Graves' Landmarks

Graves’ LANDMARKS A LANDMARK OUR FATHERS SET

by James Robinson Graves (1820-1892). Reprinted from: THE MEMOIRS OF ELD. J. N. HALL BY W. V. BARKER Chapter VI / pages 88 - 97 “REMOVE NOT THE ANCIENT LANDMARKS WHICH THY FATHERS HAVE SET” PROV. 22:28

Some Baptists may be ready to oppose the position taken by Brother Pendleton in this tract supposing it to be some NEW PRACTICE sought to be introduced. It is an OLD practice sought to be revived. It is an old landmark, which a modern and false charity and an unscriptural liberality have well nigh removed, that is sought to be replaced. It is a coming up of the consistent Scriptural ground, which our brethren the martyrs, from the first ages, boldly and fearlessly stood upon and consecrated with their blood. It was the ground occupied by the first Baptists of America, and it is ground that we, as Baptists, must occupy at all sacrifice, or betray our cause and the ultimate triumph of our principles and our influence.

Yielding to the sophistry and specious charity of Open Communion, Baptists of Great Britain have well nigh lost their visible existence, and this new form of “open communion” - “pulpit communion” - this demand upon us on the part of Pedobaptists to recognize their societies before the world as gospel churches and their ministers as legitimate gospel ministers, by inviting them thus into our pulpits, and addressing them thus in our convention and through the press, clearly involves the surrender of our distinctive principles. Our ancestors would not yield to this unjust and absurd demand, and accordingly drew down upon their devoted heads the cruel hatred and fierce wrath of Pagans, Papists and Protestants.

We say it has been the constant practice of Baptist churches to hold no fellowship with corrupt and irregular “churches,” from the day the first irregular and corrupt “churches” were organized. The practice of re-baptism commenced as early as 251, one century before sprinkling (save in cases of sickness) or infant baptism had a recognized existence, and therefore the practice could not have originated, as some have affirmed, because Baptists could not recognize infant baptism or sprinkling. It was for the same reason that we now urge for baptizing all, who have received the rite in any form from Pedobaptists and Campbellites i.e. because such irregular and corrupt bodies are not churches of Christ.

We quote first from a Historical Essay, by J. N. Brown, (Editorial Secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, prefixed to the Memorial

of Baptist Martyrs.) He says: “Pedobaptism had no recognized existence, “even in the so-called Catholic Church until after the Council at Nice, (nor indeed until the time of Gregory Nazianzen A. D. 363) so we have no proof whatever that it ever existed in the pure churches, or CATHARI, who separated from the Catholics in the preceding century, in the time of Novatian A. D. 251. This large body of Dissenters from the Catholic communion were called Novatians by their adversaries; but as the historian Socrates testifies, they called themselves in Greek, CATHARI (in Latin PURITANI), signifying THE PURE; and the name was designed by them to announce the fundamental principle of their separation, which was the preservation of a pure church membership, communion and discipline.

They held that the Catholics had so departed from the original constitution of the church, in this respect as to have forfeited their claim to that honor; and hence invariably baptized all who joined them from the Catholic churches. Hence, they are the first in history who are caged ANABAPTISTS, that is, RE-BAPTIZERS; although of course, they denied the propriety of the appellation, as they believed the baptism administered by a corrupt church to be null and void.”

So we say today, and therefore should no more invite the ministers of corrupt “churches” - human societies - into our pulpits to preach for us than we would papistical ministers. ‘The Donatists baptize all persons coming from other professing (Christian) communities.” This conduct Augustine (Catholic) disapproved, and observes: “You (Donatists) say they are baptized in an impure church by heretics.”

Orchard’s His., p. 95, which see throughout for the practice of Baptists. These authorities indicate the faith and practice of the Baptists for the first ten centuries.

In the year 1120, we find a “Treatise Concerning Anti-Christ” etc., among the writings of the Waldenses. In defining Anti-Christ they say: “It is not any particular person ordained to any degree, or office, or ministry, but a system of falsehood (as a false ‘church’ or ecclesiastical system, etc.), opposing itself to the truth, covering itself with a show of beauty and piety, yet very unsuitable to the church of Christ as by names and offices, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments, and various other things may appear. The system of iniquity thus completed with its ministers, GREAT and small (as we find in the Romish, Episcopal and Methodist societies), supported by those who are induced to follow it with an evil heart and BLIND-FOLD - is the congregation which taken together, composes what is called “Anti-Christ or Babylon, etc. “One of the marks of an antiChristian system or anti-Christ these Waldensian Baptists declare to be - “He teaches to baptize children into the faith and attributes to ... (baptism) the work of regeneration, thus confounding the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration with the external rite of baptism.”

Do not all the Pedobaptist sects do this, as well as the mother church of which they are branches, or her daughters? The Romish church says that “BAPTISM IS NECESSARY TO SALVATION.” The Greek or Eastern church, which finally separated from the Roman or Western church about 1054, maintained that whoever is baptized by ‘IMMERSION IS REGENERATED, CLEANSED AND JUSTIFIED.” The Swiss church says, that by baptism we are “RECEIVED INTO THE COVENANT AND FAMILY, AND SO INTO THE INHERITANCE OF THE SONS OF GOD.” The Bohemian church says, that in baptism the Lord “WASHETH AWAY SIN, BEGETTETH A MAN AGAIN, AND BESTOWETH SALVATION.” The confession of Augsburg says, “baptism is necessary for salvation.” The confession of Saxony says, “BY THIS DIPPING THE SINS BE WASHED AWAY. “ The Episcopal church of England says, by baptism we are “MADE MEMBERS OF CHRIST AND CHILDREN OF GOD.” The Westminster Assembly say in their confession, baptism “IS A SEAL OF GRACE, OF OUR ENGRAFTING INTO CHRIST - OF REGENERATION, ADOPTION AND LIFE ETERNAL.” The confession of Helvetia says that by baptism the Lord “DOTH REGENERATE US AND CLEANSE US FROM OUR SINS.” The Confession of France says, that by baptism, “WE ARE ENGRAFTED INTO CHRIST’S BODY.” The Methodist church, through Mr. Wesley, says, “BY BAPTISM WE WHO ARE

BY NATURE THE CHILDREN OF WRATH ARE MADE THE CHILDREN OF GOD.” The Campbellites teach that regeneration and immersion are synonymous terms, and that actual remission of sins is conferred in the, ac is but too notorious.

Now how did these Baptists think it became them to treat every such antiChristian sect? Hear them: “And since it hath pleased God to make known these things to us by his servants, believing it to be his revealed will according to the Holy Scriptures, and admonished thereto by the command of the Lord, we do, both inwardly and OUTWARDLY, depart from anti-Christ. Had these Baptists affiliated with Papists, by calling them “brethren” and recognizing their priests as Christian ministers, by inviting them into their pulpits, or “stands,” to preach for then would they have appeared to the world to have “OUTWARDLY” departed from them as the, ministers of an anti-Christian Society?

What the descendants of theses Waldenses consider as “outwardly” departing from anti-Christ we learn even after Luther, and Calvin, and Henry VIII had set up their divisions, or kingdoms, the leaders and rulers of which demand that we consider and recognize them as churches of Christ.

Bullinger, a distinguished Protestant historian, in the year 1540, tells us what Baptists considered as OUTWARDLY DEPARTING FROM ANTI-CHRIST. He says:

“The Anabaptists think themselves to be THE ONLY TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST, and acceptable to God; and teach that they who by baptism are received into their churches OUGHT NOT TO HAVE ANY COMMUNION (Fellowship) with (those called) evangelical or any other whatsoever for that OUR ( i.e. evangelical Protestant or reformed ) churches ARE NOT TRUE CHURCHES ANY MORE THAN THE CHURCHES OF THE PAPISTS. “I most conscientiously believe with my brethren of the sixteenth century that Pedobaptist and Campbellite Societies are no more entitled to be considered or recognized as gospel churches, or churches of Christ than the “church” of Rome; the Episcopal hierarchy of England, or the Methodist hierarchy of America, than the Romish hierarchy of America - names, or piety of individual members neither change principles.

The above historical facts are sufficient to show the faith of Baptists on the Continent of Europe from A. D. 300 to the 16th century.

The faith of the Baptists in England in 1615 is clearly set forth in the following extract which I copy from the Georgia Index of 1843. The correspondent signs himself “J. L. R.,” which are the initials of one of the ripest scholars-us in the South: “The conclusion is irresistible, that they did not consider even immersion valid when it was the act of an unimmersed administrator. The principle of action doubtless was, that there could be no valid baptisms unless the administrator was authorized to baptize by a PROPERLY CONSTITUTED CHURCH. Hence, in vindication of the Baptists of London, published in 1615, the ground is taken that ‘all baptism received either in the church of Rome, or England, is invalid; because received in a FALSE, CHURCH and from ANTI-CRISTIAN MINISTERS.’ Crosby, Vol. 1, p. 273. They refused to sanction the acts of any administrator, who derived his authority from churches which perverted the ordinance of baptism. This is firm Baptist ground and the position is impregnable.

If English or Protestant Episcopal ministers are anti-Christian ministers, are not Methodist Episcopal and all Pedobaptist ministers equally so - being alike members and ministers of false churches? And ought Baptists to affiliate with, or recognize such by act as official and gospel ministers? Ought they not to separate from such outwardly, MINISTERIALLY, and by all external acts? It is a very plain question to my mind.

The practice of the early Baptists in New England and Vii has been referred to by the author of this tract. I will only add two extracts from the history of Pennsylvania and Virginia Baptists. The Philadelphia Association in 1746 decided that to receive into Associations those with whom we cannot communion, is inconsistent and not to BE WINKED AT, because it opens the door to greater and more dangerous conceptions, and is itself subversive of the being and end of an association. Is not the reason of Baptists, which was valid in 1746, valid today?

Why, than should we invite Pedobaptist and Campbellite ministers to seats and participation in our Associations?

Semple, in his account of the New River Association, Virginia, says: “Between these (Methodists and Presbyterians) and the Baptists a good understanding subsisted; insomuch that a considerable party (which has yearly increased) were of opinion in the Association that they ought to INVITE THE PRESBYTERIAN AND METHODIST MINISTERS TO SIT WITH THEM IN THEIR ASSOCIATION AS COUNSELORS; but not to vote. This subject underwent lengthy investigation, and finally was DECIDED AGAINST INVITING.” Elder Semper, a veteran Baptist justly remarks: This was assuredly a VERY PRUDENT DETERMINATION; first because it might trend to confusion, and secondly, because it would probably rather interrupt than promote friendship. Seeing, in most cases, as it respects the intercourse between man and man too much familiarity often ends in strife. We should be more likely to continue in peace with a neighbor, whom we treated with distant respect due a neighbor, than if we were to introduce him to our domestic concerns. * * * Steadfastness in our principles, and charity towards those of others, are not inconsistent with each other.

It can be seen from the above that this pulpit and associational affiliation and communion with Pedobaptists is a LATE thing and if continued in will prove a Pandora’s box to our denomination.

I endorse the opinion of Elder J. S. Baker, than whom no man in our ranks is worthier of respect: “WE HAVE LOST MORE THAN WE HAVE GAINED BY ASSOCIATION AND CO-OPERATION WITH PEDOBAPTISTS.” These facts submitted are sufficient to show the footsteps of our forefathers, when their history could be traced by blood and persecution - when their names were cast out for nought.

Let our churches of this age decide who are seeking to introduce new practices, who are attempting to break- down the old landmarks and lead them away from the old paths, those who would introduce this new phase of open communion - this recognizing human societies as gospel churches, by inviting their ministers into our pulpits, and receiving their baptisms as valid, and calling them our brethren in writing and in conversation; or those who in the face of bitter scorn and the fires of the inquisition of public opinion, hold forth the old, tune-worn, fire-scathed banner, glowing with the inscription of the martyrs! ~ Editor Tennessee Baptist Nashville, TN.

Old Landmarkism: What is It? PREFACE The origin of the appellation “Old Landmarkism” ~ Its present strength.

“Et quorum pars ful.” Virgil, L, 2, 1. 6

My thoughts were first awakened to the subject discussed in this little book in 1832, upon witnessing the immersion of my mother and sister by a Pedobaptist minister, and the plunging of another subject face forward as he knelt in the water, and the pouring water upon another while kneeling in the water, the sprinkling it upon another in the same position, and the sprinkling upon several others while standing on the banks of the stream, and yet others out of a pitcher in the meetinghouse. Those different acts for “one baptism” made an indelible impression, and the more so because the administrator seemed to he in ill humor when he immersed, and dipped his hand in water and laid it upon the heads of the candidates he immersed while he repeated the formula! The questions started were: “If he did not believe in immersion, was the act at his hands valid? If ?what is not of faith is sin,? could his sin be an act acceptable to God?” Twenty-two years after, that mother applied to the 2d Church in Nashville, of which I was pastor, for membership upon her immersion, which brought the whole matter up afresh as a practical question for serious examination. Being quite young and this my first pastorate, I referred the whole matter an d responsibility to Bro. Howell, then pastor of the 1st Church, telling him that I was in serious doubt about the validity of her baptism. He promptly decided it all sufficient and according to the usage of the denomination. From this time I commenced the careful study of the question, “Can an unbaptized man administer baptism?”

Reason said, No; and I found no example of it in the New Testament after a church had been organized. Soon the question with me assumed a proper form: “Has any organization, save a scriptural church, the right to authorize any one, baptized or unbaptized, to administer church ordinances?” I decided this, by God’s Word, in the negative; and subsequently this additional question came up: “Are immersions administered by the authority of a scriptural church with an unscriptural design valid?” Such immersions I also decided, by the clear light of the Scriptures, to be null and void; and thus I instructed my church, which, from that day to this, has never been troubled about unscriptural baptisms.

Shortly after I had the pleasure of seeing that mother and sister observe the ordinance as at first delivered.

In 1846 I took charge of “The Tennessee Baptist,” and soon commenced agitating the question of the validity of alien immersions, and the propriety of Baptists recognizing, by any act, ecclesiastical or ministerial, Pedobaptist societies or preachers as churches and ministers of Christ. This agitation gave rise to the convention, which met at Cotton Grove, XV. T., June 24, 1851, of all Baptists willing to accept and practice the teachings of Christ and his apostles in these

matters. In that convention these questions were discussed, and the decisions of that meeting embodied in the famous “Cotton Grove Resolutions,” which attracted the attention of Baptists throughout the whole South. As a matter of history, I copy them from the minutes, which were offered in the form of “queries.”

“Rev. J. R. Graves offered the following questions: “1st. Can Baptists, consistently with their principles or the Scriptures, recognize those societies not organized according to the pattern of the Jerusalem Church, but possessing different governments, different officers, a different class of members, different ordinances, doctrines and practices, as churches of Christ?

“2nd. Ought they to be called gospel churches, or churches in a religious sense?

“3rd. Can we consistently recognize the ministers of such irregular and unscriptural bodies as gospel ministers?

“4th. Is it not virtually recognizing them as official ministers to invite them into our pulpits, or by any other act that would or could be construed into such a recognition?

“5th. Can we consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity, who not only have not the doctrine of Christ and walk not according to his commandments, but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them?”

These queries were unanimously answered in the negative, and the Baptists of Tennessee generally, and multitudes all over the South, indorsed the decision.

The name of Old Landmarkers came in this way. In 1854, J. M. Pendleton, of Kentucky, wrote an essay upon this question at my special request, viz.: “Ought Baptists to recognize Pedobaptist preachers as gospel ministers?” which I brought out in tract form, and gave it the title, “An Old Landmark Reset.” This calm discussion, which had an immense circulation in the South, was reviewed by many of the leading writers, North and South, and they, by way of reproach. called all Baptists “Old Landmarkers” who accepted his conclusions, and the impression was sought to be made that Brother Pendleton and myself were aiming at dividing the denomination and starting a new sect.

From this brief history it will be seen that we, who only deem ourselves “strict Baptists,” are not responsible for the name, but our opposers. But that we have no reason to be ashamed of it will be seen by every one who will read this little book.

Why should we object to the name “Old Landmarkers,” when those ancient Anabaptists, whom we alone represent in this age, were content to be called Cathari and Puritans, which terms mean the same thing as Old Landmarkers?

I put forth this publication now, thirty years after inaugurating the reform, to correct the manifold misrepresentations of those who oppose what they are pleased to call our principles and teachings, and to place before the Baptists of America what “Old Landmarkism” really is. Many believe that simple opposition to inviting ministers into our pulpits is the whole of it, when the title to the tract indicated

that that was only one of the landmarks of our fathers. Others have been influenced to believe that we hold to “apostolic succession;” others, that we hold that baptism is essential to salvation, but its efficacy ineffectual unless we can prove the unbroken connection of the administrator with some apostle; and yet others, that we hold that any flaw in the qualification of the present administrator, or any previous one in the line of his succession, however remote, invalidates all his baptisms and ministerial acts, as marriages, etc., past, present, and future, and necessitates the re-baptisms and re-marriages of all he has ever immersed or married. It is certainly due to those who bear the name to be vindicated from these hurtful misrepresentations. I think it is no act of presumption in me to assume to know what I meant by the Old Landmarks, since I was the first man in Tennessee, and the first editor on this continent, who publicly advocated the policy of strictly and consistently carrying out in our practice those principles which all true Baptists, in all ages, have professed to believe. Be this as it may, one thing is certainly true, no man in this century has suffered, or is now suffering, more than myself “in the house of my friends,” for a rigid maintenance of them.

In 1846 pulpit affiliations, union meetings, receiving the immersions of Pedobaptists and Campbellites, and inviting Pedobaptists, as “evangelical ministers,” to seats in our associations and conventions, even the Southern Baptist, had become, with but few exceptions, general throughout the South. At the North not only all these customs, but inviting Pedobaptist preachers to assist in the ordinations, and installations, and recognitions of Baptist ministers, was quite as common. I have noticed that in some of these meetings Universalist, if not Unitarian ministers affiliated, and delegates were appointed by Baptist associations to meet Pedobaptist associations and Methodist conferences. A glance at my file for 1856 notes this action by a California association: “Delegates of fraternal courtesy were also appointed, as follows: Bro. Brierly to the Congregational Association of California; Bro. Saxton to the Methodist Conference, North; and Bro. Shuck to the Methodist Conference, South.”

Baptist papers made a glowing, pleasing record of all these inconsistencies without a note of disapproval.

At this writing, January, 1880, and I record it with profound gratitude, there is only one Baptist paper in the South, of the sixteen weeklies, that approve of alien immersion and pulpit affiliation (“The Religious Herald”), while already two papers in the Northern States avow and advocate Landmark principles and practice. I do not believe that there is one association in the whole South that would today indorse an alien immersion as scriptural or valid, and it is a rare thing to see a Pedobaptist or Campbellite in our pulpits, and they are no longer invited to seats in our associations and conventions anywhere South.

The heavy drift of sentiment throughout the whole South, and the “Great West” and Northwest, is strongly in favor of Baptist churches doing their own p reaching, ordaining, baptizing, and restricting the participation of the Supper to the members of the local church celebrating it.

With these statements, before the reader forms an opinion, a fair and impartial consideration of these chapters is entreated. A Christian man will certainly heed the injunction of the apostle, “Prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good,” i.e., in accordance with the teachings of God’s Word. ~ J. R. GRAVES. Memphis, January, 1880.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The first edition of this little work offered to the public in June last has been exhausted, and there is a call for a second. I have reason to be grateful for the consideration it has received from a portion of the Baptist press, and from distinguished brethren. Some few of these can be seen on the fourth page. By a portion of the press, and a class of brethren, it has been ferociously assailed in spirit and terms they are not accustomed to use in noticing a book put forth by the bitterest assailant of Baptist principles. I expected that my position would be objected to by many of my brethren; but I had a right to expect the courtesy that Christian gentlemen and scholars always extend to an author whose work they see fit to notice. The principle objections to the book, its logical method, and the observance of the Supper as a church ordinance; I have briefly noticed in the Appendix. I have added the Old Landmark Platform constructed by Jesse Mercer, Ga., and indorsed by his Association in 1811. Also an account of Kiffin’s Old Landmark Church, in London, 1640. Commending it to the lovers of truth and of fair and free discussion, I again send it forth upon its mission. ~ J. R. GRAVES. Memphis, January, 1881.

CHAPTER I. Introductory.

The real questions at issue between the “Liberal” and the Strict, or “Old Landmark” Baptists’ Fundamental principles upon the “strict” policy rests axiomatically stated.

“I have known a man so set in his way of thinking that he would not admit the truth of an axiom if it was against him.” ~ Old Author.

“Convince a man against his will, and he’s of the same opinion still.” ~ Old Adage.

“He who answereth a matter before he heareth, it is folly and a shame unto him.” ~ Solomon.

Facts Taken For Granted.

1st Fact.

That Christ while on earth did “set up a kingdom” and “build a Church,” unlike any institution that had ever been seen on earth.

2nd Fact.

That Christ “set up” but one kingdom, and built but one house, which he designed to be called, in all after ages, “the house of God,” “the Church of the living God,” and to be “a pillar and ground of the truth.”

3rd Fact.

That Christ did not found His “kingdom” of provinces or parts in deadly antagonism to each other, and all in open rebellion to His own authority, laws and government; (a kingdom constitutionally “divided against itself”) or construct his divine “house,” which he designed for His own glory and praise, of heterogeneous and discordant materials, so that, from their very nature, they could never be “fitly framed together” and become a homogeneous, compacted whole, but ever and necessarily “a house divided against itself.”

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” ~ Christ.

But Christ’s kingdom is never to be brought to desolation, and his Church is to stand forever.

The Direct Inferences from these admitted facts are: First Inference: That the popular “church-branch theory” is a bald absurdity.

That theory, as preached and taught by those who pride themselves upon being “undenominational Christians,” is that all these different sects are “branches of the Church.” Branch is a relative term, and implies necessarily a trunk or body; but they are unable to tell us what or where the trunk or body of the tree is! But the absurdity of the conception of a tree bearing natural branches of fifteen or twenty different kinds of wood, does not seem to occur to the people or their teachers!

Second Inference: The absurdity of the “church - army theory,” which is the popular pulpit illustration with “undenominational preachers.” This theory is, that all the different denominations compose but one great army, Christ being the “Captain,” and the various sects the regiments, brigades and divisions, and their different creeds the different flags, etc. The illustration breaks down fatally when we remember that the parts of an army are all under the same laws and army regulations, and drilled by the same tactics, and not in conflict, each regiment with every other regiment in the army, as these different denominations, called churches, are doing the army more deadly harm than the common enemy can do!

Third Inference from the premise is the equal absurdity of the “universal church theory.” This theory is, that all the different and opposing sects, taken together, constitute the kingdom of Christ on earth, and all the true Christians in these sects constitute the “invisible, spiritual Church.” This theory — of one kingdom, composed of a multitude of discordant elements, irremediably divided against

themselves and engaged in destroying each other—is sufficiently noticed above. It is too preposterously absurd to be put forth by men who have any respect for the wisdom of the Divine Founder of the Church. Infidels could wish for no better argument against Christianity. I honestly believe that more infidels are made by those who preach, hold, and teach these absurd and unscriptural church theories than by all the speeches and writings of infidels themselves. Convince a man that it is true that Christ originated all these diverse sects, and is the author of their radically different and mutually destructive faiths, and he must be an infidel or a fool. If they mean invisible kingdom, the reply is, Christ has not two kingdoms or two churches, considered as institutions, for He has but one Bride, and will have but one “wife”—He is not a bigamist.

4th Fact.

It will be granted by all that there are fifty distinct religious organizations in America alone, [see Churches and Sects in America] each radically dissimilar in form and faith, each asserting its right to be considered an evangelical—which means scriptural—church, and, in more respects than any other, like the original organization which Christ set up to be the model and pattern for all His churches.

Now, the unthinking multitude is taught to believe that all these sects are equally evangelical, and that it is proof of “intolerant bigotry,” and the lack of all “Christian charity,” to assert that all can not be churches, or if one is indeed scriptural, all the rest must be unscriptural. The absurdity of admitting them all to be equally churches of Christ does not occur to them. Let us see.

Axiom i.

Things equal to or like the same thing are equal to or like each other.

Corollary.—If these fifty different and conflicting organizations, claiming to be churches, are each evangelical, i.e., scriptural, they must be like each other in doctrine and organization; but they are essentially and radically unlike the one to the other, and therefore they can not all be scriptural.

The man who admits they are alike evangelical, or any two of them, involves himself in the absurdity of asserting that things unlike and unequal to each other are like the same thing!

It is asserted by the advocates of an “undenominational Christianity,” that Baptists and Pedobaptists hold “in common all the fundamental doctrines and essential principles of Christianity, differing only in non-essentials.”

