of being told here. Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all things shall be added to you.” Seek to understand “the gospel of the Kingdom,” and the things set forth through the name of its King, that is, of “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” and if you believe them with all your heart, and are then immersed into the Holy Ones, you will have found the Kingdom, and have become the subject of the righteousness of God. Happy are you then; for, if you “patiently continue in well doing,” when Christ comes to raise the justified, to restore the Kingdom again to Israel, and to vanquish and dethrone “the powers that be,” your corruptible body shall put on incorruptibility, and your mortal, immortality. Disease, death, and corruption, will affect you no more; for you will have eaten of that aromatic and life-inspiring drug prescribed by the divine physician, the ARBOR VITAE, whose Folia or Leaves, “are for the healing of the nations.” Go to, then, ye Human-Gospellers, and learn what this means, that ye also may eat, and drink, and live forever.
The above is written as a contribution through these pages for our friends, the apostles of “the Water-Cure Gospel,” and publishers of its Journal. They say, “all views and all systems, when properly presented, are allowed a place in the Journal. We desire to “prove all things,” and to hold fast ONLY “that which is good.” I have endeavoured to present the Bible system (the book from which they quote) for the eradication of disease from the race, and its deliverance from the other two curses, in a proper manner. I hope the publishers will deem the endeavour “properly presented,” and allow it a place in their well conducted, cheap, and well executed monthly. I do not expect them of course to endorse a word of it; but as they have set forth a new gospel concerning water, I have thought, as one of their friends and readers, though a “drug doctor,” and therefore one of the “curses” of the race, they would have no objection to my opposing views to views, and a divine system to theirs and all others as well, that they might be enabled the better to “prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good,” according to their “desire” so emphatically expressed. That this may be their conclusion, is undoubtingly expected by their friend, the EDITOR.
Mott Haven, Westchester, N. Y.,
May 16th, 1853.
* * *
EVOLUTION OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS BY THE FROG POWER.
The Parisian correspondent of the London Lloyd’s says, “It is necessary I should put you in possession of a remarkable view of present affairs which has been given me by a gentleman intimately connected with Turkish affairs. ‘The integrity of the Ottoman empire it is impossible to maintain. Either that empire must fall, or it must be reconstituted as a Christian or Byzantine empire. I know that Lord Palmerston and Louis Napoleon have for a long time been carrying on a correspondence connected with a scheme which has been kept in the background, and this will account for the friendly tone assumed towards the Dictator by your ex-foreign minister. Lord Palmerston detests Russia and Austria; and any body is an ally in his eyes who will join against those powers. The scheme is to found, as I have said, a New Empire, removing the Greek King to Constantinople, and thus ensuring the consolidation of a Christian empire. Switzerland and France would enter Italy, and proclaim the independence of Italy and Hungary, while England attacked Russia. This project is seriously under consideration, and I believe we shall not pass the summer without its realisation. With a Byzantine empire, Poland and Hungary free, and Austria annihilated, we should have nothing to fear from Russia.’”
But while the Frog Power is plotting with British Statesmen against Russian progress and ascendancy, it does not neglect its own advancement. In 1852, it laboured diligently through its ambassador, M, deLavalette, at the court of the Dragon in Constantinople, in procuring a firman or decree, conceding in it, as the eldest son or champion of the Roman Church, the protectorate of the Holy Shrines, or something similar thereto. A firman was granted, revoked, and granted again by the Moslem emperor, endowing the Frog Power with preferential rights in ecclesiastical affairs connected with the Holy Places in Jerusalem, which are construed by Nicolas of Russia, the Head of the Greek Church, as detrimental to the interests of his communion. Russia declared that she could not submit to changes thus introduced into the existing state of things, which were so humiliating to the Greeks, and favourable to the Roman Catholics. Having carried its point in Constantinople, the Frog Power endeavoured to maintain the advantage gained there by negotiation at St. Petersburgh; but its instructions to the French minister were not of a nature to facilitate a settlement. The effect of Frog-diplomacy at St. Petersburgh is seen in the fact, that when the Prince-Bishop Daniel returned from St. Petersburgh to Montenegro, without previous notice he descended from his mountains at night upon the Turkish garrison at Zabljak, and slaughtered all the men he found there. Thus the war that followed was a Russo-Montenegrin experiment against Turkey, remotely and unintentionally excited by the Frog Power. This little war has ended in placing things as they were before Daniel’s treacherous attack, in relation to Montenegro, which was not what Russia wanted when she excited the war. The Autocrat hoped that a general war would ensue between Turkey and her provinces. Russia’s Bessarabian troops were ready to enter the Moldo-Wallachian provinces, and the Sebastopol fleet was equipped for Constantinople. The pacific termination of the struggle has annoyed Russia, which accordingly now demands the independence of Montenegro: that is, that the mountain fastnesses should pass from Turkey to Russia, as there is no real independence for a horde of 200,000 men, surrounded by powerful neighbours. “The union of so many of the Sclavonic race with Russia,” says the writer aforesaid, “would be a fearful danger for Europe, the more that Austria has committed the folly of uniting with Russia out of hatred to England. The independence, so called, of Montenegro must be refused, if we would not see Russia make another great stride in Europe.”
