"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book," Revelation 22: 18, 19.
The existing circumstances of the Church of God seem to call upon those who earnestly desire its welfare, not to hold back from expressing that which may, in any way, tend to the strengthening of faith and healing those divisions which, while they destroy charity, and the fellowship one with another that is proper to walking in the light, weaken the testimony which is held out to the unconverted, or to the inquirer, of the everlasting truth of God. It appears to me that, on the subject of prophecy (divisions on which now shame godliness), both those who hold and those who strenuously oppose views, which, for convenience' sake, we may call Millenarian, are deeply culpable. Many have written on one side and the other ignorant of each other's views, and precipitate and unwarranted in their inferences from them; and, while those who hold the views of prophecy, which have occasioned the controversy, have indulged in language utterly inconsistent with the spirit of their Master, those who are unconvinced by them, though charging this exclusively on the Millenarians, are themselves, it appears to me, in no way free from blame. Superciliousness, distrust, and animosity, not perhaps so distinctly expressed, because new views are generally the most active and forward, but quite as evil in their character and spirit, have marked their conduct and language; while those who sought instruction, and to whom the others were debtors for it, have been hindered, perplexed, and repelled in their inquiries by the selfish precipitancy of the one and presuming ignorance of many connected with them, and the uncandid uninquiring rejection and denouncement of the other. There is no one at all observant of what is now existing, and interested in the strengthening of humble souls, but must feel the culpable responsibility in which many leaders of the professing church are involved.
+Dublin, 1829.
There are some observations I would make on these subjects, being convinced of the extreme precipitancy in which many have written upon them; and I think that in such a time (though I am persuaded the purposes of God will eventually result, and His glory be manifested in our weakness), there should be a disposition to try more maturely the soundness of our views and statements alleged to be from Scripture, before truth and the value of the sacred Scriptures themselves are brought into question, perplexity, and disgrace, by the presumptuous and hasty pursuit, not of scriptural truth, but of our own untried thoughts, given out to a greedy public, glad of novelty, which has no requisition of sanctification attached to it, and ready to neglect their own souls for unfounded and idle speculations.
On the other hand, it is equally certain that the Scriptures of God have not been written to no purpose; that, as His provision for His saints, the prophetic like all other parts of them have a sanctifying, strengthening and directing influence. What God thought it worth while to order and arrange, as ministering to the ends of His glory and man's participation in it, and to reveal (that is, to communicate, to man), as that in which He is concerned, must be surely worth while for man to inquire into and be informed of; and they seem guilty of presumption who would arraign the value and importance of what God thought fit to reveal. The fact of God's revelation to one who knows what God is (in a word, to a believer) is demonstrative evidence of its vast importance and his interest in it; and when it comes from God to man, is man to say it is not of importance?
These truly are the themes which have called forth most the admiration and praise of those who have seen God in them; nor can any one believe rightly in His saving love, who is not deeply interested in the manner by which its results are accomplished. The argument that prophecy is only available as an evidence of revelation after its fulfilment, not to reason upon general grounds, seems to have little weight. All the prophecies testify of facts which require a certain line of conduct, at or previous to their fulfilment; and though they are evidence of themselves as a revelation, and of the value of the prophesied fact, there are few instances of this being of importance after their fulfilment. Besides, many of them unequivocally relate to the closing period of the world; and it would be hard to say of what avail these could be for the purpose stated. And further, almost all which are considered as fulfilled prophecies by those who use this argument, were expressly delivered as testimonies to the consciences of men immediately concerned in them, previously to their fulfilments. Will any one say, that the directions of our Lord to His disciples were of no interest, and not important to be understood previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, and merely that that destruction might accredit His testimony? Were Jeremiah's urgent remonstrances and warnings not to be inquired into before the Chaldeans took the city; and shall it be said that the solemn testimony to Israel put them under no responsibility, but were useless declamations, till the kings of Assyria had been the means of burying them in yet unveiled oblivion? There seems to be something of infidelity in all this. Or do they argue that God is less concerned in the Church now, or that the Lord now will not do good, neither will He do evil? Besides, they leave, arguing in the present time, a large scope of prophecy unfulfilled, which manifestly cannot be of any direct avail subsequent to its fulfilment; and yet they would afford us no assignable cause why it has been revealed at all.
But they say it does not tend to sanctification. But man is not a judge of this; he would still be sanctifying the Church his own way. I am persuaded that God never revealed anything without a sanctifying purpose; for His nature is holy, His purpose holiness; and I believe the sober and holy study of the word of God, as such, in His fear, will concentrate the affections upon Him, separate from the world, and give enlarged views of His kingdom, wisdom, and glory, peculiarly calculated to sink in our estimation this world -- its glory, its strength; and to fix our minds on the Lamb's glory. There is in fact in these objections a tendency to depreciate the purposes of God in Scripture, to preserve the importance of man's little sphere of views.
On the other hand, the extreme precipitancy with which the subject has been taken up has led -- which has given occasion to this part of the charge -- to unjust estimate of the use, and value, and seasonable application of those truths. Men have sought to please themselves, instead of edifying themselves or their neighbours. Let men either inquire humbly, or use God's word to God's purposes, or else refrain from seeking to affect the minds of others. Loquacity or forwardness on religious subjects is a great hindrance to real edification. "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God," as those who have something to say on God's behalf, or else use the modesty which becomes those who only seek for truth. One other complaint is to be made against those who oppose these views, and it is a serious one. Instead of weighing what has been advanced by others in the spirit of serious inquiry, separating the chaff from the wheat, and willing to see the use which God might make of their brethren's testimony; jealous of the tone which they assumed, and hurt by their charges against them, they irritably threw the whole of their views overboard, without inquiring what the scripture itself said upon the subject; and then, to justify themselves, endeavoured all they could to shew, in the darkest colours, every part of the system, and bring up reasons against the whole. But if there be any truth in these things, they are defrauding themselves, and it is a poor compensation to prove their brethren wrong.
In many things, alas! we are divided enough -- enough exposed to the enemy not to be opposed to one another in our very hopes. Surely they should give some just sense, if they think those to whom they are opposed in the wrong. For my own part, if I were bound to receive all that has been said by the Millenarians, I would reject the whole system; but their views and statements weigh with me not one feather. But this does not hinder me from inquiring by the teaching of the same Spirit (which in measure, I believe, directed them) what God has with infinite graciousness revealed to me concerning His dealings with the Church.
I confess I think the modern writers on prophecy justly chargeable with following their own thoughts hastily, and far too much removed from the control of Scripture. They have got some general view, perhaps sound, of God's purpose. They take some text or prophecy as a starting point, pursue the suggestions of their own minds in connection with their general views previously adopted, but leave the results almost entirely untried by the direct testimony of the word, affording us theories, often enlarging when by a writer much imbued with Scripture, often of general soundness of view though replete with false statements: but, when not by such a writer, diverging into absurdities calculated to awaken the impatience of many and bring the truth of all into dishonour. In the meanwhile the Church is distracted. There is not a single writer whose writings I have seen (unless it be the author of one short inquiry) who is not chargeable with this fault. Some of the most confident really call for much reprobation. But good, I am persuaded, will grow out of it; and the very difficulties will call, under God's Spirit, the attention of the faithful servant of God: and while the precipitancy of the others will be repressed by the distinct manifestation of the error into which it has led them and the calm statement of truth, they who have hitherto rejected even inquiry will yield themselves to much which they have scorned, and be humbled both to the acknowledgment of a common truth and the spiritual sincerity of many against whom they have been bitter, because they could not convince them, when in truth it was their own fault. I would call upon the servants of God to pray that He would guide and direct His church by His Spirit in these things in sober and subdued meekness, and it will surely be led into all truth. I shall take notice (with this feeling) of some things which seem to me illustrative of the unguarded, unscriptural statements many of which, I think, have dishonoured Scripture, and been spoken ignorantly: and I shall, secondly, propose some ground of inquiry, to those who have hitherto repudiated these views.
These views trench upon many habits in which religious teachers have for the most part been formed -- many views in which they have long had their boast. No man likes to give up these: their relative consequence is lost; it is distinguishing to oppose them. "No man, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith, the old is better." Many of the subjects mentioned in the foregoing pages are of themselves of deep interest, such as the use of prophecy generally, and materially affecting the present views of men upon the subject; but it has not been attempted to dwell upon them at length here: other occasions, or a better instrument, perhaps may draw them out into more useful and instructive relief. My object is unpretending and simple, and I pursue it at once: it has been some time on my mind, though withheld hitherto.
The observations on the "resurrection from among the dead," published in the Christian Examiner (sound in criticism, and temperate in spirit, and calculated to be useful) point out an instance of the extreme carelessness with which bold statements are made by writers on these subjects: but having been there discussed, I omit it here.
There is an error of another kind, small in importance, perhaps, because of obvious correction, but illustrative of the way in which men inconsiderately make statements, when they fall in with their system, in the face of the simplest testimony of Scripture itself. In the third and fourth sermons on Daniel's vision of the four beasts and of the Son of man, by Mr. Irving, Zephaniah is stated to have prophesied before the carrying away of Israel captive; and it is assumed that they carried the book of that prophet to Nineveh, whereby Nineveh would know of its threatened judgments. The prophet addressed Judah alone, and expressly states that he prophesied in the reign of Josiah (that is, about one hundred years after the carrying away of Israel captive). The reason of the statement is, to shew that God gave testimony to Nineveh and her king, before He judged them. He certainly had done so previously by Jonah. The idea is a very laudable one; but, running away with it, we have the following passage in page 92: "Yet God suffered not such a city to perish without witnesses, but raised certain of the captivity to the highest offices in his kingdom," etc. "There can be no doubt, also, that the prophecies of Nahum and of Zephaniah, which almost solely concern the judgment upon Nineveh, and which were given before the captivity of Israel, were carried with the captives into Nineveh, and there more or less circulated amongst the Ninevites, and especially brought to the knowledge of the king himself; for God is very merciful," etc. They say much of taking Scripture as it presents itself. Who could suppose that all that concerned Nineveh in the prophecy of Zephaniah was three verses, bringing it in amongst the many other countries which were to be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar -- the whole book being concerning him, Jerusalem, its present evil, and future hopes; and this, as we have said, a century after Israel was carried into captivity! We take it as shewing the extreme neglect of Scripture and even prophecy itself, the hurried pursuit of an object in the mind, something brought in at random to illustrate it, without any reference or mature weighing, whether it is really borne out by Scripture. I think the interpretation of Isaiah in the same page erroneous, and the occasion of the error the same: but as this might seem to involve interpretation, I do not say anything of it, though I think the case perfectly clear, and that the simple reading of prophecy will evince the total inapplicability of the alleged meaning. Another instance, upon which it is not proposed to dwell, but mentioned as occurring in the same book, is in a long dissertation to shew that the Greek empire was set up in order to give prevalence to the Greek language, which, though a collateral result, is, I think, a very confined view, and in itself exhibits the absorption of mind into its present idea, which I complain of as so injurious, and, in the case of Scripture, so very culpable; but it is there stated, that our Lord and His apostles always quote from the Septuagint. This is not the fact, as has been fully shewn.
Again, in the translator's preliminary discourse to Ben-Ezra, we have (page 55), "And to this effect I understand Romans 8: 1, 'There is no condemnation' (krisis, i.e. judgment)," etc. The word is katakrima without a single various reading in Wetstein or Griesbach. Doubtless he had in mind John 5: 24, where it is krisis. If this were an isolated act of inadvertency, it might be well passed over; but it is evidence, and accumulated evidence, of great carelessness. And it is adduced on this account, that it is introduced by the author as determining the sense of an important passage, to which, at the time of stating it, it is evident, he could not have referred; not merely from the mistake itself, but because the whole passage (and this is the point I would urge) bears in a long train of argument upon subjects totally unconnected with the one upon which he is arguing, and in which krisis, in his view of it, would have no place or object. That which we advert to is not the casual mistake, but the drawing in a whole passage into a purpose beside its object, through absorption of mind, into one particular view.
And in this place we cannot pass over, though it cannot be treated as a mistake, passages in this preface highly injurious to the work and honour of Christ, and in it, the just, holy, and influencing comfort of believing saints. It is alike indicative of the same hasty pursuit of a single idea. I shall quote but one concentrating sentence -- but the observations will apply to the whole spirit shewn from page 55-65 of this preface. The haste, the very culpable haste (for the promises and hopes of God's people are not thus to be trifled with) is shewn in this. In evincing (the truth of which we do not now inquire into) that the resurrection at Christ's coming is the substantive hope of the Church, he attempts this by throwing every cloud upon the hope of the dying Christian. "Death," his words are, "is a parting, not a meeting; it is a sorrowful parting, not a joyful meeting; it is a parting in feebleness and helplessness to we know not whither -- into a being we know not what." This sentence is singularly unfortunate in its statements; and, indeed, Scripture and the hope of the gospel ought not to be thus made the slave of men's momentary thoughts. "I have a desire," says the apostle, "to depart and to be with Christ." Death to the believer is not a parting but a meeting, if our central and supreme affections are with Christ. I am not questioning here, be it remembered, the hope of Christ's coming, but Mr. Irving's statements respecting death. Death is not a sorrowful parting, but a joyful meeting; for it does not become us to sorrow as those without hope. For why? -- they that sleep in Jesus go to Jesus, and God brings them with Him. For indeed "he that liveth and believeth in Jesus shall never die." If, indeed, he values earthly things more than Christ's presence, then sorrow will accompany his death But it is the proper distinction of Christianity to nave neutralised that power of death which Mr. Irving is preaching; "for the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law"; but both are dead to the believer in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour. It is a parting not in but with feebleness and helplessness, we know whither -- that is, to Christ. If He be true, we know whither we go, and the way. As to "a being we know not what," the Scripture affirms it of the state of the risen body, and of that only. "It does not yet appear," saith the apostle, "what we shall be," speaking expressly of that state. As to the promise, Mr. Irving is writing against his own opinions; for, if he hold that Christ will come again, he believes that He will bring His saints with Him, so that they which are alive and remain have no preference. He is indeed himself witness that Scripture is conclusive as to a paradise for the separated spirit; but he says we know not what it is. Is there nothing, then, in being with Christ the Saviour, who loved us and gave Himself for us -- that hope that brightened the thoughts and quickened the expectations of many a dying and many a martyred saint? Is there nothing in being with Him, to throw holy influence and triumphant character on the relinquishment of this yet evil and Satan-deceived world? Sure I am, there was that in it which made Paul prefer death to life; for death was no death to him, but parting from trial to Christ, from perseverance through surrounding evil to that blessed presence, where all doubt, sorrow, and death would have passed away to him for ever. He had a desire to depart and be with Christ; he was not comforted only by the building of God made with hands; for he was always confident, desiring rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
We must say that this is a most unholy mis-statement of Scripture, and destructive of that which is the glory and influential power, as well of the resurrection of the saints, as of their present hopes; and that, if the Lord's presence be not a paramount blessing, prevailing over death now, it never will be at the resurrection, or at any other time. It shews the folly of man in his thoughts; for, in attempting to shew the importance of his views above another's, the sole thing which is of power in those very views and can alone realise them is undermined and destroyed, and this in the face of the fullest and most anxious statements of Scripture, and to the dishonour of Christ and the faith of the saints of God. Satan reigns by death; Christ has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel. And to argue from the circumstances of His death is folly; for it was because He so suffered, and (having overcome in full conflict with the very power under which it is here stated we rest) rose again into glory, that we have not that trial, that we are delivered and triumph, and that its power is past away towards us. The observations from the Apocalypse are a total misapprehension of its force. This might call for much and varied animadversion; but my object is not to condemn or accuse (God forbid that it should be!) but precisely the contrary. But these are the sort of statements which have awakened the impatience of observant Christians, and occasioned a natural, though indeed an unjust prejudice against the persons who hold those views they are urged in maintenance of, and a hasty rejection (still more foolish) of the views themselves. For in this they are making themselves servants to the unguarded precipitancy of others, not judges of it, and masters of the truths which they confound with so many mis-statements. In a word, they are allowing Satan to do just what he meant to do by the partial ignorance of inquiring men.
But it must be confessed, it is a bold word to say, that when Christ said to the thief on the cross, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise" -- that which made Paul always confident, giving him, upon the common faith of God's people, a desire to depart -- that what the Lord comforted and assured the thief with, and the apostle built on, was, "a day of death, from sight of which the soul shrinketh, and a void beyond it, so vacant and unintelligible, as not to be available for any distinct end of faith, hope, edification, or comfort." "And this notion of blessedness with Christ, upon our leaving this tabernacle, is a vague notion which Satan hath substituted." Christ substituted it as something nearer to the dying thief, when he proposed that on which the writer so much insists; and it was because it was a distant hope, and there would have been a vague void without this revelation, that we were given the assurance that that was revealed in great mercy, which is thus now thrown to the dogs. The hope of the individual is being with Christ; the hope of the church is His coming: doubtless the individual is deeply interested in this hope likewise. On the whole, throughout this preface, Christ's present glory is not duly seen, nor its perception by the believer as manifested by Him, as it is not to the world.
But, perhaps, we are passing our subject. I shall therefore next take notice, merely with this view, of a commonly current work, "The Cry from the Desert," in the hope that it may lead to a more accurate examination of Scripture itself, before any of the writings of men upon this subject are adopted or rejected. This is what I would press and urge upon every one: to apply themselves, for themselves, to the testimony of Scripture, to draw ideas-simply and directly from this (and I can assure them, they will ever find them sanctifying ideas) but trust no man's mind, whether millenarian or antimillenarian; to use the scriptural rule -- "to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good"; to adopt nothing unexamined, and to reject nothing unexamined, however weak it may be in its positions. If taken in itself, it may distract; if it lead to the examination of Scripture, it may prove the indirect source of abundant knowledge and grace.
It is not my object to enter generally upon the character of this tract. I dare say the writer's mind aimed at more fully exhibiting the purposes of God; but by undue confidence, the result has been to overrun Scripture, and exhibit, as it appears to me, only his own weakness. It is this I would deprecate. The energy of new apprehensions, doubtless, is often valuable; but in man's hands it often degenerates into the truthless and unprofitable display of crude conceptions of our own. Let us compare the following passages, after which we will enter into detail.
"I can readily conceive, however, that these accompaniments of the divinity, with all the attendant miracles with which the heavenly Jerusalem is surrounded, will never be exposed to the unsanctified gaze of any but the holy nation; and that, as I shall hereafter attempt to shew, only of its most holy and privileged orders. I cannot afford you a more simple or expressive illustration of this sacred seclusion of the heavenly city, than was afforded me in reading the very interesting narrative of Captain Hall's visit to the Loo Choo Islands in the Eastern Ocean, about four or five hundred miles south of Japan; wherein he states, that although he anchored off their shores for several months, and during that time had, by dint of the most confiding overtures, and the most unwearied perseverance, contrived to establish a friendly intercourse with the natives, yet, neither persuasions, entreaties, nor threats, could ever induce them, in their most unguarded moments, to allow him, or any of his company, to make any approaches into the interior of the country, where the king's palace was situated. Nay, so scrupulously jealous were they of Captain Hall's inquiries relative to the king, his government, or even his private establishment and family, that they would never enter into conversation upon the subject, and scarcely mention his name. I can, therefore, easily picture to myself that the more immediate residence, the court of the King of the whole earth (to use an expression more familiar to our present conceptions), will be most sacredly guarded against the approach of any but the highly privileged nation; as it is written, 'Nothing unholy or uncircumcised shall enter therein.'"
"And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit, to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: on the east, three gates; on the north, three gates; on the south, three gates; and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."
Can anything more display or condemn the light spirit in which God's purposes are taken up, than the contrast of these two passages? How blessed and full of blessing is the latter! how full of sanctifying and exalting truths and images! His friend, however, suggests the difficulty: "If this be so, how can the kings of the earth offer him their homage?" He replies, "I have anticipated this objection, as I find it written in Ezekiel, that the prince himself shall worship in the temple: that is, worship God the Father. And as I will undertake to prove to you, the temple can only be erected in earthly Jerusalem, I thence infer, that the Prince will likewise there give his audiences, on set days, to the kings of the earth, who shall hold their kingdoms there at his hand, and will there receive their gifts of fealty to their great Head." But this merely proves what we are here animadverting upon -- the entire neglect of scriptural statements, and loss of scriptural objects, and their power, in the hasty pursuit of our own thoughts. The writer had framed his system of the two cities over against each other in the holy oblation, and he had to solve the objection, which he does, so as to relieve his own system from it as stated, but proving utter neglect of Scripture. For, instead of going there to receive their homage, the scripture states that the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honour unto it. I do not intend to pursue the comparison of the passages, for they are sufficiently obvious to the most unobservant; but I confess I pity the mind which could interpret the statement in the Revelation into a sort of box, in which the Lord was to be shut up to prevent anybody seeing Him; like a certain petty king whom Captain Hall went to visit. This may be immaterial; but I affirm that the scope of the statement, generally, is directly opposed to the scope and object of the testimony of God in the latter part of the Revelation, and flowing from simple ignorance of the intention, meaning, and principles of interpretation of the passage and book in which it is found. To make good this, I prefer to invite the minute comparison of others, than to introduce here my own, because my object is not to interpret but to comment on the neglect of scripture with which some pursue their own thoughts.
But besides the strange moral confusion as to the passage in the Revelation, and inconsistency too with the system the author affects (he must forgive me) to have gone so far into, his statement is entirely foreign from the passage in Ezekiel. The passages are these, Ezekiel 45: 6, "And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long, over against the oblation of the holy portion; it shall be for the whole house of Israel." Compare this simple statement with the infinite conjectures of the wandering mind of the writer of this tract. Again, Ezekiel 48: 15, "and the five thousand that are left in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs: and the city shall be in the midst thereof." The whole division was to be profane for the city, etc. In a word, the east side was for the priests, the middle for the Levites next in order, the remaining five thousand was profane for the whole house of Israel, to have the city generally, its dwelling and suburbs. And this profane place (it is a simple mis-statement to say, that it was what was outside the city within this portion that was profane), this profane place which was the part farthest from the sanctuary, for the whole house of Israel is, we are told, the heavenly Jerusalem! It would be alike impossible and unprofitable to follow all the absurdities and direct contradictions to the text, which arise out of such statements. But there is great evil in them; they catch many that are unstable and unlearned, and lead the mind of any one who attends to them from following undistracted the purposes of Scripture itself. But it is painful, really, to dwell upon it. Let no man, however, think that he will be excused from looking daily for the Lord's coming, because other men thus pursue their own errors. The Scripture is sent to them and to all.
It appears to me, that much of the crudeness of this pamphlet flows from ignorance of the true nature of the Gentile and Jewish dispensations. The throne of David and the throne of His glory are different things, doubtless; but let us see how this subject is pursued by the writer. "There must be," says he, "two comings in judgment; one before, one after the millennium: one to sit on the throne of David, the other on the throne of His glory." But His sitting on the throne of David is not His coming in judgment at all, but the consequence of His judgment of the Gentile nations. But, as proof of the distinction, he refers to the attendants of the Lord -- "one," says he, "with His own glory and His saints, the other with the holy angels, and His Father's glory." The passage of Scripture in which this is spoken of furnishes no such distinction. He says, coming with His saints in His own glory is the first coming -- coming with the angels in His Father's, the second; the first applying to judgment of antemillenarians. See Mark 8: 38. I find, "Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Here, this so-called latter coming is expressly applied to those who have not owned Him during His humiliation; and the same observation may apply to Matthew 16: 27. If it be alleged that this is at the raising of the rest of the dead, what shall we say to Luke 9: 26? "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the angels." And on the other hand, what shall we say, if we compare Jude, where He is said to come with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment on similar offenders? And not only does the voice of the archangel and the trump of God minister to the raising of the dead in Christ at what this statement would call His first coming, but we are expressly told, in the epistle to the Thessalonians, that, when He comes, according to their views (on which we say nothing), antemillennially, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe, giving rest to those that have suffered with Him in His humiliation -- the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. It appears to me, that this also flows from ignorance of the plan and scope of Scripture, i.e., of the counsels of God in Christ our common Lord. But it proves neglect of Scripture. On the whole, a greater confusion of Scripture, and substitution of human conjectures and supposition, can hardly be supposed, than the latter part of the tract.
But our only endeavour must be to obtain tangible portions of it for the purpose for which I write this. The writer proves, from Isaiah 65: 25, that the curse continues in the land of Israel, because the judgment, it is said, shall rest on the serpent -- "dust shall be the serpent's meat." And as John had said, that there should be no more curse, not speaking of the land of Judea, nor of any place (unless it comprehend all places), but abstractedly and absolutely, but that the throne of God and the Lamb should be in it, in applying this "no more curse" to the city (I do not say erroneously), he says it must apply to the portion of land which is outside the city, and not in it at all, i.e., that part which was for the Prince. For he perceives no impropriety in extending it out of the city. For this "no more curse" means only that there shall be curse still all over the world, except a little portion of land in Judea, which, however, is not within the city, where the curse is not to be. We may remark, too, if the Revelation of John be thus applied, the tract contradicts itself; for the throne of God and the Lamb has come upon earth before the third judgment of which he speaks and the city had the glory of God. And the throne of David and the throne of God are on the earth together; and the whole house of Israel have access to it.