This is a thorough misstatement of the known and palpable facts in the case, and calculated to deceive and mislead the unthinking.

Protestants are fundamentally opposed to each other; e.g., the Presbyterians will admit, and openly maintain, that their Calvinism is vitally opposed to the

Arminianism of the Methodists, and Methodists will as freely assert that their Arminianism is fundamentally and essentially opposed to Calvinism.

Presbyterians hold and teach that Arminianism is subversive of Christianity, and Methodists affirm the same of Calvinism. If one preaches the Gospel, the other certainly does not.

Every sound Baptist in the land will affirm that the fundamental doctrines and principles of Pedobaptism are utterly subversive of the whole system of Christianity. Therefore, it is not true that Baptists and Pedobaptists “hold in common” all the fundamentals of Christianity and are equally evangelical, in doctrine they differ radically.

Axiom ii.

Two truths or a thousand can no more antagonize, than two or one thousand parallel lines can cross each other.

Direct Inference.—Two or one thousand evangelical—which always means scriptural—churches can not antagonize, but must be essentially one in fundamental doctrines and principles, having “one faith and one baptism” in form and design, as certainly as one Lord and Savior.? 1. Therefore, all evangelical churches are equal to and like each other. 2. Therefore, the fifty different denominations in America are not all evangelical ? if one is, only one is.

Axiom iii.

Baptist, Campbellite and Pedobaptist organizations, being fundamentally and vitally different in doctrine, in character and in principles—if Baptist churches are evangelical, as all Baptists do believe, then all Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are not evangelical, and vice versa.

Rem.—It requires us to do violence to the plainest dictates of reason to demand that we admit that opposites and contradictories are one and the same—equal.

Axiom iv.

Contradictory systems or theories no more than antagonizing elements in nature—light and darkness—can exist in the same time or place without antagonism. Harmony or quiescence is impossible.

Direct Inference.—There can not be any harmony or real union of effort between a system of religion founded in truth, and systems of religion founded in error; and sham unions are hypocritical and sinful.

Definition.—Compromise is the settlement of differences between two or more parties by mutual concessions.

Fundamental Principles.—Principles, moral convictions and the revealed truths of God can not be denied, yielded or modified to effect a compromise; while opinions, prejudices, feelings and self-interests may be.

E.g., politics has been defined “the science of compromise” because based upon opinions, self-interests and prejudices, and these may be conceded or modified.

Christianity—scientia scientiarum—being a system of divinely revealed truths and principles to be held and proclaimed in their entirety, and therefore admitting no increase or diminution, can neither be conceded nor modified. Therefore, between Christianity—the gospel of Christ—and systems of religion that are not Christianity, between the gospel and “a gospel which is another gospel,” there can be no compromise or affiliation.

Less or more, then the gospel is not the gospel, but error; hence the fearful penalty threatened in Revelation Chapter 22, against those who add to, or take from, the things revealed.

By withholding any of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity in our preaching, we can no more preach the gospel of Christ than we can spell the English language without the consonants; and to agree to withhold any part of the gospel, for any length of time, to effect a compromise with those who do not hold it, is manifest treason.

Those ministers who hold “union meetings” with those who believe and teach contrary to God’s Word, can not at the close say: “We have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God.” Axiom v.

Compromise, being based upon mutual concessions, when effected between truth and error, truth must always suffer, since error has nothing of truth to surrender.

Axiom vi.

“The accessory before or alter the fact Is equally guilty with the principal.”— Common law.

Ill.—If we receive or pass, or encourage others to receive and pass, counterfeit money, we make ourselves equally guilty with those who counterfeit it.

Unscriptural systems of religion and churches are counterfeits of Christianity and counterfeit churches. To associate with the teachers of these systems so as to impress them and their followers, and all who witness our acts, that we recognize them as the accredited ministers of God’s truth; we encourage them in their work and thus “bid them God-speed” and make ourselves accessories to, and partakers of their sins.

Now the work I have undertaken to accomplish by this “little book” is threefold: 1. To establish the fact in the minds of all, who will give me an impartial hearing, that Baptist churches are the churches of Christ, and that they alone

hold, and have alone ever held, and preserved the doctrine of the gospel in all ages since the ascension of Christ.

2. To establish clearly what are the “Old Landmarks,” the characteristic principles and policy, of true Baptists in all these ages.

3. To demonstrate, by invincible argument, that treating the ministers of other denominations as the accredited ministers of the gospel, and receiving any of their official acts—preaching or immersion—as scriptural, we do proclaim, louder than we can by words, that their societies are evangelical churches, and their teachings and practices orthodox as our own; and that by so doing we do encourage our own families and the world to enter their societies in preference to Baptist churches, because, with them, the offense of “the cross hath ceased.”

I close by assuring the reader that in these pages he will not find one term of “abuse or personality.” I shall not treat of men or motives, but discuss creeds, doctrines and practices, and them by the Word of God and in the spirit of the Master; an therefore, whatever my critics or opposers may say, they can not charge me with being “uncharitable”—the trite but handy thrust—for the terms “charity” and “bigotry” can have no more rightful application in discussing creeds and religious doctrine than in repeating the multiplication table. The sole province of charity is to judge kindly of men’s motives when they do wrong or teach error.

With the sole desire to gain the “well-done” of my Divine Master I shall write these pages regardless of the praise or censure of sinful men.

CHAPTER II.

Bishop Doggett's position touching a Christian church. The apostles built churches by a divine model. No organization should be called church unless conformed to that model. The unmistakable features of that model, 1. Its origin, divine, 2. Visible, 3. Its locality, this earth.

“For see that thou make all things according to the pattern shown thee in the mount” (Heb. 8:5).

The following statements I copy from an editorial article in the Methodist Quarterly when published in Richmond, and edited by Bro. D. S. Doggett, now bishop of the M. E. Church South, as eminently worthy the consideration of every reader, and Methodists most especially: “Unless the professed followers of Christ organize upon the apostolic model they are not a church of Christ, although there may he members of the body of Christ or Christians among them. . .

“Ministers and members professing the religion of Christ may congregate together for the purpose of worship, and may organize, yet they will not be a church of Christ unless they organize upon. apostolic model. . . .

“We do not suppose that any unprejudiced mind would call any body of men and women the true church―so particularly described by the inspired writers as the true church has been―unless it comes up fairly and fully in every minute particular to a description proceeding from that wisdom that could not err in the description in any remote or conceivable degree.”

There is no misunderstanding these statements. It is the conviction of Bishop Doggett: 1. That Christ did leave a church as a model of church building to the apostles, and for all subsequent ages. 2. That the marks or features of this divine pattern are so particularly described by the inspired writers that no intelligent inquirer need mistake it. 3. And a body of ministers and members, all Christians, congregated for worship, and organized, should not be called a church of Christ unless they are organized upon the apostolic model. I most heartily indorse these statements. Their truth must be apparent to all. If the officers and members of a Masonic lodge were all Christians, the lodge could not therefore be called a church of Christ, because not scripturally organized as a church. We may unchurch an organization, then, without unchristianizing its members―i.e., declare a body to be destitute of the marks or qualifications of a church of Christ, without calling in question the Christian character of its members.

Let us now dispassionately inquire for some of the unmistakable and essential marks of the “pattern” after which Christ commanded his apostles and ministers to the end of time to build.

Moses at his peril would not have varied the tabernacle in the least thing, from the divine pattern, and may we dare to build churches altogether different from the pattern Christ has given?

First MARK The Church and Kingdom of Christ is a Divine Institution.

Proofs―Daniel 2:44, 45; Matthew 16:19; Hebrews 3:3-6.

I understand these Scriptures to teach that this organization, called here “kingdom” and “church” is the conception of the divine mind, the expression of the divine thought, and the embodiment of the divine authority on earth. No created being, angel or man, assisted in its origination or construction; it is the “stone cut out without hands;” it is a perfect product of infinite wisdom. For man or angel to presume to modify it in the least, by additions, changes, or repeals, is to profane it and offer an insult to its divine Founder; far more sacred and inviolable is it than God's altar of rough ashlers: “If thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it.”

(Ex. 20:25). And for man to set up any form of church as equal, or in opposition, to it, and influence men to join themselves to it, under the impression that they are uniting with Christ's church, is an act of open rebellion to Christ as the only King of Zion; while it is “offending”―deceiving, and misleading these that desire to follow Christ; and He has said, that “it were better that a mill-stone were hanged

about the neck of that man, and he cast into the midst of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6).

It must be true that those who originate such false churches, and those who support them by their means and influence, occupy the positions of rebels against the rightful and supreme authority of Christ. Designed as the “house and church of the living God” was by an architect possessing infinite wisdom, who saw the end from the beginning, every conceivable exigency that could effect it to the end of time, must have been foreseen and provided for; and the very intimation that changes have become necessary, the better to adapt it to fulfill its mission, is impiously to impugn the divine wisdom that devised and set it up.

If I am right in my conception of the character of this divine institution, then it follows that the sanctity and authority of its divine Founder are so embodied in its government, as they were in its type―the Jewish theocracy―that as men treat His church, its doctrine, its laws or its members, ?they treat its Author. To despise and reject its teachings is to despise the Author of those teachings; and those who hate or persecute its members for their obedience to its laws and fidelity to its principles, will be confounded at last to learn, that, inasmuch as they did it to one of the least of Christ's followers they did it to Christ Himself. (Matthew 25).

Christ enjoined it upon His apostles and ministers for all time to come, to construct all organizations that should bear His name according to the pattern and model He “built” before their eyes; and those who add to or diminish aught, do it at their peril. (Rev. 22:18,19). Organizations bearing the name of Christ devised and set up by men are manifestly counterfeits, and certainly impositions upon the ignorance and credulity of the people. Human societies are but the expression of human opinion; only human authority is embodied in their laws and regulations; and to observe and obey them is only obeying the men who established them; and it is written: “His servants―slaves―ye are whom ye obey.” It is rejecting Christ as king, and choosing men for our masters when we unite with human societies instead of a church of Christ set up as the home of His children.

Now it cannot be truthfully denied that the Catholic and the various Protestant sects were originated and set up by men many ages after the ascension of Christ; since all their own standard Church Histories frankly admit the fact. They are therefore not divine―but human institutions, which rival and antagonize―or, in the strong language of Bro. Bright of the Examiner-Chronicle, N. Y.: “They are an organized muster against the church and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.” One thing can not be denied, so long as they had the power, they assaulted His kingdom and shed the blood of His brethren. Every reader can easily satisfy himself of the truth of this statement if he will but turn to Protestant histories. See History of “Religious Denominations.”

Second Mark of a Church of Christ.

It is a Visible Institution.

Notwithstanding the contradictory teachings prevalent, this is a self-evident fact that an institution or organization must be visible. But the church and kingdom of Christ is an institution, an organization; He, as God of heaven, “set it up,” He built it, and it must therefore be visible. Every term selected by the inspiring Spirit to designate the institution Christ was to originate when He came to this earth, in both Testaments, is a term necessitating form, and therefore visibility, e.g., “Kingdom of God,” “of Heaven,” “of Christ,” “Bride,” “wife,” “Church,” “House,” etc.

And this, too, is manifest, that the only church that is revealed to us is a visible church, and the only church with which we have anything to do, or in connection with which we have any duties to perform, is a visible body. It has a specified organization, officers, faith, laws and ordinances, and a living membership, and therefore it must be visible. Christ never set up but one kingdom, was never constituted King of but one kingdom, and His Word recognizes but one kingdom; and if this is visible, He has no invisible kingdom or church, and such a thing has no real existence in heaven or earth. It is only an invention employed to bolster up erroneous theories of ecclesiology.

Third Mark of the Church of Christ.

Its Locality is upon this Earth.

Since I have used the terms church and kingdom, it may be well to explain here what I understand by them and their relation to each other. They were used as synonymous terms by the evangelists so long as Christ had but one organized church for they were then one and the same body. So soon as “churches were multiplied,” a distinction arose. The kingdom embraced the first church, and it now embraces all the churches. The churches of Christ constitute the kingdom of Christ, as the twelve tribes, each separate and independent of itself, constituted the kingdom of Israel; as the provinces of a kingdom constitute the kingdom; as all the separate sovereign States of these United States constitute the Republic of America. Now, as no foreigner can become a citizen of this Republic without being naturalized as a citizen of some one of the States, so no one can enter the kingdom of Christ without becoming a member of some one of His visible churches.

Baptism is an ordinance of, and in, each local church―not of the kingdom, and Christ himself says: “Except a man be born of water, and the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.” It was of a visible earthy organization He spake―His church. (See John 3:12.)

The locality of Christ's church, and therefore kingdom, is this earth; all the subjects of His kingdom are here; all the work of His church is here. This earth was

given to Him by His Father to be the sole seat of His throne and His kingdom. (See Psalms second chapter.) All authority, power and judgment over all flesh were vested in Christ, and He was appointed to reign on this earth until He should put all His enemies under His feet, and then will come the end when He will give up his kingdom to His Father, when the Godhead will rule with undivided scepter over it, as before sin entered it. Christ, then, has no church in heaven―never had; nor has He, as Messiah, any kingdom in heaven, or will He ever have; nor, if we will believe the Scriptures rather than mere theorists, will He always have a kingdom on this earth: “Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father.” Did He not teach His disciples to p ray: “Our Father, who art in heaven; thy kingdom come”? Not Christ's kingdom, for that had already come, and the disciples were in it; but the Father's kingdom; and when the Fathers will shall be done on this earth as it now is done in heaven, will not this earth then be a heaven as much as any other place in the universe?

CHAPTER III. The “ecclesia” of Christ a single congregation — Not universal, national, or provincial — Was independent of all other bodies — Therefore alone authorized to preach the gospel, elect, ordain, choose, and dismiss its own officers, receive and disciple its own members, and administer the ordinances.

“The church which is at Cenchrea” (Rom. 16:1).

“Salute . . . Nymphas and the church which is in his house” (Gal. 4:15).

“Uhi tres ecclesia est, licet laici.”—Tertullian.

“Ea quae est in quoque loco ecclesia.”—Irenaeus.

All congregations were [in the 1st and 2nd centuries] were independent of each other.”—Gieseler.

Several important marks of a true church I pass for lack of space, and because not so essential to this discussion—e. g., the perfect equality of its ministers, the purely democratic and executive character of its government—that I may notice more at length what I will call the,

Fourth Mark of the Divine Model.

It was a Local Organization, a Single Congregation.

Now, there are three theories concerning a church, and upon one or the other of these all organizations claiming to be churches are built; but, according to Bishop Doggett, only that one can be a Christian church that is in all respects conformed to the scriptural model, so particularly described by the inspired writers. Let us examine these theories: The first is the Catholic or Universal church theory. According to this, there can be but one church, of the denomination adopting it, throughout the world. No single congregation is a church in any sense, but an infinitesimal part of the

universal idea. The Greek Catholic Church is formed upon this theory, having the Grand Patriarch at Constantinople for its Supreme head.

The Latin, or Roman Catholic Church, is constructed upon this idea. No local congregation in one place is a church, but only a minute part of the great whole, the seat of which is at Rome, and the absolute governing power, the Pope.

The reader will notice that, according to this theory, (1) the word can not be used in the plural—there is but one Roman Catholic, and but one Greek Church in the world; (2) that the local congregations are not churches; and (3) that these universal churches never were, and never can be, assembled in one place for any purpose.

The second is the National or Provincial theory. This is like the universal, only limited. All the local congregations in the nation, province or country, in some way associated, constitute the one church of that nation or province.

The Church of England is an illustration of this theory. The thousands of local societies scattered throughout the empire of Great Britain are not churches, but only parts of the one great state church, of which the reigning king or queen and Parliament is the supreme head, determining the faith and enacting the laws for the government of the body.

The Old School Presbyterian Church of this country conforms to this idea.

Before the division of the Old School body, all the local bodies in the United States, with all the Presbyteries and Synods, constituted but one church, of which the General Assembly was the central head and ruling power.

The Methodist Episcopal Churches of America also illustrate the provincial theory. There are only two Methodist Episcopal Churches in these United States, the one North and the other South. Before the division there was but one. The local societies, to which the members, but not the ministers, belong, are in no sense churches—have none of the prerogatives of churches. They have no voice in determining the doctrines they must believe; they can not elect their own ministers to teach them, nor can they dismiss them when .they prove inefficient, or discipline them should they fall into the grossest vices; they are not even allowed to hold the titles to the houses of worship which they build and pay for with their own money; and no acting minister, circuit rider, presiding elder or bishop belongs to one of these local societies to which the lay members belong; but these ministers belong to the Annual Conference; so that if the local societies are indeed churches, the ministers do not belong to a church; if they are not, the members do not belong to any church!

But this point needs no argument, since it was forever settled by the Supreme Court of the United States, in accordance with the instructions of the bishops, North and South, that no Methodist society is a church in any sense, or even a

constituent part of the Methodist Church. Of this “church,” the General Conference, which meets once in four years, is the supreme head and all-governing power, and, according to the above cited decision, is alone the Methodist Church; but, strange for a church, no minister or member is, or can be, a member of it, save the bishops only, except appointed by some Annual Conference!

Let it be borne in mind that, according to this theory of church building, (1) “ecclesia” can not be used in the plural, and (2) the church can not be gathered into one place to discipline its members or to observe the ordinances.

The third is the Baptist, or scriptural theory; viz., the church is a local organization. This implies that the primitive model was a single congregation, complete in itself, independent of all other bodies, civil or religious, and the highest and only source of ecclesiastical authority on earth, amenable only to Christ, whose laws alone it receives and executes—not possessing the authority or right to enact or modify the least law or ordinance, or to discipline a member, save for the violation of what Christ himself has enjoined. This church acknowledges no body of men on earth, council, conference or assembly as its head, but Christ alone, who is invisible, as “head over all things” to it.

Proofs.

1. The term ecclesia itself.—The Holy Spirit selected the Greek word, ecclesia, which had but one possible literal meaning to the Greek—that of a local organization.

2. New Testament use.—It is used in the New Testament 110 times, referring to the Christian institution, and in 100 of these it undoubtedly refers to a local organization; and in the remaining 10 instances it is used figuratively—by synecdoche—where a part is put for the whole, the singular for the plural, one for all. In each of these instances what is true of all the churches is true of any one— e.g., Ephesians 1:22; 3:10, 21; 5:23-32; Colossians 1:18. There is no occasion whatever for any misapprehension touching this use, nor is there one passage that affords the shadow of a ground for the idea of an invisible church in heaven, any more than for a huge universal, national or provincial church on earth, but a multitude of passages preclude the idea.

3. Ecclesia in the plural.—It is used in the plural thirty-six times, which fact is demonstrative that the universal or provincial idea was not then known.

4. The ecclesia of the New Testament could, and was required to assemble in one place.—This is impossible for a universal or invisible church to do. It was often required to assemble. (Matthew 18:17; 1 Cor. 11:18; 14:23.) Discipline, baptism and the Lord’s Supper could only he administered by the assembled church.

5. Ecclesia in a single city and house.—”Unto the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2); “the church which was at Jerusalem” (Acts 11:22); “the

churches of Asia salute you;” “Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord with the church that is in their house” (1 Cor. 16:19). “Salute . . . Nymphas and the church which is in his house” (Col. 4:15); “and to the church in thy house” (Philem.

2). Now a complete church was composed of the members of these individual households, and, probably, a few others, and were wont statedly to meet in the houses of these brethren for worship and the transaction of business, and it is certain that it could have been nothing else than a local society.

6. Historical testimony.—The earliest writers knew nothing of an invisible, universal or provincial church.

Clement, A. D. 217.—”To the church of God which sojourns at Rome;” “To the church of God sojourning at Corinth.”

Eusebius referring to this epistle says: “There is one acknowledged epistle of this Clement, great and admirable, which he wrote in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth; sedition then having arisen in the latter church. We are aware that this epistle has been publicly read in very many churches—both in old times, also in our day.”

Irenaeus, A.D. 175-200—”For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down any thing different; nor do those [i.e., churches] in Spain; nor those in Gaul; nor those in the East; nor those in Egypt; nor those in Lybia; nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world.”

Tertullian, A.D. 150.—Expressed the idea of a Christian church in his clay in these words: “Three are sufficient to form a church, although they be laymen.”

Giesler.—Of the churches of the first and second centuries, says: “All congregations were independent of one another” (Vol. 1, chap. 3).

Mosheim.—”During a great part of this [second] century all the churches continued to be, as at first, independent of each other; . . . each church was a kind of little independent republic” (Vol. 1, p. 142).

Bro. Owen.—”In no approved writer for two hundred years after Christ is mention made of any organized, visibly professing church except a local congregation” (By Crowell, in “Chap. Man., p. 36).

No fact is better established than this, and therefore the various Catholic and Protestant organizations can lay no just claim to be patterned after the apostolic model; and, according to Bishop Doggett’s axioms, should not be considered or called Christian churches.

CHAPTER IV. The Divine and inalienable rights of a Christian Church—alone commissioned to preach the Gospel—to ordain her officers—to receive, discipline and exclude members—to administer her ordinances.

“God’s house is a church of the living God, a pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15-16).

I hold these postulates to be so self-evident to every commonly intelligent reader of God’s Word, that I will exalt them into axioms and devote this chapter to their application.

Axiom i.

Each church is a living body, to which Christ committed both the sacred oracles and ordinances of Christianity.

Axiom ii.

The true churches are the only authorized exponents of Christ’s revelation, and of what Christianity is; and, therefore, to them is thus committed its wholeness and its symmetry.

It is admitted by all commentators that?

1. Christ commissioned His churches alone to preach His gospel.

The first commission He ever issued on earth was to that body of disciples which John called “the Bride,” one of the titles of the Christian church. The last commission was to the same body on Mt. Olivet, and was but the repetition and emphasis of the first.

To the saints organized into churches—for we find no companies of unbaptized and unorganized persons spoken of as saints in the New Testament—was “the faith”—which is but another word for “the gospel,” with all its ordinances, at first delivered, and, for all time, to be held by it. We can not, for one moment, conceive that Christ or His apostles committed the gospel to, and commissioned it to be preserved and preached by, those who neither experimentally understood, nor had themselves obeyed it, and whose teaching and practice tended directly to pervert and subvert it.

Paul, addressing the Hebrew churches, says: “Therefore we receiving a kingdom that can not be moved,? etc. To Timothy he declared that “the church of the living God was the pillar and the ground of the truth.” This teaches that to the church alone was the gospel entrusted to be preserved in its purity, and to be published to the world, for it was the ground and the pillar of the truth. Says Barnes in loco: “Thus it is with the church. It is entrusted with the business of maintaining the truth, of defending it from the assaults of error, and of transmitting it to future times. The truth is, in fact, upheld in the world by the church. The people of the

world feel no interest in defending it, and it is to the church of Christ that it is owing that it is preserved and transmitted from age to age. . . . The stability of the truth on earth is dependent on the church . . . Other systems of religion are swept away; other opinions change; other forms of doctrine vanish; but the knowledge of the great system of redemption is preserved on earth unshaken, because the church is preserved and its foundations can not be moved. As certainly as the church continues to live, so certain will it be that the truth of God will be perpetuated in the world.”

If the church alone was commissioned to preserve and to preach the gospel, then it is certain that no other organization has the right to preach it—to trench upon the divine rights of the church. A Masonic Lodge, no more than a Young Men’s Christian Association; an Odd-Fellows’ lodge or Howard Association, no more than a “Woman’s Missionary Board,” have the least right to take the gospel in hand, select and commission ministers to go forth and preach it, administer its ordinances and organize churches. “Young Men’s Christian Associations” are not churches or any part of a church. Nor is a “Woman’s Missionary Society” in any conceivable sense, a church of Christ, and their daring to assume the mission and exercise the prerogatives of the divine church, is no less daring and impious than that of Uzziah when he put forth his hand to seize the ark of God! The church is degraded in the eyes of the world when its divine mission work is assumed by organizations of men’s and women’s origination, and confusion and distraction are introduced into the Christian church.

It is through His church that Christ wishes and ordains that the glory of all we can do, or give, or influence, should flow to Him in all ages, in this and in all time to come, as well as in the past.

The second divine prerogative of a church of Christ is:

2. To elect and commission, i.e., ordain her own officers.

It is evident that, if a church must exist before her officers, and that she is absolutely independent of all other bodies, she must be authorized to elect and to commission her officers without being required to call upon some outside party. (1) The church at Jerusalem elected an apostle to take the place of Judas, and afterwards seven deacons to administer the temporal affairs of the church. These may have all been of the seventy Jesus originally commissioned to preach, and it is certain that one of them at least, became an evangelist, but not by virtue of his office of deacon. Subsequently, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, the church at Antioch formally commissioned Paul and Barnabas to the full work of the ministry, and to go forth as missionaries to foreign lands. There is no intimation that either one had administered the ordinances before this ordination. No neighboring churches were called upon to send their officers to ordain these men; nor can we

bring ourselves to believe that a number of ministers belonging to this church ordained and gave them “credentials,” bearing their individual signatures; the record of the church alone was the visible proof of their ordination, and it is given.