The diplomacy of the Frog-Power having indirectly kindled a flame in Montenegro, it reacted upon the Beast-Demon of Austria, from whom the unclean spirit peculiar to it issued forth against the Dragon-Demon of Constantinople. Count Leiningen was sent with great haste as the bearer of a threatening message, demanding the termination of hostilities against Montenegro, &c. No sooner, or rather, scarcely had the Moslem yielded to Austria, than an avalanche of insolence descended from Russia upon the unfortunate Abdul Medjid. Prince-admiral Mentschikof, minister of Marine, governor of Finland, and a relative of the Czar, arrived at Constantinople, unexpectedly to the Sultan and his Divan, but not to the Greek population of that city. He appeared in Byzantium as the alter ego, or other self, of the Autocrat. He was surrounded by a brilliant escort of rear-admirals, generals, aide-de-camps, and many distinguished persons. He was met at Topana by all the officers of the embassy on horseback, by all Russian subjects, and protégés. Men in full uniform, loaded with orders, gold, and diamonds, the Ambassador in an open carriage, and surrounded by his staff, advanced toward the palace of the embassy, which he reached with difficulty, owing to the dense crowd of Greeks. This show of popularity was obtained by promises and money. The promises had reference to their obtaining the mosque of St. Sophia for the Greek Catholic worship, while whispers were adroitly circulated in their ears about a Byzantine empire.
This
sudden apparition of quasi Russian majesty in the city of Constantine,
excited the surprise of “the Great Powers,” who are ignorant of Russian
movements, though they seem to divine its ambition. It is considered by the
best informed that there is at the bottom of this affair “some vast design
emanating from the intriguing head of Nesselrode,” whose son accompanied the
embassy. Within certain limits Turkey has been progressing. Her military
organization has improved; her statesmen seek to improve her financial system,
and her trade; she is making roads, and preparing even railways, &c.; which
is all very distasteful to Russia. The object of Mentschikof’s mission is,
therefore, to check Turkey, to humiliate and bend her to Russia. To effect
this, the Autocrat makes demands directly antagonistic and subversive of the
firman granted last autumn to the Frog-Power in favour of the jurisdiction of
the Papal Church, and of French influence in the Holy Land.
Thus, popish superstition, in accordance with Napoleonic ambition, has placed the Frog-Power in antagonism to Russia and Austria on a question relating to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. What Power shall have the ascendency there? Shall Turkey, Russia, or France? This the real question created between them by the Frog-Power. It cannot be peaceably settled. It is certain that the French cabinet feels much irritation at the conduct of Russia; but it is convenient and politic for the present to appear as well satisfied and pleased as possible. The world is not permitted to know the real condition of affairs between “the Powers,” until it can no longer be hid. This question about Turkey and the Holy Land, usually styled “the Eastern Question,” will be the cause of working out a change in Europe as well as in the East. The antagonism between Russia and England is inevitable. This natural antagonism of England to the most grasping of all despotisms; and the diplomatic antagonism of the Frog Power to the same despotism, place England and France side by side in disputing the progress and ascendency of Austria and Russia in Turkey and the east. Nor need the alliance between France and England be jeopardised on account of Egypt and the Holy Land. The relations of France to the Papacy cannot continue permanently as they are. The predilections of the Papal government are Austrian. Austria sustained by Russia presents a more stable support to the palsied Pontificate against the revolutionists than the Imperial upstart ruler of the fickle Gauls. I have no doubt but an antagonism will spring up between Napoleon and the Pope, which will place the former in hostility to the priest-power. Hence, as Louis’ religion is only an affair of convenience and policy, his present zeal for the “Holy Shrines” will evaporate with his respect for the clergy, whom he uses as the mere tools of his ambition, even as they use him as the tool of theirs. It is true, he has entertained the notion of converting the Mediterranean into a French Lake, which, if persisted in, would originate implacable war between him and Britain. But other questions are exhaling from the bottomless pit subversive of that idea. Italy, and a frontier to the Rhine, with Belgium, and perhaps Spain, are worth more to France disenthralled from Jesuitism, than Egypt and the Holy Land. If England recognise French dominion in Italy, &c., the Frog Power might concede Egypt and the Holy Land, and certain Mediterranean islands, to the protectorate of Britain, which, being a Protestant Power, might even admit of Roman Catholic ascendency over the Holy Shrines in Jerusalem, if required.