Again, the writer states, "that the Gentiles, which are to have their lot in the land of Israel, are those who are expecting the Lord's personal coming," etc.; and that he does apply their being changed to giving them a long life during the millennium. But he does not apply the coming, on which they are to receive that change, to the first coming; i.e., before the millennium, or at least, when they are to be caught up into the air. That is, in order to satisfy his view of the Gentiles who are to live in the land of Israel, he think that he and his friends are to be the favoured persons, but as Paul says, that "we which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord" are to be caught up; and, as he wishes not to be then ever with the Lord, but to live in Judea or the land of Israel, he settles that this means two comings, and the catching up must belong to the latter, and the change does not mean from corruption to incorruption, but merely from a short life to a long one. "For," says he, "if not, where else are we to get people to bring the Jews home? Wicked Gentiles would not do it." In the first place, it appears that the Jews are brought home before the appearing of the Lord; in the next, why not? Cannot the Lord make any nation minister to the deliverance of His favoured people, whatever their own objects and state may be? And such seems to be the very tenor of prophecy -- that is shall be an imposed service; and the writer and his friends must leave it to those whom God chooses.
But let us compare Paul's statements. There are two prominent ones -- one in 1 Corinthians 15, the other 1 Thessalonians 4. "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." How refreshing is it to turn to Scripture! The force of this is, I think, too evident to need comment.
We shall all be changed though we all do not sleep (1 Corinthians 15: 51), i.e. we, who are not asleep, shall be changed. There is a necessary common result to be produced on all, in order to their entrance into the kingdom of God; we shall be changed alike and equally, though we shall not all sleep. We who do not sleep shall yet be changed. Not to enter further here on this deeply interesting passage, I turn to 1 Thessalonians 4: 13: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." We, says the apostle, are not to account ourselves better off than those that sleep, as if we should see and meet the Lord and not they. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord"; that is, that when Christ shall come, the dead in Christ shall rise first, before we are caught up, and then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them. In the English there might, perhaps, be an argument on the force of the word 'together,' but as placed in the Greek there can be none. The catching up of the saints is not spoken of in connection with the destruction of death, as the writer states. The substance of 1 Corinthians 15 applies to believers only. There is, therefore, no ground of difficulty from the existence of death during the millennium, as to the application of the above cited passage. And it is remarkable that in the next page, the language of it is put into the mouths of the risen saints, as spoken on the day of the first resurrection, to which in this page the writer says it is wholly inapplicable, because death remains. In fact, it appears to me a confusion of the Jewish and Gentile dispensations -- the hinge upon which the subject and the understanding of Scripture turns. Here I complain not of error, but of a neglect of the substantive force of the direct testimonies of the word of God, to meet the views drawn from elsewhere and pursued in the mind beyond the testimony of the place itself; and of consequences being adduced as necessary, according to man's mind, other scripture being made subservient to these, instead of stopping at the direct testimony, till other passages give additional light, or, at least, connecting deductions by these passages admitted in their own force. This is alone a great hindrance to knowledge, and practically setting up men's thoughts (ignorant, foolish man!) above the word of God.
This book is, indeed, a sample of the evil likely to attend upon what is valuable in these inquiries, from crude thoughts untried by Scripture, attached to opinions urged as new to the credit of the writer, which are now familiar to everybody, without any new development of the mind of God in the Scriptures, and assuming a title pretending to speak from God, while it speaks only from man, and that crudely, and does not apply the great facts of these revelations to the correction and improvement of men; but instead of that, uses the notions of them to exalt the holders of them into the only favourites of heaven -- thinking everybody is scorning them, whereas, in fact, they are becoming worldly, through their popularity and self-complacency. It is not the inquiry into these subjects I deprecate; but men's imposing upon others conclusions not drawn, but distracting others, from the scriptural statements of the same truths. I am free to confess that I find the records of God full of consolation, enlarging instruction, holy and sanctifying exhortation, and warning. What God has revealed to man must be the saints' delight to know, and must sanctify them more wholly, because it reveals more of the character of God. His revealing it is itself witness of its purpose and (blessed for ever be His name!) so has He in the Lord Jesus identified Himself with man, that there is nothing of His acts that He does not reveal by His servants the prophets. Yea, all the things that He does in the Lord He makes a common subject with His people for His sake. Nay, all that He has is now largely opened; even the store-house of His eternal wisdom, and glory, and purpose in the Son is now opened and declared by the revelation of the Spirit, as the scripture, in many places, testifies to our joy and comfort. Who shall shut it up? -- Who dares to do it? Rather let us open our mouth wide that He may fill it. But let no man mix or dissolve the streams of life by strange introductions of human mixture. Truth is the instrument of holiness; and error and weakness, to say no more, of moral conduct will ever be found to attend each other. I say, seek the truth: I say, let not men crudely impose unsound thoughts and distract the church.
One subject yet remains on which I shall shortly touch. In a deeply interesting and, I think, profitable and timely sermon of Mr. Irving's, I found the following passage on false accusers. After stating that it meant the spirit of accusation generally, he says, in the "Last Days," page 204, "It may therefore be laid down as a general principle of doctrine, that as the law of Christian life is love, so the law of Christian life when love is rejected or maltreated is forbearance, forgiveness, blessing, and intercession with God. As the office of the Christian Church on earth, is to preach, and to minister the grace of God unto all men; so also is it her office to make continual intercession before God for those who reject His offered grace, and trample under foot the blood of His covenant. And, of these two functions, the ministry of free grace, and the ministry of intercession for free grace rejected, if I were asked which is the more important, I would answer they are equally important to the integrity of love and the demonstration of divine grace; but of the two, that which is the highest and noblest exercise of love is surely intercession for him who hath spurned our love."
What shall we say after this, when we consider their own writings? They have come forward to the bar of public opinion (see "False Accuser," pages 208-10), and avowedly descended to fight their accusers on their own ground by public accusation. I feel unwillingly entirely to detail here the language and statements of the article on the Theology of the Periodical Journals. I think Mr. Malan right, and I think Mr. Erskine (though in many respects useful, and that extensively) is entirely wrong, if judged properly by Scripture, and wrong for pursuing his own thoughts without just subjection to Scripture, conceiving them new, when many, very many, have held them faithfully without mistake. I am not an advocate of the religious world; but neither can I attach myself to those who becoming, in fact, an isolated corner of the religious world, and setting up for the best and soundest part of it, fall into at least the same faults which they reprobate in no very courteous terms. They charge the editors of some journal with ignorance of their trade (no very courteous expression); but, while doing this, they should not have misstated the expressions of Erskine, in a way, too, which shew them either falsifiers, or else ignorant of the great principles on which their trade (if they will have it so) turned. Mr. Erskine, they say, wishes to state this highly important fact, namely, that by the incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, the whole creation (i.e., limiting the word 'creation' to this planet and the beings who inhabit it) is become beneficially interested in the work of Christ. This is certainly a very obscure and unintelligible proposition, and not Erskine's, nor representing his views. This fact, they say, he expresses by saying, "that the world is pardoned by the incarnation of Christ." But the proposition attributed to Mr. Erskine, whencesoever drawn, is not so expressed by him. He says that "All are pardoned -- believers are a little flock." If he had said the world was pardoned (though I should have thought it an error) properly understood, I could have made an allowance for obscurity of expression; but he says all, i.e. all men, are pardoned; and on this the whole argument of the Morning Watch depends. The Reviewer was occupied with his own views, but there is not the slightest ground in Mr. Erskine's book for the position he takes. Righteousness is a scriptural as well as conventional term: I do not recollect that Mr. Erskine ever touches upon this, or uses the word. Scripture does; and this renders his whole view defective, however excellent as an individual.
But the Morning Watch, prepossessed with its own views, and willing to have Mr. Erskine as a client or ally, has wholly passed by the whole question raised on his book, and not stated his assertions truly but as partisans, and stands itself on a level with the worst conduct of those it accuses. They themselves shall be witnesses. "The editors," they say, i.e., journals opposed to their views, "having refused to debate the subjects like scholars, like gentlemen, or Christians, have chosen their own ground, namely, that of personal claim to public confidence; and into that arena of their own selecting, we must descend after them. "And so indeed they have, and I sorrow for it, for I doubt not they would much edify the church; but they have to learn that Satan can use their weakness, as well as that of their offending brethren." And what shall we say then) if the church, forgetful of Christ's office of intercessor, and of her own high vocation to continue the same in the midst of an offending world, should take upon herself the office of accuser, and retaliate the injuries which she receiveth, instead of meekly bearing and being willing to forgive them? What if the church forget, even among themselves, the offices of neutral forbearance and forgiveness, and rage towards one another with even more bitterness and cruelty than those who care for none of those things? What if the writings the most religious should be the most vindictive, and the society the most religious should be the society most full of judgment and accusation? Then were it not a proof that God's ordinances were changed, that His light was hidden under a bushel, that the salt hath lost its savour, and that the name of God was blasphemed amongst the heathen because of His people, and that the last days were come, and that destruction was about to begin at His own house."
But having closed this part (painfully imposed) of my subject, I turn to the more grateful part -- proposing some questions, and making some observations, in the hope that it may lead some to consider topics, which, when calmly and scripturally considered, I am persuaded lead to sanctification and the edification of those that are gathered. All truth must be so: the simple question is -- is this God's revealed truth or not? If it be, it is worse than idle to say it is not calculated to sanctify. In fact, I do not understand the meaning of this. It is a charge against God, the revealer; and comes ill from those who have been combating justly upon opposite grounds the abominable fraud the Roman Catholic priests had perpetrated in keeping away the Scripture, the words of God generally. Is it that they are to be the judges of what, and how much, instead of the others?
We would ask then, first, why did God reveal all these things, if they are not fully to be inquired into? This I admit, that the statements of the same general truths are of different use and application, and the eagerness of those especially interested in prophecy, and the hasty taking up of the subject by many going beyond their measure, has introduced a very unseasonable misuse of prophetic subjects. But I must add the indiscriminate opposition of others has given great occasion to It. Thus the fact that there will be a separation of judgment between the just and the unjust, is one which concerns man as man, and may be addressed to every soul, and especially to those wholly ignorant of divine things, and the unconverted; while the manner in which the Lord will do it, His peculiar favour and timely interposition for His people -- all these, as shewn in His dealings, belong to those from whom, as His suffering people, He will not hide the thing that He will do, who share in it by faith as friends of God, strangers with Him, and whose support it is.
But the question has been raised as to the facts revealed; nor have all, perhaps, judged rightly as to the use to be made of them. But their general debate has been forced by the non-reception of them by many who have a name in the Church under the low state in which we all stand. This was, perhaps, to be looked for; and the testimony of the manner even of judgment, calculated to awaken many out of sleep.
Next, I would ask, if the spread of Bibles and missionary exertions is to produce, by itself, the millennium, what is the meaning of unclean spirits like frogs gathering all the kings of the earth and of the world to battle to be destroyed, and that then Satan was to be bound, and the thousand years commence? Again, they will admit, that these operations are effectual through the agency of the Spirit of God as a substitute for Christ What distinction does the scripture mean by Christ's reigning upon the earth (His kingdom of this world), and the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of His glory? If we suffer with Him (as we do, while we are actuated by the Spirit of God in the midst of a carnal world) we shall also reign with Him. This, evidently, is a state of things essentially distinct from His reigning, as they conceive now; for it is a time of suffering. It cannot mean in heaven, or after the end of all, for then the Son will have delivered up the kingdom. And if they say it is by the prevalence of righteousness in the millennium, though that would be hard to shew, how would that affect us according to their view who before then are dead? Besides, are all the wicked to be converted? Is temptation to be removed? No outpouring of the Spirit does this. Are all to be regenerate? For according to their views, the operation of the Spirit is still the only instrument. How is the Spirit now only an earnest till the redemption of the purchased possession, if He be then the only operating agent? But it will, perhaps, be said to be heaven. We have seen its characteristics are inconsistent with that. Is Christ, in a word, to have any other share in the triumph of the church than He has now, when the Spirit is His substitute? And let me here ask as to one point on which many feel so strong difficulties: Is there anything inconsistent, if there be a period when the church shall be triumphant, and the saints partaking of the full joy appropriate to the prevalence of their principles by a complete change in the state of the world? for this must be admitted (or there could not be the change from suffering to triumph) that those who have been long suffering for the same principles, who have borne tribulation and sorrow, while that was the portion of those who loved Christ, should also share with their Lord in the hour when what they had so ardently suffered for should be accomplished? Such is my idea of the first resurrection.
I believe that Christ also (who unquestionably has a distinct kingdom from the Father, though, of course, it is God's kingdom) will put forth His power for the removal of evil; that Satan will be hindered from deceiving the world; that it will cease to be a season of tribulation and sorrow and trial, and that instead of the thorn shall come up the myrtle, and that there shall be a complete enjoyment of the blessings which are the church's inheritance; that this will be upon earth (the Jews being restored, the temporal promises being ever theirs, not the Gentiles'; but that these shall enjoy the common blessing with them, as companions in this universal joy). When Christ's kingdom shall have by His power prevailed over evil, those of the Gentile dispensation who have been faithful in the time of trial, shall (the dead being raised, and the living changed) be partakers (reigning with Christ? of the common blessing. Death, whose power in their bodies they had to suffer in their day, being perfectly overcome, as to them they will be as the angels of God in heaven; being counted worthy to obtain that age. There will necessarily be no separation between those who are thus partakers of the blessings, and those who are God's on earth. During this period there will be therefore no trial: before they are admitted into the heavenly state, Satan is loosed again, and the trial proceeds by temptation. In a word, the millennium may be considered as a restoration of Paradise under the second Adam,+ the restoration of communion between earth and heaven so long interrupted (Christ having destroyed them that destroy the earth). I would suggest, too, that the instrument by which the work is to be accomplished cannot mean the dispersion of scriptural truth. It is not the sword of the Spirit, but one proceeding out of the mouth of Christ, sitting on a triumphal horse, wherewith He should smite the nations. It is treading the vintage of God's wrath. It is a destruction which will give seven years' firing from the weapons cast away. It is an invitation of all the fowls of the air to feast upon the sacrifice which God Almighty was about to make; a taking to Him His great power and reigning; a time when, God's judgment being in the earth, the inhabitants of the world would learn righteousness: and it was by these judgments that the heathen were to be converted. We take the broadest points, because the others may be said to involve interpretation, though to us they are equally plain and perhaps more deeply interesting.
+This expression is inaccurate. It is by redemption and power, not by innocence. Moreover, Satan will be bound.
Again, if we consider the stone which became a mountain and filled the whole earth, it was upon smiting the image, and making it become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, so that the wind carried them away and no place was found for them. This is evidently by destructive and dissolving judgments, analogous to the character of its objects (to wit, the Gentile dispensation, and power); and it was by no ordinary providential instrumentality, for it was a stone cut out as without hands. Further, it was not by the progressive growth of anything, that other obstructing principles passed away; but some extrinsic power, not of or in the image yet analogous in the nature of its operation, and yet turning out to be the fulness of the Lord's power suddenly appearing to destroy the image at the end of its time; and after the image was totally dissolved, it then became a mountain and filled the whole earth. "In the days of these kings," saith the Spirit, "the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."
Let not an anxiety for missionary objects hinder the acceptance of the truth. For no strong motive for missionary exertion exists with the antimillenarians, as with those who believe God's judgments are presently coming; for that belief urges them to special labour for the gathering in of God's elect to the knowledge of the refuge, before the scourge sweeps the earth, to preserve them that have believed. If the reading of Griesbach be right, the distinction of the earthly kingdom is put beyond controversy; at any rate the testimony of a reign of Christ's power (distinct from the operation of the Spirit alone) is surely too prominent an object in the scripture to be overlooked. One remark I would make; and it is one which struck my own mind long before the detail of millennial views opened themselves to it. There is not an epistle in the New Testament in which the coming of the Lord Jesus is not made the prominent object of the faith and hope of believers, for which they were to wait; and, observe, which characterises distinctively those who should partake of His salvation. Now the expectation of it is put out of view and depreciated really as much as possible. It was a deliverance here that the church expected, so much so that the Thessalonians seemed to have considered those who died before it came to have failed in obtaining it. It was to be a time of rest by the appearing of Jesus Christ removing the persecutors and ungodly; and now it is thrown aside, because it is connected with that which is confessedly the rest of the Church. It is also that of which Peter speaks: he says there is sensible evidence directing the church so to look for it. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we have declared unto you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." And this could be revealed as a day-star in their hearts.
I would remark here that the students of unfulfilled prophecy are too apt, I think, to overlook the present power of the Lord's resurrection, and thus give a handle to the objections of, I must say, the adversaries to the coming of the Lord Jesus. To the apostles and the saints who judge justly, the apprehension of His glory was the evidence of both, nor can they be separated without injury to the truth and misapprehension of the counsels of God.
This is what is doing too much now, and it is a great evil and greatly opposed to Scripture. We ask then, is the church to look to the coming of Christ as the prominent object of faith, or is it not? And why? What do the Scriptures teach us in this respect? Do they or do they not teach us that the happiness of the earth is to be brought about by the special intervention of God in judgment? Is His coming one calculated to quicken their faith -- to make them zealous and constant for Him in their labour here -- to separate them from their attachment to this present evil world -- to lead them to be practically holy in this, where Christ is to visit them, instead of making death a sort of practical sanctifier, as some do?
Another subject is the restoration of the Jews to their own land. The calm and judicious Lowth, in a day when nothing but the force of Scripture influenced him, could not withhold assent from the directness of the testimonies to this. I shall advert merely to some testimonies respecting this point, scattered through all Scripture, as it appears to me, and resting on the whole plan of God's dispensed purposes. Zechariah prophesied after the restoration from Babylon. Let the promises in chapter 10 be weighed, in which He declares that He will bring Judah and Ephraim again to place them, and break down the pride of Assyria, etc. This evidently must refer to some period to come, nor can any figurative interpretation of it be given which the language does not repel. We may remark, also, the special promises in Hosea to Ephraim or Israel as distinct from Judah -- promises never yet fulfilled. But let us hear Amos: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God." It is manifest that nothing can meet this promise but a restoration not yet fulfilled.
So Zephaniah 3: 14, "Sing O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Sion, Let not thine hands be slack. The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD." Ezekiel 34: 27, and Isaiah 49 are not less strong; but I refrain from commenting on them, as they would lead to general inquiry and interpretation. And my own conviction is, that the return of Judah was but for the accomplishment of the promises relative to our Lord's first coming; and that, in the broad sense, Israel has been in captivity from Babylon until now: this, however, I do not press. Doubt has been started, on this subject, whether Israel was not corporately restored with Judah. The burden of proof evidently rests with those who say he was. But the Lord seems carefully to have secured the negative by the repeated use of Benjamin and Judah, as those specifically who were the restored people. The only ground which is alleged directly to this point, is Ezra 2: 59: "And these were they which went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsa, Cherub, Addan, and Immer: but they could not shew their father's house, and their seed, whether they were of Israel."
As to Anna the prophetess, and many other passages adverted to, none prove -- many go to disprove -- the corporate restoration of Israel to their own land. Their individual junction to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin goes as nothing to prove their corporate geographical restoration, but the contrary. If, therefore, there be any promises to this effect, they remain to be fulfilled. In fact, this was nothing more than happened to them in the days of Hezekiah, and related to religious fidelity, not temporal restoration by God; and so throughout: the passages may be found in Prideaux, under the proper date. This, however, is merely a collateral point, though I think a plain one. If there be a direct testimony that Israel shall be planted again in their own land, and never plucked up, it is plain it has never been fulfilled. The more the extended prophecies on this subject are considered, the more will it be found connected with the promises of God in the latter day as regards the blessings of the church, and the circumstances which attend it.
Nor, indeed, is it apparent how the former verses of Deuteronomy 30 can be fulfilled without it, nor without the excision of the Gentiles as a body, which is another inquiry we would make. Is there not a time of the Gentiles which is to be fulfilled, when blindness will depart from Israel? and is there not then in this chapter an explicit promise of their restoration? But is it not expressly stated, as Paul left it in conditional assertion, that the Gentiles would be cut off, that God would plead against all nations? Is not the apostasy of the Gentile church as plainly stated as possible, and its consequences? Men say that this applies to Popery; but it is called "the vine of the earth," a figure well known in Scripture, as importing the dispensation of the church generally. And the unclean spirits who are to gather the kings of the earth, do not gather them against the Lamb by the instrumentality of Popery only, but of the love of power and atheism. Popery is statedly merely one of those principles which are to be the instruments of bringing men to judgment.
"They answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." If these things be so, there will be a direct manifestation of Christ, of the judicial power of the Lamb, quite distinct from any of the present expectations of those who reject the study of prophecy. When John saw heaven opened and beheld a white horse, and He that sat upon him called Faithful and True, and in righteousness doth He judge and make war -- when he saw the Person and glory of the Word of God, it was the revelation of something wholly different from the secret operations of the Spirit of God; and it was something characteristically different from previous providential judgments. These had been hail, and thunder, and lightning, and earthquakes; but this was a manifestation of Him who had been long hid behind instruments, who had governed the world as one that apparently suffered His church to grow up and spring He knew not how, because the harvest of the earth was ripe. The ordained government of the earth and the operation of the Spirit of God was that by which He has ruled the church hitherto; therefore it was a suffering church. Now He was Himself manifested in His power, and therefore the church became triumphant.
No one can read the Revelation without perceiving the intended contrast, so to call it, nor other prophecies without seeing how the whole system of God's dispensations arrange themselves round this great fact. The Son manifested to tread the winepress of wrath is not the Spirit subduing willing souls by the gospel. The operation, everywhere given, of the gospel, is the gathering out of souls before the wrath come, nor is there a testimony of, nor the revelation of the universal spread of the knowledge of the Lord, as far as my recollection serves me, which is not directly accompanied by, or rather conversant about, the judgments of an adverse power, or the declaration of the special blessings to the house of Israel, whose receiving shall be as life from the dead. I would here just shortly refer to Psalms 72, 108, and the consecutive Psalms from 91-100. To those who may be interested in the inquiry, Malachi 2: 3 may also be consulted and recur again to the prophecy of the stone cut out without hands, and Daniel 7.
There are many passages more fully opening the subject, but perhaps not so strongly leading a previously unconvinced mind, as these. It would have been my own delight (oh, how much more so!) to have rather followed, in inquiry, the opening of Scripture as to the ways and promises of God as our God. Oh, high and holy place! unworthy we, utterly, to have it, enjoying the confidence, because the mercy, of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light. I mean not of myself, but with the brethren in the Lord. But they have forced upon me the necessity of other inquiries. In the suggestions I have made to them, I have only put the questions in the broadest terms, on which Scripture throws a glare of light, which, as far as I can see, cannot be struggled with, if we pursue our common attainments, walking by the same rule, and minding the same thing; if in anything we be differently minded, God will reveal this also unto us. Let me beseech the brethren to be thus minded. Let me beseech those who yet stand out against these truths, to inquire for themselves, to lay them to heart, to submit themselves to the word, not to throw scorn (I pray them to forgive me for thus speaking) on any part of the testimony of God before they have inquired the purpose of it and their own concern in it. Are they not every way debtors to do this? Let those whose minds are open, pursue, with humble desire, inquiry into the Lord's mind. We are surely all interested in knowing that. Let us pursue it as learners in the fear of God, not as speculators; as those who see that God is great in His glory and righteous in His judgments, and one that judgeth the earth and holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand. The Lord has revealed much, all that man can comprehend; and it belongs to us and to our children, that we may keep the sayings of His book. There are those, doubtless, who will please themselves, and not seek the church's good; but such shall bear their burden, whoever they be. In many things we all offend. I pray God to give His grace to bear one another's burden, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Oh, blessed time, when the church should care one for another, as fellow-sufferers or fellow-heirs, as He did, who needed none of their sympathy, or had but little of it when needed, and who knew no want, no necessity but the necessity of love. May we be found labouring in this spirit when He shall return! Oh, may His people be perfected in Him, one and all! His grace and the knowledge of His glory be with them in every place. And to Him be praise and dominion and glory according to His Father's will. Amen.
The writer, believing that in the rapid accumulation of inquiry he could add but little new to the investigation of this subject, has refrained from trespassing upon others. In truth, he finds more pleasure in the discovering of the ways of God which feed the soul, than in struggling to convince others of them. He would only press subjection to Scripture on the one side and on the other: but if occasion seem to call, he will, with gladness, resume the subject, in communion with the church. In the meanwhile he begs to propose three questions on another subject, if any may undertake to answer them.
Does it not appear from Scripture that all persons who went out to preach the gospel to unconverted persons, went out unsent by the apostles, or any other minister in the church of God, led only by their knowledge of the great atonement, or the direct appointment of the Spirit?
Is there any instance of the apostles, or other ministers in the church, ever having sent out any person for the purpose of preaching to unconverted persons?
Is not such mission (looking at it as an authority to do so) inconsistent, essentially, with the nature and possibility of their testimony?
1830.