A church may, if she sees fit, invite as many ministers as she pleases to advise and assist her officers in this work, but she must allow them no authority in the matter. They may all decide that the candidate is qualified for the work, but if she is not, after due examination, no ordination can take place; and, the presbytery may decide adversely, but if the church is satisfied, it is her right to ordain, and the presbytery can not prevent her act. One church does not make a minister for, nor can she impose one upon, another church. When one church calls a minister to preach to her, she virtually commissions him to preach the gospel for her, or if the reader prefers, she indorses the act of the church ordaining him. If the minister is a member of her body, she can, if she deems him unworthy, withdraw the authority she gave him to preach, and retain him as a member. A man may be qualified to be a good church member, and not qualified to be a preacher of the gospel. Of this the church is the only judge.

3. A church is alone authorized to receive, to discipline, and to exclude her own members.

This power, with all her other prerogatives, is delegated to her, and it is her bounden duty to exercise it; she can not delegate her prerogatives.

“Quod delegatur non delegatum est” is a legal maxim as old as the civil code.

What is delegated can not be delegated. She can not authorize her ministers to examine and baptize members into her fellowship without her personal presence and action upon each case. A minister, therefore, has no right, because ordained, to decide who are qualified to receive baptism and to administer it. Their ordination only qualified them to administer the ordinances for a church when that church called upon them to do so. A minister has an equally just right to administer the Lord’s Supper to whom, and when, and where he pleases, as he has to baptize whom he pleases, and one act would be as null as the other.

A distinguished scholar in the South, in order to find a ground upon which to unite the advocates of ministerial authority to baptize whom they will, and the advocates of church authority alone, proposes that the pastor be allowed the veto power, i.e., the right to reject whom he pleases. This would virtually place the keys of the church door, and all the ordinances of the church in the hands of the pastor, and put the whole church at his feet. He would be a petty pope indeed, and no pope ever had more control of the ordinances than he would have. Nor would he be long in making his power felt; his arrogance and self-sufficiency as well.

The question was discussed and decided in the negative by the old Goshen Association in Virginia, in 1795, in the case of one George Morris, a selfopinionated minister, who continued the practice contrary to the advice of the

Association, and was excluded therefor. There are some ministers among us now who declare they will baptize whom they please; and they care not for church authority. Churches can not stand too clear of men of this spirit.

It is strangely advocated, by the same writer, that the act of any one church, whether scriptural or not, binds the action of every other church in the world;? e.g., suppose a church in this place should, without just cause, and by a process not recognized in the New Testament, exclude a member—say for contributing his money for foreign missions—that every other church of Christ would be bound to respect that act, and would have no authority to restore that outraged member to his church rights, of which he had been wickedly robbed in open violation of the law of Christ! We refer all to 3 John 9, as determining this case.

When a church has excluded a member, she has no further jurisdiction over him than over a publican, or one who never belonged to her body. She has no right to say what church shall not, any more than what one shall, receive him. Each church on earth has an unquestioned right to receive whom she pleases to her fellowship.

If she can fellowship a certain person, it is not her business or duty to inquire if a church possibly exists on earth that can not; and for this reason reject him. I do not discuss here what would be policy or comity in a case where the church was knowing to the fact that the applicant had been excluded for unchristian conduct from a sister church; but I am asserting the abstract right of one church to dictate to another whom she may or may not fellowship. No church on earth is compelled to receive a person because he has a letter of credit from another sister church.

That church itself may be without credit—may be in known disorder, and then the church may have no fellowship for the person applying. His character may be unsatisfactory, or he may come with a baptism irregular and null in the estimation of the church, and certainly she has the right to decide upon the qualifications of the members she must fellowship and admit to her ordinances. To grant pastors the “veto power,” and that “the acts of one church bind all others,” would be to subvert the government of Baptist churches altogether, and introduce ministerial lordship and a species of Church Centralism in the place of Independence.

4. It is the inalienable and sole right and duty of a Christian church to administer the ordinances, Baptism, and the Supper.

That these ordinances were designed to be of perpetual observance, commemorating specific and important events or acts in the work of Christ, no intelligent Christian will deny. The rites and ordinances of an institution belong, unquestionably, to that institution, and may be rightly said to be in it. I mean by these expressions that they are under the sole control of the organization; they can he administered only by the organization as such, and when duly assembled, and by its own officers or those she may appoint, pro tern pore. A number of its members, not even a majority in an unorganized capacity; is competent to administer its rites, and certainly another and different body can not perform

them, e.g., the rites of Masonry belong to the respective lodges; they can not be performed outside, or independent of. the lodge by any number of Masons: the officers are mere ciphers so soon as the lodge adjourns, and Odd Fellow lodges certainly can not administer the rite of initiation for a masonic lodge, or vice versa.

Corollary 1—No Baptist Association or Convention can ordain ministers; dictate the discipline of churches; administer baptism or the Lord’s supper; and if Pedobaptist and Catholic organizations are not scriptural churches, then they not only have no right to preach or power to ordain ministers; but they have no right, any more than have Masonic Lodges, to administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and such acts of theirs ore worse than null and void.

Corollary 2.—The official acts of a minister of a church are held valid as to third parties, as the acts of an officer, de facto, though not, de lure, would be, should there be found to have been material defects as to his legal qualifications for the office. This is a scaled question in all civil matters, and should be in ecclesiastical.

REM—There are certain qualifications, personal and ceremonial, scripturally required to render a man eligible to ordination, as personal regeneration, “aptness to teach,” a valid baptism, etc. Of these the church alone is judge, and responsible for any defect that may exist, and not parties applying to the church for its ordinances. The church may, years after, be satisfied that her pastor is on unregenerate man, or covetous, or his baptism defective, e.g., he was not entirely put under the water when baptized, or by an unqualified administrator, or by an impostor upon his own responsibility without examination by a church, or by an impostor while officiating for a church; still all his official acts, as marriages, baptisms, ordinations, are, de facto, valid.

The baptisms of John, of Judas, and of the false teachers in Paul’s day, who belonged to the church at Jerusalem, were as valid as those of Paul’s by virtue of their commissions.

CHAPTER V. The Fifth Mark of the apostolic model church—A spiritual membership; i.e., professedly regenerate—”Christ before the church, blood before water,” the symbol of its faith—Those religious organizations that admit infants and the unregenerate can not be Christian churches.

“Ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 1:5).

“The Lord added to the church daily the saved (tous soozomenous)” (Acts 2:47).

The character of the material of which a public building, or a house for the protection of a family, is constructed, is manifestly of the very first importance.

God never has commanded a structure to be erected for His service, that He did not specifically indicate the material, and Christ no less specifically commanded the material that should be used in His house; the membership of His ecclesia. Let us look then, for the Fifth Mark of the “Model Church.”

The membership all professedly regenerate in heart before baptized into it.

The typical teachings of the Old Testament require this. Paul distinctly teaches (Heb. 12:18) that the kingdom of Israel was a type of the kingdom of Christ; and nominal Israel of his spiritual Israel; the literal family of Abraham, of the spiritual family of Abraham. Now it was by manual circumcision of the flesh that God called out from among the nations, and separated the family of Abraham and the Jews as a nation to himself. No one was recognized as belonging to Abraham’s family unless circumcised, and no one could become a citizen of the kingdom or enjoy one privilege in it unless circumcised, for the uncircumcised were to be cut off (Gen. 17:14). So in the gospel dispensation, Christ calls out from the world, and marks all His people by the “circumcision made without hands, of the heart in the spirit, and not the letter”—i.e., by regeneration of heart effected by the Holy Spirit; and such persons, and such alone, are Christ’s people—Christians; and of such alone He authorizes and commands His churches to be constituted, and these churches of the spiritually circumcised, “saints.” Only with the idea of a purely spiritual membership can the Scriptures, that refer to the church, be read intelligibly.

Persons “quickened,” made alive by the Spirit, are called “living stones;” and of such is His church said to be “built up a spiritual house,” and to such—”the saved”—alone are to be added. This, then, being the true idea of a scriptural church, whatever theory or practice naturally tends to destroy it, by introducing the unregenerate, can not be of God, but must be considered as directly antagonistic to the authority of Christ.

There are three theories of church constituency extant between which Christendom is divided; and if one be the true one the other two must be false, and the pretended churches built upon them counterfeit and of pernicious influence.

1. The first theory is the Catholic.

According to this the church is the instrumental source of salvation, and her ordinances are God’s appointed sacraments of salvation—channels of grace; so that out of the church, without the use of these sacraments, there is no salvation; therefore those “churches,” accepting this theory, teach that it is the duty of all, however wicked, to unite with “the church,” to receive the grace of salvation, and to bring their children, young or old, into it, and give them baptism, etc. This theory, if carried out, would introduce the whole world at once into the church, and obliterate the least distinction between the world and the church. It would be all church and no “world;” or, rather, all world and no church. All purely Catholic countries, and those where Protestant state churches” prevail, are proofs of this.

These, therefore, can not be considered scriptural churches in any sense?Methodist and Episcopal societies accept this theory.

2. The second is the Presbyterian theory.

According to this, believers and their children—natural seed—irrespective of regeneration, are entitled to membership. But this theory, carried out according to the standard expositions of it, would introduce the whole world quite as certainly as the former; for the “seed of believers” is made to include all who have descended from believing ancestors, however remote.

“The seed and posterity of the faithful, born within the church, have, by their birth, interest in the covenant and a right to the seal.”— Westminster Assembly’s Confession.

“Children may be lawfully accounted within God’s covenant if any of their ancestors, in any generation, were faithful” (Bro. Rathburn: quoted

by Tombes, p. 32).

“Infants that are born of believers belong to God before their baptism.

Though they had not a father or mother that was acquainted with God, yet perhaps, they had some ancestors who were so favored, and therefore they are members of the church” (Peter Martyr, in Booth’s P. Ex., vol. II, p. 201).

Well said old Thomas Boston, in opposing this theory, that it, like the Catholic, would sweep in all the world, “so long as it remains undoubted that all the world is come of Noah and of Adam.” This theory is, therefore, evidently false, and, like the first, subversive of the spiritual idea of the church Christ established; and its societies are certainly no more churches than is the Catholic hierarchy. From the above consideration, the reader can appreciate the statements of the two Langes of Germany, distinguished Pedobaptist scholars: “All attempts to make out infant baptism from the New Testament fails. it is utterly opposed to the spirit of the apostolic age and to the fundamental principles of the New Testament” (Bro. L. Lange: Infant Baptism, p. 101).

J. Lange, the renowned commentator: “Would the Protestant church fulfill and attain to its final destiny, the baptism of new-born children must be abolished. It can not, on any point of view, be justified by the Holy Scriptures” (History Baptism, pp. 34, 35).

3. The third is the Baptist theory.

This is, that none but Christians should be baptized, and thus added to the church. I mean a person should give satisfactory evidence that he has been regenerated in heart, made a new creature in Christ, before he is baptized. All human societies—and by this test they may infallibly be known—baptize, and add to the church in order to save. Baptists do it, because they believe the subject is saved. This is the grand characteristic that makes Baptists a peculiar people—that separates them from all other. They invariably place Christ before the church, while all others place the church before Christ. For this reason Baptists do not give baptism to their infants, nor to unregenerate persons. I have not the space, in this

little work, to make an extended argument against infant baptism; its unscripturalness, and its vast and positive evils (I should be pleased if the reader will study my little work—”The Origin and Evils of Infant Sprinkling”) to Christianity and the race; but I will simply indicate the four principal arguments in addition to the one given above, either one of which is sufficient to condemn it forever with every unprejudiced man or woman.

I. The Word of God contains neither precept for, nor example of, Infant Baptism, which is frankly admitted by hundreds of the most learned Pedobaptist scholars.

If infant baptism be a Christian duty, it must be a positive duty; and if positive, it must be clearly and unmistakably commanded, since all positive duties are clearly commanded.

A. Bledsoe, LL.D, late editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review, vol. 14, pp. 234, 235, the most scholarly man the Methodists of America ever had, makes this declaration: “It is an article of our faith that the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church as most agreeable to the institution of Christ. But yet, with all our searching, we have been unable to find in the New Testament a single express declaration, or word, in favor of infant baptism. This may, perhaps, be deemed by some of our readers a strange position for a Pedobaptist. It is by no means, however, a singular opinion. Hundreds of learned Pedobaptists have come to the same conclusion; especially since the New Testament has been subjected to a closer, and a more conscientious and more candid exegesis than was formerly practiced by controversialists” [Italics Mine].

Bro. Bledsoe quotes Bros. Knapp. Jacobi and Neander, distinguished German Pedobaptists, in proof that infant baptism was not instituted by Christ or His apostles, or known in the first ages, and adds: “We might, if necessary, adduce the admission of many other profoundly learned Pedobaptists, that their doctrine is not found in the New Testament, either in express terms or by implication from any portion of its teachings.”

II. That the practice of Infant Baptism was unknown to the churches of Christ in the first two centuries after Christ. is admitted by all standard Pedobaptist scholars and historians.

Curcelleus, acknowledged to be the most learned Protestant scholar of the sixteenth century, says: “Pedobaptism was not known in the world the two first ages after Christ; in the third and fourth it was approved by few; at length, in the fifth and following ages, it began to obtain in divers places; and, therefore, we [Pedobaptists] observe this rite, indeed as an ancient custom but not as an apostolic tradition. The custom of baptizing infants did not begin

before the third age after Christ, and there appears not the least footstep of it for the first two centuries.”

So Neander, Mosheim, Gieseler, Schaff, Coleman. Now, if infant baptism was not instituted by Christ nor His apostles, nor known for ages after Christ, it is evidently a “commandment of men,” and Christ Himself has said: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:9).

Such systems, no more than the worship of such bodies of men, can be pleasing or accepted by Christ, but condemned and abhorred by him, whatever men, who would be considered “liberal,” may think or say, Christ does not, he can not, approve them, nor should we, and hope to please him.

III. All the teachings of Christ and His apostles positively forbid the practice of Infant Baptism, and the admission of the unregenerate to baptism and churchmembership.

Catholics baptize all these, and their graveyards as well; and on the same authority they do their infants.

1. John, Christ’s first gospel minister and apostle, it is admitted by all, baptized only penitent believers, and he positively declared that children, by virtue of their connection with pious ancestors, were not entitled to baptism. Christ never authorized any man to teach differently.

2. Thus Christ, during His ministry, made disciples before He baptized them (John 4:1), and therefore He did not make disciples by baptizing them, and therefore no one is authorized to say it can be done. Christ certainly never commanded His apostles or ministers to teach or baptize otherwise than He instructed John and His apostles during His own ministry. The commission is the permanent law for Christian baptism; and in it Christ positively forbade the baptism of unbelievers and non-believers, by specifying the character to be baptized, viz., “he that believeth.” Since “the specification of one thing is the prohibition of all other things;” if He prohibited the baptism of a bell, mules and apes, He did that of a baby—an unbeliever.

3. The formula Christ gave forbids the baptism of infants or unregenerate persons.

He commanded all who were to receive His baptism to be baptized into, not in, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Whether into or in the name, equally implies by the authority—and no minister who has the fear of the Sacred Trinity before his eyes, will declare he does an act by the authority of Christ until he can find an express precept and command for it—and every intelligent minister and Christian knows such authority can not be found in the Word. But the preposition into,” with a subject that is impenetrable and

indivisible, is manifestly used figuratively, and means every-where so used—a “profession of,” or “faith in,” and union with, etc. See “eis metanoian” (Matthew 3:11; Acts 2:38), into repentance, means upon their profession—state of repentance; “eis ephesin amartioon,” into remission, a profession of being in that state; “eis ti ebaptisthete” and “eis to Ioannes baptisma” (Acts 19:3). What faith did you profess by your baptism? And they said, We were baptized into John’s baptism, i.e., declared our belief in the faith, or doctrine we understood, that John taught.

“Eis ton moousen ebaptisanto, baptized into Moses (1 Cor. 10:2), was an act by which they expressed their faith in the existence of Moses, and their allegiance to him as their guide and lawgiver, and a baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, can certainly mean no less than a declaration or profession, on the part of the subject, of his belief in the tri-personality of the Godhead, and allegiance to their equal authority. Baptism was designed to be a profession of our faith; but infants are unable to exercise or profess faith, and unregenerate persons do not. Baptism is designed to be the answer of a good conscience toward God, but an infant has no conscience.

IV. The uniform practice of the apostles demonstrated how they understood their commission. (See Acts 2.)

V. The evils of the practice are many and fearful to the subject. to Christianity, the church, and to the world.

These are so many, and so great, that Brother Gill declared infant baptism to be “part and pillar of popery;” and so distinguished a Pedobaptist and scholar as Brother J. Lange, of Germany, felt forced to say: “All attempts to make out infant baptism from the New Testament fails. It is utterly opposed to the spirit of the apostolic age and to the fundamental principles of the New Testament.”

It seems to me, from these considerations, that the conviction of every candid person must be that Christ designed the material of His churches to be spiritual, built of lively stones? i.e., their members to be all “circumcised in heart;” “born from above;” in a word, professedly regenerated persons, and that the primitive and apostolic churches were each and all composed of such. This, then, is the irresistible.

Conclusion.

All those religious organizations that, by fundamental law, do admit infants and the confessedly unregenerate to baptism and membership, are not, and should not, be considered, called, or by any act recognized as churches of Christ or evangelical bodies.

CHAPTER VI. Christian immersion the act appointed for the profession of gospel faith. The twelve disciples at Ephesus—The faith professed by a Catholic baptism—Campbellite—Episcopalian—Methodist— Presbyterian—Baptist—What is scriptural baptism?

“Unto what then were ye baptized? ” (Acts 19:3).

“Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3).

“Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies bathed in pure water, Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.” (Heb. 10:22,23).

The Sixth Mark of the Church of Christ Its baptism is the profession, on the part of the subject, of the faith of the Gospel by which he is saved.

Christian baptism is not the celebration of a religious rite by modes indifferent; but it is a specific act, instituted for the expression of specific truths; to be administered by a specific body, to persons possessing specific qualifications. When one of these properties is wanting the transaction is null—since, unless the ordinances are observed as Christ commanded, they are not obeyed, but perverted.

Now the divine institutor of the rite selected but one word to indicate the act he intended, and that word—baptizo—which never had but one meaning when referring to persons, viz., “To dip in, or under water,” (Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon, sixth and last edition, gives but this one definition) and, therefore, immersion in water was the act He specifically commanded; by specifying one act, He forbade any other to be done in His name, Having seen that a scriptural church is the only organization He has authorized to administer the act, and only to persons who give satisfactory evidence of being regenerate in heart, it now remains to inquire for the symbolism of the rite.

The Scriptures are clear, in teaching that baptism is for the profession of something on the part of the subject, and that something is the faith of the gospel; the ground on which the soul must rest upon for its salvation. Paul explicitly states this fact. (See Heb. 10:23, above quoted.) That ground is the finished work of Christ, and our participation in it. This we are to profess and set forth in our baptism.

When Paul heard from the disciples at Ephesus (Acts 19), that they had not so much as heard of the existence of the Holy Spirit, he asked, with evident astonishment, “Into what then were ye baptized?” He was understood by them to ask what faith they could have professed by their baptism; and they said they were baptized into John’s baptism, which evidently means they professed the faith John

preached in their baptism. They did not say they had been baptized by John, but their very answer implies they had not. They could not have heard John preach, or been baptized by him, without hearing of, and having experienced, the converting and regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit.

John baptized only those who gave him evidence of having repented toward God, and were exercising faith in Christ soon to appear, and no one could exercise these graces without the influences of the Holy Spirit; and he did distinctly mention the existence and work of the Spirit. These disciples had, doubtless, been immersed by Apollos, a disciple of John, who was preaching in these parts, for he knew nothing but the baptism of John. Now the faith which John preached before Christ came, was not the proper faith to be preached after he came; since he required them to believe that Christ was yet to come, and no one but John was authorized to administer his baptism. There were, therefore, three things unscriptural connected with their case.

1. These persons were unregenerate when they were immersed.

2. They did not profess the proper faith in their baptism.

3. They were not baptized by one having any authority to baptize.

Though they acted conscientiously, and were perfectly satisfied with the act, they were nevertheless unbaptized. This case should convince any one that Brother Jeter’s position is wrong. He holds that if persons have been dipped in water, in the name of the Trinity, and are satisfied with the act, it is valid baptism to them, irrespective of the faith they professed in it, or the moral or ecclesiastical qualifications of the administrator. These had been dipped, and were satisfied with the act. The immersion of a traveling imposter, without the vote of any church, would then be valid baptism, and Paul, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, baptized them. This has been the authority quoted by Anabaptists in all ages, as well as in this age, to justify them in baptizing those immersed by unscriptural organizations; and those who oppose them are forced to deny that these Ephesian disciples were rebaptized. “But by no rules governing the Greek language can the original be wrested to teach otherwise than that Paul, or one of his companions, baptized these disciples.” The English is a faithful translation of the text; and by the laws of the English language, the version can not be construed to teach otherwise than that Paul laid his hands upon those who were said to be baptized; and it is certain that he did not lay his hands upon those John baptized. For a critical exposition of this passage, see little work by the author—”The Baptism of John.” This example is positive instruction to us to re-administer the act where there has been an irregularity. The church at Corinth conscientiously believed it was correctly administering the Lord’s slipper, but it was not, but utterly perverting it, and making themselves guilty of the body and blood of Christ. To return, that baptism has been regarded as the profession, on the part of the

subject, of the faith of the church baptizing, whether true or false, from the third century and onward—the “catechumens”—those applying for baptism were required to repeat the creed of the church, and then the question was invariably asked: “Wilt thou be baptized into this faith?”—i.e. Do you desire to profess that you receive, and will hold this faith, and rest your salvation upon it? Only upon the candidate answering “I will” was baptism administered. When the apostate churches perverted the rite of baptism to “a sacrament” and “seal” of salvation, and gave it to unconscious infants to secure their salvation, they invented sponsors, and godfathers, and godmothers, to answer for the infant. The Episcopalians retain this custom (See Baptism of Infants).

“Dost thou believe all the articles of the Christian faith as contained in the apostolic creed?”

(Answer by sponsor for the infant) “I do.”

“Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?”

Ans. “That is my desire.”

Having established the fact that the subject of baptism does not profess any private personal faith he may entertain, but always the faith or creed of the church baptizing him, let us here notice the faith of each of the leading denominations around us; that we may know into what we were baptized—if we have been baptized by them, or expect to be baptized by them.

The Greek Catholic Church (A.D. 313-337).

This, the oldest apostate church existing today, requires all its subjects personally, or by sponsors, to be baptized into this faith, as the ground of salvation: “We believe that baptism is a sacrament appointed by the Lord, which, except a person receive, he has no communion with Christ; from whose death, burial, and resurrection proceed all the virtue and efficacy of baptism. We are certain, therefore, that both original and actual sins are forgiven to those who are baptized in the manner which our Lord requires in the gospel; and that whoever is washed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is regenerated, cleansed, and sanctified.”

There is no mistaking this language. The baptismal rite is God’s appointed channel by which He conveys the grace of salvation to the soul, and is therefore called a “sacrament,” without which there can be no salvation.

The Roman Catholic Church (A.D. 610) teaches this faith, and requires all baptized in her communion to profess it, viz.: “Baptism is a sacrament instituted by our Savior to wash away original sin, and all those we may have committed; to communicate to mankind the spiritual regeneration and grace of Jesus Christ, and to unite them to the living Head.

“If any man shall say that baptism is not essential to salvation, let him be accursed . . . In baptism, not only our sins are remitted, but all the punishment of sins and wickedness” . . . (Council of Trent).

The faith of these two “churches,” that constitute the apostate part of Christendom, from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries, are very similar. The perversion of the primitive faith, touching the ordinance, was by transposition; they put the water before the blood, and made it necessary to reach the blood through the water. This simple change corrupted the whole gospel, perverted the whole plan of salvation, and made regeneration depend upon the will of men—the priesthood. I ask every Baptist right here to stop and answer this question: Should the most esteemed and influential Baptist Church on this continent, from this day, baptize into this faith, and for this purpose, would you vote to receive the baptisms of that church as scriptural and valid? You can decide this.

Campbellite Design of Baptism Compare the above with the faith into which Campbellites baptize their converts. They baptize for the remission of sins. What do they mean by the expression? Mr. Campbell, the originator of the sect, is certainly qualified to explain: “In, and by the act of immersion, as soon as our bodies are put under the water, at that very instant all our former or old sins are washed away” (Christian Baptist, p. 100).