Thus we see, from the working of things, that the Frog Power is the disturber of the general tranquillity; yet, in the approaching tumult of nations, no Power will make so little real capital out of the disturbance as it. “France,” says a Frenchman, “is, of all the great European Powers, the one which has most to suffer in an eventual dismemberment of the Ottoman empire. Whenever it shall be accomplished, it will be, above all, to the advantage of Austria and Russia, and not without compensation to Great Britain, by the definitive abandonment to her of Egypt, and by the concession of some islands in the Archipelago—Candia, for instance; to Prussia, by that of the territory she covets in Germany, and which will contribute to maintain her preponderance. But France is not placed in the same favourable condition; no indemnity can be granted to her. She is, then, menaced with the prospect of the ruin of an ancient and constant ally, (Turkey), and of the partition of its spoils, without obtaining anything. This is, perhaps, the fatal consequence of her position in the centre of Europe—a position in other respects advantageous, but which is far from being so in the present circumstances; and it is not at all improbable that France will be forced to witness the partition of Turkey in the course of the nineteenth century, as she witnessed that of Poland in the eighteenth. The danger of such an act was great, indeed, after the revolution of 1830—it has augmented since 1848.”
If the alleged scheme of Palmerston and Louis Napoleon be initiated, the uproar of nations will be tremendous. All the nations of the Old World will be involved in war. When the reader sees this war, let him trace out the causes of it, and he will find it to be the result of the working of the Frog Power upon the Moslem “Dragon,” the Austrian “Beast,” and the Italian “False Prophet,” as I have been showing it. These three Powers, again, act upon one another, as we have seen Austria operating against Turkey; and these three finally upon “the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable,” as in Turkey sending for the British fleet, and Austria assuming a threatening attitude against Switzerland and Piedmont, and in making common cause with Russia out of hatred to England. In this way the “time of trouble such as has not been since there was a nation upon the earth,” foretold by Daniel, is evolved. John, in the Apocalypse, refers to it in these words, “the nations were angry,” that is, greatly enraged. “The slaughter of the Turkish garrison of Zabljak, by the Montenegrin Rob Roy, will now be recognised,” says the London Daily News, “as just that little distant black speck on the horizon which warns the tried mariner to make all snug for the coming storm. The speck has swelled into a heavy black impending cloud, which no one can ignore, and few can misunderstand.” There may be a lull, and an amicable arrangement be effected, as is reported; but it can only be temporary. The breeze will again rise, and suddenly become a hurricane. The French and English ships now watching events in Turkey, will be too late; for “the king of the north shall come against the Moslem like a whirlwind, with chariots, and horsemen, and with many ships: and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow, and pass over.” Turkey will fall, and the Moslem dynasty of the Dragon will give place to the Russo-Assyrian Clay. Henceforth, there can be no permanent peace between England and Russia. “An evil thought will come into the mind” of the Autocrat, the carrying out of which will make Palestine again the battle ground of nations. Russia will subdue Egypt, and take possession of Jerusalem. But there her progress will be stayed. Toward India she will advance no further, for the wings of the overshadowing land will extend to the rivers of Cush.
The French empire has been revived by the Watchers and the Holy Ones to work out this result. The Holy Shrines in the hand of the Autocrat is the crisis of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image. When his army, composed of troops drawn from all his subject nations, shall encamp on the mountains of Palestine, that Image will be standing there upon its Feet of Iron mixed with Clay. The descending Stone, which the Israelitish builders refused, will fall upon it, and break its Feet to pieces. The commixture of the Assyrian Clay with the Roman Iron is thus proved to be of very temporary continuance—a temporariness represented by the saying, “they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed (or permanently mixable) with Clay.” This shivering of the Feet to pieces is termed by John “the seizing of the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.” The Euphratean dominion is thus finally “dried up,” and no obstacle remains to “the manifestation of the Sons of God,” apocalyptically designated as “the Kings of the risings of the Sun,” styled in the common version, “the Kings of the East.” At this crisis the Euphratean dominion is Russo-Assyrian, not Moslem; the dynasty having been previously changed, or the sovereignty over the mixed population of the Dragon territory transferred from the Sultan to the Czar.