Sir, -- The following remarks on the statements of Mr Maitland, in the Morning Watch, and of R.D., in the Christian Examiner, were written in short intervals of constant occupation. If correct, they will at least prove the hastiness of the statements alluded to; and the latter part (though I feel it to be even more imperfectly pursued than the rest) may direct inquiry to what, to me at least, is a very interesting topic: the nature of the last assault and taking of Jerusalem; or, in other words, the head to which the enemy arrives previous to his destruction. I should be glad to pursue this at another time; but must, at present, only subscribe myself,
In order to understand any prophecy, it is of the utmost importance that we should study it with a disposition to believe, joined with a strict trial of the evidence in favour of any given meaning. That is to say, we should be ready, on sufficient testimony, to accommodate our understandings and perceptions to ideas not analogous to those of our ordinary experience. With such a temper of mind, we are, under God, likely to profit both ourselves and the church, in the prophetic inquiry; whilst, on the contrary, we can make little or no progress in studying any prophetic record, if consistency with our previous apprehensions and prejudices be our test and trial of the new ideas with which we meet. To make agreement with previous ideas (as is the common practice) the necessary evidence of the justness of any view is indeed to prohibit the impression of any new truth upon the mind; and, on the other hand, assumption without evidence is the opening an admission to falsehood. A disposition to believe may, by some, be called credulity; but the credulity (if you will so have it) which consists in a disposition to receive on new testimony that which is inconsistent with human experience, is right before God, and is but another name for faith; howsoever foolish it may be among men, with whom guilt and deceit have made wisdom to consist in the knowledge and suspicion of evil. Evil cannot justify us in unbelief, though it may have habituated our minds to indisposition to receive even GOD at His word. This judging by what we have, instead of receiving what we have not (after simply trying it by the word and the testimony), is, indeed, the great moral hindrance to our perception, as well as to our receiving the strength of the power of God. Such was the spirit of the Sadducees -- such was the mind of Thomas and is of unbelief, at all times. "How is it that ye do not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."
+[The early part of this tract being of some interest in a critical point of view, it is republished, though the latter fails just in the point which the first part condemns, namely, assuming traditional views as true. I have no doubt that the latter part is wrong, but it was not worth while either suppressing or changing it. Subsequent and far more elaborate papers have brought the truth as to Matthew 14 and the 1260 days into a sufficiently clear light. It may serve to shew historically the progress made in the apprehension of truth.]
Not to lengthen out the statement of these general principles, nor to enter upon a disquisition on the slowness of man's heart to believe, I proceed to the consideration of the question raised, as to days meaning years. And first, I would remark, that the question seems to me to have been very imperfectly discussed. To adduce the evidence of Lexicons was not well either in the Morning Watch or by R.D., as they contain no evidence of weight, but a mere statement of the thing inquired into, given as a meaning, because so supposed in the passage in question. This, therefore, I dismiss, after observing (with a view to mark the extent to which this confusion, between use and meaning, may be carried) the quotation of R.D. from the Critici Sacri, which is made to prove that it means years, as well as weeks of days. "Hoe hebdomades intelligentur de annis." (The force of the word Hebdomades is as well known to be seven days as the word week in English.) Such a quotation as "These weeks are understood of years" would be strange evidence in proof of the English term "week" meaning seven years, as much as it does seven days! But let this pass. Again, R.D. says he does not understand certain assertions made in the Morning Watch. Now though I mistrust, as R.D. does, my knowledge of Hebrew, these seem to me perfectly intelligible, though, at the same time, to have been advanced so entirely without inquiry as to throw considerable discredit upon the assertor of them.
The assertion is this, that "Seven (the numeral) and its derivatives are always feminine": therefore he would conclude against Mr. M. that seven days (shabeth yomim) may, indeed, stand for a week, but that his reasoning can have no application to seventy (shibim), which, as the numeral is always feminine, cannot mean seven years as well as days. Now, the passage in Daniel ought to have kept him from such a mistake; for he is proving that shibim cannot be a numeral, because it is masculine, in a passage in which the very word confessedly means seventy! Strange, indeed, must be the structure of the mind, when it can produce reason in the Hebrew for seventy weeks, to shew, as to the second, that it cannot be a numeral, because it is masculine, when the first was admitted to be seventy! -- the points, if referred to, not affecting the question of the masculine termination. On the other hand, Mr. M. is without ground of inquiry; for if the Hebrew word have no technical or conventional meaning, it would not be sevens at all, according to the Hebrew idiom, but seventy; so that we must admit the conventional meaning, and inquire what it is. But to shew the carelessness of the assertion of the Morning Watch in this, we may remark, besides the contradiction in the very passage in question itself, that the masculine form is constantly used for seven. At a distance from books, and exceedingly engaged, I would yet, from cursory reference to Scripture, mention the following:
Whenever (how frequent this is, need not be stated to the reader of the Old Testament) the word for times (pa'amim) is used (or sheba used with that force), it is always masculine it would be endless to quote passages.
It is masculine with years, in Genesis 5: 7; so again chapter 29: 18, 20; with kine, Genesis 41, eight times over; with sabbaths, years, times, Leviticus 25: 8; with abominations, Proverbs 26: 25.
There is the same diversity in gender, in the sense of "sufficiency," as may be seen. (Isaiah 23: 18, "sufficiently" (f.); Ezekiel 16: 49, "fulness" (f.); Genesis 41: 29, "plenty" (m.).) Whether there be any rule in the Hebrew, I am not prepared to say, nor could I at this moment inquire; others perhaps may do so profitably and throw light on the inquiry by it. Nor is there any more reason, that I can see, produced for saying sheba'oth means sevens and not weeks, save that he has settled it beforehand. He is equally unfortunate in the remark as to Ezekiel 45: 21, 25, for in verse 23, as to the former, we have seven days (sheba'ath yami), and as to the same feast of passover, or unleavened bread sheba'ath ha-yami, the very words on which he rests his distinction as to verse 25. That shebu-a and shebu-im are used for week and weeks, I think may be asserted from the case of Genesis 29: 27, 28, week, and Leviticus 12: 5, weeks, the latter of which is as conclusive against Mr. M.'s assertion, as the passages above quoted and the one in question in Daniel are against the Reviewer. On the other hand I would remark, that seven weeks of years is never used in the form given in Daniel, but seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years. I would just remark also, that the uncertain habit of expression as to week seems traceable, perhaps, in the Greek of the New Testament.
Having disposed of the question raised on this passage, as far as the consideration of the evidence and argument already adduced, and having, perhaps, suggested occasion of inquiry, I would leave it, thinking with Mr. M. that it does not very materially affect the question.
There are two or three principles which I would lay down in proceeding to the more general consideration of the question before us.
First, in prophecy, when the Jewish church or nation (exclusive of the Gentile parenthesis in their history) is concerned, i.e., when the address is directly to the Jews, there we may look for a plain and direct testimony, because earthly things were the Jews' proper portion. And, on the contrary, where the address is to the Gentiles, i.e., when the Gentiles are concerned in it, there we may look for symbol, because earthly things were not their portion, and the system of revelation must to them be symbolical. When therefore facts are addressed to the Jewish church as a subsisting body, as to what concerns themselves, I look for a plain, common-sense, literal statement, as to a people with whom GOD had direct dealings upon earth, and to whom He meant His purposes concerning them to be known. On the other hand, as the church was a system of grace and heavenly hopes (though GOD indeed overruled by providence in respect of His ultimate purposes concerning it, it was neither the visible object of His dealings upon earth, nor had an admitted interest in, though acted on by them), it is addressed by an exhibition of their moral character, and is symbolised by analogous agencies.
Secondly, intimately connected with this (because the history of the Bible is the history of the Jews -- for history is the relation of facts on earth, of which the Jews are the portion of GOD'S agency and as to whom we know it was ordered), is another principle, viz., that wherever Scripture affords the history of a fact, there we may expect it to be distinctly and literally declared or predicted in prophecy. When the Scriptures do not extend to the giving the history (which is evidently the case after the fact of the restoration of the Jews from Babylon, save the fact of the Lord's coming to offer Himself, and perhaps we may add the outpouring of the Spirit), then we must expect it to be declared only symbolically, i.e., appropriately in its moral character; and hence, partly, the partial obscurity of the seventy weeks of Daniel, because they were no regular recognised portion of the Jewish history, but a sort of anomalous period for the coming of the Lord.
Thirdly, the Spirit loves to contemplate the desolation of the Jewish people -- the prevalence of necessary wrath -- and, by consequence, mercy on the believing remnant of the seed of the Lord -- as but for a moment; and hence the reason why it is shortened into days. To one familiar with Scripture and the expression of GOD'S mind and feelings, then, no proof, save appeal to themselves, need be made of this: it is an interesting, and, may I add, affecting circumstance of considerate kindness. He avenges speedily, though He bear long with them, as it might seem, and we are not to learn why He so bears. We know what to count it.
The proof then that prophecies of literal days have been fulfilled in literal days, and that years have been prophesied of as years, would prove nothing as to the prophecy in question; for first, if the principles above laid down be correct, the difference is accounted for; and, in the next place, a prophecy confessedly literal (for its literal accomplishment is given, or the days may mean years, and the proof fails) can be no evidence of the meaning of the word when used typically and confessedly in a symbolical prophecy. Their meaning days in such a case would be a positive anomaly, just as much as their not meaning days in the other; for they are used here manifestly in a symbolical way, and all their accomplishments are symbolical. The question is not, therefore, whether a day ever means a day, when used in Scripture or in prophecy, confessedly literally expressed (as evidenced by a literal fulfilment, evincing that meaning), but what is its force, when used as a symbol in a confessedly symbolical prophecy? The consideration of the mind of GOD, as adverted to in the third principle afore stated, will give us a full apprehension of the reason of the statement, when we consider the value too it was to the Church -- the principle of the "yet a little while," and the moral gap unfilled up by any events which made the time included in the 1260 years of this prophecy. As to the event not satisfying us in fulfilment, neither did the Lord's coming; and I would remark that there is no remarkable event of such external magnitude in the world's eye as to fix the mind on its evident fulfilment; and as to the former, to this day the terms of the seventy weeks are as much discussed and in the dark as the 1260 years, save that we, by habitual belief, have recognised Jesus the Lord, as the Messiah.
R.D. therefore is not right as to two believers in revelation not disagreeing in the broad features of the seventy weeks. We could not disagree as to Jesus being Messiah, or we should not be believers at all, and Daniel names the Messiah as the terminating epoch; though in this all interpreters are not agreed, but carry it on to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; but as to the rest, no two independent thinkers, hardly, agree in their computation -- some of learning at this day, going back to Cyrus's decree, and cutting off a century in mass from the ordinary dates of the Persian history. R.D. would find also that in Hebrew (though I say not that the idiom is precise), yamim, days, is also used for a year, and from year to year, as evidently in other passages, so evidenced to be in 1 Samuel 1: 3, 7.
I would further remark, that the passage from Ezekiel is not so without force, as is supposed, when the real question (too much overlooked by R.D.) is considered, viz., the typical or symbolical force of a day; for then we have a symbolical action indicative of years, defined in time, marked by the term days, so that as to the principle of symbolical diction, it is an expressive instance; and the other case, though not so strong, is analogous and confirmatory.
Let us now, having considered the ground on which such a symbol stands, consider the instances in which it is used. If R.D. affirms that the use of the term month is entirely distinct from that of day, and that there is no argumentative identity with the statements in Revelation before him, I shall not argue the point. I do not say that there is no reason for difference -- for I am inclined to think that there is, and perhaps see the reason of such difference, in some degree. But as to the limit of time, to me it is obvious they are identical. If so, contrary to the assertion of R.D., we have a prophecy in which such an enumeration of days for years is agreed on by all commentators (amongst the Protestants at least), namely, the continuance of the conquests of the Saracenic comet. I suppose there is no prophecy in Scripture which, as far as commentators go, has been more uniformly interpreted, or universally acquiesced in by inquirers at large. Nor am I disposed to think, that the Euphratean horsemen are less susceptible of determinate calculation of time, though I admit the date has not been received with equal uniformity.
Let us now consider the same symbols in Daniel. I certainly am disposed to think that the term times in Daniel 4: 16, 23, 25, 32, used as to Nebuchadnezzar, has reference to the bestial dominion in the world; and the language of Scripture as to the dominion of Nebuchadnezzar so tallies with the rightful dominion of Christ as to confirm this idea, but it is impracticable to pursue this here, nor does it affect the present inquiry sufficiently directly to claim definitive investigation. As to "time, times, and dividing of a time," we have this distinctly referred to the power before which the three horns fell; that is, we have three times and a half, or 1260 days, ascribed to the little horn which rose up behind, or amongst, the three horns (of which I believe there never has been any doubt in applying it to the Papal power); and there is a particular characteristic to be observed in him -- that he is to make war with the saints and to prevail against them, wearing them out -- a statement which I do not find applicable to the final apostasy.
Here then we have evidence of this expression being used as a symbol, contrasted, as in distinct perspective of some long continuance of time, during which there is a prevailing power wearing out the saints of the Most High; not in its character of infidel apostasy, leading all forward, but in its specific one of casting down three horns. Again, I apprehend, the end of the vision must be accounted from the commencement of its subject matter, and its computation must be (when the time is referable to a particular fact within the prophecy) from the date of that fact; or otherwise (when the vision is said to continue), from the commencement of its subject matter generally. If this be so, we have a date of 2,300 or 2,400 days (the readings differ) as the continuance of Daniel's vision of the ram and the he-goat, with its territorial reference to the covenant of Israel. And accordingly he says, "Shut up the vision, for it shall be for many days." If this be not a just reasoning, the passage must apply to the possession of Jerusalem by its last enemy for upwards of six years -- an interpretation which does not seem to me to coincide with the tenor of scriptural declaration; nor do I think it consistent with the genealogy of the little horn, which would then mean the power or person vulgarly called Antichrist. We have therefore again the term of days used for a long continuous period, ending in the cleansing of the sanctuary, and brought into perspective before the mind of the Spirit to the prophet, and thus shortened in its symbolical expression.
Daniel 11 and 12 I shall not attempt to interpret. But the interpretation must be either given to Antiochus Epiphanes, and the taking away of the daily sacrifice be a thing yet future; or the 1290 days be a long period of time, whenever it commences or concludes, and the 1335 end with Daniel standing in his lot. Besides, can R.D. shew any instance of so unusual a practice as the use of the term "days" for a period extending beyond the limits of a year? Does not this itself point to some meaning or intention concealed under this form?
We may now proceed to the passages in the Revelation. Does R.D. believe that the Lord Jesus meant the church of Smyrna to have tribulation just "ten days" literally, or ten years? We have already adverted to the Saracenic and Euphratean invasions, which he would find difficult to interpret on his literal system. The next is, that the holy city should be given to the Gentiles 42 months (the well-known period of 1260 days, a symbolical prophecy, and containing in the term evidence of some unliteral meaning). In the meanwhile the witnesses are to prophesy 1260 days, more appropriately thus marked, because it shewed not merely its continuance but its constancy also. This, be it observed, is something previous to the seventh trumpet; and, however the date may be disagreed on, I undertake to say that, as to the subject-matter, no prophecy in Scripture has received more uniformity of interpretation. And, observe, it ends by their being slain by the beast out of the bottomless pit. Now in chapter 13 We have a beast who continues precisely the same period, recognised to be in power (under the form of the ten horns being crowned, i.e., the Roman Empire in its divided state) by the northern nations under the papacy, as may be plainly seen in chapter 17. Take these things together and we see -- not to advert to the three days and a half -- a connection with Babylon and the papacy during these periods, which brings them, in addition to the difficulty of making days symbols of days, to be a continuous period when the woman rides the beast (not, is devoured by the horns), and therefore is a continuous period of some such length as is generally supposed. In a word, we may, I think, state it thus: The mystery of Babylon and the papacy have no place in the prophets, or the 1260 days mean years. A difficulty in date does not affect the moral evidence of the subject-matter of the prophecy; for difficulties may lie at the door of ignorance as well as inconsistency.
It would be inconvenient here to enter into further detail. The true question to be discussed is, whether the papacy, as such, has any place in the prophetic writings or not, or merely infidelity. If it has, it appears to me that no doubt remains on the question; but I refuse no light on its special application to the last infidel state, though I deprecate a morbid disposition to apply all things to our own times. I rejoice, however, in the discussion, not merely in that it will throw light on Scripture by consequent research and inquiry, but that I am persuaded that this will lead more (for such I believe to be the truth) to the deep conviction that we are within the verge of the end of all, so as to be daily looking for the Lord, i.e., to be caught up to meet Him in the air in order to His judging of the nations. Amen. Amen.
(From the Christian Herald, Feb., 1831, pages 47, 48.)
We have received a letter from the Revelation S. R. Maitland, animadverting upon the letter and remarks of the Revelation J. N. Darby, which appeared in our No. for December, 1830. Although we do not wish to introduce controversy into our pages, we think it but justice towards Mr. Maitland to publish his letter, of which the following is a copy:
Bishop's Hall, near Taunton, December 30th, 1830.
Sir, -- In your number of this month, which has only come to my hand today, a correspondent, who subscribes himself J. N. Darby, begins his letter with saying, "The following remarks on the statements of Mr. Maitland in the Morning Watch, and of R.D. in the Christian Examiner, were written in short intervals of constant occupation."
Without wishing to trespass on your pages, with a defence of statements which I have made, or of the statements of R.D., which I have not seen, will you allow me to say that I never made any statement in the Morning Watch, having never written anything in that work? I should be sorry to suspect your correspondent unjustly, but I cannot help thinking that he knows my statements principally, if not entirely, from the Review in the Morning Watch; and with regard to the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, only from a garbled and falsified extract contained in that Review. I am driven to this suspicion, not only by his mode of referring to my statement, which I have already noticed, but from his saying -- 'On the other hand, Mr. M. is without ground of inquiry; for if the Hebrew word shibim have no technical or conventional meaning, it would not be sevens according to the Hebrew idiom at all, but seventy; so that we must admit the conventional meaning and inquire what it is.' If your correspondent had read my first Inquiry, he would have seen that I did admit a conventional meaning, and shewed by several references that the Misnic writers used sheba to signify the space of time between one sabbatical year and another: a fact which the Reviewer in the Morning Watch did not think proper to notice.
I do not wish, however, to intrude on your pages what is already before the public; but I should be glad to prevent or correct a mistake into which I think your readers might naturally fall; and also to beg that my statements may not be judged of either by what has been extracted in the Morning Watch, or brought forward by your correspondent.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
On receiving the above letter from Mr. Maitland, we sent a copy of it to Mr. Darby, that his answer might appear together with it. The following is a copy of Mr. Darby's reply:
The principal occasion of Mr. Maitland's letter is a mistake occasioned by an unnoticed defect of a stop (I dare say in my manuscript), which should have been supplied thus: "of Mr. Maitland; in the Morning Watch; and of R.D.", instead of "Mr. Maitland in the Morning Watch, and of R.D.", etc. Indeed, no one, I should have thought, could have made the mistake; for the article in the Morning Watch is written against Mr. M., and treats him with considerable slight. I had read both of Mr. M.'s pamphlets or Inquiries. It is very possible my paper (in the Christian Herald) does not take adequate notice of them; and I have not them with me now to refer to; but the principal argument and the evidence from the passage in Leviticus remain untouched. If you are disposed, I shall be glad to revert to it, as with a mind entirely open on the subject. I feel it one of great interest, and shall be very glad to receive all the light I can from Mr. M., or anyone else, there or elsewhere. R.D. was the immediate object of my paper, which occasioned the less reference to Mr. M., for whom I have really every respect, and from whom I should be very glad to learn. I should, however, confine my inquiry certainly to the scriptural sense of the word as evidence, even though I examined other things brought forward.
I am surprised Mr. M. did not see what the first passage he quotes meant; as the article in the Morning Watch (or rather articles) is not only written against him, but is accompanied by a note accounting for their refusal (as I recollect) to insert Mr. M.'s reply to themselves, so that even if I had not read Mr. M.'s books, or the Morning Watch either, I (or anyone else) must have been of a strange constitution of mind to think that article was Mr. Maitland's.
Believe me, truly and affectionately yours,
(From the Christian Witness, Plymouth, Jan., 1834.)
It appears to me that the result of prophecy has been much obscured, and particular passages much more difficult of interpretation, by narrowing their scope and applying them only to the anti-christian character of the last primary evil. Hence, the subject being wrongly assumed, the application has been forced and unknown. The anti-christian form of the Roman empire engrosses the mind, so that even when prophecy is applied to the Jews, nothing further is seen. But this is a confined view; all the nations of the earth are engaged in this scene. Thus Gog the chief prince of Magog, and his army and followers, formed no part of the Roman empire. The Medes and Persians formed no part of that empire; yet all these do form a part of the great prophetic drama of the latter day. I purposely refrain from entering into details here; if I am permitted, I hope to open out my views upon it, at some future time. I merely now make these few remarks, in the hope of enlarging the sphere of observation. The immediate moral position in which we are, may involve us in direct concern with the last exhibition of power of the Roman beast, even Antichrist, destined, I do not doubt, to close the scene and his career in Jerusalem -- the mountain of God, where he has, craftily and to his own destruction, set his seat. But this is but one out of many. He thus becomes one, the first (I apprehend) of those powers, who, round the great centre of divine providence, the Jewish land, are brought, as the inhabitants of the earth, under the judicial process of that righteous providence which shall set the Son of man on the throne of the kingdom of the earth, in the righteousness and peace of God's own government in Him.
As regards the full moral responsibilities of the Christian Church, the apostasy and judgment of the anti-Christian power is clear and decided, as well as solemn and affecting to the believer, but deliverance and joy withal. But when we turn our eyes to the earth, to the dealings of God with its nations, we find, when He divided to the sons of Adam their inheritance, "He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel," Deuteronomy 32: 8. In this, of course, the
beast will take his part; doubtless, he may lead in the career of evil, but let us enlarge our view a little. Were all the nations of the image in the last beast? Clearly not. The Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and (I suppose) about the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the Irish Sea, form the geographical bounds of all that could ever be taken within the grasp of the last beast, unless perhaps part of Hungary and Transylvania. I am not saying that all this will be under Antichrist,+ or how far it may be, but merely that the last beast extends no farther than this. But besides this, there is in the image, part of the subject of latter-day judgment -- the arms and the breast; the Medo-Persian power not included within these limits. This then, besides the actings of the first power, we must find scope for in the scenes of the latter day, as one of the nations that must act upon the Jews, and in the land. The omission of this may cause great confusion in the application of passages, which, having the Jews and the land in view, must include the account of the vicissitudes arising from this also.
Further, Gog and Magog (who form, I imagine, no part, not only of the beast, but of the image, yet take a conspicuous part in the scenes of the latter day, as the witness of the power of God) must be let into the scheme of prophecy; and till we have developed the sphere in which these take their parts, we cannot appropriate the special prophecies which may have their ultimate fulfilment in these very powers. I do not doubt we shall find much detail of movement within the territorial limits of the beast, which are not the action of its body, as immediately headed by Antichrist,++ as well as the final suppression of smaller nation,, within the limits of Israelitish territory, as given of God; but into these details it is not my purpose to enter. That which I would press upon your readers is this -- that (while the scene in which we are individually engaged leads us to contemplate directly the growth and operations of Antichrist,+++ our most important concern), if we would interpret Scripture fully, we must see that this is but conducive to a system and scene of which the land of Israel is the focus and centre, and in which all the people of the earth are concerned and called in question. The length, the circumstances, the particulars of the great day of tribunal of judgment on the people and nations, beginning at Jerusalem, we may reserve to the Lord's mercy granting us other opportunity. I believe Antichrist to be the first of it, and of a character distinct from the rest -- the close to be the clearing of the land and its limits, with the exception, perhaps, of God. But the fact surely seems indisputable and definite, and must widely affect the study and application of scriptural prophecies. To these I would next direct your attention.
+Antichrist is assumed here to be the head of the beast, as it was by all when this paper was written, not the false Messiah in Palestine. -- Ed.
++Ditto.
+++Ditto.
(From the Christian Witness, Plymouth, July, 1835.)
There are two great subjects connected with prophecy -- the hope of the Church and the order and accomplishment of that system of earthly government which, with the Jews as its centre, has formed the great subject of ancient prophecy, its proper subject as a literal and distinct testimony of what should happen in the earth. As it is written, "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel." "For the Lord's portion is his people; Israel is the lot of his inheritance."
There is another point, the connection of the two, the passage from the failing dispensation (failing as in man's hand) in which we stand, into that which is to come; the portion of the remnant in the Gentile body and of the restored Jewish people, which, it seems to me, from involving both, induces greater difficulty of judgment than either considered apart. The moral state too both of the Christian remnant and of the Jewish remnant is so immediately involved in the question -- their responsibilities and the divine judgment concerning them -- that responsibility in estimating their place I feel sensibly increased. Nevertheless the faithful word is our sure and only guide, and wherever this directs us, the Spirit shedding light on it to our souls, we shall find the light and power of life in it. Nor will its connection with our responsibilities weaken its importance and value to us. I should value therefore exceedingly any light upon this subject. But though I have thought in the study of the word on many things connected with it, I do not feel my mind so distinctly ascertained of that portion of the mind of God as to state myself at present anything concerning it, though quite alive to the inquiry.
I would state very briefly as to the second point what would enlarge the basis on which our inquiries into Scripture may be conducted; and, by extending the limits of that which is certain in things revealed, increase our power of spiritual judgment, both within those limits and also as to those things in which we may be yet untaught. The essential difference of the government of the world during the four beasts is not, I think, sufficiently considered. During this time, there ceased to be, properly speaking, Jews and Gentiles. That which had given importance to the Jews, was that they were God's people. Otherwise "have not I brought (says God) the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?" This removed, they were but as one among the nations made of one blood in all the earth, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.
It is true this distinction, once constituted, was never and never is to be recalled; "for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." And hence the Jews, or people of Israel, always constituted a distinct subject of government in the divine mind, never lost sight of and kept continually for the purposes formed therein for His glory, whatever the circumstances were through which they were passed. But they ceased to be the immediate manifested object and centre of the divine government upon earth, the moment "Lo-ammi" was written upon them. They ceased to be the scene in which God displayed His character as a recognised people, and from which, as identified with Himself, He exercised righteous judgment on surrounding nations, accounted but as strangers meddling with the place of His sanctuary.