“Immersion is the means divinely appointed for the actual enjoyment of the first and great blessings.”—Millennial Harbinger.

“Remission of sins can not be enjoyed by any person before immersion. ” “Belief of this testimony is what impelled us into the water, knowing that the efficacy of his blood is to be communicated to our consciences in the way which God has pleased to appoint; we stagger not at the promise, but flee to the sacred ordinance [water of baptism] which brought the blood of Jesus in contact with our consciences. Without knowing and believing this, immersion is as a blasted nut—the shell is there, but the kernel is wanting” (Christian Baptist, p. 521).

The reader can see for himself that Campbellites baptize into the self-same faith the Catholics do. He, if possible, more strongly emphasizes the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. He asserts, with all the force he can give his language, that the sinner can only come to Christ through the water; that he can only reach the blood of Christ by being immersed into the water; and he elsewhere affirms that immersion and regeneration are terms meaning the same thing. Campbellites, therefore, unite with the apostate teachers of Christianity in placing water before blood; thus bringing an unpardoned, unregenerated sinner to water baptism, as a sacrament of salvation. Can a church of Christ indorse this pernicious doctrine, by

receiving those baptized by Catholics and Campbellites as scripturally baptized?

There are three vital features lacking in their immersions: 1. They have not the scriptural authority—their societies not being churches.

2. The subjects are confessedly unpardoned and unregenerate when they come to the water; and 3. The faith which they profess in the act is not the faith of the gospel.

The Protestant Episcopal church baptizes into this faith: viz., in the catechism the subject is taught to say, there are two sacraments as generally necessary to salvation, i.e., baptism and the supper of the Lord. At his confirmation he is required to answer thus to the question: “Who gave you this name?”

Ans. “My sponsors in baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” All who are baptized in this “church,” come to the water as sinners, unpardoned and unregenerate, in order to receive pardon, and regeneration, and salvation. The teachings of the prayer-book abundantly sustain this.

The Methodist Episcopal Church Many come to us immersed by these societies, but are they baptized? Let the question be asked, into what is every Methodist baptized?

To save space I will state that the office for the baptism of both infants and adults in the Discipline, is copied, almost verbatim, from the Book of Common Prayer used by the Episcopalians; and, touching the efficacy of baptism in the case of infants, Wesley, the father of the system, who copied the office from the Book of Common Prayer, is competent to explain.

“It is certain that our church supposes that all who are baptized in their infancy, are at the same time born again; and it is allowed [no Methodist ever disputed it in Wesley’s day] that the whole office for the baptism of infants proceeds upon this supposition” (Wesley’s Works, vol. 1, p. 405).

Now, into what do Methodists baptize adults?

“By baptism, we who are by nature children of wrath, are made the children of God.” In all ages the outward baptism is a means of the inward . . . By water, then, as a means—the water of baptism—we are regenerated or born again (Wesley’s Works, vol. 6, sec. 4).

I might quote pages of similar teachings; and lest some one should say this is not what Methodists now teach, I ask, Do they not still use the office prescribed in the Discipline, and pray the same prayers at baptism, as they did in Wesley’s day?

The last Methodist Conference that met in Memphis, in an official report, decided that for Methodists to require a profession of regeneration before baptism is an evil! I quote a paragraph:

“Baptism, too, has been unnecessarily deferred, not only in case of children, but sometimes postponed to an indefinite period in the case of adults. The practice of requiring a public profession of regeneration before baptism, has resulted in evil, and that the design of the sacrament is perverted, and the people encouraged to expect the divine blessing without the use of means, [i.e., baptism]. We call attention to these evils, that we may seek diligently to remove them” (Copied from Western Methodist).

This is sufficient. To teach and practice that a sinner can be regenerated without water baptism, as a means, is an evil in the estimation of the Methodist conference today. No regenerated person can be baptized according to the “Methodist Discipline.” Every adult, without exception, is required to confess himself unregenerate, and unpardoned, and that he comes to baptism to obtain these blessings. Every song prepared to be sung at their baptism teach the same thing. Now, can a Baptist, with the teachings of God’s Word before him, indorse such baptisms as valid, and the design scriptural, by receiving them? That Baptist must know that immersion would be worse than null, if administered by Baptist Churches for such a purpose. The subject would profess a false and pernicious faith in his baptism. There are three vital defects in immersions administered by Methodists.

1. There is the lack of any church authority—Methodist societies are not churches of Christ, and therefore can not baptize.

2. The lack of qualification on the part of the subject—he confesses him- or herself unregenerate, and that he seeks it in the act.

3. The design is unscriptural—the faith it requires to be professed, as shown above, false and pernicious.

The Presbyterian Faith Required to be Professed By referring to “Shorter Catechism” we find this: Q.—What is a sacrament?

A.—”A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein [i.e., in the receiving of which] by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the New Covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers. ”

Now the covenant of grace is worthless to any one, unless it is sealed and applied to him. Therefore, unless the sacrament is received, none of the benefits of Christ’s death can be enjoyed by any one. This is clear. Now, what ordinances are sacraments?

“A.—The sacraments of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

“Q.—What is baptism?

“A.—Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein Christ hath ordained the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to be a sign and seal, of engrafting into himself of remission of sins by his blood, and regeneration by his Spirit of adoption, and resurrection unto everlasting life.”—S. Catechism. This is a palpable misrepresentation. For Christ commanded to dip in or under water; and Christ Himself was immersed into the river

Jordan; and John said: I, indeed, baptize you in—en, not meta, with—water.

In these extracts it is clearly taught that baptism is a sacrament—i.e., a rite by which the benefits of Christ’s death are applied; and also, a seal, by which they are made sure—confirmed to those receiving. Of course, if the benefits of Christ’s death—i.e., regeneration, justification, pardon and adoption—are applied in and by baptism, it can not be supposed the subject possesses them before baptism; and, therefore, none but unregenerate and unpardoned persons can be baptized, in accordance with the Presbyterian design of baptism. It is substantially the same as the Catholics and Campbellites—to make one a Christian and child of God. Water is put before Blood.

An immersion or baptism by this sect would be marked by the same three vital defects with that of the Catholics—i.e., no scriptural authority—for Presbyterian societies are not churches (see last chapter)?an unscriptural subject, and an unscriptural design; and Baptist Churches can not recognize them as valid by receiving them without renouncing their own as unscriptural; for, of two contradictory propositions, if one be true, the other must he false.

Baptist Faith Professed in Baptism Our historical ancestors, the Anabaptists (A. D. 1120), five hundred years before a Protestant sect existed, or Luther or Calvin had been born, taught this concerning the above doctrine of regeneration by baptism, in a little work defending Antichrist: “A third work of Antichrist consists in this, that he attributes the regeneration of the Holy Ghost unto the mere external act, baptizing infants into that faith, teaching that thereby baptism and regeneration must be had; on which principle he bestows orders, and, indeed, grounds all his Christianity, which is contrary to the Word of the Holy Scriptures.”

Can it be that Baptists of this age, instead of protesting against, will approve and indorse the teachings and act as scriptural, by receiving them? Those old Baptists held the faith concerning baptism that we profess to teach. From fourteen articles of faith they put forth I copy?

“Article 7.—We believe in the ordinance of baptism. The water is the visible external, which represents to us that, which by virtue of God’s invisible operation,

is within us, viz., the renovation of our mind and the mortification of our members through faith of Jesus Christ; and by this ordinance we are received into the holy congregation of God’s people, previously professing and declaring our faith and change of life.”

Christ was our great exemplar as well as teacher, and He not only indicated by His example how we should be baptized, but at the very water’s edge He declared the true design of baptism. He declared that His own was to fulfill all righteousness.” We know He came to earth to work out a righteousness for His people, to satisfy the infinite claims of Divine justice. This He could not accomplish literally, by being baptize , else He might have ascended in a chariot of glory to the right hand of His Father when He came up out of the water. But He did fulfill all righteousness, in some sense, and it must have been fulfilled figuratively. He painted before their eyes the three great acts by which He did fulfill the allrighteousness the law required.

1. He must sink in death.

2. Be buried.

3. Rise again from the dead.

By these acts, prefigured in His baptism, He prefigured His crucifixion, His burial, and His resurrection. Paul taught .that Christian baptism represented the crucifixion of Christ (Col. 3:1), and Christ, referring to His coming crucifixion, called it a baptism ?immersion (Luke 12:50). Paul also declares that three acts constitute the whole gospel, by which we are saved, if we rightly apprehend and believe: 1. How that Christ died for our sins; 2. That he was buried; 3. That He rose again the third day (1 Cor. 15:1-5).

Christ, then, in a lively figure, set before the eyes of all His sacrificial work—the gospel of our salvation—and He has made it the duty of every disciple of His to do the same. And is it too much for Christ to require us to represent these great acts of His redemptive work, and profess our own personal faith in them, for our own salvation, as we are about to enter His church? The soul, redeemed by His precious blood, will rejoice to do it, despite the sneers of an ungodly world, and the opposition of modem priests and Pharisees.

This is the baptism Christ instituted for His church, and He forbade it to recognize or receive any other. In this design we see it is?

Blood Before Water By this simple test human societies, and all counterfeit churches, can be easily distinguished from the churches of Christ, viz., in the former, water is put before blood, and the church before Christ; in the latter Christ is put before the church, and blood before water. Reader, how do they stand in your faith, and which came first in your baptism, blood or water?”

Conclusions 1. Where there is no scriptural baptism, there are no scriptural churches of Christ, no scriptural ordinations, no scriptural ministers, no scriptural ordinances.

(Brother N. L. Rice, Presbyterian, admits this: “no baptism, no church”).

2. If immersion be the act which Christ exemplified in His own baptism, and commanded for baptism, then Pedobaptist societies are without baptism, and, consequently, are not churches, and are without scriptural ministers or scriptural ordinances.

3. If baptism is not a “seal,” nor the law of pardon, nor a “sacrament” of salvation, but an act by which we profess the saving faith we possess, and in which we symbolize the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, then it must be admitted that Baptists, alone, truly baptize, and the immersions of other denominations are in no sense baptisms, and should not be indorsed as valid.

CHAPTER VII: THE LORD'S SUPPER. A local church ordinance, not denominational, or social. Intercommunion between different religions bodies, having diverse organizations and diverse faiths, or, between “sister” churches, contrary both to the genius of scriptural church building symbolism of the ordinance.

“Because there is one loaf, we, the many [members of the one church at Corinth] are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:17).

Trans. Emp. Diaglott.

“Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you” (1 Cor. 11:2).

The Seventh Mark of the Model Ecclesia.

The Lord's Supper was observed as a local church ordinance. commemorative only of the sacrificial chastisement of Christ for His people, never expressive of personal fellowship, or of courtesy for others, or used as a sacrament.

That the Supper is a commemorative ordinance, instituted by Christ, to be observed in each local church, until He comes again, every Baptist will admit. This implies that each participant must, at least, he a member of some scriptural church, which also implies that he must have been scripturally baptized— immersed. Now the question I wish more particularly to discuss in this chapter is: Can a local church, scripturally or consistently, extend the invitation to participate beyond her own membership and discipline?

I well know that but few brethren can follow me in this discussion with unprejudiced minds, such is the power of denominational precedent over us all. I shall, without doubt, be confronted, at the very threshold, with the “traditions of fathers,” and the almost immemorial “usages” of the denomination. But it weighs not a feather's weight with me; though it can be proved that Baptists, since the

days of Paul, and that by the very churches he planted and instructed, have practiced inter-communion, the question is, “What were the instructions he gave?”

These must constitute the “Old Landmarks” to guide us in the observance of this ordinance, and not “denominational usage,” or the mistakes and errors of our fathers, if our ancestors did, indeed, err from the “old paths.” The writer can easily remember when Baptist Associations were wont to close their sessions by celebrating the Lord's Supper, and this they did for years; but was it right because our fathers did it? Who will advocate this practice today, or what Association on this continent will presume to administer the supper? And yet, what a clamor would have been raised about the ears of the man who, in those days, had lifted his voice in condemnation of it! Fifty years our fathers were wont to advise the churches to send their licentiates to the Association to receive ordination, and it was wont to select a Presbytery, and between them ordain the minister. But who will advocate so unscriptural a procedure now? Twenty-five or thirty years ago, the overwhelming majority of our churches in the South would indorse a Campbellite, and alien immersion as valid; but there is not an Association in the South, let the question be fairly laid before it, would indorse them today. And why? Because the attention of the churches have been called to a serious consideration of the question by discussions, pro and con, and scriptural truth and consistency have triumphed.

Now, touching the Lord's Supper, Baptists have not departed from “the form of sound words” in formulating their belief. They universally hold that it is a local church ordinance, i.e., an ordinance to be observed in and by a local church, but they have generally fallen into a “slip-shod” way of observing it, quite as unscriptural as either of the bad “usages” I have mentioned above.

They now generally observe it, not as a strictly local church ordinance, i.e., confined to the members of the singular church celebrating the rite, but as a denominational observance, as belonging to the kingdom rather than to each local organization of the kingdom. Many and great evils, and gross inconsistencies, damaging to our denominational influence and growth, have sprung out of this practice, which it is my object to point out. Encouraged, as my faith is by the past, I believe that in a few years our churches will, as a body, return to the “old paths,” in this, as in other matters, and walk in them, and find rest from the opposition which they have justly brought down upon their own heads.

Arguments From Our Church Constitution.

1. It is a local church ordinance.

A church, by its constitution, is strictly an independent body. It absolutely controls its own acts, and can, in no sense, control those of any other church. Her prerogatives, like her responsibilities, terminate with herself, and her authority is limited, as to the objects over which it is exercised, to her own membership, and she has not a church privilege she can extend to those outside her pale. If, then,

the supper was committed to each local church, its observance was limited to the membership of each church, and it can rightly be observed, only by the united membership of such churches, and not by them, in common with the membership of other churches. A church can extend her privileges, no more than her discipline, beyond her organization.

I never heard an intelligent Baptist claim that the members of other Baptist churches have a right to participate in the supper, when spread in any Baptist Church. And why? Because they know it is a local church ordinance, like voting in the administration of the government of said church. If Christ did not institute it to be observed by local churches as such, but for the denomination—the churches, and their members generally, wherever they might chance to be—then each member in good standing, would have a right to go uninvited to the supper, wherever spread, and the local church would have no right to prevent him; but in that case, the individual churches could not be made responsible for any “leaven” that might be introduced into the feast, nor would it be in the power of any local church to obey the apostolic injunction, “purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. Therefore, let us keep the feast [observe the supper], not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness,” etc. But what Christ did not authorize in the observance of the supper, He certainly forbade, and, if He did command its observance by each local church as such, He forbade its being converted into a denominational or a social ordinance, i.e., observed by a particular church in common with parts of as many churches as may chance to be present. It certainly is either the one thing or the other—limited or unlimited. In this respect, Baptists, who can not feel the force of the argument from the specifications of one thing prohibiting another, can not blame Pedobaptists for not seeing that, when Christ specified believers only in the commission, He forbade the baptism of unbelievers, bells, and babies.

Again, when a person, having accepted Christ as his Savior, and seeks, as he should, the privileges of His church, he unites with a local church only, and not with the denomination generally, and receives and enjoys church privileges in that church alone. He can vote on all questions of ecclesiastical polity in that particular church, and in no other. He can participate in the supper in that church and no other, since he is under the watch and care of that church and no other.

2. To each local church is committed the sole guardianship of the ordinances she administers.

She is commanded to allow only members possessing certain qualifications, to come to the feast. Any who may have fallen into heresies, or whose Christian conversation is not such as becometh godliness, drunkards, fornicators, covetous, revilers, extortioners, etc., with such she is not to eat.

The church at Corinth was not merely permitted, but peremptorily commanded, to prohibit the table to every person she did not know—so far as she had the ability to learn—was free from leaven: “Purge out the old leaven, that ye [the church celebrating] may be a new lump.” “Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven,” etc.

Each church, then, is made the guardian of this feast. She can not alienate the responsibility; she must see that no disqualified person comes to the table; she must, then, have absolute control of the supper; but, if it is her duty to invite the members of all Baptist Churches present, regardless of their known character, then she has no power to discharge this duty. She would evidently have no control over this ordinance; would be robbed of one of her most important prerogatives as a church. But, if it is not her duty to invite any but her own members, then, she ought not to do it, and, if the act robs her of the power to obey the laws of her Head, and preserve the purity of this sacred ordinance, then, she may know the practice is wrong, and fraught with evil.

I conclude with this argument in logical form: 1. Any practice that puts it out of the power of the church to discharge a positive command of Christ must be sinful, and forbidden by Christ.

2. The practice of inviting all members of Baptist Churches present, to observe the Lord's Supper, does put it out of the power of that church to discharge ?the positive duty enjoined (1 Cor. 5).

3. Therefore, the practice of inviting all members of Baptist Churches present is sinful and forbidden by Christ (Q. E .D.).

Argument from the Symbolism of the Supper.

AXIOM. The symbol can not be appropriate where the thing signified is wanting, and conversely: Those things can not be appropriate, or scriptural, that contradict the symbol.

No one will question these axioms, and all Baptists believe that the elements Christ employed were symbolic of great facts. Let us see what they symbolized.

The One Loaf.—There should be but one loaf upon the table. Christ used but one. Paul specifies the use of but one: “Because there is one loaf, we, the many, are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor. 11:17). The church at Corinth were to partake of but one loaf, and in this respect she is the model for all the churches of Christ, in all ages.

This one, undivided loaf was designed to teach that only one undivided body— organization—church as such—not several churches as an Association, nor parts of several—was authorized to celebrate this ordinance, or could do it without vitiating it. The symbolic teachings of the “one loaf” is stultified whenever one

church, with the fragments of a dozen others, attempts to observe the supper.

Could the administrator say, “We are one body”—or organization, or church—and tell the truth?

Here Paul specifies that one, and only one, church like that at Corinth should come together “in church,” i. e., as a single church, and in “church capacity,” to observe this ordinance. An organization assembles “in lodge” to receive members, and perform their rites, and so a local church must organize as such, to observe the supper; a plurality of churches, or parts of churches, can not.

Artos.—The loaf was of one specific kind and quality of flour. It was not a loaf of barley, nor of maize; neither of oat nor rye flour, much less a mixture of these, but it is specified one wheaten loaf—”heis artos not, madza”—and this loaf was not of unbolted, but of “fine flour”—all the impurities of the wheat carefully removed.

God never permitted any other flour to be used in His ordinances of old, or offered in any sacrifice upon His altars. It certainly had a meaning, as a type; it certainly has a symbol in the church of Christ. The ordinance is vitiated, if any other element than fine wheaten flour is used in the supper.

The Signification of the Fine Wheaten-Loaf.

The quality of the loaf signified the one faith, and that the pure faith once delivered to the saints unadulterated. Where there are divers faiths in the same church, this ordinance can not be observed. This was the case—divisions produced by heresies —in the church at Corinth when Paul wrote his first letter: “I hear that there are divisions among you; for there must be heresies among you, etc. This state inhibited the celebration of the Supper by that church until they were healed.

Now, suppose the parties holding these heresies had separated, and organized each a Baptist Church in the city of Corinth, could they have communed together as churches or as parts of churches? The faith would not have been the same, and, therefore, there must have been error, adulteration, leaven, somewhere. Suppose the First Baptist Church in Memphis, upon a rigid examination, should find that several of its members. were high Calvinists, and a part low Arminians, several Unitarians, some, conscientious Universalists, and yet others Spiritualists—faiths based upon doctrines fundamentally opposed—would the church be justified in celebrating the Supper? Would not the symbolism of the one wheaten loaf be vitiated? But should they amicably separate and form five different churches in this city, could the First Church scripturally invite the membership of all these, who once belonged to her body, to celebrate the Supper with her? If not—why not?

Because such a communion would make the symbolism exhibit a falsehood. The one fine-flour of the loaf shows forth that the communicants have one and the same unadulterated faith of the gospel; and, behold, they have six different faiths between them! Such an observance of the sacred Supper would be a profanation of it, and make the participants guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

Thus the symbolism of the one loaf of one flour forever settles the question of their communion by different sects, and inter-communion among Baptist Churches; they are not the “one body,” organization, church, nor have they the same faith. Will Protestants claim that they and Catholics are one—the self-same body—organization? If not, they can not observe the supper together. Will they claim that their faith is one? Will Protestants claim that their various organizations are one and the same? Will Presbyterians aver that the Arminianism of the Methodists is the same as Calvinism? They are the poles asunder. How, then, without profaning the feast, without making the symbolism testify to a falsehood, can Presbyterians, Methodists, and Campbellites observe the supper together? They certainly are not one body, one church; nor have they the one and the same faith.

The last time the Old and New School Presbyterian assemblies met the same year in Philadelphia, the New School sent a courteous invitation to the Old School assembly to unite with them in a joint celebration of the Lord's Supper. This invitation was scornfully rejected, as an open insult by the Old School—”for,” said a learned doctor of divinity, “they ask us to stultify ourselves, and act a lie in the face of Christendom. Why did we separate? Because we hold to different faiths, and, therefore, could not commune together. And now they ask us to say to the world, by our act, that we are one body, and hold one and the self-same faith, which is not true.” If more proof is needed that the leaders of the very bodies who plead loudest for open communion, know that it is unscriptural and sinful, I appeal to the action of the decisions of synods and their standard authorities. One or two must suffice. From “Synodical Records,” vol. 3, page 240, I quote this from a report adapted: “The committee are of opinion that for Presbyterians to hold communion in sealing ordinances with those who belong to churches holding doctrines contrary to our standards (as do Baptists, Methodists, and all others), is incompatible with the purity and peace of the (Presbyterian) Church, and highly prejudicial to the truth as it is in Jesus. Nor can such communion answer any valuable purpose to those who practice it, etc.”

Bro. D. Monfort, Presbyterian, in a series of letters, gives the following reasons for not giving free invitations to other churches, and especially Baptists: “1. They do not belong to the fellowship (i.e., of the Presbyterian Church), and therefore they can not consistently receive the tokens of it . 2. They profess to be conscientious in refusing the fellowship, and it is uncharitable to ask them to violate their consciences, etc.” (Letter IV).

Bishop Hedding, Methodist, in his work on the administration of the Discipline, asks: “Is it proper for a preacher to give out a general invitation in the congregation to members in good standing in other churches to come to the Lord's Supper?”

“No; for the most unworthy persons are apt to think the mselves in good standing, etc.”

And again: “There are some communities, called churches which, from heretical doctrines or immoral practices, have no claim to the privileges of Christians, and ought not to be admitted to the communion of any Christian people” (Pages 72, 73).

This is what the Discipline enjoins: “But no person shall be admitted to the Lord's Supper among us who is guilty of any practice for which we would exclude a member of our Church.”

“Inveighing against our doctrines or discipline” are the capital charges mentioned in section 5; and what Presbyterian or Baptist does not oppose both the doctrine and discipline of Methodism as unscriptural and evil? Can these bodies practice open communion?

AXIOM No church may dare to celebrate the ordinances unless she possesses the faith and the facts symbolized.

The Unleavened Loaf.—The loaf used by Christ was one of those prepared for the Passover Supper, and was, therefore unleavened. God required, on pain of death, that no leaven should be used in any bread brought to His altar, or mingled in any sacrifice or ordinance typical of the sacrifice of Christ for us. All the burnt offerings for sin typified Christ's sacrifice, and the Paschal Feast was an eminent type of Christ, our Passover. He certainly had good and sufficient reasons for using this sort of bread. It was not mere capriciousness in Him. But He explained to the Jews why He instituted the unleavened bread of the passover. It was to teach them and their children, in the generations following, that He, their Sovereign Lord, alone and unassisted, had delivered them and brought them up out of Egypt: “Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten” (Ex. 13:3). Their salvation was of the Lord alone. To symbolize this fact, all leaven of every sort was to be diligently sought for in all their coasts for 7 days, and burned with fire; and by this they were given to understand that God was jealous of His honor, and that no part of their salvation was ever to be ascribed to either man or idol. The passover was a type pointing forward to what the symbols of the supper point back to, the sovereign grace of God in Christ, by whom we are redeemed from the “power of sin and Satan,” and not by works of righteousness which we have done or may do; and, therefore, it is absolutely essential to the scriptural observance of the supper that unleavened bread should be used. With leavened bread, Paul's allusion would be meaningless where he recognizes the church at Corinth as solely responsible for the purity of the sacred feast entrusted to her guardianship: “Purge out therefore the old leaven,

that ye [the church at Corinth] may be a new lump,” etc. The one unleavened wheaten loaf, then, symbolized that the members composing that church celebrating, must be without the leaven of wickedness, etc. “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:8).

Certainly no thoughtful Christian can doubt that the loaf upon the table should be without leaven, when it is required that the body it represents should be, and when this is required by Paul in order that the significance of the feast be not vitiated.