The
Gold and Clay of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image are the Assyrian element at tow several
remote epochs thereof. The gold represents its manifestation in the dynasty of
Nebuchadnezzar; and the Clay its manifestation in the dynasty of Ezekiel’s Gog.
The Image in all its combinations is essentially Euphratean, that region being
always of first importance to it which is watered by the Euphrates. The Image
is therefore representative of a Euphratean Dominion with a diversity of
elements and sovereignties. These are the golden, argentine, brazen, iron, and
clay. Hitherto this dominion as a unit has never stood upon its Feet. The
golden or Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty was Euphratean; the Medo-Persian, or
argentine, also; likewise the brazen or Macedonian and Greek; and the iron or
Romano-Greek and Moslem: but the Ferro-Aluminous, or iron and clay, Feet
Sovereignty has not yet appeared on the Dragon territory. When it does,
however, it will be Euphratean when manifested in full; for Persia,
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judea will be included in its domain. The Moslem
Sovereignty of the iron element is already Euphratean and drying up; and the
clay has approached nearly to the source of the Euphrates, where at Mount
Ararat, the Russian empire joins Turkey and the kingdom of Persia. The mission
of the Frog Power is to bring down the confines of the Russian empire from the
north, so as to include the greater part of Assyria and Palestine. This is
prevented for the present by the Circassian resistance to Russia in the
Caucasus. But when the schemes of Napoleon shall cause the Czar to seize upon
Constantinople, and to pour his Cossacks into the plains of Anatolia, he will
be able to cut off their supplies, and to take the Circassians in the rear, and
so bring their resistance to an end. The Clay element will then be on the Image
territory an Euphratean Sovereignty. The clay-head being sovereign of 12
millions of Romano-Greek Catholics—the ferro-brazen element—and upon the
Dragon-territory of the Image, will present before the world, “the iron
mixed with miry clay”—Isaiah’s Assyrian, “the stretching out of whose
wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel!” But “the Lord
shall cause the glory of his voice, to be heard, and shall show the lighting
down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a
devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones: for through the
voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, who smote with a rod.”
Thus shall the giving of God’s Son to Israel “be with burning and fuel of
fire.”
EDITOR.
* * *
A MOTLEY FAITH.
“Be ye perfect, even as God is perfect.”—Jesus.
Dear Sir,
I wish to be saved; but surrounded by such a multitude of different faiths as there are in the world, I am at a loss to know what I must do to that end. I thought I knew something about this matter once, having “experienced a hope;” but some of your writings have fallen under my notice, the perusal of which causes me to doubt of I ever knew anything upon the subject as I ought. I am so shaken in mind that I can hardly tell what I believe at present; but some time ago I thought (I will not term it “believed”) that there existed in my body a soul capable of living eternally unconnected with body of any sort. I thought that when the separation of the body and undying soul occurred, the soul if pious would be wafted into realms of bliss beyond the skies, and remain there till the last day: I believed, and do still, that Jesus called Christ is the Son of God, and somehow or other the Saviour of sinners; but I thought he was to come in person and burn up the earth, and destroy all the impenitently wicked upon it; after which he and the saints would reign over the earth (over whom I cannot say), the place of wolves, lions, tigers, and serpents, whose fierceness had been changed into the harmlessness of sheep, and domestic cattle. I regarded this reign of Christ and his saints as “the Kingdom of God;” and supposed that when their reign commenced, it would be signalised by the reunion of their souls with bodies raised from the dust. I called this good news, glad tidings of great joy; and the preaching of it I considered as the preaching of the gospel. As to the restoration of carnal Jews to Palestine, that was in my eyes pure foolishness, and those who preached it I styled “Judaisers.” As to baptism, I believed immersion was the most scriptural form; but by no means essential to salvation: yet to be safe, as I thought, I considered it best to be immersed. You see, then, what was my faith, or creed, and practice. I was very zealous for these things, considered as pious, and delighted to think that the Lord would soon appear. Now what I want to ascertain is, in being immersed upon such a faith, did I believe the gospel and obey it? Your conviction of the matter will much oblige
A SEARCHER AFTER TRUTH.
A MOTLEY FAITH PROVED TO BE VAIN.
“Your faith is vain, and ye are yet in your sins.”—Paul