Identical with this inscription of "Lo-ammi" (for a little season and still reserved for mercy, and it counted long to Jehovah) was the setting up of the Gentile power, the kingdom of the beasts which should arise out of the earth. This is matter of common knowledge and has been noticed in the Witness; and the whole history of the Jews connected with Nebuchadnezzar makes it too plain to one familiar with Scripture to need the evidence in detail here. But the inscription of "Lo-ammi" being set upon the Jewish people, their present distinction as God's people from the other nations of the earth ceased (not in purpose nor in providence, but as the subject of manifested government and revelation). And, though for the purpose of the manifestation of Messiah there was a suspension of the final accomplishment of these things. and a partial restoration, or rather setting in such a place as that they might be the subject of Messiah's restoration, the rod that was upon them of the stranger was never taken off, let it be light or gilded. There was no Jewish history, but of the fact of their rebuilding under the favour of the Persians, and of the rejection of Messiah under the government of the Romans and Herod; and then they are lost to historic scripture after the death of Stephen, forbidding that which was now come to the Gentiles to go to them, and wrath come upon them to the uttermost.
In the setting up of Nebuchadnezzar as the golden head of the image, the man of the earth, "the times of the Gentiles" began, and Israel was lost. It was not Ammi and Goiim,+ but government left in the hands of the Gentiles, now exercising it in the covetous greediness of self-will, and the apparent government of God, in principle, lost, though never, of course, in providence.
With the four beasts connected with this state of things, every reader of prophecy is familiar. But it is taken notice of here as co-extensive with Israel's (whatever their circumstances) being "Lo-ammi," not God's people, and, consequently, the distinction of Jew and Gentile lost in present manifested exercise, unless in priority of judgment.
I think we shall find a very distinct division of prophecy connected with this subject, and appropriation of it, much calculated to clear the ground on which we stand.
There are three prophets connected with this state of Jewish rejection -- Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Each have their separate portion of testimony, and their several place of giving it. Jeremiah prophesied in the place and habitation of the rebellious people. "The sin of Judah was written with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond." Ezekiel prophesied by the river of Chebar, among the captives. Daniel in the midst of Babylon, when the golden representative head had been set up.
In Jeremiah we shall see, therefore, the sin of the people proved, and they made Goiim (heathen) of; and then, after various judgments on all the nations, the new covenant with Israel and Judah, their captivity brought again; in a word, "Lo-ammi," and Ammi as to both in restoration; while the history of their present wickedness is given and their necessary captivity, ashamed of Egypt as they were ashamed of Assyria.
+Ammi, my people; Goiim, Gentiles or heathen.
In Ezekiel we shall find the sign of the glory departed, the consequent disallowance of the remains of the people in the land, then the setting aside of every other power previous to Nebuchadnezzar, and the fact of his prevailing as king of Babylon over the last of them; but then a passing by the whole history of, or any allusion to, the beasts: and after setting aside the previous nations by the king of Babylon, the immediate recurrence to the principles of God's dealings with the house of Israel, their restoration and deliverance as one stick in His hand; and, consequently, the heathen knowing that He, Jehovah, did sanctify Israel when His sanctuary was in the midst of them for evermore. And what subsequently happened of Gog, prince of Magog, is a coming up against "my people Israel." Thus way is made in the suppression of previous powers (and Or Israel) for the introduction of the beasts, but they are wholly omitted; and the prophet passes over (after the principles of God's dealings are discussed) to the restoration of the people and God's dealings among the heathen, as with them as His people.
Daniel precisely fills up this gap. Nebuchadnezzar is seen as the golden head in the outset, and a king of kings to whom the God of heaven had given a kingdom; and, wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven had He given into his hand, and made him rule over them all. He was the head of gold. Then the character and proceedings of this system and of the four beasts are given, but no mention of anything before or after, nor of the Jews or Israel as God's people at all. It is "the times of the Gentiles," of the four beasts, in which God's people are "Lo-ammi"; and when mentioned, it is not "My people," but "thy people," addressing Daniel.
This gives the subjects of these books, I think, great clearness, and shews the character and importance of the time subsequent to the renewal of the distinction between God's people and the heathen. The convulsions and trouble preceding this are of the utmost importance, and have their place; but they are to be viewed as a distinct subject from Israel acknowledged of the Lord. Israel is still lost in the midst of the nations rising one against another. Jerusalem may be taken; but He is not come whose right it is; and, therefore, though it may be the occasion of the Lord's fighting against these nations, still it was not Jehovah-Shammah (Ezekiel 48: 35) that was taken; nor could that be, as the final post-millennial confederacy and Hezekiah's typical trial prove.
I would advert to a few passages illustrative of what I have stated, and then allude to one or two consequences.
First, as to Jeremiah, up to chapter 24 we have the sin of Israel, and specially Judah, continuously proved. In chapter 25, is the judgment; recapitulating the testimony -- shewing immediate judgment also on Babylon, the type of all the nations. The judgment, however, actually runs thus, "Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand and cause all the nations (Goiim) to whom I send thee to drink it. Then took I the cup at the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the Lord had sent me; Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation"; and then the rest, to "all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth, and the king of Sheshach after them." But this definitely involves Judah and Jerusalem in the indiscriminate and common name of Goiim -- "judgment beginning in the house of God." (See verse 29.) Then, after various details to chapter 30, in that chapter we have the new and sure promises connected with God's purpose concerning the nation to the end of chapter 33. The rest is historically probative or relative to Egypt, till chapter 46, when we have the word against the Gentiles, but restoration to many of them.
In Ezekiel, chapter 24 divides the book. We have the utter rejection of the city. The glory of the Lord is seen at the outset in its full providential governing power; and in chapter 10 its departure from the city and temple: then in chapter 25, getting rid of other nations -- these within and surrounding the land. Then two are mentioned who would fain have been beasts in the earth -- Assyria and Pharaoh-Necho. The first, however, had fallen. What was the latter better? He should fall; "So was Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God." Then in chapter 32 we have their common dirge. Here the prophet closes. Instead of pursuing the history of the earth then farther, which must have brought in the beasts, he turns at once to the shepherds of Israel. All but the beasts are disposed of; these Daniel is occupied about in Babylon, not Ezekiel at Chebar. Restoration under the Lord's salvation from evil shepherds is the only remedy. So in chapter 33: 4 and in chapter 34: 7. The restoration follows; then Gog against Israel as God's people, settled on their own mountains no longer waste, but dwelling in peace; Israel now I no longer "Lo-ammi," as chapters 36, 38. The judgment on Seir (chapter 35) seems special.
Of Daniel I have already said enough, it is manifestly the history of the unnoticed period, the times of the beasts and their doings and character; the account in Babylon of all that belonged to it, or arose out of it, while Israel was no more a people, and power was recognisedly in the hands of those who knew not how to use it, who had beasts' hearts and left to be so and not man's till the due times had passed over it.
We have then these three agencies to look for, connected with Israel, and at the close of these times, when the great concentrated crisis comes to take effect. First, the heathen as looked at under Jeremiah, nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom, in which Jerusalem and the Jews have a place in the secret enmity perhaps of the wicked one, knowing what is to be and happen there; and surely in the providence of God. Yet still as one of the Goiim, merely mixed up in the troubles with all the rest, only the first to drink the cup. Secondly, the beast (or beasts) then in his power, having his own specific and distinct character as such. That which constitutes the power may be heathen perhaps in race; but it is not merely this but a beast. And lastly, we have the renewed position of Israel as God's people, and the heathen definitely distinguished from them, and opposed to them as such; and God acting on this principle. The other prophets give many details as to them; their proper statements are, of course, of the Jews as Jews, and treating the heathen as such, and therefore not concerning the beasts at all. And I suspect if Antichrist be mentioned in them, he is spoken of in his professed character as "the king"; and the state of the people merely alluded to on the critical time of change, when the summons of the Lord is addressed on the coming of the heathen, when the Lord is just about to go forth, rejected indeed by the nations, but listened to by the remnant.
Thus Joel describes some Goi (nation) going up against the land, etc., and summons the inhabitants of the land, and alarms Zion, and sounds for the gathering. When there is this cry, then the Lord is jealous for His land and pities His people; and the answer to them (not before so called), and blessing, and consequent judgment on all the heathen, is described.
So, in Zechariah, we have the city taken by the nations gathered together, and against those nations the Lord will go forth and fight. This is the only place where this taking is mentioned, unless Joel 2 and once perhaps in Isaiah; and not, I conceive, alluding to Antichrist or the wilful king, but omitting or leaving out the whole history of the beast and his doings, which stands on other ground. His place, I conceive, rather holds the place of the covenant with death, made with the scornful men which dwell at Jerusalem, which is disannulled.
But I will not enter farther into details. I have mentioned these passages as immediately affected by the considerations I have offered. If one could see the Jews and Jerusalem (as shewn in the paper, under the title of "Jerusalem," in a previous number) as the great subject and centre of earthly government and prophecy, we should better understand the force of nations, and then, looking at Israel as lost in them and mixed in their troubles, and the object of their hatred; then the subject of the wilful king's special though wicked interference; and subsequently, on his destruction, as the scene of the Lord's deliverance and power, who then holds it in His hand as His weapon against the nations (now again recognised as in opposition to Ammi, "my people," and He therefore putting them under His feet), we should see much of the prophecies more distinct and more simple.
Though I acquiesce in and value the general scope of the article I have alluded to, let me just say that it seems to me in some of its details to have overstepped the limits of evidence. I cannot see that Daniel 7, 8 and Revelation 13 are necessarily identical, however analogous the language may be. The connection of Daniel 7 with Revelation 1 cannot doubt. The proof of the identity of chapters 7 and 8 arises not from direct interpretation, but the necessity, if both be universal, and at the same time, that they should be the same. The argument is good enough (though I distrust and feel difficulty in all illative reasoning about Scripture), but depends, and is justly made to do so, on the universality of both, and also the sameness of time. But I cannot see the universality in chapter 8. Thus "by him the daily sacrifice shall be taken away," should (I apprehend) be from him, though this by-the-bye. I entirely recognise the working of Antichrist as the head of the last beast,+ or the last head of the beast in Jerusalem in his place in his close; but it seems to me there is not enough scope given to the other actors in that scene, who derive their importance, not from present associations, but their then connection with, and opposition to, Jewish interests.++
+See previous note, and next note.
++Note re Antichrist written later. It has been taken for granted among those who expect a personal Antichrist, that he is the civil head of the Roman Empire. This I question. Without doubting in the least, that there will be such a blasphemous Gentile power, it seems to me that the Antichrist is another power, of which the Scriptures are even more full -- the vessel of evil religious energy, rather than that of evil public government. At least, two such manifestations of power we find in Revelation 13. See papers on "The Antichrist," later in this volume.
I have felt that the consideration of the office allotted to these three prophets I have here spoken of, reduced and simplified the ground on which we could judge these things. It is but one narrow point of the subject; still if, by interpretation in which the Lord leads and will justify us, any part of the subject is cleared, so much is positively gained. What may be imperfect or erroneous in it the saints will soon detect, if they wait for the revelation and instruction of God. I do confess it has cleared a good many details, but its ground is quite independent of them, and I am reluctant to write on them; as undue determination of them seems to me the ground of our difficulties, the ascertainment of them always a step in our knowledge.
Matthew 13
I would say a few words on this chapter, or collection of parables, in the deep feeling of the imperfectness with which any of us understand "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven"; and this, not merely from personal feelings as to individual weakness, but from the scope and extent of the divine wisdom in them -- a wisdom knit up with and developing the whole of the divine counsels -- a wisdom, therefore, not to be acquired in mere detached passages, but in the comprehension of the mind of God which flows from the abundance of the Spirit exercised in spiritual application to Scripture. Nevertheless, I feel that our portion, as believers, is to be given to know them -- our blessed portion; and we may be allowed, in the confidence of His love, to breathe out also what we may have apprehended of the mind of the Spirit, and to present it to the judgment of our brethren.
With this feeling of confidence in the Lord, I shall open out what appears to me to be the order and power of this collection of parables. Their detailed meaning may, perhaps, be the subject of some subsequent observation. I would remark, then, in the first place, that the phrases, "kingdom of heaven," and also, "kingdom of your or their Father," are peculiar to Matthew -- expressions manifestly not unimportant in force. The only exception at all is the use of the latter expression, by implication, in the instruction to pray, in Luke 11: an exception not without interest, but which I can dwell on here only to observe, that the kingdom in every instance we are taught to pray for is the Father's kingdom. In these parables we have both: the term "kingdom of heaven" being common to all, save the first; that of "kingdom of your Father" being found in the explanation of the second of the parables. The importance of the former expression is seen not only in its being a positive subject of all the parables, except the first, but from the emphatic declaration of our Lord: "Every scribe, instructed into the kingdom of heaven, will bring forth out of his treasure things new and old."+ The scribe, being well taught in the law of Moses, could therefore bring forth the old things; and being "instructed into the kingdom of heaven," could bring forth out of his treasures, therefore, new things. He was to have, indeed, new things, but he was not to give up the old; what he had learnt as a scribe were treasures in the estimation of Christ, to be brought forth by the scribe "instructed into the kingdom of heaven." I consider these parables, then, as a full prophetic statement of the character and detail of the circumstances in which the kingdom of heaven would be placed. There are seven parables in all -- a common circumstance expressive of completeness, or perfectness, in prophetic statements, which the attentive reader of Scripture cannot fail to have observed; of these, six are similitudes of the kingdom of heaven -- the first, not the act described in the first being an act of the Son of man before His ascension; and its results, also, such as might be exhibited in individuals before as well as after it. This parable declares the agency of the kingdom and its particular results; the others, the dispensation of the kingdom. To recur to "things new and old" -- the fact of "the kingdom of heaven" might well be called an "old thing"; one conversant in Daniel, with the hopes of the old law, might well have looked for such a thing. The order of its development and position was a "new thing"; which was to be revealed consequent upon the manifestation, and (we must add, though not here developed)++ the rejection and resurrection of Christ the Son. The fact absolutely revealed in prophetic testimony was the giving of a kingdom to the Son of man. The learning that the heavens do rule was a lesson to be taught in the expected suppression and setting aside of Gentile domination. Yet an earthly dominion in the Jewish people was an expectation which every Jew (taking prophecy literally, as every Jew must), because he was a Jew, must have justly held upon belief in the prophetic declaration. In the midst of these (perhaps confused, yet just, and, in one sense, believing) apprehensions, our Lord came in with a definite declaration, that "the kingdom of heaven was at hand."
+I would remark on this expression, that we are taught to hold the continuing value of the Jewish prophetic expectation, of all that a scribe in the law of Moses would have drawn from the Old Testament, and that distinct from the expectation introduced by the gospel.
++"The kingdom of God" is a distinct expression from "the kingdom of heaven," although in many respects so identified, that the same things could be affirmed about it. Thus it could be said that the kingdom of God was at hand: that was most true; as it could be said also, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But at the same time they were of very distinct import; for it was matter of faith to know that the "kingdom of God was come amongst them." (See Gr., Luke 11: 20; chapter 17:21.) So the Lord makes use of expressions never used of the kingdom of heaven -- to know that the kingdom of heaven was not, but was "at hand" (Matthew 4: 17, Gr.); whereas the same evangelist, or rather the Spirit of God by him, in speaking of the kingdom of God, immediately changes his phrase to the one noticed in Luke (Gr., Matthew 12: 28). The kingdom of God was necessarily there when the Son of God was there -- in a word, when God was there. The kingdom of heaven, as the development of God's purpose, could not be there while He was there; it resulted from the Lord's going away into heaven. The kingdom of God is the exercise or exhibition of the ruling power of God under any circumstances in the wisdom of God. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God in its heavenly character. In dispensation this is set up by the rejection of the King of God's kingdom by the world; and, while it ought to have been known (even while He was upon earth), by faith, is known to faith by Jesus the Head, the Lamb slain, sitting on the throne of the Father. The kingdom of God, therefore, was amongst the Jews when He, the Son of God, Jesus, was there -- and they ought to have known it -- and the kingdom of heaven was at hand. By the earthliness of men, however, instead of gathering the Gentiles to the Jews, the Messiah being recognised, it was known only (as in God's counsels and wisdom meant to be) by the rejection of Him, and the exaltation (to the place "where he was before") of the Son of man, who was the Lord from heaven, and Son of man in heaven. The kingdom of heaven (His kingdom was not of this world) was set up, continuing, as regards the Church, till the time when the saints, in the Father's kingdom, raised with Jesus at His second coming, shall know the blessedness of the rule of the Son of God and man, in the whole scene which once rejected Him, now brought under His sway and theirs (still, in that sense, the kingdom of heaven to those below), when they witness the blessedness of heavenly rule, while dwelling "kings and priests unto God" in the quiet and secure fulness of the Father's house-sons with Him. This, too, more properly is the kingdom of man (compare Daniel 7); for under the exalted Man and His saints all things are put. Had Jesus not been rejected, it would have been the kingdom of God (still, it is surely so in character; for He is God, and it is God's kingdom); He would have been righteously subject, "having taken upon him the form of a servant," and as such come, "not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him." And it is thus, I apprehend, the Son shall be subject, when God -- not the Father, which would be confounding everything, and not be what the word teaches, but "God -- shall be all in all," Father, Son and Holy Ghost; but the rule taken out of man's hands, into which it had been put, through the obedience of Christ. Therefore it is not until after the resurrection that He says, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth," etc. All things are delivered unto Him as the Son of God, as heir of all, in whom all centres. This inheritance He has not yet taken. But at present "all power is given unto him" as the appointed Man, according to the glorious mystery in which, as the Son, for whom (and by whom) all things were made. He took it up as the Redeemer in the Person of Jesus; but the power was given to Him as the obedient Man.
That "the kingdom of heaven" was merely the true invisible church of God is an explanation which cannot for a moment be maintained, consistently with a single statement of these parables and of analogous ones. That it was merely the visible church of God is neither consistent with what we find in this chapter, nor any adequate representation of the matter, as is manifest from the parables of the treasure and the pearls. The rule of heaven is the simple force of the expression "the kingdom of heaven." Earthly dominion was exercised by the Gentiles unrighteously; earthly dominion was expected by the Jews, and expected, though true, unrighteously; as was shewn by their rejection of "the Holy One of God," who came from heaven -- "the Son of man," "the King of the Jews." Most important, then, and a point of sustaining faith, to one who might think that it had been "he who should have redeemed Israel," was it to recognise in this word "the kingdom of heaven," that a resurrection Lord might hold its power; and anomalous, and apparently failing, as their position might have been, to learn, not only new spiritual things, but that the kingdom of heaven was that which, even in dispensation, was the mind and order of God's counsels.
Hence we find it so especially referred to in Matthew, the Gospel more particularly of dispensation and prophetic testimony. It would manifestly carry me into too large a subject here to enter farther into this most interesting point of the distinctive character of the gospels, the evidences of which, in three of them, are prominent -- in the other, arise from a number of minute particulars. I mention the distinction here, as shewing the ground on which "the kingdom of heaven" and "the kingdom of their Father" appear to be used in Matthew's gospel alone. It was a gentle unfolding, though full declaration, that the order of things now coming in was, of its own character, maintaining the hope given as coming from God; one which in result, indeed, we know to be founded in the resurrection, but which, in its testimony, then claimed repentance only on the part of the Jew, the connection of which shall never find its manifested accomplishment till the millennial glory in the risen saints and the repentant Jew, gathered together in one in Christ, sustaining in resurrection life and power the blessings of the Jews on earth and its consequences; [He] at the same time being the companion and the servant, too, of the joy of the saints risen into fellowship with Him in His Father's house as sons. Our Lord, however, in this chapter unfolds its actual characters, and we must endeavour to bring in "the new things" of "the kingdom," to understand fully the ground on which the kingdom of heaven now stands. We have here two other kingdoms -- "the kingdom of their Father," i.e., of the righteous; and "the kingdom of the Son of man." In neither of these, properly speaking, are we now. The Son of man shall do so and so, and "then shall the righteous," etc.+
+This gospel is properly the Jewish gospel of Messiah (while consequently shewing the passing away of the present and introduction of a new order of things); saints are therefore called by the term "righteous" or "just." "Saints" more properly speaking, is a Gentile name, or at least either a Christian one, or applicable to the sanctified remnant of the last days, as separated out of the mass, though both terms are true of either class. It is a revelation to the then believing Jew, it being true still, that, in consequence of the rejection of Christ, and the purpose of God contained therein, the believer's portion would not be in the Son's kingdom upon earth, but in the Father's.
These kingdoms are the full development of that which now rests in an anomalous and ambiguous state (glorious and blessed, indeed, but still ambiguous+ as regards its manifested results), to wit, "the kingdom of God's dear Son," the kingdom of the Son of God as sitting upon the Father's throne. This is not the kingdom of the Son of man; it is not the kingdom of the Father, but the kingdom of the Son of God sitting on His Father's throne; the Lamb rejected, slain, sitting on the right hand of God, or in the midst of the throne. I believe this to be the great mystery of the present order of the kingdom, the promise to be, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit down with me on my throne, even as I overcame, and am set down with my Father on his throne," where no saint ever sat, none but He whose right it is.
+This I believe to be the real subject of the Revelation, and the first chapters to exhibit this [using language suited]; to clothe within itself, indeed, the glorious result seen through faith, but to be that by which we can understand, as regards the kingdom, the anomaly of present circumstances, intermediate between the rejection of the Son of man, and His manifestation in the irrefutable glory of His own kingdom, when the righteous also shall be in the Father's. Let us understand and be patient till He takes to Him His great power and reigns.
This principle, or glorious truth, of the Son sitting on the Father's throne, as the present subject of faith, will be found to run through the whole of our Lord's language in John, and give the character of the whole present state of things. Hence the Spirit is said to be sent down from the Father, because it was to bring us, not only into fellowship with Jesus, but into the understanding of sonship with the Father, in whose house and kingdom the righteous were to dwell and shine forth. Now these parables in Matthew are just the shewing forth of the planting and results of this kingdom of heaven, in the sitting of Jesus on the throne of God in power unseen, and ministration of the Spirit according to the Father's will, and "a Lamb as it had been slain," yea, and in the midst of the throne, but in which He had not taken the earth as His actual portion.
There is another connection which will illustrate the language of these parables -- I mean the development of the hope of Israel in Psalm 78, compared with the application of verse 2 with verse 35 of this chapter. There was no riddle simply in historical facts, but there was a most important lesson and mystery in the total failure of Israel; the Israel of God in the earth totally failing in the midst of all deliverances and blessings, and then set up in stability in David their king It was the kingdom of David connected with the Jew. But there were other riddles (Psalm 78: 1; Matthew 13: 35. See original) -- the great riddle of the kingdom of heaven in its present dispensation -- " things new" (besides David's reign of Christ over the Jews).
Our Lord (as the prophet of Israel, and the kingdom which now reached out to the world) takes two positions in these parables, or rather, string of prophecies, which are the two parts of prophecy filled up in Him in whom every office was fulfilled. The church in order required no prophecy,+ nor Israel either. In disorder, the prophetic testimony had two offices: the testimony of that disorder, and the method of God's purposes as paramount to human disorder -- judgment against the one, and the method of God's plan of grace, the purposes of God in their moral character and wisdom of counsel. Both are assumed or recognised by the Spirit, as exhibited by our Lord in this chapter. The first we have exhibited in the great prophetic mission of Isaiah (chapter 6), where the seeing the full revealed glory of Jehovah necessarily involves those not seeing that glory, now it was revealed, in the consequences of judicial blindness. This was fulfilled in our Lord. There was the full glory of Jehovah and the Spirit of revelation, and the word, therefore, of judicial blindness applied directly; and He speaks this to them in parables. A comparison of the language both of Ezekiel and Zechariah will much confirm this observation: "Then shalt thou know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee," Zechariah 2: 11. "In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him that is escaped," Ezekiel 24: 27. This prophetic character is attached to the parables in verse 13. The other prophetic character is opening out to the remnant, by these very riddles, the mysteries of the kingdom, understood when the Spirit has revealed Christ, according to the measure of that revelation, "Unto you it is given to know." This declared in Psalm 78 is adverted to in verse 35. Note here, the Lord acts on the measure of blindness, in judgment, as on the measure of light in giving more -- a very awful consideration, yet sure.
+By this is not meant prophecy in the sense of edification and comfort, of course.
Thus we see the character of the whole chapter -- to wit, Christ's prophetic testimony upon the rejection of His word by the Jews: the order of the divine kingdom during the absence of the Son of man consequent upon His rejection, and the assumption of His own throne, the ministration of power in the hands of the Son of man, with the closing scene of that order, the assumption of the righteous into the Father's kingdom in the brightness "of the sun" (i.e., Christ Himself); the purging of the Son of man's kingdom, the field in which the tares were; the declaration of the intrinsic excellence and value with the beauty of the kingdom [the gathering of the good first into vessels], and the judgment of the visible church, the net-full gathered out of the sea.