The Wine.—The Savior used wine made of “the grape” —it was “the fruit of the vine.” He commanded; and, if it was not lawful for leaven to be used in this feast, He certainly did not use an element that was little less than leaven itself. It could not have been unfermented wine He used and commanded, as some, more zealous than wise, are now teaching; for unfermented wine, in the first place, is a misnomer. There never was, there can not be, a drop of wine without fermentation.

It is must, and not wine, until fermentation ensues, and unfermented juice of the grape is but a mass of leaven. It is this element in the juice that causes it to ferment, and fermentation is the process by which it throws off, and clears itself, of this impurity. Thoroughly fermented wine contains no leaven, and, therefore, it is only after this natural clarification of itself that the Savior used, and commanded His churches to use it; and, limiting this element to wine, He forbade the use of any other liquid than the pure juice of the grape, when fermented and clarified.

One Cup only should be used, to preserve the symbolism; yet, where the church is large, and the wine to be used necessarily considerable, it can be placed upon the table in one vessel, and thanks given, before it is divided into smaller ones, to be distributed. The church, though many, may be said, all to drink of one wine, and of one vessel, or measure of wine.

As a crowning proof that no leaven must be used at this feast, either in the bread or wine, I refer the Bible student to those burnt-offerings of old, which were typical of Christ. No leaven was allowed to be used (Ex. 34:25; Lev. 2:11; Lev. 10:12; Amos 4:5), and it was the unleavened juice of the grape, wine only, that was used in the drink offerings. As was the type, so should be the symbol. The elements of the feast were, unleavened wheaten loaf and the unleavened fruit of the vine.

The Argument From the Design of the Supper.

Ritualists, whether Protestants or Romanists, have perverted this ordinance, as well as baptism, into a “sacrament” and “seal” of salvation; thus making it indispensable to the salvation of both infants and adults, and, in addition to this, they teach that the supper is a mark of Christian courtesy, or sign of Christian fellowship, in partaking of which Christians commune with one another.

I have not space in this work to notice and expose the doctrine of transubstantiation, as taught by Romanists, nor of con-substantiation, as held by Lutherans, nor that of the “mystical body” after consecration, as taught by Episcopalians and Methodists.

The Savior expressed the whole design when he said: “Do this in remembrance of me.” It is, therefore, nothing more and nothing less, than a simple ordinance, commemorative of what Christ is, and what He has done for us—a remembrance of Him. It is, in no sense, a “sacrament.” It conveys no saving grace, nor can it be a “converting rite;” for the converted, the regenerated, and saved, alone may, scripturally, partake of it. It is as gross a perversion of this ordinance, for Protestants to teach that it is a ‘seal,” or a “sacrament of salvation,” as for Catholics to teach it is the veritable body, and blood, and divinity of Christ; and, for this reason, Baptists can not unite with either in its celebration, if it was not a church ordinance. This statement will be questioned by those who know little of the teachings of the Word of God, and less of the teachings of Protestants.

Presbyterians teach that it is both a “sacrament” of salvation, and a seal of the Covenant of Grace; which, if true, no one ever was, or can be, saved without them.

Q.—What are the sacraments of the New Testament?

A.—The sacraments of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Q.—What is a sacrament?

A.—It is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers (Conf. Faith, p. 335).

Q.—Wherein do the sacraments of baptism, and the Lord's Supper, agree?

A.—The sacraments of baptism, and the Lord's Supper, agree in that the author of both is God; the spiritual part of both is Christ and His benefits; both are seals of the same covenant (p. 297).

The Methodist “church” teaches the same pernicious doctrine, i.e., that the supper, like baptism, is a sacrament of salvation, to be eaten by the unregenerate as a means of obtaining regeneration, the pardon of sins, and salvation.

In their articles of faith it is declared to be a “sacrament.” Wesley, the founder of the sect, explains what his church holds and teaches on this ordinance: “The Lord's Supper was ordained by God to be a means of conveying to men either preventing, or justifying, or sanctifying grace, according to their several necessities, . . . or, to renew their souls in the image of God. To come to the Supper of the Lord no fitness is required at the time of communicating, but a sense of our state of utter sinfulness and

helplessness. Every one who knows he is fit for hell, being just fit to come to Christ, in this as well as all other ways of his appointment. . . . In latter times, many [these are Baptists] have affirmed that the Lord's Supper is not a converting ordinance. . . The falsehood of this objection appears both from Scripture precept and example” (Wesleyana, pp. 283, 284).

The ordinance is not more grossly perverted by the Catholics. How a Baptist, or a Christian, at all conversant with the Bible—a regenerate person—can dare to partake of the Supper as a sacrament, or a “seal,” to secure conversion, justification, or remission of sins, I can not imagine. All who partake for any such purpose, eat and drink “unworthily,” and make themselves guilty of the body and blood of Christ.

The ordinance is a simple memorial of Christ's work and love for us, a photograph He has left His betrothed Bride till He comes again to marry her; and He asks her not to worship it, but to look upon it as oft as she pleases, with the sole purpose of remembering Him and no one else, on earth or in heaven. It is one little service He claims all for Himself, and will allow no thought to be given to another.

There are times when we may properly think of earthly friends, of mother, of dear wife, husband, of precious children, of departed saints, of living relatives, but it would be doing insult to Christ, and profaning this sacred memorial, to remember any one but “Him who loved us and died for us.”

We do not, therefore, commune with one another at the Lord's Table, but with Christ only, if we eat and drink “worthily.” We have no occasion to leave or absent ourselves from the supper lest we indorse, by our act, the Christian character of some one who may be there. We disobey a positive command of Christ. “Do it,” and we refuse to remember Him when we neglect this duty.

Nor is it designed to be used as an expression of fellowship, or “courtesy” towards other Christians or members of other Baptist Churches. The ordinance is profaned and eaten “unworthily” when it is observed with this design. Baptists of other churches present can not complain, if they are not invited, of any injustice done them, for no right of theirs, or duty of the celebrating church, has been violated or omitted; and, as I have shown, no discourtesy has been shown them, because the ordinance was not given for the purpose of expressing our courtesy to others.

The command is: “Do This In Remembrance Of Me.” The Opinions of Eminent Baptists We are not altogether alone in the views above expressed. at least so far as the principle is concerned.

Bro. A. P. Williams, in his “Lord's Supper,” says: “Having done these things [i. e., believed, been baptized, and added to the church] he has a right to the

communion in the church to which he has been added; but nowhere else. As he had no general right when running at large, so he has no general right now” (p. 93).

Now, if he has no right to the Supper anywhere, save in his own church, it is because Christ has not given him authority to eat anywhere else, which is tantamount to a positive prohibition. It is certain that no other church has any right to extend her church privileges beyond her own bounds.

If he has no right to commune anywhere else, it is because Christ has not given him the right, and therefore, he has no right to claim, or to exercise the right. It is not true, as open and intercommunionists assert, that “they are entitled to the Supper wherever they find it.”

“Now, here (Acts 2:41, 42; 20:7; 1 Cor. 10:16, 17) it is plainly argued that this joint participation in the one cup, and the one bread is designed to show that the participants are but one body; and, as such, they share this joint participation; but, if the communion were obligatory upon Christians as individuals, and not as church members, it could not show this” (p. 70).

Yet Bro. Williams, influenced by feeling or usage, says that members of other Baptist Churches, while they have no right on the premises, still may be invited as an act of “courtesy.” But, according to his own teachings, as above, the symbolism of the Supper is vitiated whenever it is done; for it is no longer a church ordinance, but a denominational or social rite.

Prof. W. W. Gardner, Bethel College, Kentucky, in his able work on “Church Communion,” says: “The same is equally true of communion at the Lord's Tables which is a church act, and the appointed token, not of the Christian, nor denominational, but of church-fellowship subsisting between communicants at the same table. Hence, it follows that a member of one Baptist Church has no more right, as a right, to claim communion in another Baptist Church than he has to claim the right of voting; for both are equally church acts and church privileges.

The Lord's Supper being a church ordinance, as all admit, and every church being required to exercise discipline over all its communicants, it necessarily follows THAT NO CHURCH CAN SCRIPTURALLY EXTEND ITS COMMUNION BEYOND THE LIMITS OF ITS DISCIPLINE.

And this in fact, settles the question of church communion, and restricts the Lord's Supper to the members of each particular church as such” (pp.

18, 19).

Bro. Richard Fuller—”If any thing can be plain to those who prefer the Word of God to sentimentalism and popularity, it is that baptism is to follow faith immediately; that it is an individual duty, and must precede membership; and that as the Passover was a meal for each family only, so the Supper is a family repast, for the members of that particular church in which the table is spread. This is so plain to our minds, hearts, consciences, that there is never any discussion about it.”

If the supper is a repast for the members of each particular church only, it is because the Divine law governing the feast has made it so, and, therefore, it would be in violation of that law for a church to invite, or allow others than her own members, to partake of it; and equally so for members of another church to accept such an unlawful invitation. This is so plain to my mind that discussion is useless.

President Robinson, of Brown University, Rhode Island, and formerly pastor of the First Church of Providence, believing that the Supper is an ordinance of the local church, never extended an invitation to members of Baptist Churches present, whether ministers or laymen.

Bro. Curtis, author of an able work on “Communion, and Progress of Baptist Principles:” “Thus, then it is clear [i.e., from 1 Cor. 15] that the Lord's Supper is given in charge to those visible churches of Christ, in the midst of which He has promised to walk and dwell (Rev. 2:1). To each of these it belongs to celebrate it as one family [Then certainly not as parts of different families or bodies.] The members of that particular church are to be tarried for, and it is to be a symbol of their relations, as members, to each other. In all ordinary cases, it should be partaken of by each Christian in the particular church of which he is a member” (Progress of Baptist Principles, p. 307).

It is only from the Scriptures we learn how an ordinance is to be ordinarily observed. From what book can Bro. Curtis, or any one else, learn how they are to be extra ordinarily observed? The one specified form of their observance is the only form we may observe. Christ, nor His apostles, gave exceptional cases, or warrant us in the least deviation whatever, in any circumstance.

Several of the leading Baptist papers of America have given a decided opinion upon the subject. The National Baptist, Philadelphia, warmly approved the course of Bro. Robinson; the Western Baptist warmly approved the position of Bro. Fuller; and commenting upon our lecture upon this subject in the Metropolitan Temple, San Francisco, the Evangel, the Baptist organ of California, thus expressed its unqualified endorsement: “Some four or five years ago we were appointed to write an essay on the Lord's Supper; and, after the most thorough examination we were able to give the subject, we were driven to the following conclusion, viz.: that the Supper is an ordinance within a Gospel church, and that there is no authority in the Scriptures for extending it beyond the jurisdiction of the church administering the ordinance. From this conclusion we drew the practical inference that, as there is no Scripture warranting inter communion among the members of different churches of the same faith and order, Baptists who claim that the Scriptures are a sufficient rule of faith and practice, ought to stop just where the law stops; in other words, the churches should restrict the ordinances to those over whom they exercise jurisdiction.”

This is an important “Landmark” of the primitive churches, which every friend of scriptural order should assist in restoring to its erect and firm position.

CHAPTER VIII Objections and difficulties to non-intercommunion noticed —Some pastors could not commune with the churches they serve, and administer the Supper to—”Paul communed with the church at Troas”—Not established—Testimony of Alford, Barnes—The false teachers whose doctrine Paul called “leaven” and commanded the church at Corinth to purge away from the Lords Supper, were members of Baptist Churches? Conclusion.

“Objections are not arguments unless insuperable.”—Logic.

It is objected— 1. That “should the churches return to the strict practice, many ministers who are now ?pastoring? four or five churches could not commune with the churches they serve and for which they administer the supper.”

This is not the fault of the theory, but of those churches that have no pastors.

Christ ordained that each church should have a bishop, as he ordained that each wife should have one husband, and each flock a shepherd, and he also ordained that each church should support its own pastor; and, if unable to do so, it should not assume church form and prerogatives. In this case the pastor can participate with his church, for he will he a member of, and under its jurisdiction. Still there is no real difficulty in the case, when the minister is willing to act scripturally. He can administer this ordinance to the church, without exercising the rights of a member, as well as receive members into the church, and administering the other ordinance, without voting on the qualifications of the subject. He has the same right to vote, as he has to eat, with a church of which he is not a member. We often administer the supper for churches at their request, but participate only with our own.

Christ made no exceptions to meet difficulties arising from departures from His order, and we have no right to do it. We can not divide a principle; we must take the whole or none at all; for unless we observe the ordinances as He commanded, we do not observe them at all?they are null and void, and worse?perverted and profaned.

Scriptural Objection.

The only Scripture we have seen quoted to sustain the practice of intercommunion among Baptists, is Acts 20:7. The brethren who quote this should never smile in pity upon Pedobaptists for quoting Mark 10:14 to prove Infant Baptism. All that passage lacks of being a proof text for the practice, is the substitution of the one word baptized, for “blessed;? and all this passage lacks to be of any service to our brethren, is the statement that Paul and Luke did eat the Lord’s Supper with the Baptist Church at Troas, but it does not say it, or even intimate it. And let me here state that the practice of the apostles and first

ministers, divinely commissioned to promulgate the gospel and establish churches in foreign lands, certainly should not be quoted to justify ministers, or private members, in doing the same thing. No one is warranted to preach, and to baptize now, without having received baptism or the ordination of some church, because John the Baptist did so. No deacon can claim the right to preach and baptize, by virtue of his office, when traveling in a strange country, should a stranger demand baptism at his hands, because Philip, once a deacon, baptized the eunuch. I insist that, could a score of passages be produced to prove that Paul, or any other apostle did commune with the churches he planted, it would prove nothing in support of denominational communion, so long as Paul’s letters to the church at Corinth are allowed to be the law to all our churches of this age, and in which the supper is still to be observed with “one loaf,” and by one church, one body. and the church required to purge out the leaven that she may observe a pure feast.

But this serviceable proof-text is confidently quoted to prove opposite theories!

It is the sole reliance of those who would establish weekly communion, and of those who favor inter-communion, and of the advocates of social communion! In the first edition I conceded to claimants that there was a church at Troas, though not necessarily a communion service; but a critical examination convinces me there was no church at Troas in the first century, and consequently all these theories are utterly groundless.

I can only indicate the conclusions here, and refer the reader to a little volume designed to be the companion of this—“Intercommunion, Unscriptural and Inconsistent,” etc. for the scriptural and historical facts.

1. Paul did not even preach in Troas, at his first visit, when all say this church was planted, for the Holy Ghost strictly forbade him to do so in any part of Asia Minor at this visit (See Acts 16:6,7).

2. No door was opened at that time to preach in Troas or Asia, but a door was opened for Paul to preach in Greece, and he immediately entered the door. (See how opened, v. 9.)

It is not supposable that the Holy Spirit forbade him to preach in Asia, and yet opened a door in Troas for him to disobey, and then blessed his disobedience! Or, that when the door was opened, Paul refused to enter, but went to Asia, where no door was opened!

3. There is not the slightest evidence that there was a church at Troas at Paul’s last visit, according to Luke’s record; but contrariwise, for none is mentioned—no meeting, no address to it, and no parting, as at Ephesus (17th verse to the end)— and no allusion to it in the New Testament.

4. There is no intimation that any were assembled on Sunday evening to “break bread” save Paul, Luke and the seven brethren mentioned.

5. There is no evidence that the Lord’s Supper was celebrated by Paul and his company, but contrariwise. In the original, whenever the Lord’s Supper is indicated, the expression is “to break the loaf”—the definite article is before artos— never “to break bread.”

6. The company assembled to partake of the evening meal together, when Paul commenced reasoning with these brethren, instructing them out of the Scriptures, which he had there with him, and left there (2 Tim. 4:13). The verb translated preach here, is nowhere else so translated, but “to discourse,” “to reason with,” “to dispute.”

7. The meal (v. 11) was either the delayed supper or a special repast prepared for Paul after discoursing to them over six hours, and the restoration of the young man; since he was going to leave at daybreak, he continued on “talking” (See Alford and Barnes, in loco.).

8. John was banished to Patmos A.D. 64-68, ten years after this, and his address to “the seven churches of Asia,” and not to seven of the churches of Asia, implies there were only these seven in existence when John wrote.

9. History corroborates the position that there was no church at Troas in the first century, and that there were seven, and only the seven mentioned by John, A.D. 68.

10. If brethren, to sustain an unscriptural practice, will dogmatically infer that the Lord’s Supper was observed at Troas by Paul and these eight brethren with a church, they must maintain that it was in direct contravention of Paul’s own instructions given to the church at Corinth. (Chap. 11.)

If they will hold and affirm that the Supper was observed without a church, then, to be consistent, they should maintain that it is a social and not a church ordinance. Which horn will they take?

Direct Scriptural Proof Against Inter-Church Communion.

There were certain teachers that belonged to the church at Jerusalem who had a great zeal for the law, and they seemed to have made it a point to visit all the churches planted by Paul, to antagonize the doctrine he taught, and these, everywhere they went, introduced confusion into the churches, and bewitched the brethren with their Judaistic teachings. The elders and brethren at Jerusalem admitted this fact: “Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us, have troubled you with words, subverting your soul, etc.” (Acts 15:24).

How did Paul regard these brethren?

“I marvel that you are so soon removed from him who called you into another gospel, which is not another: but there be some who trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

“Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing. . . Christ is become of none effect unto you . . . A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”

The false doctrine taught by those teachers Paul called “leaven.”

In warning the church at Corinth of these, and such like, he says: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ; and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end,” etc. (2 Cor. 11:13-16).

Again he says: “For many walk, of whom I have told you before, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction” (Phil. 3:18).

How did Paul instruct the churches to treat these brethren? Associate and “commune” with them, or to avoid and withdraw, and purge them as leaven, away from their tables? Hear him: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach another gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” “I would they were cut off who trouble you.”?”Turn away from them.” “Withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly.” ?”Note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.” How about communing with such? “Purge out the old leaven”?i.e., all these false teachers and those who hold with them.

This to my mind settles this question of intercommunion in Paul’s day. The church at Corinth could not invite all the members of the church at Jerusalem to partake of the supper, without violating the positive instructions of Paul; for there were thousands of members, if not the majority of that church, who held with these false teachers, and supported them. (See Acts 21:22.) But not a few of such like brethren had crept into all the churches Paul had planted among the Gentiles, into the churches of Galatia; and if the church at Corinth did as our churches are wont to do, invite all members in good standing in sister churches; then all the Judaized brethren at Jerusalem, and all the false apostles?impostors?all the false and corrupt teachers, and false brethren of all Asia, might have come and sat down with their loads of leaven!

No thinking man can believe, with Paul’s instructions before his eyes, that the church at Corinth did practice intercommunion with the church at Jerusalem or the churches of Galatia, and very many of the other churches of Asia. The reader will see this more fully presented in Chapter XIII. As late as the thirteenth century the practice of each church limiting its supper to its own membership seems to be established. This was called the aphorism of Ignatius?one altar and one bishop in each church. But not into the histories of the apostate churches, which, unfortunately, most of our histories are, may we look for primitive purity; and little do we know of those that kept the faith, save through

their enemies, who generally misrepresented them. The instructions given to the New Testament churches must be our “Landmarks.”

Conclusion.

1. Intercommunion between opposing denominations holding diverse faiths, is a profanation of the Lord’s Supper.

2. The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of each local church, to be observed by its own members qualified to receive it and by none else. Therefore, 3. Intercommunion between Baptist churches is unscriptural.

CHAPTER IX The Inconsistencies and Evils of Intercommunion among Baptists.

“Truth is never contradictory nor inconsistent with itself.”?Tombes.

Baptist churches, with all their rights, have no right to be inconsistent, nor to favor a practice unwarranted by the Word of God, and productive of evils. Under the inflexible law of “usage,” which compels the pastor to invite “all members of sister churches present” to the Lord’s Supper, the following inconsistencies and evils, exceedingly prejudicial to our denominational influence and growth, are practiced and fostered.

1. Baptist Churches that practice intercommunion have practically no communion of their own. They have church members, church conferences, church discipline, but no church communion; and, therefore, no scripturally observed Lord’s Supper, and, therefore, none at all, as I have shown in Chapter VII. The communion of such churches is denominational, and not church communion.

2. Baptist Churches that practice intercommunion have no guardianship over the Lords Supper, which is divinely enjoined upon them to exercise. They have control of their own members to exclude them from the table if unworthy, but none whatever of others more unworthy who may come. Such churches can exclude heretics, drunkards, revelers, and “every one that walketh disorderly” from their membership, that they may not defile the feast; but they cannot protect the table from such so long as they do not limit it to their membership.

3. There are Baptist Churches that exclude from their own membership all drunkards, theater-goers, dancers, horse-racers, and visitors of the race-course, because they cannot fellowship such practices as Godly walking or becoming a Christian, and therefore believe that they are commanded to purge the feast of all such characters as leaven, and, yet, by the invitation to the members of all other Baptist Churches, they receive the very same characters to their table every time they spread it.

ILLUSTRATION 1.?The church at C??excluded a member for “general hard drinking and occasional drunkenness,” because she could not eat with such. He united with the church at W??the next month, for he was wealthy and family influential; and on the next communion at C??he accepted the urgent invitation of

courtesy, and sat down by the side of the brother who preferred the charge of drunkenness against him.

ILLUSTRATION 2.?The church at M??excluded two members on the charge of adultery, for marrying contrary to the law of Christ; the one having a living wife, and the other a living husband; they had both been legally divorced, not for the one cause specified, but it was generally believed that they deserted their respective companions that they might obtain an excuse for marrying. Three months after they both united with a church ten miles distant, and now never fail to accept the affectionate invitations of the former church to commune with it.

4. There are multitudes?I rejoice to say nearly all our Southern churches outside the cities?who will not receive persons immersed by Catholics or Campbellites, Protestants or Mormons, because they do not regard them as baptized at all; yet by their open denominational invitations they receive all such?and there are many of them in the churches?to their table, as duly qualified.

ILLUSTRATION 1.?The church at S??refused to receive two Campbellites on their baptism. They offered themselves to the Sixth Street church, which received alien immersions, and whose pastor was an immersed Campbellite; were received, and they made it a point to accept the very pressing invitation of the church at L??to commune with it.

ILLUSTRATION 2. ?The church at H??has several members received on their Mormon immersions. Her sister church at P??repudiates such immersions as null and void, yet these very members never fail to accept her liberal denominational invitations. From principal and solemn duty she forbids all such as her members, but from courtesy invites all such, as foreigners, to commune with her.

CONSISTENCY.?If each Baptist Church had its own communion, with its own members, independent of all others, then each church could receive into membership, or exclude from membership, whoever it pleased, and no other church or communion be injured by it. On the one hand, the church excluding a person would have no power to prevent his uniting with another church made up of members no better than himself; and, on the other hand, the church receiving the excluded person would not, in so doing, restore him to the communion from which he had been cast out.

The evils of denominational communion 1. It opens the door to the table to all the ministerial impostors that pervade the land. They have repeatedly started from Maine or Canada, and “gone through” all our churches to the Southern Gulf and the Pacific Coast, and they can usually be traced back to the place whence they came by a grass-widow left in “perplexity” every one hundred fifty, or two hundred miles on the “back tract.” These impostors hold “revival meetings” until all their borrowed sermons are exhausted, and make it a point to do all the baptizing, and have the weakness of some other ministers to

keep a record of the number of their baptisms. It is needless to say that the church is often divided by their influence, and left in confusion and disgrace when they are exposed. California can witness to the evils resulting from these characters.

The remedy is, let no strange traveling preacher be admitted to the table as a participant, nor into our pulpits, until the church has written back and learned that he is in all respects worthy.

2. Denominational communion never has been sustained, and never can be, but at the expense of peace. It has always been the occasion of discord among brethren.

It has alienated churches one from the other. It has distracted and divided associations, and all for the very good reason that it is departure from the simplicity that is in Christ.

3. It has encouraged tens of thousands of Baptists, on moving away from the churches to which they belong, to go without transferring their membership to a church where they are going, as they could have the church privileges?preaching and COMMUNION?without uniting with, and bearing the churches burdens. Nor has it stopped here. It has done more in this way to multiply backsliders and apostates all over the country than any other one thing that can be named. If Baptists could have no such privileges without membership, they would keep their membership with them and enjoy it.

4. To this evil may be traced four out of five, if not nine out of ten, of all the councils called to settle difficulties between churches during the last twenty-five years. The difficulties have in one form or another, grown out of this practice, and would not have been, had our churches observed only church communion.

5. All the scandal heaped upon us as “close communion Baptists” with much of the prejudice produced in the public mind and fostered against us, has come from our denominational communion. Had our churches severely limited their communion as they have their discipline, to their own members, we should no more have heard of “close communion Baptists” then we now do of “close-membership Baptists,” or “close-discipline Baptists.”