I would now follow, a little, the order of the parables or prophetic declarations themselves. The first, I have observed, is no similitude of the kingdom at all, but the sowing of the seed, by which its ministration was carried into effect: a general parable, the general instrument, and therefore stated previously to the judicial blindness of the Jews, and not made a similitude of the kingdom of heaven, but the word of the kingdom, the details of the operation or hindrance of which are most blessedly and beautifully marked. The following six parables are similitudes of the kingdom of heaven, but there is a marked distinction in them. The explanation of the first of the six and the last three of these parables are addressed to the disciples alone; the former three being addressed to them and the multitude at large. The first three contain the ostensible position and result of the kingdom in the world, of which men might be more or less cognizant, or which might be addressed to them. The latter three, and their explanation, are either the result in full development, the result in God's hands, or the intrinsic character and value of the kingdom work, as in the mind of the Spirit developing the mind of the Lord. This was addressed to the disciples especially. Farther, I would remark, as the first three are the kingdom as seen in the world, and the last three as known in the mind of God, so is the contrast between them more definite still. The first is the sowing abroad in the world, the last is the separative process of the actual net-full (the quantum gathered out of the sea) now dragged to shore. The two intermediate ones of the first three are, one, the external organisation by which the kingdom grows up into the world; the other, the diffusion of doctrine through the mass, which the Lord characterises as leaven, the import of which is given elsewhere. The two intermediate ones of the latter three are, the first, the value of the hidden treasure in the field, the real glory of the Church, as known by the mind and discovery of the Lord, though not now brought out, for which He was content to buy the field -- to take the world in its present worthless condition. The application of this is most important. The second is the moral beauty of its grace in the eye of God, meeting the mind of the merchantman seeking goodly pearls, the estimate of the grace in the church by Christ, and the spirit of Christ. I believe, also, the first of the former two answers to, or is the contrast of, the first of the latter two, and the latter of the latter. The last parable manifestly discloses the judicial process on the body gathered to shore [by the separation of the good, and subsequent judgment], a question quite distinct from His judgment of the world.
I have now, I believe, distinctly traced the order and structure of the parables. An attempt at their interpretation remains. I shall only remark on those which are the likeness of the kingdom of heaven, and only by way of heads. Of the first, we have our Lord's own interpretation, in which I have only to direct the attention to the simple force of the terms upon which the Spirit of God must throw His light for our understanding "this word of the kingdom." We have seen, generally, that the first three are the position or character of the kingdom in the world. So we have here, "the field is the world," and nothing else; nor does the judicial process refer to the judgment of even the nominal church, that is subsequently in the last parable. Christ sowed the good seed of the kingdom in the world; and the devil, with craft, sowed tares there amongst it, while men slept, "perverse men" "ordained to this condemnation." The power of extermination was not given (to wit, out of the world) to the church, the servants of the householder: they must "both grow together until the harvest." It was no service to Christ, then, to kill a heretic; the rude hand of a servant might destroy a saint, in attempting the purity of the crop, by that which was reserved for other hands. The ripening of both was the present process, ripened together in the world. The church would never become a system to purify or set right the world. The providential power of God in the ministration of the Son by His angels,+ would clear out of His kingdom in bundles, into the field, in the world, the tares to be burned; and thereupon the righteous would shine forth as the sun, not in the kingdom of the Son, not in the kingdom of the Son of man, but in the kingdom of the Father. In a word, we have the clearing of the world, the field, by providential interposition, by a judicial process in the hands of the Son of man, sending His angels. The righteous of the kingdom, i.e., those who had been righteous while the world was evil, shall be as the sun. We know who "the Sun of righteousness" is, and "when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is"; but it is in the kingdom of their Father. What followed in the kingdom of the Son of man we know not hence, only that He gathered all that offend out of it, and that the earthly "kingdom of our Lord and his Christ was come"; but this was not the subject of a similitude of the kingdom of heaven. This mixed and ambiguous system was closed, or rather accomplished, in the separation of the Father's kingdom of glory (the righteous, as the Sun of righteousness, being together in it, to the praise of the glory of His grace by what is past, and of His glory then: compare Ephesians 1: 6-12) and the kingdom of the Son of man now purged judicially, the earthly kingdom being now brought in, of which we know, from other sources, the Jews to be the imperial power in Christ. The second parable I have already spoken of as the external organization in the world, of the power and influence of the kingdom according to the hierarchical form it took in man's hand. The attentive reader of Scripture must be most familiar with the symbol of a tree as denoting external protective power and eminence, as in Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, and many others, making the analogy most definite. This, then, was the worldly power of the system. Now when the kingdom of the Son of man comes in, there may be something analogous, though not tantamount to this; but such++ a system must be a system of sovereign righteousness, forbidden by the previous parable to the church, or it will be an association or system of evil. The third is the spreading of nominal doctrine to whatever measured extent God had assigned or appointed. So also in another system this might have another character, but it cannot be recognised in grace properly here, for the whole is leavened, a thing again expressly negatived, as a fact in grace, in the first parable. The explanation to the disciples of the first we have spoken of as fully as our limits allow us here. Of the fourth, it is evidently the purchase by Christ of the world, for the sake of the treasure, the church, the treasure of God hidden in it to be brought out in due time. The fifth is the positive discriminated beauty and excellency of the church as ordained and set by God, and which the Spirit of Christ, the anointed One, recognises and sees in its beauty, so as to "love the church and give himself for it," as seen in the mind of God's love. In proportion as we have the mind of Christ, we shall of course enter into the mind of Him who is the head of the kingdom, whose Spirit is thus described, fulfilled in Him perfectly. In the last, we have evidence of the result, that the nominal church shall not gather in the world. There were many fishes in the sea, the mass of the unheeded world pursuing their own ways, not drawn into the net; but the net was filled, and there was gathered of every+++ kind out of the sea, and there was also of bad and good. "The fulness of the Gentiles was come in," and being full it was drawn to shore; and the judgment of the church commenced [by the separation of the good], and the bad are cast away. The details of these parables I do not enter into further here.
+Formally, that is, in the actual assumption of acquired power as man, I believe the angels became the servants of the Son of man when He had overcome Satan -- as ministers of the Jewish position of which He had become the redeeming Head -- as the agents of God's providential power in the world, which was now shewn to be in His hand, because He had vanquished (in obedience and faithfulness) the prince of it. We read, accordingly, in Matthew, this gospel of dispensation, "Then the devil leaveth him, and behold angels came and ministered unto him." So we find in that marvellous passage in Luke 22, "And there appeared unto him an angel from heaven, strengthening him."
++The power over evil in the world being forbidden to the church, its having power in the world necessarily involves it in the recognition or allowance of evil.
+++"To take out of them (the Gentiles) a people for his name," Acts 15: 14.
I state synoptically what has been followed out as the subject arose. The kingdom of heaven we have as a state of things during the period when the Son is sitting on the Father's throne. During this period the children are in the Son's, but heirs of the Father's kingdom -- a period during which the world is not ordered according to the righteous judicial power of the Son of man's kingdom -- the interval between the rejection of the Son of man upon earth and His reigning upon earth, in which the saints are sustained by the Spirit, in the midst of the world, by the Spirit sent of the Son by the Father, the witness of His exaltation there. Of this state of things, this chapter is the full prophetic announcement. The external character which it assumes in the world being depicted in the first three; the real blessing and value and the judgment of its results, its internal character in God's sight, in the last three of the six parables. It closes in the setting up of the Son of man's kingdom upon earth, and the assumption of the righteous, during its continuance, to the Father's kingdom in the heavenlies. The first parable is the word of the kingdom. The expositions and internal view of the church or kingdom are given to the disciples; the judicial blindness of the Jews is declared, and the special privilege of the saints; and the parables are spoken distinctively as the "utterance of things hidden from the world," which the Spirit reveals to those "who have ears to hear."
The blessing of Abram, by Melchisedec, runs thus -- "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand.
It is familiar to every reader, that the apostle uses Melchisedec as the type of Christ, according to the word of the oath: "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec."
We would say a few words on this Melchisedec priesthood of Christ, its extent and blessing. And first, it is not that which Christ the Lord now exercises. Not that He is not a priest after that order -- we know fully that He is, by the epistle to the Hebrews, and from Psalm 110, and that He is not of any other. But the exercise of His priesthood is according to the typical character of Aaron's on the day of atonement, as the same epistle shews. The whole of the present order of things answers to the day of atonement -- is typified by it. The High Priest is gone within the veil, with the blood of the sacrifice -- even of Himself -- His own blood. So there, as yet, He is, whom the heavens must receive till the time of the restoration of all things, which God hath promised by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. This, then, is the time during which the Lord, though a priest after the order of Melchisedec, after the power of an endless life, made with an oath for ever (eis to dienekes+), in perpetuity, a continuous, not a successional priesthood; yet exercises it practically for us according to the type, though not according to the order of Aaron, as within the veil, on the great day of atonement.
Accordingly the apostle, after declaring the order of His priesthood, enters upon and dwells exclusively in detail upon the Aaronic priesthood, as characteristic of that which the Lord Christ now exercises. He shews that He exercises it, anti-typically, within the veil, the priesthood being, in its exercise, now one entirely of a heavenly character. He is gone within, not the typical veil, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. The blood is not of bulls and goats, with which the patterns of things in the heavens were purified, but His own blood -- those better sacrifices by which the heavenly things themselves could be purified. The very glory with which Jesus is said to be crowned is spoken of in the words in which the consecration garments of Aaron, and his sons after him, are described in Exodus. (Compare Hebrews 2: 7 and Exodus 28: 2, in LXX, where the words are literally "for honour and glory.") The whole of chapters 8 and 9 shew the present exercise of the Lord Christ's priesthood to be after the Aaronical pattern, though He be in no sort after the Aaronical order. It is the very reasoning and subject of the epistle; and in chapter 9 the analogy is entered into in detail, so as to enable us to apply the details of the priestly services of the Levitical order to our present condition; as, however imperfectly, is commonly known in the Christian church.
+See note to Hebrews 5: 6 in New Translation of New Testament.
It is manifest, then, that the type of Melchisedec here presented to us, as indicative of the priesthood of Christ, in its exercise leads us to further results and wider exhibition than that in which He now so graciously, and blessedly for us, secures the life, and blessing, and salvation of His people in heavenly places; Himself far above all heavens, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having by Himself purged our sins. The priesthood of Christ is clearly after the order of Melchisedec, and solely so; its exercise now is as clearly after the type of the order of Aaron solely; and that as exhibited on the great day of atonement within the veil. Not but that there is a great deal revealed now as to Aaronic types, which could not be seen in the type itself, which was a shadow, not the very image, the veil is now rent behind Him, and we are enabled to follow Him within, and see where He is set down, to our comfort and everlasting joy. But there is a glory besides, not yet fulfilled; a glory of its own character, a glory properly Christ's, and taught us in this type of Melchisedec, the exercise of which we find yet to come; and all that develops Christ's glory is precious to the saints. It is the Lord's glory, the glory of the Son of the Father, His own glory, too, as well as the Lord's glory. On this I would speak a little.
The priesthood of Melchisedec is, then, that royal dominion of priesthood in which, as representing the Most High God, and speaking also for man to Him in returns of praise, Christ blesses from Him (as now in His possession) heaven and the uttermost parts of the earth, through and in the seed of God. We find even in the case of Nebuchadnezzar (the first great type of earthly and Gentile dominion but opening out its corruption), his greatness reached unto heaven, and his dominion to the end of the earth; and this is put in such a strong light, that, as far as earth goes, the Adamic dominion is (Daniel 2: 38) in a remarkable manner attributed to him. He may have been guilty, and the first exhibition of Gentile apostate dominion; still this characteristic of universal dominion is attached to him. He was the man (in whatever pride of character he filled it) set in power. The mystery of his non-acknowledgment of God in it was to be brought out in him; and the seven times of a beast's heart in this selfish and proud dominion. It was the man of the earth, not the Lord from heaven acting as man in the power of righteousness; the king of Babylon, not the Son of David, not the Lord from heaven ruling in Jerusalem as witnessing the true God. But it was a dominion given, and typically exhibiting this dominion over the earth, though to illustrate its abuse in man's hand (hence the seed of God, even brought into captivity, not blessed as in power or deliverers); a dominion given in connection with that age (aion), in which administrative power was put into the hand of man, in the commission to kill whoever killed, which was given to Noah. The other characteristic of the evil and apostasy of it was the setting up a false god -- an image. But the result was that God was owned by the king "the Most High God": God is acknowledged in this character. The seven times' punishment comes, till he knows that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will. Thus much for all short of dominion in heaven (though his greatness reaches to that), all earthly dominion.
But there is another portion of the divine inheritance corrupted and debased, the scene of power, however, and blessing. His greatness reached to the heavens; but what do the revelations of God shew us to be in the heavenlies?" The saints of the Most High (that is, of the heavenlies -- Hebrews elionin)+ shall take the kingdom." But we find that we are wrestling with principalities and powers, with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies (Ephesians 6: 12); that is, power apostate from God, holding the earth; exceeding great power, and spiritual wickedness, principalities and powers, holding the heavenlies: the earth, and the heavenlies alike, possessed by evil in present power. We find the saints of the heavenlies (Daniel 7: 18) taking the kingdom, and the people of the saints of the high places or heavenlies given the kingdom, and dominion, and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven (verse 27). In this it is that God has His title, as may be seen in Daniel, of Most High (the second word Most High in verse 25 being different in the original from the first given above), that Most High whom Nebuchadnezzar was obliged and made willing to acknowledge. Thus the earthlies and heavenlies will, as regards government in association with God, be set in blessing under the name of the Most High.
+The Chaldee plural of Elion.
But we have more definite statements on the subject. In the day of the full glory of the Lamb, there shall be one Lord, and His name One; the God of the whole earth shall He be called. In that day shall Jerusalem be called the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered to it. And the Son of man appearing in His glory, King of the Jews, even Jesus of Nazareth, shall be on the throne, and not on the cross; and not in Hebrew, nor in Greek and Latin only; but in every language of power which despised Him, shall men join in owning the inscription of the Lord of glory, even Jesus of Nazareth, "This is the King of the Jews," when the earthly kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is come. This is not, indeed, the limit of His glory, though it be much to have destroyed them that destroyed the earth, and fill it with blessing, the mountain of the Lord's house being established in the top of the mountains, with especial blessing to the seed of God, under His righteous reign. All power is given to Him in heaven; and thus we find the blessing identified with the Person and heavenly presence of Jesus. Accordingly we find in the promise, the purpose of His will in the Ephesians, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, "He should gather together in one all things in Christ; both which are in heaven and which are upon the earth." Now the mystery which belongs to us is not merely that we should have the sure mercies of David by virtue of His resurrection. This will be made sure to the Jews (Acts 13: 32-34), in the day when He shall see them, even the believing remnant, and He shall sit upon the throne of David His father, and reign over the house of Jacob for ever, all nations serving Him, and the nation and kingdom which will not serve Jerusalem shall perish, yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. But Jerusalem shall be called the city of the Lord; the Zion of the Holy One of Israel shall be an eternal excellency; its sun no more go down, but the Gentiles come to the brightness of its rising. This will be the portion of the despised ones, in all whose affliction He has been afflicted, over whose apostasy and rejection of Himself He could but weep. Those tears are not shed in vain, but mark a reaping in joy, when the joy shall be as the joy in harvest and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
But we have a yet better portion, not blessings, great as they are, secured in His resurrection, but to be raised together with Him, and to sit with Him in heavenly places. "He hath blessed us in heavenly places"; and the very purpose of that epistle to the Ephesians is to shew that, made sons with Him, we are to be with Him in heavenly places, the body of Him, the Head to the Church over all things. We have not merely the fruits, but the working towards ourselves of that exceeding great power, which was wrought in Him, when "God raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." (See Ephesians 1: 19; chapter 2: 7.) But we look at this only in government now in connection with the throne of Melchisedec.
Thus when He gathers together in one all things in Christ we find, under the blessing of His throne, the Jews in the earthlies the centre of blessing, and all nations blessed in them through Him (see Acts 3: 25), and the saints in the heavenlies, sitting there as raised with Christ, and having overcome through grace, sitting down in His throne, as He overcame and sat down in His Father's throne; and thus witnesses together of the universal dominion of Him, to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth, at once Son of God and Son of man; Lord over all, as well as God over all, blessed for evermore. But there is another character (for what of blessing does He not fill?) which we find the Lord here shewing forth. He is a Priest upon His throne (Zechariah 6); and here we have the real full exercise of the Melchisedec priesthood. And now see how all the things referred to are brought together in it. We speak of Christ as Priest after the order of Melchisedec, in the day of His power on His throne. He had sat on His Father's till His foes were made His footstool, but now -- gathering all things in heaven and on earth into one -- He sits on His own throne.
That dreadful evil had come in, that Satan, sitting in heavenly places, had made the poor inhabitants of earth worship demons, gods many and lords many. And earthly power was associated with false worship and apostasy, as we see typified in the great image set up by Nebuchadnezzar, in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Hence misery, also persecution and degradation of the children of God. The corrupter and murderer being in heavenly places, corruption was the portion of his subjects, death of those who were not so exempt. Now that which was specifically opposed to this was this title of the Most High God; so Nebuchadnezzar is bound down to confess the Most High God. And this name we find in the passage we are considering: "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God." Now this remarkably concurs with what we find connected with the call of Abram: "Your fathers," says Joshua (chapter 24), "served other gods beyond the flood." The call of Abraham, therefore, was not the judgment upon unrighteousness against God alone known and owned, but the call and witness of the Most High God. When the perverseness of man made gods many, and lords many, He was then the Most High God. We have seen, further, the heavenlies and the earthlies are united in one, in Christ; whose is all power in heaven and earth; and here, accordingly, Abraham is blessed of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth; and as the title of the Most High God is given here, and witnessed in the priesthood of Melchisedec, who was priest of the Most High God, so also shall the blessing run in this full and unhindered channel, Possessor of heaven and earth. O what blessing in that day when there shall not be principalities and powers in heavenly places to taint the very source of blessing in powers above: no scene of deceived corruption below to make evil what God had made good; nor spirit of rebellion to bring the curse of opposition to God, the God of blessing, upon the wearied corrupters of their own mercy; but one whose it is, Possessor of heaven and earth, when the Lord shall hear the heavens, and the heavens shall hear the earth standing in the priesthood, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and the corn and the oil shall hear Jezreel. O what blessing when the Most High takes (ever His in title) possession of heaven and earth, and our High Priest is His High Priest.
Thus we have total exclusion of all other gods but one, the only One; the world or heaven above knowing none but One; no creature above or on the earth taken to be a god but the Most High God, known as the Possessor of heaven and earth. What rest in that! what rest and security! while Satan has the power, while those hold the possession subject to his power, sorrow, discord, and death are the sad and unwelcome companions of man's voyage; he is seduced to every folly, he is but as the convict in the ship -- its guidance and its power are in other hands. Now the Most High is Possessor, and where shall be the tempter then? Not in heaven: the Most High possesses that; not on earth: the Most High reaches in His possession to that; and the very ends of the earth shall feel the blessing of His pervading comprehensive blessedness. But this Melchisedec, though priest of the Most High God, had other characters. He was King of righteousness (comp. Isaiah 32); for where righteousness is, there is blessing. He was king of Salem, which is king of Peace; for the fruit of righteousness is peace; the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. The Melchisedec priesthood is the security of the blessings of these from the Most High God; the union of heaven and earth under Him, and the mutual blessing of both known in Him, and the common recognition of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth.
But we have also to look at the object of this blessing -- Abram. Now, naturally, Abram is the father of the natural seed -- "I know that ye are Abraham's seed," saith the Lord to the Jews. Here then he stood the father of Israel (and in them of the blessing of many nations), blessed from the fulness of the Most High God, by the King of Peace and of righteousness; the representative of the natural seed of Israel, blessed from on high, in the earthlies, with all the fulness of blessings from God Most High, possessor, etc. But Abraham stood, however, as we know, also as representative of the seed which inherit the heavenlies -- Christ and ourselves. "If ye are Christ's, ye are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise"; "and they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." And thus (though by subsequent development, for it was hidden as yet) he stood as the representative of the heavenly seed also, and the blessing of the Most High found its actual scope, as He was possessor of the heavens, those who were in Jesus, having their place there, as well as of the earth, all being gathered together in one in Him. Thus, in the title of God -- in the priest himself -- in the object of the blessing, we find the great character of universality according to the mystery of His will (His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself), "that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He should gather together in one, all things in Christ": the Jews, being the objects and channels of earthly blessing; and we, sitting in heavenly blessings, priests with Him, ministers of all blessings, and kings withal.
In the character of the priesthood, as exercised in the passage before us, we see the plain distinction from the Aaronical priesthood. That priesthood was a priesthood of intercession -- "He ever liveth to make intercession for us," the saints of God, in our weakness: here is the constant object of His sure and never-failing care and intercession. He has appeared in the presence of God for us; and, I will add, the people of God (I mean the Jews), though under the cloud of His rejection, still waiting till the great High Priest shall come forth, the witness of the acceptance of the blood of the atonement, carried within the veil; and remaining a people blinded indeed, but sustained outwardly as the people of God, by virtue of that service of intercession, till He shall come forth and bless them in the name of the Lord. We know that He has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; we can see through the rent veil into the holiest of all, and see our Jesus there; and still, though longing and waiting for the time of His appearing, are content, because we know that Jesus is glorified, and His glory sure, waiting only till His enemies be made His footstool, and that the long-suffering of God is salvation, that He delays because He is yet waiting to be gracious and calling sinners, and that He will surely come -- He will not tarry.
But the priestly act of Melchisedec was blessing, not intercession; blessing from the Most High God. Here, then, is the exercise of the priesthood in its Melchisedec character -- the King of righteousness and peace blessing the seed of God's acceptance, a blessed refreshing thought; evil removed, and blessing flowing out through the great High Priest, the Priest of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth, unhindered. How do our hearts long for that day, the coming forth of Him our souls long for yet know, the universal blessing from the Most High God of heaven and earth. What a word shall be pronounced in that day! how shall heaven and earth ring with the welcome witness of the blessing of the heavenly; the earthly seed be unfettered in its praise; the bondage of corruption gone from the creature, whose rejoicing, though God was ever good and shewed His goodness in it, was restrained till the heirs of the inheritance of God, joint-heirs with Jesus, were manifested to be sons of God. For, lest a cloud should rest on the brow of the heirs of God's inheritance -- the church of the firstborn, the creation in bondage through them must wait for their manifestation for its happiness -- must be dependent on their deliverance for its joy, as suffering through their fault. For neither is the blessing of Abraham thus widely spread, the only thing; but honour redounds and praise on high: "Blessed be the Most High God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand." This blessing is after the full destruction of the enemies of the people of God, after the victory over the gathered kings and great ones of the earth, "the hosts of the high ones also [that are] on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth"; for there is one Most High, who is possessor of both, and one King Melchisedec, King of Salem, where praise waits for the God of all the earth. Thus is the echo above and below in that centre of both -- one in Him; one with the Father, the Most High God; and who Himself took on Him Abraham's seed, now come forth in His kingly glory to bless us from God Most High, and God from us -- the Man of blessing, the Blessing Man, the Lord Most High.
But we remark in interpretation most definitely, in connection with all we have said, that it is blessing and refreshment after, and consequent upon, the destruction of all the enemies of those who are represented by Abraham, bringing down and destroying those who destroy the earth by the Lord's power, Himself the servant to refresh. All victory is but in some sort weariness, for victory, if a time of joy, is a time of weariness: if we had none to meet after it, it would be the sorrowful consciousness of destruction, needed, perhaps, for deliverance, but destruction still, God's strange work. But it is not so with the delivered there, nor with us, but in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps, joy of deliverance. And who shall be there to refresh? Even that One who cometh forth to bless. He brings forth bread and wine, the bread of Salem where the King dwelt, but now the servant of the victors, to give the joy of deliverance, and the refreshing of love; the wine of the kingdom drunk new, great deliverance to their parched lips, that they may open in refreshment, and praise, and speak, and think of Him, how great soever, who brought it forth, their Melchisedec making them to sit down to meat, and as he that taketh the yoke from off the neck; the servant of that blessing always, though beyond controversy the less is blessed of the greater.
Thus then we have in this little sentence the accomplished character of the Most High God, over, and as to, all things in heaven and earth, the one true God, known in blessing, universal blessing, and the unity of all things in Christ; the centre of all this blessing, the benediction priesthood of Melchisedec, the blessing by Him of the redeemed of God. This consequent upon the victory of these, over all their confederate enemies, and the deliverance of every captive; and they all made partakers of the food and wine of the kingdom, brought forth for their joy, and His own rest and delight, by the King of Salem, of righteousness and peace, ministering blessing from the Most High to them, offering it up for them to the Most High. The victory over, the refreshment, as the joy of it from the blessed source, the blessing from His own mouth, the blessing from the Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, proved so in His redeemed, to whom He gives the joy and inheritance, the habitation of both.
May the blessing of Melchisedec, of Christ, the Lord, the King, dwell on our spirits; may we see it in spirit, and may it, in type, be our joyful portion now that He is the servant of intercession for us. He is Head, the witness, and the leader of all our praise, in the ages of the fulness of blessing (even when God shall be all in all), as now in the poor congregation of His saints. How imperfectly all the joy of this could be declared, our own enjoyment of it must most surely tell. May the Spirit of our God teach a more skilful tune to those who may take the lesson into their hands, because the chord struck unskilfully has awakened the thoughts of praise in their hearts; and after all, our dying notes here are but poor witnesses to that new song which we shall sing in abiding notes of praise. And may the sweetness of the instrument itself strike some heart as yet untuned. To hear or know how sweet is the melody of heaven, of Jesus' praise, they and we have yet to learn, in the hope and glory of the blessing which rests not only on His head, but is in His heart toward the redeemed of God in full creation, for we are called to inherit a blessing. We have a better portion than reigning -- our calling to be with Him: still His reign will be the source of sweet and rich blessings to a delivered earth; Revelation 11: 15.
Dear brother in the Lord, -- I have received the little tract you sent me; many occupations have delayed me, but I reply to it at length.
To one well acquainted with the gathering together in one all things "both which are in heaven, and which are on earth," in Christ, this short paper will not present any difficulty. Indeed, it proves little more than most tracts or books written by others with the same view; and that is, the unacquaintedness of the writer with the subject; but as many scriptures are referred to, it may be well, as regards those who are not so acquainted, to refer to them. As to the zeal for the offices of Christ, I have only to say, that acknowledging and blessing Him for all His offices, we simply seek to see what Scripture teaches us of the exercise of them, and we think from Scripture that our brethren have made mistakes concerning them.
The first two propositions -- though the first might mislead -- I should have no difficulty in admitting: so little is the writer aware of the point between us. The third is direct mis-statement of the fact as to Scripture, which we shall see at once when we examine the texts.
Christ, we own, is King. We own Him as our Priest; but the place of the exercise of His priesthood is in the presence of God in heaven; so that, while the Jewish system was permitted to continue, He could not be a priest there. "If he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law." Did Paul deny the priesthood of Christ in saying this? He was proving it, and shewing the place and manner of its exercise. Again, Christ, the anointed Man, is King; but the world and the Jews are the kingdom given to Him. But while we admit His title from the beginning, He was born King of the Jews, and to Him were the Gentiles to come. We read, at a given time, "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ." Mr. Stronach surely will not say that this time is come yet. If any enquirer will turn to Daniel 7, he will see "one like the Son of man" brought before the "Ancient of days," and a kingdom "given to him": the Ancient of days having judged and consumed the beast. We-believe, when the Son of man takes the kingdom, He will suffer no evil at all; that until He does so, He works by His Spirit in the hearts of His people, teaching and strengthening them to shew the life and patience of Christ in the midst of the evil, and forming them for a better and a happier world: as to this world, they are in the kingdom and patience, not the kingdom and power, of Jesus Christ. A time is coming when they will have to say, "We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come," Revelation 11: 17. Does any one suppose that God then first had great power? The mention of it shews the folly of such a thought; but He took it, and reigned, and wrath came. He had, for a long time, held His peace; now He arose. Christ is Lord, Head, Bridegroom of the church; but the scripture speaks of Him as King of the world (as before, and also in futurity, of the Jewish nation). As God, every real Christian owns Him, as Jehovah, King of eternity. But the writer must know that this is not the question, but of office, of a kingdom taken as Son of man -- a given kingdom, a kingdom to be delivered up.
+Dublin, 1835.
And now as to the texts, Psalm 2: 1-7, it is said, has received its accomplishment. Acts 4: 25-28; chapter 13: 32, 33. As to the former passage, the Psalm is quoted for nothing but the raging of the kings and rulers against Christ; as to the latter, simply that the promise made to the fathers was fulfilled in raising up Jesus,+ to which he applies the passage in the Psalm, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." The setting Him King in Zion is, in neither case, at all referred to. Does Mr. S. mean to say that the quotation of one part of a passage proves the accomplishment of the whole? If so, he must say, that the "uttermost parts of the earth" are now the possession of Christ, that He has broken them "with a rod of iron, and dashed them in pieces like a potter's vessel." He knows that this is not the case. If he says, He has it in title and He will yet accomplish it, I answer, precisely so; and when He is King in Zion, He will then by His power take possession of all the earth, and break down, even as with a rod of iron, all the power and wickedness that is opposed to Him. This reference, therefore, proves nothing to the purpose.
+Raising up, however, does not apply to the resurrection, but to raising Him up as a deliverer. What follows in the passage goes on to speak of the resurrection.
The next is Acts 2: 30-36. In this, again, there is not one word about Christ's being made King; so that the writer is obliged to add to, or rather change, the passage to make it answer. The point proved is first the resurrection;+ secondly, the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, and the house of Israel were to know that He was made Lord and Christ. The question of the kingdom, though this proved His title, was left in total abeyance. As to Israel's being typical of the Israel of God (though I think it no type, and a very imperfect analogy, and do not believe the Israel of God to mean the church, but the believing portion among Israel in the days of the Apostle), it is sufficient to say, that there is not a word in one of the passages about the kingship of Christ over the church at all.
Matthew 28: 18. The only answer is, nobody (i.e. no believer) can question it. The only question is, is He exercising it in every way? Clearly not: for example, judgment. This, we know, is reserved to an appointed day, yet it is the very witness of Christ's power; so, that though He has confessedly "all power," the manifestation of it is not yet made in every way. "The apostle Paul," we are told, "declares, that Jesus is crowned king"; where? Hebrews 2:9 -- not a word about it. It so happens that the words here, "glory" and "honour," are the words used in the Septuagint about the garments of priesthood; at any rate, there is nothing about being king. In Ephesians 1: 20-23, nothing still about king; and further, it shews the mistake of the writer as to the position in which Christ is here shewn to stand. He is Head, the church is His body -- Head thus to the church, not over it, but over all things. It describes here, not His lordship over, but His union with, the church, and over all things with it, as His body. That Christ died, and rose, and revived, that He might be the Lord of the dead and living, is quite true; but what about His being King, or how King of the dead? He will shew Himself their Lord in calling them before Him, raising them; but while the resurrection shewed Him Lord of the dead and living, it has surely nothing to do with the present character of the exercise of the power to which He is entitled. As we have said, this will be shewn as to the dead in resurrection; but this is not shewn yet, though we know He has it, nor in the same manner His just royal power; 1 Corinthians 15: 25. That Christ, as sitting upon the Father's throne, exercises all power, no one denies; but the exercise of His dominion as Son of man in given title over the world, is the very thing here proved -- this must be subjected also. These are all the passages quoted.
+See preceding note.
The conclusion is in no way the scriptural mind of God. Who told the writer that there would be succeeding ages of this world's history? We have not so learned to say, "Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly!" "Our Lord shall exercise undisputedly." This is exactly what He does not do now in the church; for we wrestle with principalities and powers, "against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," Ephesians 6: 12. If the exercise be far more extensive than at present, it is clear, in some sort, there is a power which He has not taken. This is the thing we assert from Scripture: the question is, what is the manner of it? The writer, if he says anything, must say, Christ can exercise His power in no other way than He does now. We think He can, and we think the Scriptures say He will; for example, "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel," Psalm 2: 9. We do not think that this is the gentle influence of His Spirit in the hearts of His people, by which, according to the notion of the writer, He is King in Zion. These nations are not Zion at all, and the exercise of the power is quite a different thing yet to come. When Mr. S. says, "Christ will still continue seated where He now is" -- if he mean that the Man, Christ Jesus, shall never leave His place in heaven, it is clean contrary to Scripture, and a denial of the faith; for we read, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven," Acts 1: 11. And again, "Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus ... whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," Acts 3: 19-21. When the times of refreshing come, then Jesus is sent, the heavens receiving Him till then. Not so those who deny His return, and look for the times of refreshing to come, without Jesus being sent at all. This, though the universal testimony of Scripture by all the holy prophets, the unbelieving church now rejects and denies. We believe that the heavens will receive Him till a time, which time is a time of refreshing -- not the final judgment of the dead and sending them to the lake of eternal fire.
With the second head, I have only to say, I entirely agree. On the proofs of it, I remark the times of refreshing which were to come (Acts 3: 21) on the repentance of the Jews, clearly are not the judgment of the dead, which yet, Mr. S. acknowledges, comes on the entire close of the dispensation, "when we all ... are come." And, further, the mediatorship of blessing does not cease when the mediatorship of intercession does. Aaron, in the holy place, is the type of one -- Melchisedec, coming forth to bless Abraham, of the other.
Now, as to the quotations under the third head, that the resurrection of all the dead is invariably represented in Scripture as taking place at the same time, I have only to say, it is an entire mis-statement; John 5: 28, 29. Here I see, on the contrary, there is a resurrection to life spoken of, and a resurrection to judgment, shewing they are distinct things; if the word "hour" be spoken of, reference to verse 25 will shew that the same word can be applied to the time of Christ's work in the flesh, and also, the time of His work when exalted, which last part has already lasted eighteen hundred years. This text proves, not that there is one resurrection, but two -- a resurrection to life and a resurrection to judgment.
In Daniel 12: 2, it is written, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." This is a strange text to prove that all rise at once. But I do not believe that it applies to the literal resurrection of the dead at all, but to the gathering of the scattered Jews from their hiding places, some of whom will, after all, be unbelieving: at any rate, there is no word of all being raised.
Acts 24: 15. That there will be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust, all admit; the question is, will they take place together? Of this the passage says nothing. John 6 and 1 Corinthians 15 speak solely of the resurrection of the righteous, and prove, of course, nothing of the simultaneous resurrection spoken of the wicked: they rather shew, that the resurrection of the godly, believers, is a distinctive privilege. If the verses (John 6: 39, 40, 44,54) be referred to, it will be plainly seen to be the believer's privilege: how so, if it be a common resurrection of all? It is clear, however, that none but believers are spoken of, and that it is their privilege as such. If the verses of 1 Corinthians 15: 51-54 be read, or indeed the whole passage, it will be plain that none but blessed saints are spoken of at all, as is distinctly expressed in verse 23, "Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming; then cometh the end." Surely this does not represent all rising at the same time. As to Revelation 20: 11 to end, I do not see how those of whom we have previously read -- "they lived and reigned" -- could be called the dead, specially when it is said, "The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished."
The passage in 1 Corinthians 15: 23, 24, is very plain. There are three steps: first, Christ; then (with a lapse of, we know, at least eighteen hundred years) "they that are Christ's at his coming"; then (with -- how long interval is not said more than before, from other places we read of -- one thousand years and a little space more) cometh the end. So that there is Christ; and then Christ appearing, and they that are Christ's raised; then the end, and the kingdom delivered up. This is very simple and clear.
Matthew 25: 31 to the end. How is this shewn to apply to resurrection at all? I do not see that it does. Where is anything spoken of resurrection in it? The chapters seem to run in this order: chapter 24 commences with the judgment on Jerusalem and the Jewish people; then at the end, the disciples or church looked at immediately, their actual calling in particular responsibility to meet the Bridegroom, and the actual gifts -- a solemn truth, for which they were responsible in the use, 'occupying till he come'; then the Gentiles (all the nations) called before Him for the manner in which they had received the messengers of His mercy. This, so far from being a general judgment of the dead, takes in no Jews at all, but is contrasted with them -- does not include the previous judgment of the church -- does not include any dying before Christ came (for the terms of the judgment preclude this), nor any to whom the message of truth did not come -- in a word, very, very far the greatest portion of the subjects of a general judgment. It is, in a word, the judgment of all the Gentiles in that day, as He had before judged Jerusalem and the Jews. It may involve many principles, as the whole passage does, but this is its simple statement; nor is there a word about resurrection in the whole passage, but of judgment on all the Gentiles, when the Son of man sits upon the throne of His glory.
Philippians 3: 20, 21. It is hard to see how a sensible person could quote this and similar passages to prove such a proposition. Are the wicked "looking for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, and fashion it like unto his glorious body"? Or, is their "conversion in heaven"? It is the contrast of this hope, as belonging only to the heavenly-minded. The whole chapter treats of a resurrection, or emphatically, "The Resurrection," as the special and blessed hope of those who, by the power of Christ, are conformed to His death. How could the wicked be said to "attain to the resurrection"? This point is distinctly proved from Luke 20: 35: "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Thus there is, declaredly, a resurrection, which the children of God, as such, are alone accounted worthy to obtain, and on the obtaining of which they are equal to the angels.
Colossians 3: 4. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." What this has to do with the wicked being raised, too, with the saints, is beyond me.
1 John 3: 2. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." What has this to do with any but saints like Him at His appearing? What is there of the wicked being in the resurrection with the saints? They seem to treat continually of a blessing confined to the righteous, to those who suffer with Christ. These are the only passages quoted directly.
Ezekiel 37: 1-14 (which is mixed up with Romans 11: 15; Ephesians 2:5, 6; and Revelation 20 -- all passages treating of widely different subjects), I agree, is a figurative description, fully explained in the chapter itself to mean the restoration of the two houses of Israel, long buried among the heathen, made one again under David their King -- a truth, generally, as much denied by those who reject the first resurrection of the saints, as the latter revelation itself. As to Romans 11: 15, I do not think it necessary to make any comment. And Ephesians 2: 5, 6, is the statement of the association of the church with the power of that which was wrought in Christ, and though spiritual, is not figurative. It is a sad thing to call such a testimony figurative; it is the blessed identity of the church with the power of what was wrought in Christ really.
Lastly, Revelation 20 (to disprove the application of which the other passages have been quoted). The statement is simple, and the language plain. We read of God and Christ, of the devil and Satan, the first resurrection and the second death. This is not symbolical, but plain; and (what is very important to remark) it is not a state of things described, but a reward of persons. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him," said the apostle; and so, in another place, "If so be we suffer with him that we may be glorified together." "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." We do not (though figures may be used to express them) believe that the things here spoken of are figures; we do not believe, that, when the Lord said that people who suffered with Him should also reign with Him, He meant that the principles which they suffered for should prevail in persons who were reigned over, however happy they might therefore be. His suffering church is one with Himself, His body; and when He appears, we shall appear with Him. When He reigns, He will make us reign with Him. The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom. He must do it in the necessity of His own love; His word has declared it for the comfort of His people. We cannot let go His grace out of our hands; we shall be priests of God and of Christ, reigning a thousand years with Him, a Priest upon His throne, reigning upon, or rather over, the earth.
Isaiah 65 and Ezekiel 37, compared with Luke 20 and Revelation 20, Will shew the difference of the earth blessed under the saints' reign with Christ, and their reigning with Him -- the instruments of the blessing. In a word, He is to gather together in one, both things in heaven and things on earth. Luke and Revelation shew the former, being written to the church; Isaiah and Ezekiel, being written to the Jews, the heirs of the latter, shew the earthly glory and blessing which shall result from Satan being cast down (see Ephesians 6: 12, margin, and Revelation 12); and the Lord and His saints taking the place they held, and all blessing coming in consequence, as described in Hosea 2: 21, 22. We admit, from Isaiah, that there may be death among those on earth during the millennium (not, of course, among the risen saints); but it is only spoken of as being judicial. It does not appear, that I see, that the godly will die even on earth during the millennium: "as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." It would in fact be only a little prolongation in blessing, of that which was shewn to be originally more natural to man in sorrow even on the departure of creation from God -- blessing now restored, as when his days were not as the evening shadow, till well nigh the verge of as long a day as that which yet shall be but short from its blessedness in favour under the securing reign of the Lord from heaven, the second Adam.
As to the concluding paragraph generally, I never saw more terrible confusion and error resulting from confounding the kingdom taken as Son of man, and the divine majesty, which can never pass away. The kingdom spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15 is a kingdom "given up," a kingdom exercised during, as well as till, the last day, but at the end given up. Therefore, says the writer, we conclude, "that the King, the Lord of Hosts, shall fill His throne in the highest heavens till the last day." He will, surely, for ever and ever. "Till the solemn hour." Does the writer believe that the King, the Lord of Hosts, will ever give up His kingdom? This is a strange way of securing the Saviour's Person, and offices. It just shews the awful error persons are brought into, when they resist the plain testimony of Scripture -- an error which, in his thoughts concerning our blessed Master, I gladly own, I believe, the writer to be quite free from, but which his denial of the given, and afterwards surrendered kingdom, taken by the Son, and confounding it with the divine and unchangeable royalty of His Person (a conclusion also made by C.G.T., in referring to 1 Timothy 6: 13), completely involves them both in; for this connection of 1 Corinthians 15: 25, etc., with His glory as the King, the Lord of Hosts, is a direct statement that He gives the latter up, holds it only till a given time; which I believe and am sure both the writers would hold to be a blasphemy against the divine glory of the Lord Jesus, Jehovah, "God over all, blessed for evermore." If the kingly power of the Lord Jesus is simply as the King, the Lord of Hosts, and, using 1 Corinthians 15 for this, "we conclude" that He "so" fills His throne till the last day; then is it most certain that this He gives up to God, even the Father; and I trust that such a statement will awaken the writer's eyes to the truth, that there is a time when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of His glory, when He distinctly, and before the world, shall be upon His throne, as now the church knows Him to be set down on His Father's, in the rightful and glorious title of Son of God, a place where He, one with the Father, alone of all that ever were in the form of man, can, or has title to, sit in the glory which He had with Him before the world was. But there is a throne, His throne, on which, in the blessed love of His grace, they that overcome shall sit with Him according to the truth of His word. If he examine the passage in 1 Corinthians 15 a little closer, he will see that it refers to the subjecting of all things to man in resurrection (not the King, the Lord of Hosts, in title unvarying, in glory never changing -- the same, yesterday, and today, and for ever, who was and is to come, the Almighty, Jesus, our Lord).
There is only one other passage I need refer to -- John 18: 36, "My kingdom is not of this world." Does C.G.T. mean to say, that this world will not be made the kingdom of Christ? He knows this would be entirely contrary to Christian hope and faith. Then the question is its character, the source of its power. "It is not from hence": that I indeed believe. Would that other Christians would own the truth! As to how it is to be brought under His power, we must refer to other scriptures where this power, and in what way used, is sufficiently spoken of I use, as an example, C.G.T.'s reference, Psalm 2: 6 -- 12.
There is one subject more remains to be noticed -- the rejection of Christian ministry -- to which the short reply is, that we reject nothing but un-Christian ministry. I do not believe that persons appointed by the king or chosen by the people, are therefore ministers. This is the point in question. I disclaim the title of either to choose or appoint them, or of any but God. But I believe Christian ministry to be as essential to this dispensation, as the fact of Christ's coming. So far am I from setting it aside, I believe it to be essentially from God, and object to the perversion of it, or the mere will of king or people -- though both are to be respected in their place -- interfering with so holy a thing. I read that when Christ ascended up on high, "He gave some apostles, and some prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." This is the only source of ministry, not the appointment of a king, nor the choice of a people. I see it, on the one side asserted, that authorities have a right to appoint, and, on the other, that the people have a right to choose: I do not believe either. Christ gives when and how He pleases -- woe be to them who do not own it! In a little tract called "The Protestant Dissenter's Manual," it is stated, that a man has as much right to choose his own minister as his own lawyer or physician. This seems to shut out God altogether, just as much as what is objected to. If Christ has given a gift, the saint is bound to own its use, and Christ's word by it. Where is the proof of an evangelist's gift? In the converted souls which bless God through his means. The church may own and recognise them in it, but they must do so if they are spiritual, if the gift and therefore appointment, of God be there: they sin against Christ who has sent him, if they do not. The consequence of these human appointments, or choosings, has been the fixing a person who pleased the people, fit, or unfit, as the one only person in whom every gift must be concentrated, or the Church lose part of its inheritance and portion: and the whole service has been turned habitually into a preacher.
We do not object to ministry, but to the assumption of the whole of it by one individual, who may or may not be sent, and, if sent, may have one qualification, and not all. A man may be eminently qualified for an evangelist, and he is made a pastor, for which he is in no way fitted; he is qualified to teach, perhaps, but not to rule, and he is put to guide the flock. It is the substitution of a minister, good or bad, for the whole work of the ministry, of which we complain, and the dislocation of the frame of Christ's body, which is the consequence. What is the Home Mission, and the Presbyterian mission, and the like, but the effort to correct this plainly seen nuisance in the frame-work of these bodies which call themselves churches? The reason I say that ministry is essential to this dispensation, is the declaration in 2 Corinthians 5. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation"; more correctly, "and committing unto us." That is, God in Christ was doing these three things: reconciling the world, not imputing trespasses, and committing ministry. This was essentially part of the work of God manifest in the flesh, the manner in which He was revealed. Amongst the Jews it was not so. They were a people formed by birth, and a certain code of laws was prescribed to them as such. But when God was in Christ, being a reconciling God, a ministry was necessarily the way of fulfilling this very purpose; it was the distinctive character of the dispensation, essentially characteristic of it. The grace of this may be amazingly concentrated, as it was in the apostle: it is habitually distributed in various competencies of service. These are for use, and the church is bound to own them, or it denies Christ's title in committing them, which is as real and essential to Him as the power in which He was reconciling,+ and could forgive, and not impute trespasses: any one who is reconciled is competent to state, and bound, as far as able, to state Christ's glory as the Reconciler to them who are ignorant. There are those who may have the special gift of evangelising; the church, of course, is not the place for this, ordinarily speaking, for they are the church, because they have received it; no one has the smallest right to speak in the church to whom God has not given a competency to edify it; nature has no right there; we, as to it, are dead in Christ -- out of Him, dead in trespasses and sins -- our right in flesh is only everlasting destruction. I know no right that a rebellious sinner has but to go there; a saint has none -- he is bought with a price -- Christ has all, and power too; neither has grace any right to speak, unless for the edification of the brethren. If they are edified they will soon find it out; if not, it proves the incompetency of the speaker, let him be as wise as the Prince of Tyre: for the Spirit always speaks to profit to them to whom He speaks.
+The difference of Christ as on earth, and a ministry founded on His death and resurrection, is not entered on here, but it does not affect the argument, so I leave it as it is. 2 Corinthians 5 does enter on it.
It is true there may be so evil a state, as that men will not endure sound doctrine; but for this there is no remedy but the direct intervention of prerogative mercy, in sending some one able to bring them back. The church, then, has a right to the profit of all the ministry, with which God has endowed any of the brethren, for its edification; those who cannot do so, must, of course, be silent, for it is God who alone can provide, and He will shew His prerogative by giving it by whom He pleases. If any one be exceedingly gifted of the Lord in knowledge and wisdom -- in that affectionate and watchful discernment of the state of souls, and ability to minister the right remedy in Christ -- to control the unruly in the manifested power and energy of the Spirit of God -- to detect the devices of Satan -- his value in feeding the flock of God will soon be felt; the godly part of the church would soon be apt to cling too much, rather than too little, to such an one for guidance, comfort, and support; and he is bound to exercise his ministry according to the measure given to him, whether locally or more extendedly. If any one be able, with much gift from God, rightly to divide the word of truth, though he may not have such qualifications as previously spoken of, he may teach with as much, or more even, of profit than the other, yet not hold the same place of service among the brethren; he may have a word of wisdom, though not of knowledge, or the converse; the church is entitled to all. Whatever He gave, He gave to the church to profit withal; how shall we get it, if it be not exercised? That Christ will demand the account of the talent is certain; but there is much more gained than merely the exercise of whatever gifts God may give: for, the Spirit of God being owned, the power of communion is there, and, the Spirit of God being honoured, blessing accompanies all in the power of grace and communion otherwise unknown. We quite acknowledge, then, Christian ministry, but not to be altogether in the hands of those who would thus confine it to a single individual, whatever his extent of qualification. There may be persons who have a constant gift of a given character, and it is their duty to exercise it; a word of profit might be given to any at any time. If there are those who are experienced, through divine grace, in the guidance and governance of the church, the saints will, guided of God's Spirit, be in subjection for their own profit; yea, all will be subject one to another. Where the Spirit of grace and love is, all will be well; where not, it will be surely ill, unless the Lord in mercy interfere, by sending someone able to control the unruly, and convince the gainsayers. The Lord will surely afford for His church all that is needful for its good, though He may, for our profit, keep us waiting very closely upon Him for them, and thus teach us dependence upon Him. If He were more looked to, we should have fewer difficulties, for He would act more -- perhaps I should say, more manifestly to us. Further, I add, that while every office or gift is a blessing to the church, and to be fully recognised, it is the clear privilege of any two or three Christians, where not done in the spirit of schism, to meet and break bread together, should they not have any ministry at all, nor any office whatever. It is their privilege as Christians -- the rest is their profit, of course, as saints, and to be gladly welcomed and ministering to the other, but, indeed, no way to be compared with their actual abiding privilege of communion together, their privilege and duty and substantially the everlasting part of the whole matter. The necessity of a priest for this, for such it in fact comes to, is a mere remnant of the principle of apostasy in the church, though where there are many, whoever may preside, one who is an elder would be the natural person to fulfil such an office, as someone manifestly must;+ public sanction before, and by the world, is not at all necessary for any office. This is what is called being a clergyman, and is one of the seals and marks of apostasy; the union of the world and the church, whether in the Establishment or Dissent. If this is what is meant by being a minister, I would utterly disdain and abhor it in such a sense: nature, I am sure, likes it: the authority to minister comes from the competency given of Christ; its recognition by the church is therefore a responsibility which solemnly rests on them; if the Spirit of the Lord be amongst them, He has ever, and will ever, order all things needful for this and for the expulsion of error. When I speak of authority to minister, it is, indeed, a deep responsibility, to be exercised according to the word, of which Christ will take sure account, and judge our neglect. Any recognition by the church may be all well for itself as to order; it is not what confers competency to minister -- woe be to the church, if it owns not what Christ has given -- separation to any special service the Lord may make, if He pleases; if He does, He will provide the way for Himself, in His wisdom, and it will be proved and made good, and, I will add, justified of wisdom's children. It is not necessary for the church's continuous blessing, as is manifest from the history of the church of Antioch; God works, I trust, though we are feeble and foolish -- is working much more deeply and powerfully than the devised order of human arrangements may be able, perhaps, to see. May He give us to wait on His time and way for every gift and guidance of His Holy Spirit; His Spirit is sovereign, and will prove Himself so, however men may carve channels to carry its waters safe. Perhaps when it may seem to overflow and break their banks, it is rich nourishment and unction that it may leave behind and deposit -- while the channel they are so curious about may be found to have but sand and stones at bottom, making its course troubled -- its profit and value only when it breaks through the dikes human wisdom has raised. The Lord, I am persuaded, will order much more blessing than we have yet seen, if we are patient and devoted. With the fullest liberty, then, to those whom the Lord has enabled to profit the church, exercised, as in Spirit it alone can be, subject to the authority of God in the church, "decently and in order" -- we do recognise, in the fullest sense, a ministry in the use of, and waiting upon, every gift in the service of God, which He has given for the profit and edification of His church. When God calls any individual, and appropriates any gift to him, as such, of course, he will be a minister, and is bound to wait upon it. We do not count ourselves perfect in wisdom, but these things we see in Scripture, and believe God is honoured most in His own way.