6. We annually lose thousands and tens of thousands of worthy persons who would have united with us, but for what they understand as our unwarranted close-communion. Our practice can never be satisfactorily explained to them as consistent, so long as we practice a partial, and not a general, open communion.

Our denominational growth is very materially retarded by our present inconsistent practice of intercommunion. If we practiced strict church communion, these, and all Christians, could understand the matter at once; and no one would presume to blame us for not inviting members of other denominations to our table, when we refuse, from principal, to invite members of other Baptist churches?our own brethren.

7. It is freely admitted by reliable brethren who enjoy the widest outlook over the denomination in America, that for the last few decades of years the general

drift has been, and now is, setting towards “open communion”?it is boasted of as a “broadening liberalism.” There are numbers in all our churches?and the number is increasing, especially in our fashionable city and wealthy town churches?who are impatient of the present restrictions imposed upon the table; because, not being able to divide a principle, they are not able to see the consistency of inviting members of sister churches, and rejecting those whom we admit to be evangelical churches, as though all evangelical churches are not sister; nor can they divine why Pedobaptists ministers are authorized to preach the gospel and to immerse; are invited to occupy our pulpits, and even to serve our churches as supply pastors for a season?all their ministrations recognized as valid, and yet there are debarred from our table. They work for us, and we refuse to allow them to eat. The only ground upon which we can successfully meet and counteract the liberalizing influences, which are gently bearing the Baptists of America into the slough of open communion, is strict local church communion, and the firm and energetic setting forth of the “Old Baptist Landmarks” advocated in this little book.

We have had assurances of the correctness of the statement from many of the standard men in our denomination.

In the last conversation had with the late Brother Poindexter, of Virginia, he freely expressed himself in substantially these words: “You are aware that I have not fully endorsed all your positions known as Old Landmarkism, but I wish you to know my present convictions for your encouragement. I have carefully examined all the arguments, pro and con, and watched the tendency of things the last 20 years, and I am prepared to say that I am convinced that what you call “Old Landmarkism” constitutes the only bulwark to break the increasing tide of modern “liberalism,”?which is nothing but open communion?that threatens to obliterate every vestige of Bible ecclesiasticism from the earth. Though my sympathies, and feelings, and practice, often, have been upon the liberal side, yet I am convinced that Baptists, if they long maintain their denominational existence, must stand squarely with you upon these principles.”

Brother J. P. Boyce, the distinguished president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY., publicly declared on the floor of the Mississippi Baptist state convention, at Jackson, Miss., 1876, what he had before stated to us privately?that he was a Landmark Baptist.

He has openly proclaimed to the world his repudiation of “alien immersions” by immersing, in 1879, Brother Weaver, pastor of a Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. Brother Weaver, twenty years before, had been received into a Baptist Church on the Methodist immersion.

CHAPTER X The Continuity of the Kingdom of Christ.

For the maintenance of the inspiration of the prophets, as well as the divinity of Christ, the Kingdom He set up must never be “broken to pieces,” and the church He built must have never been prevailed against by violence or corruption?The true statement of what “Landmarkers” mean by church succession, not “apostolic succession,” nor the succession of any particular church or churches, etc.

“In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed; neither shall it be given to another people; . . . it shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44).

“On this Rock will I establish (Gr.) my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

“We, therefore, receiving a kingdom that can not be moved,” etc. (Heb. 12:28).

“The fall of a kingdom is the disgrace of its founder.”

Landmark Baptists very generally believe that for the Word of the Living God to stand, and for the veracity of Jesus Christ to vindicate itself, the kingdom which He set up “in the days of John the Baptist,” has had an unbroken continuity until now. I say kingdom, instead of succession of churches, for the sake of perspicacity.

Those who oppose “church succession confuse the unthinking, by representing our position to be, that the identical organization which Christ established?the First Church of Judea?has had a continued existence until today; or, that the identical churches planted by the apostles, or, at least, some one of them, has continued until now, and that Baptist ministers are successors of the apostles; in a word, that our position is the old Romish and Episcopal doctrine of apostolic succession. I have, for full a quarter of a century, by pen and voice, vehemently protested against these misrepresentations, as Baptists have, for twice as many more, against the charge of teaching that no one can be saved without immersion, an d quite as vainly; for those who oppose us seem determined to misrepresent, and will not be corrected. We repudiate the doctrine of apostolic succession; we do not believe they ever had a successor, and, therefore, no one today is preaching under the apostolic commission any more than under that which Christ first gave to John the Baptist. They are our opposers who, in fact, hold to apostolic succession; for the majority do believe that, if ministers, they are p reaching by the authority contained in that commission! So much for this charge.

Nor have I, or any Landmarker known to me, ever advocated the succession of any particular church or churches; but my position is that Christ, in the very ?days of John the Baptist,” did establish a visible kingdom on earth, and that this kingdom has never yet been “broken in pieces,” nor given to another class of subjects?has never for a day “been moved,” nor ceased from the earth, and never will until Christ returns personally to reign over it; that the organization He first set up, which John called “the Bride,” and which Christ called His church, constituted that visible kingdom, and today all His true churches on earth constitute it; and, therefore, if His kingdom has stood unchanged, and will to the

end, He must always have had true and uncorrupted churches, since His kingdom cannot exist without true churches.

The sense in which any existing Baptist Church is the successor of the First Church of Judea?the model and pattern of all?is the same as that existing between any regular organization and the first such organization that was ever instituted.

Ten thousand local organizations of like nature may have existed and passed away, but this fact in no wise affects the continuity of the organization. From the day that organization was started, it has stood; and, though it may have decayed in some places, it has flourished in others, and never has had but one beginning. Thus it has been with that institution called the Kingdom of Christ; it has had a continuous existence, or the words of Christ have failed; and, therefore, there has been no need of originating it, de novo, and no unbaptized man ever had any authority to originate baptism, or a church, de novo. Nor can our opposers prove that a Baptist church exists today started in this way. I understand that Christ’s declaration (Matthew 16:18), and Paul’s statement (Heb. 12:28), are emphatic commentaries upon the prophecy of Daniel (2:44).

We do not admit that it devolves upon us more than upon every other lover of Jesus to prove, by uncontestable historical facts, that this kingdom of the Messiah has stood from the day it was set up by Him, unbroken and unmoved; to question it, is to doubt His sure word of promise. To deny it, is to impeach His veracity, and leave the world without a Bible or a Christ. We dare not do this. We believe that His kingdom has stood unchanged as firmly as we believe in the divinity of the Son of God, and, when we are forced to surrender the one faith, we can easily give up the other. If Christ has not kept His promise concerning His church to keep it, how can I trust Him concerning my salvation? If He has not the power to save His church, He certainly has not the power to save me. For Christians to admit that Christ has not preserved His kingdom unbroken, unmoved, unchanged, and uncorrupted, is to surrender the whole ground to infidelity. I deny that a man is a believer in the Bible who denies this.

Nor do we admit the claims of the “Liberals” upon us, to prove the continuous existence of the church, of which we are a member, or which baptized us, in order to prove our doctrine of church succession, and that we have been scripturally baptized or ordained. As well might the Infidel call upon me to prove every link of my descent from Adam, before I am allowed to claim an interest in the redemptive work of Christ, which was confined to the family of Adam! We point to the Word of God, and, until the Infidel can destroy its authenticity, our hope is unshaken. In like manner, we point the “Liberal” Baptist to the words of Christ, and will he say they are not sufficient? When the Infidel can prove, by uncontestable historical facts, that His kingdom has been broken and removed one year, one day, or one hour from the earth, then we surrender our Bible with our position.

The wire of the Atlantic Cable is of peculiar formation, peculiarly insulated, and history informs us that several years ago it was laid down across the entire ocean, from Valentia, Ireland, to Newfoundland. I suppose there are persons who stoutly deny this as quite improbable, if not impossible, and assert that I am foolish to believe it, and even call upon me for proof of its continuity before they will believe.

I satisfy them that the wire cable that I trace from Valentia to the ocean, and for a thousand miles along the plateau, where it drops beyond my line, is the same with that which I find upon the plateau, on this side of the deep soundings, and onward to the telegraph station at Newfoundland. In addition, I satisfy them that the cipher of the message started at Valentia is the same with that received at Newfoundland, on this side, and that no other company on earth uses that peculiar cipher. Furthermore, I convince them that the message received at this end of the wire is precisely the same with that started at the other, and that there is no other way conceivable by which the message could be transmitted. Still, those persons refuse to believe unless I will trace the continuity of that wire for the hundreds of miles of those almost soundless depths. What would the candid world say of such a demand?

I can not forbear quoting a paragraph from the reply of Bro. J. W. Smith to Albert Barnes: “Whatever is found in the New Testament is as worthy as if you traced it there. It is only a doubtful practice, whose thread must be traced thus carefully through the labyrinth of history, with painful uncertainty, lest you reach its end, while yet a century or two from Christ. Why, sir, if between us and the apostolic age there yawned a fathomless abyss, into whose silent darkness intervening history had fallen, with a Baptist Church on this side, and a New Testament on the other, we should boldly bridge the gulf, and look for the record of our birth among the hills of Galilee. But our history is not thus lost. That work is in progress, which will link the Baptists of today with the Baptists of Jerusalem” (p.

38).

I have no space to devote to the historical argument to prove the continuity of the kingdom of Christ, but assure the reader that, in our opinion, it is irrefragable.

All that any candid man could desire?and it is from Catholic and Protestant sources?frankly admitting that churches, substantially like the Baptists of this age have existed, and suffered the bitterest persecution from the earliest age until now; and, indeed, they have been the only religious organizations that have stood since the days of the apostles, and are older than the Roman Catholic Church itself.

I am aware that such an opinion has come to be scouted by our “Liberal” brethren in these days of growing looseness and love of the praise of men, but I am sustained by standard names among Baptists. J. Newton Brown, editor of Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, a scholar who had given twenty-five years to the study of history, maintained that “the ancient Waldenses, Cathari, Paterines,

and Donatists were our historical ancestors, and that a succession of whom continued up to the Reformation.”

Bro. Joseph Beleher says: “It will be seen that the Baptists claim the high antiquity of the commencement of the Christian church. They can trace a succession of those who have believed the same doctrine, and administered the same ordinances, directly up to the apostolic age” (Rel. Den. in Europe and America, p. 53).

Bro. Howell says: “I assert that from the days of the apostles to the present time, the true, legitimate Baptist Church has ever been a missionary body” (Letters to Dr. Watson, p. 3).

Benedict says: “The more I study the subject, the stronger are my convictions that, if all the facts in the case could be disclosed, a very good succession could be made out” (His. Bap., p. 51).

I add to these Bra. W. R. Williams, J. L. Waller, D. B. Ray, and Crump. Orchard has, beyond all question, made out the succession, century by century, in various countries, in his invaluable book, “A Chronological History of Baptist Churches.”

“The Seven Churches of Revelation,” in course of preparation by the writer, will do this. Not those who affirm, but those who deny the continuity of the kingdom of Christ, are to be pitied for their ignorance or their prejudice.

I quote, with pleasure, the closing paragraph of that great national work, “The History of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands,” by Bro. J. J. Dermout, chaplain to the King of Holland, and Professor Ypeig, Professor of Theology in the University of Groningen?both distinguished Presbyterians. They certainly could have no object, save fealty to the truth of history, to pen a line favorable to Baptists, and no motive but scholarly honesty, to concede to Baptists a church existence far anterior to their own, and that of the Catholic. They say: “We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and, in later times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses and who, even from the most ancient times, have received such well deserved homage. On this account, the Baptists may be considered as of old?the only religious community which has continued from the times of the apostles?as a Christian society which has kept pure, through all ages, the evangelical doctrines of religion. The uncorrupted inward and outward condition of the Baptist community affords proof of the truth, contested by the Romish church, of the great necessity of a reformation of religion, such as that which took place in the sixteenth century, and also, a refutation of the erroneous notion of the Roman Catholics, that their denomination is the most ancient” (Trans. by Prof. Tobey in South. B. Review, vol. v, p. 20).

Monastic,; in his “History of the Voudois Church,” i.e., those who were the ancient Waldenses, says: “The Voudois church is a link that unites them to the primitive church. By means of it they establish the anterior existence of their

constitution, doctrine, and worship to that of the papistical idolatries and errors” (Bap. Suc., p. 547).

Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin, Presbyterian, says: “As for the Waldenses, I may be permitted to call them the very seed of the primitive and purer Christian church, since they are those that have been upheld, as is abundantly manifested, by the wonderful providence of God; so that neither those endless storms and tem pests, by which the whole Christian world has been shaken for so many succeeding ages, and the western parts, at length so miserably oppressed by the bishops of Rome, falsely so called, nor those horrible persecutions, which have been expressly raised against them, were ever able so far to prevail as to make them bend or yield a voluntary subjection to the roman tyranny and idolatry” (Jones?

Church History, p. 353).

Whatever the enemies of Christ may say ?and they are His real enemies, who disbelieve His plain statements?His kingdom has stood unshaken, and will stand as a monument to His faithfulness, His power, and His veracity until He comes again.

“Oh, where are kings and empires now, Of old, that went and came?

But, Lord, thy church is praying yet, A thousand years the same.

“For, not like kingdoms of this world, Thy holy church, O God! Though earthquake shocks are threat?ning her, And tempests are abroad, “Unshaken as eternal hills Immovable she stands; A mountain that shall fill the earth,?

A house not made with hands.”

CHAPTER XI What it is not, and what is, to be an old Landmark Baptist?The true mission of old Landmark Baptist.

“Now I entreat you, brethren, to watch those who are making factions and laying snares, contrary to the teachings which you have learned; and turn away from them. For such like ones as they, are not in subjection to our anointed Lord, but their own appetites; and by a kind and complementary words the decedent hearts of the unsuspecting.”(Rom.16:17,18.)

“Be not a partaker and other men’s sins: keep thyself pure” (1 Tim 5:22).

“If anyone comes to you, and brings not this doctrine, do not receive him into your handles, nor wish him success; for he who wishes him success partakes in his evil works” (2 John 10:11). (Translation of Emphatic Diaglott) “Can two walk together; except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3).

Landmark Baptist are continually charged by all who oppose their characteristic principles and policy?Baptists who know better, not excepted?with many and grievous offenses, in order to make us obnoxious to our own brethren

and, and detested by all others. It seems proper, therefore, at this point, to refute all these, by stating, first, what Old Landmarkism is not, before making a summary of what it is.

1. Old Landmarkism is not the denial of spiritual regeneration to those with whom we decline to associate ministerially or ecclesiastically.

Still we by no means feel warranted in saying that we believe that the members of those societies, which hold and teach that baptism is a sacrament or seal of salvation, or essential to the remission of sins?as all Pedobaptists and Campbellite societies do hold and teach?are Christians, or even presumptively regenerate, since they do not require a credible evidence of regeneration as a condition of membership. They may believe that baptism, “duly administered,� confers the grace of regeneration upon adults and infants as well, but Baptist do not, and, therefore we cannot believe that because they are members, it is therefore probable that they are regenerate, as we are justified in believing with respect to Baptist Churches that require a credible profession of regeneration in every instance. It must be true that the vast mass of Pedobaptists, and the overwhelming mass of the membership of Campbellite societies are unregenerate, and we are not justified in applying to them the title of brethren in Christ; for we will thereby mis-teach them, and brethren, ecclesiastically, we know they are not.

But Landmarkism does not pretend to sit in judgment upon the state of any man’s heart, but upon his ecclesiastical relations only. Refusing to affiliate with them, ministerially and ecclesiastically, is not declaring by our act that we believe their ministers and members are unregenerate, but that they are not members of scriptural Churches. Refusing to invite their ministers to preach for our churches, and to accept their immersions, is no more denying their Christian character than refusing to invite them to our communion table?Baptist know this, and all Pedobaptists ought to know it. We mean by our refusal, to emphasize our protest against their organizations as scriptural churches, and consequently against their ministers as authorized to preach and to administer the church ordinances. We do not recognized unbaptized and unordained men, who are Baptists in sentiment, as scriptural ministers, and qualified to administer Church ordinances; and why should we be expected to recognize those we regard as disqualified, and who violently oppose our faith and practice? It is manifestly inconsistent in Baptists to do so, and Pedobaptists know and freely admit it. In all mere Christian duties, as private Christians, we are at liberty to participate, but never ministerially or ecclesiastically. By no act that can possibly be so construed, must we recognize other societies as Christian churches, or other ministers as Scriptural ministers.

2. Landmarkism is not the denial of the honesty and conscientiousness of Pedobaptists and Campbellites.

We concede to all the honesty of purpose we claim for ourselves, and we accord to them equal conscientiousness; but we, nevertheless, belief them honestly

deceived, and conscientious in the belief of unscriptural and pernicious errors; and that it is our bounden duty to undeceive them by all possible scriptural means; but by no word or deed of ours to confirm them in their error. It is the highest proof of love to endeavor, even at the hazard of losing their friendship, to correct the mistakes and errors of our friends; while to leave them unwarned of a danger of which we are aware, is the part of an enemy.

3. Landmarkism is not a proof of our uncharitableness.

We are charged with manifesting a spirit uncharitable and un-Christlike. This charge is without foundation. Christ called Himself the “truth;” He hated and opposed all error; he failed not upon all occasions to rebuke and denounced it; He recognized only those as His friends who were like Him in this respect.

Charity not only rejoices in the truth, but is opposed to that which is not truth, and “hateth every false way.” Christ, nor charity, then, requires of us to surrender Christian principle, and to be unfaithful to the teachings and requirements of duty.

We cannot hope to please Christ, by recognizing the institutions and traditions of men, as equal to His own churches and Commandments. That is not Christian charity, but a false liberality and treason to Christ, to surrender or compromise that which He has committed to us to firmly hold and faithfully teach.

Landmarkism, then, is not opposed to the spirit of true Christian charity, but to an unscriptural and pernicious “liberalism” which is being palmed off upon the world for Christian charity?a spirit which is truly opposed to Christ, and is the “bane and the curse of a pure Christianity,” and daily demonstrates itself as the very spirit of persecution itself.

4. Landmarkism is not the denial to others the civil right, or the most perfect liberty to exist as professed churches, or to their ministers to preach their views, as it is falsely asserted.

We accord to all denominations and to all “religions,” Jews and Gentiles, Mohammedan and Pagan, the same right to exist; and to their priests and teachers the same civil right to teach and propagate their doctrines, as we claim for ourselves. It is one of the peculiar characteristics of Baptists, which they have maintained in every age; and viz., the absolute liberty of conscience and belief, and the freest expression of them. We would fight as soon to vindicate religious liberty in this country, to an idolatrous Chinese or a Jew, as to a Baptist. We would not, had we the absolute power to do so, forbid Pedobaptists, or Campbellites, or Mormons from preaching, and the fullest enjoyment of their religious rights; but do most positively deny that they have any scriptural right to exist as churches of Christ: we do deny their claims to be called or treated as churches of Christ; we do deny the scripturalness of either their doctrines, or other ordinances, and their authority to ordain ministers of the gospel, precisely as we would the right of the lodge, or Young Men’s Christian Associations, should they assume to do so. We do deny that their ministers have any more authority to preach the gospel and

administer church ordinances, than the officers of lodges have, by virtue of their office; but, in saying this, we make no allusion to their personal Christian characters whatever. All the members and officers of a lodge might be true Christians, but that would not constitute the lodge a Christian church, or is officers Christian ministers. The only force we would bring to bear against Pedobaptists, and Campbellites, and Mormons, to put an end to their existence as churches, or to their ministers to arrest their preaching, is the sword of truth, wielded in the dauntless spirit of Paul and the love of Christ. We would convert them from the error of their ways, and bring them all, by the force of moral suasion, into sweet subjection to the Law of Christ. We would exterminate the isms by converting the ists.

We may as well notice here Mark 9:28, which our would-be undenominational brethren constantly quote as proof positive, that we should not oppose in anyway, but rather encourage all religious teachers, of even manifest errors, to propagate their false doctrine so long as they claim to be religious teachers and the friends and followers of Christ. The Apostles forbade a person to cast out devils in the name of Christ, because he did not follow them! The Protestant commentators have generally made all possible use of this passage to support their cause as against the pretensions of the Romish church, and Baptists have been influenced to use it against the advocates of apostolic succession, who claim that no one is authorized to preach unless ordained in the succession; and now “liberal Baptists,” who would recognize all sects as equally “Christian churches,” and all the ministers of those sects as “evangelical ministers,” and bid them God-speed?quote it against Landmarkers. But the passage yields them no encouragement to disrespect and violate the order which Christ established, and the positive injunctions of Paul.

This man, whom John and his fellow apostles saw casting out devils, in the name of Christ, was certainly not an enemy of Christ, and could not have been doing anything contrary to His will or authority, or he could not have cast out devils. He was undoubtedly either one of John’s disciples, or one of the seventy who had been authorized by Christ Himself to do this very miracle when He sent them forth; and this man may have continued to proclaim the mission of Jesus, and to cast out devils. He was, most unquestionably, a disciple of Christ, though not one of the apostles, and therefore, had been baptized. The only irregularity complained of by John was, that he followed not Christ continually, as the apostles were required to do, to qualify them for their work after the ascension of Christ; but it was not required of him, nor of any other disciple of Christ, save the twelve, to follow Christ constantly. That this man was a friend and disciple of Christ, is established by the great faith he had in Him as Messiah or the Son of God?greater than the Apostles themselves were at times able to exercise. (See Matt 17:16-22). Will a Baptist, therefore, in the exercise of impartial candor, claim that this passage warrants him in maintaining that anyone, irrespective of baptism or church relations, or faith in the doctrine of Christ, is authorized to go forth and preach his erroneous views in

the name of Christ, and to administer church ordinances, and that we must bid him God-speed, and thus endorse his doctrinal errors which are subversive of true Christianity, and his irregularities totally subversive of the church and kingdom of Christ. Let all who desire to believe this know of a certainty that Christ never set up a kingdom and divided it against itself, nor can it be that “the house of God, which is the church of the living God” is divided against itself.

The following are indisputable facts: 1. That without scriptural baptism there can be no Christian church, and consequently no scriptural ministers, and no scriptural ordinances.

2. That sprinkling and pouring of water upon persons, adults, and infants, as a sacrament of salvation, is not scriptural baptism, but as gross a perversion of it, as it is to administer it in order to procure the remission of sins.

It is a stern and solemn fact?

3. That we, as Baptists, can not by our words or acts declare that Pedobaptists or Campbellites societies are scriptural churches, or their teachers scriptural ministers, or their ordinances scriptural, without testifying to that we know to be untrue, and without lending all our influence to support and bid “God-speed” to their false and pernicious teachings, and thus becoming partakers of their wrongdoing?as guilty in the sight of God as they themselves are. (See 2 John 10: 11).

What is the mission of Landmark Baptist?

1. As Baptists, we are to stand for the supreme authority of the New Testament as our only and sufficient rule of faith and practice. The New Testament, and that alone, as opposed to all human tradition in matters, both of faith and practice, we must claim as containing the distinguishing doctrine of our denomination?a doctrine for which we are called earnestly to contend.

2. As Baptists, we are to stand for the ordinances of Christ as He enjoined them upon His followers, the same in number, and mode, and order, and in symbolic meaning, unchanged and unchangeable till He come.

3. As Baptists, we are to stand for a spiritual and regenerated church, and that none shall be received into Christ’s church, or be welcomed to its ordinances, without confessing a personal faith in Christ, and giving credible evidence of piety.

The motto on our banner is: Christ Before the Church, Blood Before Water.

4. To protest, and to use all our influence against the recognition, on the part of Baptists, of human societies as scriptural churches, by affiliation, ministerial or ecclesiastical, or any alliance or co-operation that is susceptible of being apparently or logically construed by our members, or theirs, or the world, into a recognition of their ecclesiastical or ministerial equality with Baptist churches.

5. To preserve and perpetuate the doctrine of the divine origin and sanctity of the churches of Christ, and the unbroken continuity of Christ’s kingdom, “from the days of John the Baptist until now,” according to the express words of Christ.

6. To preserve and perpetuate the divine, inalienable, and sole prerogatives of a Christian church -- 1, To preach the gospel of the son of God; 2, To select and ordain her own officers; 3, To control absolutely her own ordinances.

7. To preserve and perpetuate the scriptural design of baptism, and its validity and recognition only when scripturally administered by a gospel church.

8. To preserve and perpetuate the true design and symbolism of the Lord’s Supper, as a local church ordinance, and for but one purpose?the commemoration of the sacrificial death of Christ?and not as a denominational ordinance, or as an act expressive of our Christian or personal fellowship, and much less of courtesy towards others.

9. To preserve and perpetuate the doctrine of a divinely called and scripturally qualified and ordained ministry, to proclaim the gospel, and to administer the ordinances, not upon their own responsibility, but for, and under the direction of, local churches alone.

10. To preserve and perpetuate that primitive fealty and faithfulness to the truth, that shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God, and to teach man to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded to be believed and obeyed.

Not the belief and advocacy of one or two of these principles as the marks of the divinely patterned church, but the cordial reception and advocacy of all of them, constitute a full “Old Landmark Baptist.”

CHAPTER XII DEFENSIVE The current pleas of liberal “Baptists” considered: 1. That preaching is not an official duty. 2.

That we do not recognize those societies as churches by accepting their ordinances. 3. That we do not recognize those ministers as scriptural ministers, by accepting their official acts. 4. That we do not indorse their erroneous doctrines and practices by affiliating with them.

“Then said Pilate to the chief priests, and to the people, I find no fault in this man. And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.”

“And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were at enmity between themselves” (Luke 23:4-5, 12).

It argues a degenerate state of affairs when Baptists have to defend themselves against the attacks of their own brethren, for consistently maintaining the timehonored principles of their own denomination. When professed Baptists make friends with a common enemy, they even show a more “fierce,” and bitter, and persecuting spirit, than those who once put our fathers to death for holding the self-same sentiments that Landmark Baptists hold today. But this is the case, while the impartial and candid world renders the verdict: “We find no fault in

these men,”?conceding that our course is strictly consistent with Baptist principles, while that of our opposers is not. Affiliationists deny?

1. That preaching of the gospel is official or strictly ministerial work but equally the duty of all.

We oppose to this, 1. The plain teachings of the Scripture. Jesus specially called and ordained?i.e., commissioned those who preached during His public ministry?John the Baptist, the seventy, and the apostles. The very term he selected to designate their work, Kerusso, is used in the Greek to indicate the special official duty of proclaiming as a herald. 2. “Paul distinctly declares that he was specially called, ordained, and put into the ministry” (1 Tim. 1:11, 12 and 2:7).

He reminds both Timothy and Archippus that they were specially designated for this office (1 Tim. 4:14; Col. 4:17). He also declares that evangelists, pastors, and teachers are special gifts to the churches. He commanded Titus to ordain elders in every city, and left Timothy in Crete for this purpose. Why ordain men to do a specific work?as preaching and administering the ordinances?if all Christians are equally obligated to do it? 3. We oppose to their position the almost united voice and practice of all denominations of Christendom, in all ages, and the unbroken practice of Baptists founded upon the Word of God. 4. The unvarying practice of these very brethren themselves. They invariably require a Baptist to be baptized and ordained, by the authority of some church, before they deem him qualified to preach and administer the ordinances. Not one of them, if a member of a Presbytery, would lay his hands upon a brother who should confess he was not convinced that he had any special call to preach, or any impression of duty in that direction that members in common have not; nor would he presume to lay his hands upon him if he knew he was unbaptized. If “it is as much the duty of one Christian as another to preach the gospel,” then the doctrine of a special call and the duty of ordination should both be repudiated, and all men, women, and children, if only church members, should proceed to preach and baptize when, where, and whomsoever they please! The preaching of the gospel, and administering the ordinances, belong strictly to a specific officer of a local church?can only be done by its authority and under its guardianship. The minister is then a church officer, and his work is official work. Should not Baptists promptly reject a theory that would so completely anarchize the whole polity of the church?

Let all decide who are revolutionists and distractionists?those who plead for the “Old Landmarks” or modern “liberalists”?who are laboring to undenominationalize our people, and lead the denomination into open communion! Despite all their sophistries, it is as certain as the teachings of the Scriptures are true, that the preaching of the gospel and administering its ordinances, is official work; and that no one may take this office or work unto himself but “he that is called of God, as was Aaron” (Heb. 5:4).

2. It is in the next place denied that we do recognize and indorse the ministers of other denominations, as scriptural ministers, and as upon a perfect equality as ministers with ourselves, when we invite them to preach and pray in our pulpits, and do work which we strictly limit to our own ministers.

Such a denial should fill the brethren who make it with “shame and confusion of face.” It is an accepted axiom, by all nations and in all ages, that “actions speak louder than words.” No man of truth can, or will, deny that the act does seem to teach this. But says Bro. Jeter, the recognized leader of ecclesiastical looseness in the South: “We do not understand ourselves to indorse them as scriptural ministers, nor do we intend so to indorse them, and we do not believe they so regard our ministerial associations with them.

We can not regard this as an ingenuous declaration, but the specious plea of an advocate, since reason, common sense, and the united and outspoken voice of Pedobaptist ministers, as well as the world at large, affirm that they and their churches do understand us to publicly recognize them as scriptural ministers of scriptural churches, and in all respects equal to our own ministers, when we invite them to perform ministerial functions for us.

When the civil courts call upon a man to perform a certain act, which the law authorizes only a certain qualified officer to do, is it not understood by all men that the courts recognize that man as a legally qualified officer? When they act upon the cases prepared for them by a professed magistrate, do they not recognize the man filling that office as a legal magistrate? It is not the part of common honesty to deny it. But some have admitted, that did they believe that Pedobaptist and Campbellite ministers understood their exchange of pulpits, and general ministerial affiliation with them, as indorsing them as scriptural ministers, they would refuse to invite them to do so, and we believe that Bro. Jeter has so admitted.

Let us settle this question here, and forever, with all candid men. It is a wellknown fact to all, that they do so regard our association with them. Any Baptist can satisfy himself by asking any Pedobaptist, or addressing a courteous letter to one of their representative men, and they will tell him frankly that they would regard an invitation to fill a Baptist pulpit, with the distinct understanding that they did so as unbaptized and unordained men, as a personal insult. Elder J. W. Jarrell, of Illinois, addressed letters of inquiry to ten or twelve prominent Pedobaptist ministers, and their replies should satisfy every one.

It must be presumed that the answers of Bro. Stuart Robinson (O.S.P.), Louisville, Ky., and Bro. Charles Hodge, Princeton, N. J., forever determine this matter. Says Bro. Robinson: “The idea of inviting one to preach in the character of a layman seems to me a paradox.”

Bro. Hodge says: “When one minister asks another to exchange pulpits with him, such invitation is in fact, and is universally regarded as an acknowledgment of the scriptural ordination of the man receiving the invitation.

“No man who believes himself to be a minister can rightfully, expressly, or by implication, deny the validity of his ordination; and, therefore, if invited to lecture or speak in the character of a layman, he must decline.”

I have said it is a fact well known to Bro. Jeter and all our opposers?for they are all intelligent men?that our affiliating acts are regarded as endorsements of their ministerial character by Pedobaptist ministers.

In a discussion of this very question with Bro. Jeter, Bro. J. B. Link, of the Texas Baptist Herald, put in this strong language: “Pedobaptists hold the pulpit to be sacred to the ministry, and understand them to be indorsed whenever invited into it. When a Baptist who does not so hold, invites them to the pulpit, not intending such endorsement, as many pretend they do not, he practices duplicity knowingly or ignorantly.”

To justify this putting of the case, he appealed to the Texas Christian Advocate: “Will the Texas Christian Advocate please tell us how he regards the invitation of one of its ministers into a Baptist pulpit, which invitation regards him only in the light of an unbaptized religious teacher, without church membership or ecclesiastical authority of any sort? What would you say to that?”

This is that editor’s reply, well-known to Bro. Jeter and all editors: “When one gentleman invites another to his house, receives him into his parlor, and seats him at his table, he recognizes him on terms of perfect social equality. So when one Christian minister invites another to occupy his pulpit, all who witness the courtesy thus extended, regard it as a proclamation of perfect ministerial equality.

Only Christian ministers are invited to the pulpit. If, however, the one who gives the invitation is a Jesuit and a hypocrite, who wishes to make a show of liberality he does not feel, and believes the brother he thus pretends to honor as a minister is only ?an unbaptized religious teacher, without church membership or ecclesiastical authority of any sort,? he should be treated as all hypocrites and pretenders deserve to be treated.”

This is rather hard upon Bro. Jeter and all our pulpit affiliationists, but it is true. (See App. B).

The Texas Presbyterian, in its next issue, emphatically indorsed the sentiment of the Texas Christian Advocate, and Bro. Hill, late editor of Presbyterian organ at Louisville, asserted the same.

This fact, then, that we do recognize them, and that they so understand it, is established by the highest possible proof and testimony. We agree with other Pedobaptists, in declaring that it is a personal insult for a Baptist or church to invite a Pedobaptist minister to preach or perform any ministerial office, with the

understanding that he does so as an unordained and unbaptized religious teacher, and he would prove that he was himself as unworthy the office, as the inviting minister, should he consent to disclaim by his act that he was a minister or even a church member.

3. It is strangely denied by our “liberal” brethren that we do impliedly recognize the societies as scriptural churches, whose ordinances we receive as valid, and the offices of whose ministers we accept.

In the judgment of charity we will say, that those who can conscientiously make this denial are shame fully ignorant of the simplest principles, not of church organization only, but of any organization.

I pause not to reason, with those ministers who can make this declaration, but with those brethren whom they endeavor to deceive and mislead by such a statement.

To use a carnal, worldly illustration, but not approving of the same, we will grant that there is only one body on earth that can celebrate a Masonic rite, admit a member into a Masonic Lodge, or confer the Master Mason’s Degree. That body is a Masonic Lodge. An Odd-Fellows? Lodge, or a Grange Lodge can not do it. Now, when the Masonic Lodges of this city recognize these acts, and such an officer, when performed and made by another body professing to be a Masonic Lodge, do they not thereby give the highest endorsement possible of the true Masonic character of that Lodge? If a body can masonically perform Masonic rites, and confer Masonic Degrees, that body is a Masonic Lodge. The body that can make Masonic officers, whose acts are legal in the order, is most certainly, “to all intents and purposes, a Masonic Lodge. A wayfaring man, though a fool, can understand this. Now apply this common sense to churches. There is but one organization on this earth that can authorize a man to preach the gospel—i.e., confer scriptural ordination—and that body is a scriptural church. There is but one organization on earth that is authorized to administer Christian baptism or the Lord’s Supper, and that is a scriptural church. There is but one body on earth that possesses Christian, or Evangelical, or gospel ministers, and that body is a scriptural church.

Now when we recognize the preachers of Pedobaptist societies as ministers of the gospel, by inviting them to perform the functions of gospel ministers, do we not thereby recognize the societies which ordained them as churches of Christ? When we receive the immersions of those societies as valid baptisms, do we not thereby proclaim, louder than words can express it, that those societies are scriptural churches, and in all respects equal to our own? Brethren, be not deceived by your teachers. Axioms are not more self-evident than these facts. Those ministers, and their members, and the world, and the masses of our own people so understand these acts, and they have a right ? they ought to so understand them, for they are logical and irresistible conclusions from the premises.

That the Methodist Church—i.e., the General Conference (North)—for 1876 regarded “Union Meetings” as an open proclamation, on the part of those denominations that engage in them, that Methodist societies are evangelical churches, may be learned from the following resolution that can be found on page 371 of the Discipline for that year: “Resolved, That we regard the annual observance of the week of prayer, in concert with the Christian people of other denominations, as highly salutary and an appropriate recognition of the unity of the church,” etc.

That is, they are an acted declaration that all the multi-form and opposing sects together constitute the one church of Christ!

Did you believe it? Can you, then, act it?

4. We do impliedly indorse the doctrines of the societies those ministers represent.

But if they are churches of Christ, then is their infant-membership; then is their sprinkling for baptism; then are their distinguishing doctrines—their sacramentalism, and ritualism, and priestism, their baptism as a “seal and a sacrament,” and their communion as a means of salvation, and their hierarchical and aristocratic church governments—scriptural for no organization on earth— unscriptural in these regards as every sound Baptist believes Campbellite and Pedobaptist societies to be—can be, or should be regarded as a church of Christ. By recognizing their religious teachers, then, as ministers of Christ, we recognize their societies as scriptural churches, and we do thereby indorse the false doctrines and most pestilential errors of those societies as scriptural.

By such unscriptural and inconsistent conduct we destroy the world’s faith in the authenticity, and its regard for the authority of the Bible, by making it teach manifest contradictions; and we teach our children and the world that there is no essential difference between Pedobaptist and Campbellite ministers and our own, and between their societies and the churches of Christ—between the doctrines held and propagated by those societies and our own, and between their ministers and our own; that all—ministers, and churches, and doctrinal teachings—are truly and equally evangelical! Is not the insensible and powerful tendency and influence of all this to fill those societies with our children, our neighbors, and the world, and to effectually obliterate Baptist Churches from the earth, by destroying all denominational distinctions and preparing an easy down-grade into the slough of open communion?

The principles that distinguish us as Baptists are so intimately connected and like a chain inter-linked, that we may as well break or give up every link as any one, and we can not consistently hold to one without holding to all. Dear reader, decide here and now, to give up all or to hold to all, and may God help you; for an inconsistent “half-and-half” Baptist is as offensive to God as to man (Rev. 3:16).

CHAPTER XIII How did Paul regard, and how did he teach the churches he planted, to regard teachers of false doctrine?—How did he instruct the early Christians and churches to treat them? —Associate with, or withdraw from, and avoid them?— Can it be supposed that they invited them into their pulpits, and to the Lord’s Supper, though those teachers belonged to the church at Jerusalem? “but there be some who trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. If we, or an angel from heaven, preach otherwise unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

“I would they were cut off who trouble you. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from every brother who walks out of order, and not according to the instructions which you received from us. And if any one obey not our word by this epistle, point him out, and do not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.”—Paul.

“It is affirmed that our position as Landmark Baptists, of non-association with the teachers of acknowledged and dangerous heresies ministerially, and the nonrecognition of their societies ecclesiastically, is contrary to the teachings of Scripture.”

This charge is most persistently made by those Baptists who advocate and practice affiliations with Pedobaptists and Campbellites, and recognize their ordinations and immersions; and, by such misrepresentations, they prejudice us in the eyes of our own brethren and the world, as bigots and sectaries.

Now, I propose to show the reader that the Scriptures are not more opposed to rantism, or infant baptism, than it is to association with those ministers and teachers who teach things contrary to what the apostles taught, and that no one feature more characterized Baptist Churches, from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries, than their refusal to recognize, in any way, the teachers of acknowledged heresies, and those organizations claiming to be churches, yet, in their estimation, human societies, and apostate from the truth. This charge must be the offspring of the most willing ignorance, or unprincipled opposition to truth and consistency.

1. What are the teachings of the Scriptures? (a) This much will be admitted by all Baptists, that our churches are scriptural church organizations. If so, they alone constitute the visible kingdom of Christ, which is the antitype of the kingdom of Israel, in the Old Testament.

Paul and Peter distinctly affirm this, (Heb. 12; 1 Pet. 2:9) and the teachings of the type should find a fulfillment in the antitype. What were those teachings? God of all nations selected but one to be unto him “a peculiar treasure above all people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,” and he straightway commanded them that they should not affiliate with the nations around them in their religious rites and ceremonies, neither “walk in the manners of the nations;” for, by so doing, they would render themselves idolaters, since the worship of those nations was purely human, and corrupted the religion which he had given them. The churches composing the antitype must, therefore, keep themselves separate and distinct from all human organizations and societies claiming to be churches, and, in no

way, affiliate with them or their teachers, or recognize their rites and ceremonies, which are human inventions, and by so doing admit they are divine, and thus make themselves idolaters. This is the teaching of the type, and upon it the apostles base their earnest exhortations to churches: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,” etc. (1 Pet. 2:9).

But teachers of false doctrine abounded in Paul’s day, for the mystery of iniquity had already commenced working in his day; and, let us mark how he taught the churches to regard every one who preached contrary to the doctrine he had taught them. By his teachings, the charge of our opposers must be tested, and our own practice as Baptists determined, whatever may have been the practice of our historical ancestors. It should be borne in mind that these teachers, who subverted the faith of many by their false doctrines, were not heathens, nor infidels, nor heads of alien and formidable organizations, set up in direct opposition to the churches of Christ, as all Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are, but what made it more delicate and difficult to fix relations and determine the character of the intercourse, they were Baptists—influential members of the church at Jerusalem, and of churches which he himself had planted. They did not teach the churches to substitute sprinkling for the act Christ enjoined, nor to baptize infants, nor that baptism is “the law of pardon,” nor “a seal and sacrament essential to salvation;” and thus subvert the gospel of Christ, and make the law of God of none effect by their traditions; but these teachers did it quite as effectually and far more plausibly, and, if charity should be extended to false teachers, it should have been to those whom Paul antagonized. Those teachers, like Pedobaptists, taught that the covenant made with Abraham was binding upon Gentiles, as well as Jews— was the covenant of Grace—and, therefore, unless all were circumcised, and kept the law, as well as the requirements of the gospel, they could not be saved. There were many thousands of these Judaized brethren in the church at Jerusalem, even after that church with the apostles and elders had answered the question sent up by the church at Antioch, that the Gentiles were free from the law of circumcision; for teachers from Jerusalem had troubled this church with this doctrine: “And certain men, which came down from Judea, taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised, after the manner of Moses, ye can not be saved” (Acts 15:1).

And when this question was raised in the church at Jerusalem, the record reads: “But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed [i.e., in Christ, and were members], saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the laws of Moses” (v. 5).

Paul, in his letter to the churches at Galatia, thus speaks of these brethren: “And because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.

To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for one hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. But of these, who seemed to be somewhat

(whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me, God accepteth no man’s person), for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference, added nothing to me, but contrariwise,” etc.

And in this language he taught these churches to regard them and their teachings: “I marvel that you are so soon removed from him who called you into another gospel, which is not another; but there be some who trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach another gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. . . . I would they were cut off who trouble you”? [excluded from the church, which it was not in Paul’s power to accomplish, but he could wish and advise it.]

“Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. . . . Christ is become of none effect unto you . . . Ye did run well; who did hinder, that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”

And there was another element in this doctrine that made it popular, besides that of its being held and taught by those metropolitan ministers, who came down from Jerusalem and taught them to despise Paul, which Baptists of this age should notice.

Let Paul state it: “As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ! And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased.”

Thousands and tens of thousands would he “Old Landmark Baptists” today were it not for the Overweening desire “to make a fair show in the flesh,” and to avoid the odium and persecution that the consistent advocacy and practice of Baptist principles would bring upon them. Every strict, consistent, faithful Baptist knows, full well, that the days of persecution have not passed, and they know, like Paul, something of the “perils among false brethren.” I must be allowed to add that the above language of Paul ought to settle the question concerning intercommunion among the apostolic churches. Many of them, like the church at Jerusalem, were corrupted by these false teachers whom Paul calls “leaven,” and he specifically commands the church at Corinth to purge out all leaven that the feast might be kept pure.

To the church at Corinth he wrote thus: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers [these brethren were not aware that they were the ministers of Satan] also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

Can it be that God ever allowed a true child of his to live and die in the service of Satan? Those who teach doctrines that subvert the gospel, Paul declares to be

the ministers of Satan, and that their end will he answerable to such a service!

Was he uncharitable? Not only Paul’s usefulness and happiness were measurably destroyed, but his very life was put in peril by these false brethren. (2 Cor. 11:1316; 26).

To the church at Philippi he wrote thus: “For many walk, of whom I have told you before, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction” (Phil. 3: 18).

2. How did he instruct the churches to treat these false teachers, though professed Christians and brethren?

Did he exhort them to be liberal, and very charitable, and associate with them as brethren beloved? and did he advise Timothy and other ministers to affiliate with them, invite them into their houses to teach their people, as so many of our prominent ministers now do?

To the church at Rome he wrote: “Now I entreat you, brethren, to watch those who are making factions and laying snares, contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them; for such like ones as they are not in subjection to our anointed Lord, but to their own appetite; and, by kind and complimentary words, they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.”

And, alas! how successfully do they do it in this age! Can a Baptist possibly misapprehend this language? Will our churches refuse to listen to so earnest an entreaty? Then let them heed the emphatic command of Paul to the church at Thessalonica: “Now we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly, and not according to the instruction which you received from us. But if any one obey not our word, by this letter, point him out, and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame.”

We ask our brethren if Pedobaptists and Campbellites do teach the doctrine that Paul taught, and walk according to his teachings? and if it is “withdrawing from and putting them to shame” to invite them into our pulpits, to preach, as ministers of Christ, to our people, and associate with them in “Evangelical Pastors? Meetings,” “Evangelical Alliances,” and “Young Men’s Christian Associations?” Brother, you may treat this question lightly at your peril; for Christ has said: “Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words in this age, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

That I have not an improper construction upon these Scriptures, the testimony of A. Barnes and Adam Clark will convince all Pedobaptists upon Paul’s advice to Timothy (1 Tim. 5:22): “He was not to invest one with the holy office who was a wicked man, or a heretic; for this would be to sanction his wickedness and error. If we ordain a man to the office of the ministry, who is known to be living in sin [disobedience to the commands of Christ is sin], or to cherish dangerous error, we become the patrons of the sin, and of the heresy. We lend to it the sanction of our approbation, and give to it whatever currency it may acquire from the reputation which we may have,” etc.

Now every thoughtful reader will see the principle is all the same whether we are personally instrumental in putting a man, whom we know to be living in the sin of disobedience or who is a heretic, into the ministry, or whether we sanction and encourage his being in it, we equally indorse his errors and make ourselves partakers of his sin. It matters not one whit whether we engage him to preach for us once, or one hundred times, or continually, as our pastor, we can not divide a principle. If it would be right in us to introduce him into our pulpit to preach once, it would be just as right for us to employ him to preach for us always.

Adam Clark says on v. 22: “To help him forward, or sanction him in it, is to partake of his sins. Will any one presume to deny that we do sanction a heretic’s being in the ministry, and “help him forward in it,” when we invite him to preach and attend upon his ministry?

Mr. Clark says on 2 John 1:10,11: “For if there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house; neither bid him God-speed.” “He that acts toward him as if he considered him a Christian brother, and sound in the faith, puts it in his power to deceive others by thus apparently accrediting his ministry. “No sound Christian should countenance any man as a gospel minister who holds and preaches erroneous doctrines.”

Do not Pedobaptists and Campbellites hold and preach erroneous and dangerous doctrines? I can prove it by themselves. The Presbyterians and Campbellites will affirm that the Methodists do. The Methodists and Campbellites will agree that the Presbyterians do; and both Presbyterians and Methodists stoutly declare that the Campbellites do; and all Baptists know that they all do. But hear Mr. Clark further, and then show what he says to your Methodist friends, who think you are too strict and bigoted.

“Nor can any Christian attend the ministry of such teachers without being criminal in the sight of God. He who attends their ministry is, in effect, bidding them God-speed, no matter whether such belong to the established church, or to any congregation of dissenters from it” [Italics his].

Barnes quotes and indorses this view, and says: “It is as applicable now as then.”

This is farther than many Landmarkers have generally gone, but I believe it is the true ground upon which we all ought to stand undeviatingly. Does not our crowding their places of worship constantly with our families apparently accredit and sanction their ministry, and encourage them in their work? Let every Baptist settle this with his own conscience before his God. We must not bid them God-speed, or we become upholders of their errors and partakers of their sin.

How the early churches understood the instructions of the apostles with respect to those who “taught contrary to the apostles? doctrine,” we learn from Prof. Curtis? statement, who examined the history of those times upon this point, and is undoubted authority. He says: “In former ages of the church?that is, from the close of the second century downwards until heathenism was obliterated?it was generally supposed by almost all, that Christian fellowship, or communion, consisted chiefly in praying together. Christians would never unite in saying, ?Our Father, who art in heaven;? would not even pray in the same house of worship, with those whom they did not consider orthodox Christians. Heathens, unbelievers, heretics, persons suspended, or excommunicated. . . and members of other sects, were admitted to hear the Psalmody, and reading of the Scriptures, and the discourses, but were invariably excluded from the building before the prayers of the church were offered” (Curtis on Com., p. 80).

This testimony establishes beyond controversy two facts: (1). That any practice looking toward “open communion” at the Lord’s table received no countenance in those early ages.

(2). That there certainly could have been no “pulpit communion, no exchange of “ministerial courtesies,”?as the exchange of pulpits, inter-preaching between the orthodox ministers of those ages and the teachers of manifest heresies, even though the latter belonged to orthodox churches?as the false teachers in Paul’s day did?much less when they belonged to opposing sects.

3. That the orthodox ministers and churches in those ages certainly held no “union meetings,” did not labor together in public worship, or co-operate in the preaching of the gospel and promoting the spread of Christianity generally with those ministers and members who preached, or held, doctrines contrary to the teachings of Christ, and, therefore, subversive of it. How could two consistently walk or work together unless they were agreed? and from the teachings of the apostles, the early Christians understood that they did, by their act of worshipping, even in prayer together, say to the world that they were in fellowship with their doctrine and religion.