+That is, in the act of giving thanks and breaking bread.
Another book has been put into my hands, containing remarks on a letter by Mr. Newton, by a clergyman. I have read it through, but I cannot think that in point of argument, scholarship, or good manners, whatever its pretensions, it claims any answer. If those amongst whom it is circulated feel any difficulties from its contents, there will not be much difficulty in replying to it separately.
The testimony of Scripture is the only secure resting-place for man amid the darkness of this world. This, through the teaching of the Spirit, is the believer's light and security; from this his judgment flows; and, consequently, from this the rule and foundation of his conduct springs. Wrong thoughts as to God's dealings, and our own place before Him, must lead to wrong judgment as to the conduct claimed from us; and thus all our service will be folly, and, perhaps, our hopes presumption; our light will be darkness, and then what will become of those "who are led"?
Immediately connected with this inquiry (and thus involving the most practical results) is the question as to the dispensation in which we stand, and what are to be our hopes in it? Many most interesting inquiries are connected with this subject, as to the development of the purposes of God; but it is not my present purpose to enter into them. I intend to confine myself to the scriptural evidence on the two following most important questions, which, in the highest degree, affect the present interests and operations of the church of Christ.
(1) IS THIS DISPENSATION THE LAST, OR NOT?
The answer to these questions appears to me to involve the whole ground of the judgment of a believer's mind, as to his present position in the world; and, consequently, as to his duty and his hopes. Without examining the detail of circumstances, I shall endeavour to seize on some of the broad facts and principles.
(1) Is this dispensation the last, or is it not?
First -- Let us consider the evidence of Scripture as to the Christian body.
The 9th verse of the 1st of Ephesians affords a leading declaration of Scripture on this subject: "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance" (verse 10). Now this is in no way applicable to the present dispensation. He is to gather together in one all things which are in heaven, and which are on earth. This the present dispensation does not assume to do: it is a dispensation in which Satan is the prince and god of this world -- in which he sows tares among the wheat, and is in high places. In this, God visits the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. This is indeed a dispensation of another gathering (as we shall see presently), in which angels minister and devils oppose -- anything but a gathering into one things in heaven and things on earth; for we must be absent from the body to be present with the Lord, and absent from the Lord to be at home in the body; and we "groan" waiting. Indeed, there is ample demonstration in the above passage, that the present dispensation does not and was not meant to do this. The passage declares that God has made known this to us, as that which should happen in the fulness of times, of which we have the earnest under the present dispensation until the redemption. This is not merely "going to heaven," because, as we see in the passage itself, God is to gather together in one all things in heaven and on earth in Christ. That which we have under the present dispensation is an earnest merely of that which we are to have; which is not a going to heaven, but a dispensation in which all things are gathered together in heaven and on earth. In a word, the passage declares a gathering, which cannot mean the church in the present dispensation, or in any dispensation; for the church, as applied to believers, in no dispensation comprehends all things in heaven and on earth; and that which comprehends and gathers all into one (all things in heaven and on earth) is manifestly not the church; for the church, even here, is gathered out of the earth, and does not gather all things on the earth into itself, and as a dispensation of the assembled saints in heaven, it has none of the things of the earth in it at all. Indeed, except from the force of habitual prejudice, it is just as fairly inferred from this passage that all the things in heaven will be gathered in the earth, as that all on the earth will be gathered in heaven. If we do not acknowledge a common gathering of all things both in heaven and on earth under the authority of Christ (as is also written elsewhere), it is manifest we must force this passage into some previously assumed sense, and then it may mean anything we like. Chapter 3 of John's gospel might throw light on this, if the reader is disposed to enquire. But as it is manifest that the church is no such gathering actually, so it is equally manifest that to say that the assembly of the saints in heaven is a gathering of all things in heaven and on earth into one, is a plain perversion to suit previous ideas; for the saints are not all things, if the position taken were otherwise tenable: and it is thinking that they are so (in self-complacency) which is one grand source of error, for thus His glory is marred and shortened, by whom and for whom all things are created. I affirm (though it be the manifestation of God's wisdom) that the church of God's saints is only a part -- a small part -- of the glory and purposes of God, as fulfilled: a part worthy, indeed, of all admiration, as it is; but one which, if we take the comeliness that God has put upon us, and make our boast as if it were all God's glory, He will shew us it is as nothing in His sight calling the things that are not as though they were.
Again (1 Peter 1: 9-13), "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
Here we have three things: the prophets prophesying of a grace to be brought to us, the Holy Ghost reporting these same things, and, therefore, the Christian church waiting to the end for the things which are to be brought unto them at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
That is to say, that which the prophets prophesied should be brought to us, the Holy Ghost, in the present dispensation, reports in the word, and believers, therefore, wait for as about to be brought to them at the revelation of Jesus Christ. But it was not heaven the prophets prophesied of, but the dealings and dispensations of God; therefore there is yet a dispensation to come, in which the things prophesied of by the prophets will come, and for which those who have received the truth wait; and this dispensation is not it.
Further, there is another important fact we would advert to:
There is no promise of universality annexed to the present dispensation, but the contrary. "Go ye," is its leading instruction, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be damned." But there is a dispensation, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This is therefore not the last, for the effects stated of that are not contemplated in the instructions of this. This is a dispensation of testimony and of instruction; that, of universal knowledge, and therefore essentially different, for men shall no more say, "Know the Lord."
Again, as to the Jews, there shall be a state of things in which all Israel shall be saved, i.e. as a body. But now, "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah": and again, "Even so, then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace." The dispensations, therefore, are essentially different in their character; the one the rescuing of the remnant, the other, the saving of the body. So, of the Gentiles, "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name." It has not, therefore, the intention of universality manifested in it.
So John 11: 52: "And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." Here we have a gathering which characterises this dispensation, but essentially distinct from that noticed by Paul in the Ephesians.
Again, in connection with this, the character and position annexed to His people equally contravene the idea of the universality of the dispensation. "Who gave himself for us," we read, "that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works": all this is essentially distinctive, therefore not universal.
So Peter: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."
So Philippians 2: 15: "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world."
So John, in the conclusion of his first epistle, and many like passages, and others withal, which prove suffering to be their portion.
And connected with this, is the direct warning of the excision of the church+ on its failure of maintaining effectually this position. See the whole of Romans 11. The conclusion is summed up in verse 22: "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." But is not the confidence of the necessary continuance of the present dispensation very like that high-minded conceit which ruined the Jews, though they had perhaps better ground for it; and against which, expressly, the apostles warned these Gentiles? Is it not what the apostle warned of as the very way of being cut off? The ruin of the Jews was, boasting of the comeliness which God had put upon them. But to proceed (nevertheless, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear), the position in which they are thus put, with such purpose and responsibility, under pain of excision, is thus expressed (Matthew 5: 13): "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."
The consequences are fully stated by the Lord: "In the world ye shall have tribulation." "Whoso taketh not up his cross, and followeth not after me, cannot be my disciple." "He that saveth his life shall lose it ... he that serveth me, let him follow me": and many other like passages, familiar to the Christian. They were to be called Beelzebub, and he that killed them would think that he did God service -- they were to be hated of all men, etc. -- nor, may we add, was the church at any other time pure.
+Note to translation. 'Church' refers here merely to professing Christendom.
So the apostles, or rather the Spirit in them: "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." "Yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution": and yet more, for "yourselves know that also we are appointed thereunto."
Again, the results of the testimony of Christ by the Spirit, and the ultimate results of His incarnation, are contrasted: "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth," is the title of the latter; "Suppose ye that I am come to send peace on the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division," is the result of the former.
Again, the full continuance of evil, until some change by power be wrought, is fully declared: "As it was in the days of Noe," and "as it was in the days of Lot," we are told, "shall it be in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed."
Further, this could not be a day of universal blessing simply, or it would be idle to talk of it as coming "unawares," "as a thief in the night", and that there would be some whom it did not take unawares. Judgment may overtake those unsuited for it; but spiritual light and blessing are blessings because they do so. Yet Peter declares this is the day of grace to the church, which was prophesied by the prophets of old, even the glory of Christ that was to follow; 1 Peter 1: 10-12.
But more, evil shall get worse:
"Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse," says Paul to Timothy, "deceiving and being deceived." This does not look like the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covering the earth, as the waters cover the sea.
In the next place, we are assured that the man of sin, the apostasy of professing Christianity, will be destroyed by the brightness (lit. appearing) of Christ's coming; 2 Thessalonians 2: 8. What that is I think may be fairly learned from Titus 2: 13; but I do not here press it thus far. I merely use it as evidence that this is not the last dispensation. It is, however, not different in degree, but contrasted in character from "the grace ... which hath appeared"+ in verse 11, just before; the one leads to wait for the other. But the passage in Thessalonians proves this: that the apostasy continues up to a time when a wholly different power has intervened, and a new state of things ensued; for, not to hang it on the thread of sense which connects 2 Thessalonians (which some would cut boldly through), its association with chapter 1 of this epistle is evident. In chapter I the instrument which cuts off the apostasy is represented as giving rest from the existing dispensation, and introducing another, when the wicked should cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest. That is, chapter I declares (in the terms used by the Lord in Luke, and the apostle Peter in his epistle) His revelation; that He will then and so clear His kingdom from them that trouble the church. Thus it is an entirely new dispensation which we are to look for -- the wicked continuing and growing worse to the end of this.
+The words used in the original here and in verse 13 stress the idea of appearing.
This may suffice for direct testimony; more will appear when we consider the manner of the introduction of the next dispensation, every evidence of which is evidence also, of course, of its existence. I shall only mention one thing more here, before I turn to evidence of another character. The parable of the tares of the field is a testimony from the Lord, stating directly that the church+ would become corrupt: i.e., that the field (the world in which the Son of man had sown good seed) would be overrun with tares, and that it would be rectified by a dispensation of judgment -- a harvest, not a re-sowing of the field. It is not said that the tares would be turned into wheat, but be gathered in bundles to be burned, and the wheat itself made to shine in some other system. What that is, is another question. But the place where the change was to occur, where the exercise of the judgment was to be, the kingdom spoken of as the Son's, was the place where the seed was sown, the field of the world, out of which all things that offended were to be gathered.
Let us now pursue, as other evidence, the uniform method of God's dealings. It has been surely this: some strong manifestation of divine glory, followed by a declension from the practical faith of that glory, and then judgments, preceded, however, by testimony, that they which have ears to hear may escape the judgment.
Thus, in the patriarchal dispensation, the original association of paradise, the judgment and the promise (not without intervening testimony), formed the basis of patriarchal faith: from this, even as Adam from his innocency, men declined, losing the power of testimony in lust. The very sons of God became defiled, till the earth was corrupt before God, and filled with violence; and He said, I will destroy man whom I have made, from off the face of the earth. Then came the testimony -- the deluge coming, and the ark of escape, and then the judgment testified of. Again, upon the introduction of idolatry, Abraham was called out to be, in his seed after the flesh, the source of another dispensation, as he was the father of the faithful, circumcised as well as not. And in due time the Jews were drawn out into fresh national relationship with God, with signs and wonders, and an outstretched arm -- mercies and securities of peace -- and their God nigh to them in glory and power as none other nation had; but they were stiff-necked and rebellious. The Lord, indeed, sent deliverances while it was sin, and not infidelity; and then prophets, rising up early and sending them, till there was no remedy; when after their restoration from Babylon, a yet last hope was afforded by Him who had yet one Son, and spent Him, as it were, upon them. Upon their filling up the measure of their fathers, the abundant testimony of the apostolic spirit went forth, before a destruction not leaving one stone upon another which was not thrown down, came upon a disobedient and gainsaying people, despising thus their own mercy. The remnant of believers in this very testimony alone escaped the judgments. And (if God spared not the natural branches, the people, in all whose affliction He was afflicted, the angel of His presence succouring them) shall the Gentile church, fallen into yet greater evil, after yet greater blessings, go unpunished? It shall not go unpunished: "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off."
+That is, an outward system in the world.
Is popery, infidelity, worldliness, the minding earthly things, which they who do are enemies of the cross of Christ, the continuing in God's goodness? If not, is there not ample evidence, that if there be not some new dispensation, God's glory is defeated and destroyed in the world, and that instead of the Lord destroying the works of the devil, the devil, as far as this world goes, the only place he could, has destroyed the work of the Lord? But it will be said, the Lord is showing His arm, and the gospel is preached in a way it never was before. Doubtless it is, and here is one of the strongest evidences -- not that there will be no change of dispensation, but that the change is near. In the first place, there is no instance of the renewal of a dispensation which had declined away and departed from its God, but a full and extraordinary testimony before the judgment came, in order to the gathering out the remnant before the judgments. Such there is now we admit, and rejoice in the mercy of it: this also we do say, that every one that listeneth to the testimony will escape. Would that all had ears to hear! for if they would turn and repent, God would surely turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him; yet we know that if they will not, they shall receive the reward of their unbelief; they that do, shall receive yet greater blessings and glory in the Lord's righteousness.
Having thus seen that the uniform analogy of God's dealings (by all parts of it, save judgment itself), and also the direct warnings of Scripture, lead us thus to judge of the nature and object of the testimony referred to, let us now turn to the light afforded by the passage usually quoted in connection herewith: that it is thus justly quoted I am willing to admit,+ because I believe it does point out what is going on now in the testimony which some think will convert the world. "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people"; but what is the message? -- " Saying, with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of his judgment is come." We have, then, the uniform analogy of God's moral dealings (herein His ways are evidenced to be equal) -- the solemn warning -- and the actual testimony (on which those who think otherwise rely), all tending to this point, that this dispensation inherits judgment, not the world; is itself to be cut off, not to be the system of the world's blessing. I expressly avoid argument upon the subject here, because it supposes either space for very great length, or the reception of first principles, and, though profitable, is less direct than testimony; to which, therefore, I confine myself. But this I say, that either the church must shew that it has continued in God's goodness, or else it must admit the conclusion, it shall be cut off, save repentance avert it. Testimony, however, in self-satisfaction, is not repentance: "I shall see no sorrow," is the language of Babylon as fit for cutting off. There is, indeed, a most important principle and truth at the bottom of, and revealed in, all this; namely, the constant failure (under the power of Satan) of the creature, as the first -- and then, indeed, every dispensation externally -- has failed and will fail, unsustained by the direct power of God: and where evil is, the creature must fail, though God may uphold him, as He has and ever will His own people through all the dispensations, till they be brought where there is no evil. And here we may learn the special character of the millennium (purposely confining myself to the point in hand, I mention this only as a fact throwing light upon the failure of this dispensation), kept by power till Satan be let loose again, though finally, in its external form, the elect be gathered as out of all other dispensations: for, as we know that Satan's prevailing in one dispensation has, in its destruction, only given occasion to a better, so will it be then -- even to the final destruction of his power -- when all the elect of God shall be perfected in everlasting habitations, all evil removed, and God be all in all.
+The literal accomplishment of this passage is, I doubt not, yet wholly future. It will be the testimony, or gospel, of the kingdom when the church is gone. But there is that within christendom and in the world which is analogous at the present time.
(2) Let us now consider what are the circumstances by which that dispensation is to be introduced.
First, then, judgment is the portion of this, and the introduction of that, and nothing else, whatever may accompany it for other, in themselves perhaps more important, objects.
And, secondly, it is connected with the dealings of God with the Jews as a people, setting up a dispensation among them. It will be impossible to state all the evidence of these separately, because the accomplishment of both being in one act, of course they are testified of together. There is, however, distinctness, as in New Testament statements, where often, as relating only to the church, the Gentile judgment solely is alluded to Nevertheless, having stated them as objects of reference, it will be easy, under God's grace, to see them each to be definitely revealed by the Spirit, even when both are found together I shall therefore (and the rather that they may prove themselves, and not be made to speak by any forced juxtaposition of mine) quote them with scarcely any order but that in which they present themselves; and, if the word is to be trusted (for that is the question), the truth I here, I sorrow to say, have to prove, rests on the fullest testimony of the word, as demonstrated to the mind of the believer. But let me here remark an enormous fallacy in the minds of those who reason on these subjects, and do not take the testimony.
It is admitted upon all hands that there is a time, or dispensation, in which the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. This is a great object held out in prophecy. The question between us is, How is this to be brought about? They say, By our preaching, or the preaching of the gospel. (I take the best ground for them.) How do they know that? How do they conclude that? Did the gospel ever do it before? Was it ever promised that it should do it? That man is responsible for its not doing so, I freely admit, but that is not the question. And that he is guilty, too, I admit. I conceive, indeed, that therefore the Gentile church will be cut off, because it has not done so; and therefore, we may say, as a church it is damnably guilty, because it has not done so. But as to actual result, those I speak of pass by the present sin of the church, and then prophesy (i.e., assert as to the future), that of which they can have no experience as to the past, that their exertions will do it. They charge us with looking into prophecy: undoubtedly we do, and use it as God intended it, as a charge and warning against our present sin and state; while they prophesy for themselves that which is credit for themselves -- though never has the professing church at large been so far from godliness as now; if not, why all this labour, effort, formation of societies for home or continental purposes? This is the simple difference: we acknowledge it as a result of God's power; they say, without God's word (and we must add, against it), 'It will be done by our instrumentality.' Believers say, with God's word, It will not be done thus. We quarrel not with their efforts, but join in them according to our ability of God, as far as our poor hearts permit us; but we do quarrel with their assumption as to the coming result of their own labours, as if they were prophets, of that of which God has prophesied otherwise. They prophesy; we consult the word, and apply it to judge ourselves, and find the church guilty. Our assertion, accordingly, is this:
Firstly, that there is no prophecy in Scripture, or promise (which as to means, observe, of future accomplishment, is prophecy) that the gradual diffusion of the gospel shall convert the world. If there be, let them produce it: if not, I affirm that they are assuming something future, without any warrant for it but their own thoughts.
Secondly, that the prophecies always connect the filling of the world with the knowledge of the glory -- with judgments.
Thirdly, we add, to those who are labouring without reference to this glory, yet are looking to the gathering of God's elect -- faithfully perhaps -- that there is a vast purpose of God, and one which is the result of all God's purposes, not embraced in their views, and that, as teachers of God's mind and will, their system must be wholly and utterly defective; for the earth is to be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. They recognise, and justly, that that cannot be, as it has never been, and, as we have seen, that it was not intended to be, by the gospel. There must, therefore, if they admit the truth of God's word, be some great plan and act of God's power, on which His mind is especially set (for His glory on the earth, as in heaven, must be His end as well as our desire, because we are His saints, and have the mind of Christ), of which they embrace nothing, teach nothing.
As to our assertion just made, of these three points, the second point, viz., 'that the prophecies always connect the filling of the world with the knowledge of the glory -- with judgments,' is that which we would now prove. The first, 'That there is no prophecy in scripture that the gradual diffusion of the gospel shall convert the world,' would be proved by the second, were it complete; but, as a negative assertion, it rests only on reference to Scripture -- and must be disproved by them -- a single text is sufficient for the purpose, and to disprove the whole view, so that their task is a very easy one, if I am wrong. The third, as argumentative, is not a subject for proof here.
Let us now turn to the second: and may God in mercy and grace guide us herein to the right and full use of His word, receiving it with simplicity of faith and obedience in our consciences!
Let us turn to Zephaniah 3: 8, 9: "Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." The explicitness of this needs no comment; it is an express and unequivocal assertion, that it is upon all the earth's being devoured with the fire of God's jealousy, after assembling the kingdoms to this end, that the Lord will turn to the people a pure language, to serve Him with one consent. I will only observe that people, in the original, is plural, Ammim not Goyim, Gentiles, and is the word, I think, in the original, for all nations not contemplated as excluded from the covenant (see page 106).
Let us turn to Isaiah 65: 13 to the end: "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name: that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth: because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes. For, behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord."
Here we have both points, namely, the introduction of the blessing by judgment, and its connection with the Jewish people. If any one will say this means the gospel, let him tell me what is the meaning, after saying the unbelieving Jews shall be left for a curse to His chosen, of the former troubles being forgotten, and how the rest of the passage applies to the church; for the former troubles of the Jews were only then beginning, or, at the least, accomplishing; so much so, that wrath was "come upon them to the uttermost." To the Gentiles it could have no application; for there was nothing of "former" to them; indeed, the whole passage has so plainly another and a fuller aim, that more argument seems needless.
Zechariah 12: 9, 10: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
Here we have the destruction (God's seeking to destroy all nations that come against Jerusalem) given as the occasion of the conversion of the Jews to the recognition of Him whom they had pierced: in a word, the cutting off of the nations (the general results of which we saw in Zephaniah) stated in the special circumstances resulting to the Jews. If Jerusalem be the church, still destruction is poured, not conversion, upon the nations; and if Jerusalem, as it must be in that case, be the true church, what is all this mourning as a new fruit of the destruction of their enemies? or how comes this to be the spirit now first called forth, and what is its suitableness?
Let us now turn to Zechariah 14: 1-9: "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one."
Our notice of this need be but short, because the first three verses can hardly be gainsaid in their force. The gospel cannot be made out of them, for Jerusalem is to be taken; but the Lord, as we have seen in other cases, is to go forth and fight against those nations, and then the Lord is to be King over all the earth; and in that day there shall be one Lord and His name one -- that is, the blessing of the universal acknowledgment of the Lord covering the earth, is, by some extraordinary dispensations, in which the nations are gathered against Jerusalem, and the Lord seeks, as we have seen above, to destroy them there; and then His name is known in all the earth.
Let us compare Isaiah 66: 6, 13-16, 18, 19, indeed to the end of the chapter, noticing verses 22 and 23: "A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies ... . As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many ... . For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."
We have here the simplest demonstration that judgment is the portion of the Gentile world, and that by it the glory of the Lord is known. Now the Lord never pleaded by fire and sword with all flesh at a time when His gospel, or glory by it, was made known to them; still less did He then bless and restore the Jews; but more of this hereafter.
To the same purpose we may quote Ezekiel, without quoting the whole passage, which may be easily referred to by those interested in it. It may be sufficient to refer to two verses, viz., the 6th and 7th of chapter 39: "And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the Lord. So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel." We have here the same fact, so distinctly stated as to need no observation: if any doubt its application, they may easily satisfy themselves that it is not the gospel, by reading the verses following: if so, then it is by judgment that the heathen are to know that Jehovah is the Lord, and that in Israel.
And this is the day of which the Lord hath spoken, as Gog and Magog were the party of whom the Lord hath spoken. Here, too, I may quote the solemn announcement of Joel 3: 9-18: "Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near: let them come up: beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens, and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim" -- describing thus, as we have seen in too many places not to determine its character, some solemn and determinate, act, closing up the intentions of God: an act of judgment at once upon the heathen, and by which, yet, the heathen, with Israel, are to know that God is the Lord in Israel, and when God shall thereupon turn to the people a pure language.
But from Deuteronomy 32: 34, 35, we shall see that this was the original intention and plan of God.
After describing the sale of the children of Israel into the hands of their enemies, He says, "Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time." Who have been the instruments of judgment and oppression upon the Jews? whose feet, therefore, shall slide in due time? Then the order of this is seen (verse 36, 40-43): "For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left ... . For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives from the beginning of the revenges upon the enemy. Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people."
Let us now trace some of the passages of Isaiah where this subject is developed in one of its branches at length. Thus (Isaiah 63: 1-7), "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? that this is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth. I will mention the lovingkindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses." We may make the same remark here as in Zephaniah, as to the term people; it is 'ammim.' But generally it is the exercise of the judgment of the Lord, treading down the people in His fury, breaking out into the testimony of the lovingkindness of the Lord towards Israel (see page 101).
Again, in Isaiah 61: 2, to the end of the chapter, "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And they shall build up the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double; everlasting joy shall be unto them. For I the Lord love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering: and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people; all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." With the testimony of the full blessing then to flow from what is described, we have this remarkable circumstance, that that portion of the prophecy, as the Lord's people have often observed, which applied to the manifestation of Christ in grace, was quoted by the Lord, but the latter part not; so that we have here demonstrative evidence of the application of the latter part to some ulterior visitation. I would remark that this is always the case in prophecies embracing the first and second advents of our Lord, and their circumstances: they are quoted so far even when most apparently mixed, as they are applicable to the existing circumstances, and there they stop. The application of the latter part to Zion is too manifest to need proof; indeed, all that is personal to our Lord in the flesh belongs exclusively to their dispensation, but this, of course, we cannot pursue here. But, on the whole, the day of vengeance is the day of Zion's joy, relief, blessing, and inheriting the Gentiles, and rebuilding the former desolations.
Again, in Isaiah 52: 7-10, the same truths are brought before us, with (we must add) the same distinction by Paul as before by the Lord, namely, stopping at the part which was applicable to the former coming of the Lord, even in humiliation: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice: with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." The forty-ninth chapter is a full exposé of the order of these things, but as not bearing on the point of judgment I pass it by, with this notice only to direct the attention of Christian brethren to it.
But I must, though without comment, direct attention to chapter 32 of the same prophet; which I do the rather, because it was in this the Lord was pleased, without man's teaching, first to open my eyes on this subject, that I might learn His will concerning it throughout -- not by the first blessed truths stated in it, but the latter part, when there shall be a complete change in the dispensation, the wilderness becoming the fruitful field of God's fruit and glory, and that which had been so, being counted a forest, at a time when-the Lord's judgments should come down, even great hail, upon this forest; and the city, even of pride, be utterly abased. That the Spirit's pouring out upon the Jews, and their substitution for the Gentile church, become a forest, is here adverted to, is evident from the connection of the previous verses. I shall quote only the latter verses (from verse 14), begging, however, reference to the former part: "Because the palaces shall be forsaken: the multitude of the city shall be left: the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places; when it shall hail, coming down on the forest: and the city shall be low in a low place. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass." I can only refer to the chapters 34 and 35 -- the whole chapters should be read; they are too plain to need any comment, if the point stated has been so stated as to be understood.
Again, chapter 30: 25, to the end: "And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon Shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound. Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy; his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: and his breath as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err. Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel. And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, tempest, and hailstones. For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod. And in every place where the grounded [i.e. decreed or determined] staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking [or, an outstretched hand] will he fight with it. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he-hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it."
Again, chapter 29: 17 to the end, with the reason and occasion, verse 20: "Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine."
Again, chapter 26: 19, to the end: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain."
Isaiah 25: 3-7, and 12: "Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud; the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low. And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations ... . And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust."
The whole of the chapter 24 may be read, particularly the latter part; and lest any should conclude that it applied only to the land of Israel, we would refer them to verses 4 and 21. This is not the place to enter into the special application of the word earth, or rather the word from which it is translated, Greek or Hebrew; but it is full of interest, and I believe the Spirit always to use it in the same and a consistent sense.
I would just advert only to chapter 17: 12-14. I only advert to this as applying to the same truth, because I admit that within itself (and I am not here expounding all prophecy), it does not contain on the face of it the evidence that it cannot apply to Sennacherib; and, therefore, though I give it as the same truth, I do not use it as an argument: "Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountain before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And behold at evening tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us."
Let us turn to chapter 11: 1-12: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea."
Here we have one of the passages where the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth is spoken of; and how? The destruction of the Assyrian, when Lebanon should fall by a mighty one, or mightily -- this is stated as the occasion when One should arise who should reprove with equity for the meek of the earth, who should smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He should slay the wicked. I know they say the breath of His mouth is the gospel; but this is merely to hold a system together: for slaying the wicked is not converting them, nor is the breath of the Lord the gospel. In chapter 30: 33, it is compared to a stream of brimstone kindling the fire for the king; and so it is said, in the epistle to the Thessalonians, of the wicked one whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of His mouth. We surely need not argue that this is the destruction, not the conversion, of the wicked one. Let us refer to Psalm 18, where this expression (I might say subject, but from this I must refrain) is brought before us: "Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved, and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it." So verses 13-15 of the same Psalm. At that time peace shall be indeed on earth, without hurt or destruction; a day when the Lord shall set Himself again to recover the remnant, even the dispersed of Judah from the four quarters of the earth -- when they should prevail against their enemies, and Assyria be smitten, and this known in all the earth, for the Lord shall be great in Zion. Here, then, again we have the circumstances in which the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea -- judgment, excision of enemies, the blessing of Israel, His gathering from the four quarters of the earth, and the Lord's being great in Zion.
So the Jews are taught by the results of His first coming to look for, and wait on, Him who hideth His face from the house of Jacob; Isaiah 8: 14-17. "And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him."
Compare also chapter 4: 2 to the end, which proves, as other passages, the involving of the Jews in that day, in days of purging trial. So Ezekiel. I can only refer generally to Isaiah 1 from verse 24 to the end of chapter 2, where the great moral bearing of these truths is fully and solemnly brought forward.
Let us turn now to Jeremiah. In chapter 3: 17, 18 we find Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, when all nations are gathered together in the name of the Lord, when also the children of Israel and Judah come out of captivity into their own land: "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north, to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers."
So also see Jeremiah 31: 10-12, for the Jewish part of the enquiry: "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all."
So Jeremiah 30: 7-11, where the language is sufficiently plain without comment, as denoting the circumstances which attend the time of blessing: "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: but they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore fear them not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel; for, lo, I will save them from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished."
Again, more distinctly, Jeremiah 33: 7-9. The language here is of the utmost strength: "And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it."
The testimony of Micah is very definite also, to the same purpose -- as Micah 4: 1-5, and 11 to the end: "But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all people will walk, every one, in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever ... . Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people; and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth." In this, the gathering of the nations, not understanding the thoughts of the Lord, as in so many passages we have seen, is distinctly revealed, as well as the special blessing of Jerusalem as the centre of worship. Micah 5 may be referred to for the same purpose; both points are there distinctly stated: the blessing of Israel in Christ, as in verses 9 and 15; the lifting up His hand on all His adversaries, and vengeance on the heathen, such as they have not heard: "Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off ... . And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard."
Habakkuk 2 need only be referred to and read, simply to see that the knowledge of the Lord filling the earth, as the waters cover the sea, is the result of the destruction of the oppressing proud man, who was the scourge of guilty Israel, who had gathered all nations; when, of the Lord of hosts, the people should labour in the very fire, and weary themselves for very vanity, or under affliction. This surely is not the preaching of the gospel, or anything like it. Yet this is what makes the prophet say, "For the earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." We have, I may remark, these same "Ammim" here again, as before (see page 101).
Let me here remark, before turning to the collateral statements of Scripture, that in many of these passages it is not merely the statement of the fact which we affirm, which is material, but its statement coincidently with facts which leave it impossible to spiritualise it away to other meanings. For example, it might be said that gathering all nations to Jerusalem, or coming up to Jerusalem, meant the assembly of the Gentiles into the church; but I find it associated with the re-gathering and exaltation of the Jewish nation, and at the same time desolating destructions and judgments on these same Gentile nations. Then I see that the one cannot mean former restorations, because then there was no gathering of Gentiles into the church; nor the gathering by the gospel, when it went forth from Zion before; because there was no gathering of the Jewish nation, but their dispersion, nor any judgment on the Gentile nations which came up against Jerusalem, but on the Jews themselves. Yet I find these things introduced as coincident occurrences, leading me to sure conclusions as to the unfulfilled character of the transaction, and how to receive their force.
One passage demands our attention, before we turn to the New Testament: I mean Daniel's image. There we have a stone cut out without hands, unseen till the image was formed, even to the ten toes. This stone did not progressively diffuse its influence over the image. Indeed the image was not the earth, nor people, but empires, or kingdoms of well-known characters; nor was the stone the gospel, but something that destroyed the image. This stone, then, was cut out without hands, as its first act here stated, struck the image on its feet (i.e., the Roman empire in its divided state), and thereby put empire out of the earth; and the stone which smote the image became a mountain, and filled the whole earth: it was that which destroyed the empire of the whole earth. Here, then, we have a power, differing in its nature, but analogous in its character, not formed by the ordinary instrumentality of man, acting in destruction of that which assumed authority on the earth in its last form; and then, after having destroyed it, filling the earth, the place of them being no more found. Is not the character of this work as simple and determinate as possible, and the manner by which the hoped-for filling the earth with the glory of the Lord is to be accomplished evidently declared? -- a work in which man has no part, and which is not the gospel but Christ's power.
Can we find nothing analogous to this in the short book of Christian prophecy? We have already adverted to the parable of the tares, sufficiently to shew the judicial process by which Christ's field, this world, is set right. Let us shortly turn to Matthew 25 -- the parable of the sheep and the goats. The former chapter had, as to judgment, developed the dealings of the Lord with the Jews, with the associated introduction of the gospel, and its nature; of which more hereafter. This declares that the Lord would gather all the Gentiles before Him, and try them according to the manner in which this testimony of the gospel had been received. That is, He will fulfil that which is testified of by Joel: "Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about." The gospel might be despised meanwhile, in the world, but this His followers might be assured of, that it was precisely according to the way in which they were treated that all the Gentiles would be judged; for they, as well as the Jews, were subjects of His Son's power.+ Such is manifestly the force of this passage, if taken in its order as a revelation.
+Nay, more, for they that should fall upon this stone should be broken; but upon whomsoever it should fall, it would grind them to powder. Compare the image in Daniel.
Coincidently with this, and as indicative of our whole subject, compare Matthew 24: 14: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." True, the nations ought to be converted; but that which is declared as preceding the end (i.e., of the dispensation of the separation of the Jewish people from their head), is a testimony, a witness to all nations; then comes the end. This is all, therefore, we are entitled to look for.
But have the vials no associations with these judgments on the nations? Is there no wrath in them? That they are poured out before the millennium is evident, because there is a gathering to Armageddon in them, and after that (i.e., in the seventh) great Babylon comes in remembrance. And are the vials conversion by preaching, or are they poured out on the heathen, or on the professing church? "All the kings of the earth and of the whole world," sounds much like the judgments we have been hearing of. They were to be gathered, as we saw before: are there to be two such gatherings, or what is it? At any rate, there is wrath on the earth and air, and a gathering of all the earth by Satan against the Lamb, before and as an introduction to the millennium. Again, do the harvest of the earth and the vine of the earth, trodden in the winepress of God's wrath, bear no analogy to that which we have seen in the Prophets? What is the vine of the earth? when is this? and, perhaps we might ask, where? Note, also, in the Jewish order, the feast of tabernacles came after the
vintage. Leviticus 23 is the history of the world in its septarian+ form. We have seen, historically, the antitypes, in the history of the church, of two of the feasts, though in their effects not fully accomplished: of the great eight-day feast we have yet to see the blessing and accomplishment; and it was after the vintage, the end of God's prophetic year, I mean of the revolution of history, in Christ manifested in the flesh.
Revelation 14 affords another eventful septary,++ beginning with the general blessing. The millennium comes after this; this ends with the vintage. Will the church shut its ears to the testimony of the warning which God has given it? Let us conclude our references, at least, by turning to Luke 21. We have here the Lord's answer to His disciples' enquiries on these subjects. This is important and interesting. Let us consider it.
What is the character, then, given of the dispensation? Any sign? any promise of universal blessing or peace by the gospel? I find it not. I find persecution, betrayal, hating of all men for His name's sake; and then, when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, during which the scene of God's visible power on earth is removed, how are we taught to look for redemption? (I mean not as regards our present condition, extensive blessing, or the pervading of the word, but redemption.) There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and on the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth. And are they looking in vain? In truth, they are not; for as His fear is, so is His wrath; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, Jerusalem shall be trodden down till -- but that "till" comes in desolation and destruction on the apostate Gentiles: for when they say, Peace and safety, behold sudden destruction shall come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape; and the professing church is the special object of this, as it is specially responsible.
And now, what do we complain of? Is it not prying into futurity? Far otherwise. It is not taking the testimony of God and applying it to present judgment, and thus consequently offering the sacrifice of folly. I do say it is the privilege of the saints to know what is revealed. It is mere infidelity and unbelief -- simple infidelity and unbelief, and rejection of the promise, "He shall shew you things to come"; and, again, "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit! "that is, the things which He hath prepared for them that love Him. Men may say, It is presumption! But it is no more presumption in me to believe what God has said, and has declared that He has revealed to us for our blessing as to this, than it is to believe what He has stated concerning the accomplished work of Christ; and I suspect the notion of presumption runs pretty much together as to both. But this is not my present subject, but this: that the church is hiding the present judgment of itself from its eyes, that God's judgments, are upon the church in warning, and they will not hear; and therefore they will be cut off if they repent not. "And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord saith, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid," Isaiah 29: 11-14.
+i.e., arranged in sevens.
++Ditto
If it be so, that these things are hid, then I say it is a solemn judgment from God, His greatest judgment on the church, thus to hide them -- a sign of judgment that they may be judged. Yet men seem to rejoice and pride themselves on their wisdom in knowing nothing about them -- rejoice in the last heaviest sign, the deep hope-obscuring cloud, before the judgments of God break down upon them who have wilfully stayed abroad in the field because they believed not, or received not the word and warnings and threatenings of God the Lord. For there is one that seeth and judgeth. Poor man! If the Lord hath indeed poured out upon you a deep sleep and hath closed your eyes, the prophets, and rulers, and seers hath He covered; then woe for you; and what shall the sheep do? All your services are but folly; for when God, perhaps, is calling for repentance, behold, you are in joy; when judgment is ready to strike, you are rejoicing; when God calls to fasting, and weeping, and mourning, behold you are killing sheep and slaying oxen. If the testimony of God be not received as applicable in our present state, then all our worship and service must be guided by man's judgment and our fear by the precept of men, and be foolishness and rebellion in His sight. But ye say, We will not consider ... I say not to you, look at the hopes and the future glory; but I say, God has warned of judgment now. I speak of something which applies to you now: yea, why even of yourselves judge ye not that which is right? Does not the church, do not we, deserve judgment? The Lord hearken to the supplication of His servants, that our eyes may be opened! Infidel liberty is not Christian liberty. God may use it for His own purposes in punishing the wicked, as He saith, "O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation." But if the people rejoice in Rezin and Pekah, trust in this Tiglath-Pileser does but show their infidelity, and will be their distress, and not their strength; for yet it is but a little while (as indeed it is the rod of God against the corruption of the church) His anger will cease, and His indignation, in their destruction. The prophet may be grieved at the evil of the church, but the spirit of infidelity is the spirit of pride -- a proud man which enlargeth his desire as hell, neither stayeth at home. It will have its day, perhaps, against a corrupt and guilty church; it may seek to sit upon the mount of God; but as soon as the Lord has accomplished His whole work upon Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will punish the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks; and the spirit of the prophet will be of grief, intercession, and pity, that the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he. The Lord will hearken, hear, and deliver; for, though he be proud, his heart that is lifted up is not righteous in him; and the just shall live by his faith. Of this infidelity may be sure, that it will rack its heart in bitterness or the madness with which it is now proud; for God's eye is upon it, and the proof of it is, that it sees Him not; it is rushing in blindness into the bitterness of God's wrath. There will they be in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous.
It may be right to mention, in conclusion, that the abundant testimony of the Psalms on this subject has not been referred to, as it would have introduced too great an extent of testimony here; but reference, with this subject in our mind, will at once satisfy the believing enquirer how direct and full the development of God's Spirit in the word is there -- as in Psalms 2, 9, 10, 18, 67, 68, 75, 76, 83, 92, and many others which I omit, as supposing more detailed enquiry into the subject, though not of obscurer evidence when understood through the light of other scriptures.
"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him." -- Ephesians 1: 9,10.
All the fulness of God is well pleased to dwell and manifest itself in Christ the Son. Such was the counsel, the blessed counsel of the Holy One. The manner in which this is manifested to us, and in which we are associated with it, is to us infinitely interesting. After all, but a small, and, as it were, external part is treated of in the following pages; still a part deeply interesting. The manner of its accomplishment is, on God's part, designedly external, and so by truths; but by these truths the child of God enters into communion with Him who is the power of them; and, moreover, is guarded by them (poor feeble creatures that we are!) from substituting his own imaginations in place of the holy manifestation of God.
The subject spoken of here is that contained in the prayer of the apostle at the close of Ephesians 1. There is a deeper matter whence it flows, at the close of Ephesians 3, to which I have alluded above; nor can the subject of Ephesians 1 be really enjoyed without, in some measure, the power of Ephesians 3; but I respond feebly to the desire of some in communicating this, trusting that God will supply the rest.
There are two great subjects which occupy the sphere of millennial prophecy and testimony: the church and its glory in Christ; and the Jews and their glory as a redeemed nation in Christ: the heavenly people and the earthly people; the habitation and scene of the glory of the one being the heavens; of the other, the earth. Christ shall display His glory in the one according to that which is celestial; in the other, according to that which is terrestrial -- Himself the Son, the image and glory of God, the centre and sun of them both. And though the scene and habitation of the glory shall be the heavens, wherein He hath set a tabernacle for the sun, the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. It shall be manifested suitably on earth, and earth shall enjoy its blessing. When all this is accomplished, God shall be all in all; and the tabernacle of God shall be with men, not descending, so to speak, but descended out of heaven. The principles and the manner of the accomplishment of this are fully detailed in the Scriptures. Though the church and Israel be, in connection with Christ, the centres respectively of the heavenly and the earthly glory, mutually enhancing the blessing and joy of each other, yet each has its respective sphere, all things in the heavens being subordinate and the scene of the glory -- angels, principalities, and powers in the one; the nations of the earth in the other.
But to confine myself now to the history and condition of the church on the one hand, and to that of Israel on the other. "In the beginning," I read in the Old Testament, "God created"; "In the beginning," I read in the New, "the Word was" -- the latter the foundation of a higher and an abiding glory, on which the former, ruined in man's weakness and man's sin, should rest and be restored. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." All were made and fashioned very good: sin entered, and they were defiled. (Compare Colossians 1: 20; Ephesians 1: 10.) God, for a moment, as it were, rested in them; and His rest passed away. Of the defilement of the heavens little is said; we know only that the angels fell. But on earth, and by man, the great scene of divine working and redemption was to be manifested; and of this a full account is given. The sabbath of God in creation was short. The sabbath of man with God was not so to pass. That which passed away in the first Adam in weakness, was to be restored in infinitely fuller blessing in the last Adam (sustained and displayed in His strength), God gathering together in one (as we have seen in Ephesians 1) all things in heaven and in earth, in Him. On this re-heading of all things, as the scripture expresses it, in Christ, hangs the constitution and substance of the church's hope, until "God be all in all." "Christ manifested" is spoken of in this respect as the Heir of all this, the church as co-heirs with Him. It is, so to speak, the formal character which He receives as to all things, that we may understand our place with Him.
Thus, in Hebrews 1: 2, "Whom he hath appointed heir of all things"; Ephesians 1: 11, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance"; and Romans 8: 17, "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." The source of this great title is yet in greater glory. "He is the first-born of every creature; for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth"; "all things were created for him and by him." Then we have seen the church, the children, are co-heirs with Him. The manner of this we have to develop. Christ takes this title as Man. He takes it as the risen Man; being previously the fellow-sufferer in respect of the evil; afterwards the Head and chief, and source of the blessing.
First, we have in the "image of him that is to come," the type and picture of this; and it is used as such in Ephesians 5. That is Adam, Adam hidden in sleep, as it were; and Eve, the church, taken out of his side, and presented to him by God as the help-meet for him, as the co-partner with him in the dominion over and inheritance of all things which God had given him in paradise. So the church, taken as it were out of Christ, He (being God as well as man) presents to Himself, awoke up in His glory, partner with Him in the glory and dominion which was already His in title, and in the gift of God. "The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them." And Adam and Eve together are called Adam, as one, though Eve was in a sense inferior to Adam, and subsequent; and so with the church and Christ -- one mystic Person. This type, familiar to the readers of Scripture, presents very simply all the force of the truth, save that the last Adam, being Lord from heaven, is Head and Lord of the heavenly things also.
The texts which speak very particularly of this dominion of man, the union of the church with Christ in it, and its not being yet accomplished, follow. They have their rise, as the apostle uses them, in Psalm 8, "Thou hast crowned him (man, the Son of man) with glory and honour; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet." This we learn in Hebrews 2, is not yet to be seen; but Jesus is crowned with glory and honour, the designation to the church of Him under whose feet, as Man, all things are to be put. Meanwhile, till His enemies (who unrighteously hold the power till God's purposes be accomplished) be made His footstool, that He may hold all things in power of blessing, He sits (that is the present economy) on the right hand of the majesty on high, set down, as having overcome, on the Father's throne, as He will give them who overcome to sit down on His throne when He takes it -- takes His power and reigns. In Ephesians 1, at the close, we have the union of the church in all this, according to the exercise of the power in which Christ was raised from the dead. Read from the prayer of the apostle in chapter 1 to the end of verse 6 in chapter 2. The glorious cause, or reason, is in verse 7. In chapter 1: 22, we have Psalm 8 again quoted, "And hath put all things under his feet, and hath given him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Here the church is the body of Christ, the Head over all things which are put under His feet. He is Head over all things to the church as His body. This is as risen and ascended, as is there fully stated. This point is taken up specially in 1 Corinthians 15, where the same passage is referred to: "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom [the kingdom held thus as the risen Man, which is the subject of this chapter] to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority. For he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject (i.e., as the risen Man, the last Adam, in which character He is ever spoken of here) unto him that put all things under him, that God [not Christ in His mediatorial kingdom] may be all in all." Here then we have this reign of Christ as Man in resurrection, in a kingdom which He delivers up, that "God may be all in all" -- all administration and human dominion being given up, that the divine glory simply may be universal.
As to the manner in which this is accomplished, other passages instruct us. Christ, we have seen, was the heir in title, as Creator: "All things were created by him and for him," the Son; and also by the counsels of God, in appointment; and so (God acting by way of promise) all promises centre in Him. To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made; not to seeds as of many, but as of one; "and to thy seed" -- which is Christ. And 2 Corinthians 1, "All the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen, to the glory of God by us." Thus Christ was the heir, the Seed to whom the promise was made. As regards the earth, Israel, the seed after the flesh, were the best situated of all men to receive the Lord in a world that knew Him not; Israel, His own, whose were the law and the promises, and the covenants, and the oracles of God; and amongst whom, according to the flesh, He was to come; and who, amidst a ruined world, had, through their relationship with God the sabbath, the sign given to them of the hope of God's rest. But though coming according to all which their own prophets had said, they received Him not. They said, and justly, "This is the heir"; but they hated Him, saying, "Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours." Here the last hope of the rest of God on the earth was gone. After all that had passed, He had yet one Son. It was tried; but man was found in his best estate altogether vanity, wholly wanting when all was done. But it only made way for the revelation of a far deeper and more glorious economy. The earth and Israel were set aside for a time, though the gifts and calling of God were without repentance. The counsel, hidden from ages and generations, was now to be revealed, the counsel stated in Ephesians 1, the embodying in one the remnant of Jew and Gentile in Christ; to set them in heavenly places, the companion and spouse of Him who was rejected and risen, gathered while He sat at the right hand of God, and to appear with Him in the same glory when He shall appear. (Colossians 3: 4; 1 John 3: 2.)
Christ, as the seed of Abraham was the heir of the promises. Had He taken them alive here, He had taken them alone. Thus, after His vindication of His glory as Son of God, in the resurrection of Lazarus, and as King of the Jews, in His entry into Jerusalem, when the Greeks also came to seek Him, it was evident that the hour was come -- though the Jews might have rejected the promised seed. The hour was come that the Son of man should be glorified; but, adds the Lord immediately, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Christ was to take the inheritance in resurrection with the church, born upon this plant from the tomb of death. The church is therefore perfectly justified; that is, Christ takes the promises, not as on earth, incarnate, but as risen. That is, after He has done all needful to redeem the church, and in the power of that life in which He associates them (quickened them into fellowship and association) by the Holy Ghost with Himself, when born of the Holy Ghost they are viewed as raised together with Him. In a word, He is heir as the risen Man, the ascended Head of the church. The confirmation of the promise to Christ, referred to by the Spirit in the Galatians, accords exactly with this. It is in Genesis 22, where we find the promise of blessing to the nations, made to Abraham in chapter 12, confirmed to the Seed consequent on his reception from the dead in a figure, as the apostle speaks in Hebrews 11: "Because thou hast done these things," etc.; and, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Thus we have seen under various lights this blessed truth, how the church was redeemed into union with Jesus, that in taking the inheritance He might have a help meet for Him, entirely associated and made like to Himself glorified. For this it was necessary, not only that the church should be redeemed, but that He should go and prepare a place for it.
The resurrection was both the accomplishment of the redemption of the church, and also set Jesus in the place in which He could establish the sure mercies of David (Acts 13: 34); that is, establish in His Person all the promises to Israel; but He had yet to take the heavenlies, that the kingdom of heaven might be established, that He might fill all things, and associate the church in that new yet everlasting glory, prepared before the worlds yet hidden from preceding ages, for which the rejection of Messiah by His people, by the Jews, in the wisdom of God made the way. There were two things in this -- the preparation of a place, a heavenly place of abode; and the gathering, out of all nations, those who were to be the joint heirs -- to call the bride who was to inherit it.
Thus, in John 14, the Lord says, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." See John 17. "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world"; and "Whom he foreknew, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren"; and Colossians 1, "The head of the body the church, the firstborn from the dead." But how is this? Not as "bearing the image of the earthy," but, as we have borne that, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." This is in 1 Corinthians 15, where the subject is entirely the resurrection; and in Romans 8 it is pursued, not to sanctification here below, but to glory. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified"; "Who shall change (as we read in Philippians 3) our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body."ON "DAYS" SIGNIFYING "YEARS" IN PROPHETIC LANGUAGE+
TO THE EDITOR OF THE Christian Herald.
Yours, in Christian truth,
J. N. Darby.ON THE 1260 DAYS
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN HERALD
S. R. Maitland.
John Nelson Darby.ON THE EXTENDED SCOPE OF PROPHECY
SCOPE OF PROPHECY
THE DISPENSATION OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
THE MELCHISEDEC PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST
A LETTER ADDRESSED TO -- , PARSONSTOWN, IN REPLY TO A TRACT ENTITLED, "THREE CONSIDERATIONS; PROVING UNSCRIPTURAL THE SUPPOSITION OF THE PERSONAL REIGN OF CHRIST ON EARTH DURING THE MILLENNIUM"+
EVIDENCE FROM SCRIPTURE OF THE PASSING AWAY OF THE PRESENT DISPENSATION
(2) WHAT ARE THE CIRCUMSTANCES BY WHICH ANY OTHER IS TO BE INTRODUCED?DIVINE MERCY IN THE CHURCH AND TOWARDS ISRAEL
THE CHURCH