Who will say, with the teachings of the apostles and the facts of history before their eyes, that the apostolic churches, and the orthodox churches of the earliest ages downwards, were not “Old Landmarkers” of the strictest sort? Let the candid Christian reader decide between us and those “liberal” brethren, who say that we are trying to bring in new customs and ways of our own invention, unsustained by the Word of God, and unknown to the Baptists of the earliest ages.

Conclusion I. It would have been in open violation of Paul’s instruction. for the primitive churches to have invited all members of other sister churches, to participate with them in the celebration of the Supper, since all those “false teachers, ministers of Satan.” “enemies of the cross of Christ,” subverters of the gospel “leaven”?the very characters he commanded them to “withdraw from,” “avoid.” “have no company with.” “not to eat,” belonged to Baptist churches. There could have been no intercommunion among Baptist churches in Paul’s day, or association in preaching the gospel, or in gospel work, with teachers of false doctrine.

II. It is as unscriptural and as sinful in this age for us. as for Baptists in that age, to violate these plain instructions. Verily, those who do so God will judge.

CHAPTER XIV Does the history of the churches of Christ establish the fact, disputed by Affiliationists, that the ancient Baptists, by whatever name called, refused to affiliate with, or in any way recognize, Pedobaptist societies as scriptural churches, or their ministers as gospel ministers??The teachings of history. “And I will give power [i.e., ability] to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy [preach the gospel] a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth” (Rev. 11:3).

“And the woman [church of Christ] fled into the wilderness [obscurity] where she bath a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and sixty days [each day for a year]” (Rev. 12:6).

It is asserted with the utmost assurance, by Affiliationists, that our policy of the non-recognition of human and unscriptural societies as churches of Christ, and of their teachers as ministers of the gospel, and our non-acceptance of their ordinances as valid, is not sustained by the history of our denomination, and is, therefore, not an old but a new landmark, and we, ourselves, are heretics and schismatics.

This is a serious charge, and if it can be sustained by the Word of God and the facts of history. the most effectual means should be employed to bring to us the knowledge of the truth, and this failing, Old Landmarkers should be excluded as incorrigible and dangerous offenders. Let us, then, patiently inquire?

what are the teachings of ecclesiastical history It will be admitted by the most “liberal” of our brethren that all the churches of Christ, before the “apostasy,” which took place in the third and fourth centuries, and gave rise to the Greek and Latin Catholic hierarchies, were what are now called Baptist churches. It must then be granted that the falling away foretold by Paul (2 Thess. 2:3), was a falling away from the doctrine and church form established by Christ and His apostles, and which characterized all the scriptural churches in the first century, and as a general thing a part of the second— consequently, it was a falling away from Baptist doctrines, principles, form of church organization and fellowship. All history unites in testifying that a general defection from —the primitive faith and church order did take place throughout the entire Roman Empire, East and West, in the third century, and a general withdrawing, according to the directions given by Paul, of the pure and uncorrupted portions of the churches that adhered to the faith at first delivered; and these steadfastly claimed, though often in the minority, and often ruthlessly excluded by the corrupt majority, to be the scriptural church, and pronounced the corrupt majority the “apostasy” or apostates from the truth. These uncorrupted witnesses of Jesus were called “Cathari” at first, the Pure, and afterwards by the names of their most prominent ministers and leaders, as Novatians, Donatists; and after they fled to the valleys of the mountains from the face of their implacable persecutors, where for ages they were hid as in a “wilderness,” they received the general name of “Waldenses” and Vaudois, which meant the inhabitants of

“valleys” or “valleymen.” Robinson says: “From the Latin —vallis,— came the English —valley,— the French, and Spanish —valle,— the Italian —valdeci,— the Low Dutch —velleye, the Provencal —vaux,— —vaudois,— the Ecclesiastical — vallences,— —valdenses,— —Waldenses.”

Peter of Lyons, a rich merchant, embraced the doctrinal sentiments of these valley-men, and from them he received the name “Waldus,” valley-man, and not, as some have supposed, they from him. While originally it only designated the inhabitants of certain valleys, yet it ultimately was applied to all those Christians in all countries who held the faith of these original valley-men. These persecuted saints who, in the third and fourth centuries, fled into these valleys of the mountains?places “prepared by God, that they”?i.e., these rich valleys?”may nourish her,” I believe are the successors of the apostolic churches, and from them received their constitution, their baptisms, and ordinances, I can only give here the testimony of a few distinguished and standard historians.

Bro. Alexis Muston, therefore, truthfully says: “The Voudois (Waldenses) of the Alps are, in our view, primitive Christians, or inheritors of the primitive church, who have been preserved in these valleys from the alterations successively introduced by the church of Rome into evangelical worship. It was not they who separated from Catholicism; but Catholicism which separated from them in modifying the primitive worship.” (The Is. of the Alps, p. 1, quoted in Baptist Succession).

With him agrees Waddington in his “History of the Church,” who, speaking of the Novatians, whom he calls “Sectaries,” says: “And those rigid principles which had characterized and sanctified the church in the first century, were abandoned to the profession of schismatic sectaries in the third” (p. 70).

This is precisely what is meant by the falling away?i.e., abandoning the scriptural principles of the gospel of Christ, and adopting a corrupt policy, order of government, and human traditions. Those scriptural minorities in all those countries, though overborne and excommunicated by corrupt majorities, constituted the true and primitive churches of Christ.

Bro. Allix, in his “History of the Churches of Piedmont,” gives this account: “?For three hundred years or more, the Bishop of Rome attempted to subjugate the church of Milan under his jurisdiction; and at last the interest of Rome grew too potent for the church of Milan, planted by one of the disciples; insomuch that the bishop [pastor] and people, rather than own their jurisdiction, retired to the valleys of Lucerne and Angrogna, and thence were called Vallenses, Waldenses, or “the people of the valleys” (Encyclopedia Rel. Knowl., p. 1148).

Cramp says: “We may safely infer the Novatian churches were what are now called Baptist churches, adhering to the apostolic and primitive practice,” (p. 59).

These puritan churches were known as Donatists in North Africa, and they were designated as Cathari and Paulicians by the Council of Nice, A.D. 325.

These despised, oppressed, and persecuted Cathari, Novatians, and Waldenses of the third and fourth and following centuries, were our historical ancestors, and not the dominant and corrupt hierarchies at Rome and Constantinople, which called themselves “Catholics.”

Now these pure and primitive churches did not in any way recognize other denominations than their own, as scriptural churches, and, therefore, they did not acknowledge their ministers as having any authority to preach or administer the ordinances; nor did they receive their immersions as valid, but invariably baptized all who came over to them, and from this fact they became known by the general name of Anabaptists (Rebaptizers).

Cardinal Hosius, president of the Council of Trent (A.D. 1550), declared that the Anabaptists had for 1,200 years past suffered generally, and the most cruel sorts of punishments. “The Anabaptists are a pernicious sect, of which kind the Waldensian brethren seem also to have been. Nor is this heresy a modern thing, it existed in the time of Austin” (Rus. Reply to Wail, p. 20).

This concedes that, as Rebaptizers, we had a separate church existence in the fourth century, and were most cruelly persecuted. We claim these suffering Rebaptizers as our historical ancestors, and not those who bathed their hands in blood. Whom do you claim, dear reader?

Zwingle, the Swiss Presbyterian, said (A.D. 1534): “The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but for thirteen hundred years has caused great disturbance in the church,” [i.e., the apostate part of it].

This concedes to us an organized existence as Rebaptizers in the days of Novatian, and even before; and it is a fact that fifty years before Novatian’s separation from the church at Rome, the withdrawal of the Old Landmarkers from the churches that had become corrupt had commenced. Says Robinson: “They call Novatian the author of the heresy of Puritanism; arid yet they know that Tertullian had quitted the church near fifty years before for the same reason; and Privatus, who was an old man in the time of Novatian, had, with several more, repeatedly remonstrated against the alterations taking place, and, as they could get no redress, had dissented and formed separate congregations” (Ecel. Res., p.

127).

Sir Isaac Newton, the great astronomer, but still greater student of the Scriptures and ecclesiastical history, declared to Whiston: “The modern Baptists, formerly called Anabaptists, are the only people that never symbolized with the papacy” (See Life of Whiston).

Mosheim’s testimony is to the point, both as to the origin of our name and our great antiquity: “The true origin of that sect which acquired the name of Anabaptists, by their administering anew the rite of baptism to those who came over to their communion . . . is hid in the remote depths of antiquity, and is, therefore, extremely difficult to be ascertained” (Vol. 4, p. 427).

[The reader is referred back to Chapter V, for the testimony of Bro. Ypeig and Prof. Dermout].

That the prime reason the Anabaptists would not recognize the ordinances of the Catholic and other sects, was that they did not admit them to be churches, and consequently utterly without any authority to baptize or to preach, no intelligent man will doubt.

Bro. John Owen, who was born A.D. 1616, “a divine of such eminence as to eclipse all the regal honors of his ancient house,” says: “The Donatists rebaptized those who came to their societies, because they professed themselves to believe that all administration of ordinances, not in their assemblies, was, null, and that they were to be looked on as no such thing. Our Anabaptists do the same thing” (Works, vol. XIII, p. 184).

Our “liberal” brethren are extravagant in their praises of the reformers Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, and Knox, and they speak of them as evangelical ministers; and of their societies, now called Protestants, as evangelical churches; and it is with these “churches,” and these evangelical ministers, they have so great a desire to affiliate, and in every way recognize, and seem to prefer them to their own brethren, especially in their own brethren are Landmarkers. But not so did our fathers?the hated Anabaptists of the days of the Reformation. Let the reader mark well the testimony of a Presbyterian, who lived contemporary with Calvin, and succeeded him, and wrote a history of the Reformation, and knew whereof he testified, and then decide who are the “Old Landmarkers” of this age?Affiliationists, or those strict Baptists they denounce as schismatics.

Henry Bullinger, the successor of Calvin, who wrote in the sixteenth century, says: “?The Anabaptists think themselves to be the only true church of Christ, and acceptable to God; and teach that they, who by baptism are received into their churches, ought not to have communion [fellowship] with [those called] evangelical, or any other whatsoever: for that our?[i.e., evangelical Protestant, or reformed] churches are not true churches, any more than the churches of the Papists.”

And he bears this testimony to the purity of these Anabaptists: “Let others say what they will of the dippers: we see in them nothing but what is excellent; and hear from them nothing else but that we should not swear or do wrong to any one; that every one ought to live godly and holy lives; we see no wickedness in them.”

Professor J. S. Reynolds, D.D., of the University of South Carolina, prepared, in 1848, an elaborate paper upon the practice of Baptists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the conclusion I copy. There was not a man in the South whose opinion was worthy of more consideration.

“The conclusion is irresistible, that they did not consider even immersion valid, when it was the act of an unimmersed administrator. The principle of action, doubtless, was, that there could be no valid baptism unless the administrator was authorized to baptize by a properly constituted church. Hence, in a vindication of

the Baptists of London, published in 1615, the ground is taken, that all baptism, received either in the church of Rome or England, is invalid; because received in a false church and from Antichristian Ministers? (Crosby, vol. 1, p. 273). They refused to sanction the acts of any administrator, who derived his authority from churches which perverted the ordinance of baptism. This is firm Baptist ground, and the position is impregnable.”

Wall testifies that there was a body of Baptists in England as early as A.D. 1587, who would have no religious intercourse with those teachers who perverted the faith of the gospel. He says: “Many of them hold it necessary, as I said, to renounce communion with all Christians that are not of their way. Many of them are so peremptory in this, that if they be in the chamber of a sick man, and any Pedobaptist minister or other, come in to pray with him, they will go out of the room. And if they be invited to the funeral of any Pedobaptist, they will go to the house and accompany the corpse with the rest of the people to the door; but there they retreat?they call it the Steeple House. They seem to judge thus: Those that are not baptized are no Christians [this is Wall’s misrepresentation, for always and ever, we have held that a man must be a Christian before he is baptized], and none are baptized but themselves [this is so]. So that they make not only baptism itself, but also the time, or age, or way of receiving it a fundamental, [to a church or church membership, we do]” (Wall’s History, chapter VIII, section 7, part II).

Wall, like multitudes of Pedobaptists, we fear, was but too willing to attribute wrong motives to these English Baptists for not witnessing the religious ceremonies of these church and state ministers. Those ministers did not pray with the sick, but read prayers to them, and for this mummery they had no fellowship.

They did not visit their Steeple Houses, because they did not believe God was worshipped in them, but His holy name and service profaned by the priests, by their senseless and popish forms and ceremonies; for Christ had said, “In vain do they worship me who teach for doctrines the commandments of men.” Baptists of that day thought they would be regarded as countenancing, in some sense, the priests of the church of England should they attend their administrations. And if we will only consider the influence of acts closely, we shall be forced to conclude that they acted consistently.

That our historical ancestors did not affiliate with Catholics, who, for twelve hundred years, endeavored to exterminate them with fire and sword, no one will claim. That they could not, if they had desired, affiliate with the early Protestants, Bro. Winkler has shown in a ringing article in the Alabama Baptist: “They came into contact with the Reformers everywhere. And they were reviled and persecuted by them all?by Lutherans, and Episcopalians, and Puritans, and Presbyterians.

Even the Romanists did not denounce them so bitterly as did Melancthon and Luther, Calvin and Zwingle, and Knox, Cranmer, and Ridley and Latimer. When Bishop Hall sneered at them as ‘sectaries, instructed by guides fit for them,

cobblers, tailors, felt?makers, and such like trash,? he gave expression to the Protestant feeling of his own and of previous ages toward the Baptists. There was no sect among which these outraged and long-suffering believers could find refuge.

They had to meet apart, baptize apart, commune apart. Their independent church organization was necessitated by the spirit of the age. In all the world ?none were so poor as to do them reverence.?”

J. Newton Brown, of Philadelphia, for many years editorial secretary of the American Baptist Publishing Society, in an historical essay, says of the policy of the Baptists, with respect to the Catholics and all corrupt churches: “They held that the Catholics had so departed from the original constitution of the church, in this respect, as to have forfeited their claim to that honor; and hence invariably baptized all who joined them from the Catholic churches. Hence, they are the first in history who are called Anabaptists, that is, rebaptizers; although, of course, they denied the propriety of the appellation, as they believed the baptism administered by a corrupt church to be null and void.”

So we say today, and, therefore, should no more invite the ministers of corrupt “churches”?human societies?into our pulpits to preach for us, than we would papistical ministers.

The Donatists baptized all persons coming from other professing [Christian] communities. This conduct Augustine [Catholic] disapproved, and observes: “You [Donatists] say they are baptized in an impure church, by heretics” (Orchard’s History, p. 95).

These authorities indicate the faith and practice of the Baptists for the first ten centuries. In the year 1120, we find a “Treatise Concerning Antichrist,” etc., among the writings of the Waldenses. In defining Antichrist, they say: “It is not any particular person ordained to any degree, or office, or ministry, ?but a system of falsehood,? [as a false ?church,? or ecclesiastical system, etc.], opposing itself to the truth, covering itself with a show of beauty and piety, yet very unsuitable to the church of Christ, as by names and offices, the Scriptures and the sacraments, and various other things may appear. The system of iniquity thus completed with its ministers, great and small, [as we now find in the Romish, Episcopal, and Methodist societies], supported by those who are induced to follow it with an evil heart and blindfold?this is the congregation, which, taken together, composes what is called ?Antichrist or Babylon,? etc.

“Christ never had an enemy like this; so able to pervert the way of truth into falsehood, insomuch that the true church, with her children, is trodden under foot.”

One of the marks of an Antichristian system, or Antichrist, these Waldensian Baptists declare to be? “He teaches to baptize children into the faith, and attributes to this [baptism] the work of regeneration, thus confounding the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, with the external rite of baptism.”

Do not all Pedobaptist sects do this, as well as the mother church, of which they are branches, or the daughters?

The Romish church says that “baptism is necessary to salvation.

The Greek, or Eastern church, which finally separated from the Roman, or Western church, about 1054, maintained that whoever is baptized by “immersion, is regenerated, cleansed, and justified.”

The Swiss church says that, by baptism, we are “received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God.” The Bohemian church says that, in baptism, the Lord “washeth away sin, begetteth a man again, and bestoweth salvation.”

The Confession of Augsburg says, “baptism is necessary for salvation.”

The Confession of Saxony says, “by this dipping the sins be washed away.”

The Episcopal Church of England says, by baptism we are “made members of Christ and children of God.” The Westminster Assembly say, in their confession, baptism “is a seal of grace, of our engrafting into Christ? of regeneration, adoption, and life eternal.”

The Confession of Helvetia says that, by baptism, the Lord “doth regenerate us and cleanse us from our sins.”

The Confession of France says that, by baptism, “we are engrafted into Christ’s body.”

The Methodist church, through Mr. Wesley, says, “by baptism, we who are by nature the children of wrath, are made the children of God.” The Campbellites teach that regeneration and immersion are synonymous terms; and that actual remission of sins, conferred in the act, is hut too notorious.

Now, how do these Baptists think it became them to treat every such Antichristian sect. Hear them: “And since it hath pleased God to make known these things to us by his servants, believing it to be his revealed will, according to the Holy Scriptures, and admonished thereto by the command of the Lord, we do, both inwardly and outwardly, depart from Antichrist.”

Had these Baptists affiliated with Papists, by calling them “brethren,” and recognizing their priests as Christian ministers, by inviting them into their pulpits, or “stands,” to preach for them, would they have appeared to the world to have “outwardly” departed from them as the ministers of an Antichristian society?

What the descendants of these Waldenses considered as “outwardly” departing from Antichrist, we learn even after Luther, and Calvin, and Henry VIII, had set up their divisions or kingdoms, by referring back to the testimony of Bullinger, (p.

173). The descendants of those very Protestants who joined with the Catholics, in the attempt to exterminate our churches from the earth, as too vile and pernicious to exist, today authoritatively demand that we shall recognize their societies as

scriptural churches; their doctrine and ministers as evangelical; and their ordinances as valid and scriptural as our own. I say they do not reason to convince us; they do not courteously request it; but they imperiously, arrogantly, and dictatorially demand it of us.

We quote but a paragraph from a work on “Exclusivism,” written by Albert Barnes, the great Presbyterian, and author of Barnes? Notes, which so many Baptists delight in: “We claim and demand of the Baptists that they shall not merely recognize the ministry of other denominations, but their membership also?[i.e., infants, seekers, sinners and all]; that while, if they prefer it, they may continue the practice of immersion in baptism, as a part of their Christian liberty, they shall concede the same liberty to others?[i.e., to practice adult and infant sprinkling and pouring for baptism]; and while they expect that their acts of baptism shall be recognized by others as valid, they shall not offer an affront to the Christian world by rebaptizing all who enter their communion, or by excluding from their communion all who have not been subjected to the rite of immersion. And we claim and demand of the Baptist Churches that they shall recognize the members of other churches [every sect in Christendom that claims to be a church] as members of the church of Christ. We do not ask this as a boon, we claim it as a right” (pp. 66, 67).

Can any Baptist read this, and doubt for one moment that Bro. Barnes, and all Presbyterians who indorse him, would, by imprisonment, fines, and flames, attempt to compel us to recognize their societies and human traditions, as Calvin and Luther, Zwingle and Knox, did in the sixteenth centuries and their ancestors— the Catholics—did for twelve hundred years before? In order to propitiate the opposition of the Protestants of today, and to become popular with them and the world they influence, our affiliating brethren are endeavoring, “by kind and complimentary words, deceiving the hearts of the unsuspecting” (Rom. 16:18), and to influence them to grant this claim, and yield this arrogant and intolerant “demand” of Bro. Barnes, who speaks for all the sects of the age, and for the Evangelical Alliance. Brethren, will you—can you yield it? Liberal Anti-Landmark Baptists say you ought, and must, or they will make friends with your foes to persecute you. “Old Landmark Baptists” say the claim is preposterous, and the demand opposed, both to the teachings of the Scriptures and spirit of Christianity—is the very spirit of Antichrist, and we will resist-it unto blood if it is necessary.

Reader, with whom do you stand? and which of these two classes of Baptists do you think occupies the ground held by our fathers from the third to the sixteenth century?

I think that even Bro. Jeter and his “Pike” man will admit, that there was very little affiliation or open communion of any sort practiced in those ages. Those saintly Reformers, the ancestors of modern Protestants, who burnt, and drowned,

and imprisoned without mercy our fathers, were not quite so anxious to exchange pulpits, and hold union meetings with Baptists as their children now are. And why? They are the same, and Baptists hold the same principles today as then.

What can the reader think of the historical information or candor of the man, who will assert that Baptists recognized those Protestant societies as churches, and their preachers as ministers of the gospel of Christ, any more than they did those of the Catholic church and her priests?

CHAPTER XV How the “Fathers” of New England Baptists, regarded Pedobaptist societies and their ministers, from A.D. 1638 until 1776—not as churches or brethren, but enemies and persecutors.

“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls” (Jer 6:16).

“My people have forgotten me; they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths in a way not cast up” (Jer. 18:15).

Having shown in the last chapter that our fathers, from the first to the sixteenth century, in obedience to the divine injunction, withdrew from those who departed from the teachings of Christ, and thus preserved pure churches and a pure faith, I now propose very briefly, to show that the Baptists of America, from the planting of the first church in Newport, Rhode Island, A.D. 1638, until A.D. 1776, were in faith and practice “Old Landmarkers.”

1. what was the practice of new england baptists?

The Puritans who landed from the Mayflower, A.D. 1620, did not come hither with the intent of establishing here a government where the oppressed of all nations would have absolute “freedom to worship god.” but where their own particular creed would be protected and secured against disturbances from all other opposing religious faiths. Therefore, when they framed their laws, they put their creed and the sword into the bands of the magistrates, and made it their highest duty to see that all men, who would enjoy the protection of their laws, should, on peril of estate and life, accept the creed. This was freely acknowledged by them: “And because they foresaw that this wilderness might be looked upon as a place of liberty, and, therefore, might in time be troubled with erroneous spirits; therefore, they did put one article into the confession of faith, on purpose, about the duty and power of the magistrate in matters of religion” (Morton’s New Eng. Mem., p. 145-6).

Says Bro. Samuel Mather: “The reforming churches, flying from Rome, carried, some of them more, some of them less, all of them something of Rome with them, especially in that spirit of imposition and persecution, which has too much cleaved unto them all.” (Apology, Appendix, p. 149).

(1.) My first position is, that the Baptists of New England, during this period, could not have affiliated with Pedobaptists had they desired to have done so.

Of all “erroneous spirits” the Puritans regarded the Anabaptists, as they stigmatized Baptists, as the most pernicious and dangerous to the state, and against them they enacted the most cruel laws. I copy the first one they passed against them: “Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved that since the first rising of the Anabaptists, about one hundred years since [a gross, willful, or ignorant misrepresentation], they have been the incendiaries of the Commonwealth, and the infectors of persons in matters of religion, and the troublers of churches in all places where they have been, and that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful, have usually held other errors, or heresies, together therewith, though they have [as other heretics used to do] concealed the same till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them, by way of question or scruple; and, whereas, divers of this kind have, since our coming into New England, appeared amongst ourselves, some whereof [as others before them] denied the ordinance of magistracy, and lawfulness of making war; and others, the lawfulness of magistracy, and their inspection into any breach of the first table; which opinions, if they should be carried out by us, are like to be increased amongst us, and so, must necessarily bring guilt upon us, infection and trouble to the churches, and hazard to the whole Commonwealth; it is ordered and agreed that if any person, or persons, within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordinance of magistracy, or their lawful right and authority to make war, or to punish the outward breaches of the first table, and shall appear to Court willfully and obstinately to continue therein, after due time and means of conviction, every person, or persons, shall be sentenced to banishment” (Mass. Records, quoted by Backus, vol. 1, p. 126).

The pages of this book would not suffice to detail all that Baptists suffered in New England from fines, imprisonment, bloody whippings, and banishment from their homes and possessions. A few cases must indicate all: In 1644, one Painter, a poor man, turned Baptist, and refused to have his child baptized, and when arraigned for it before the Court, told them that it was, in his opinion, an antichristian ordinance. For this he was tied up and whipped.

Governor Winthrop declared he was whipped for “reproaching the Lord’s ordinance” (Related in Backus, vol. 1, p. 127).

John Smith, for gathering a church at Weymouth, “contrary to the orders,” was? fined twenty pounds ($100) and committed during pleasure of Court.

Richard Sylvester, for going with Smith, was disfranchised and fined forty shillings.

Ambrose Morton, for calling their covenant a human invention, and that their ministers did dethrone Christ and set up themselves, was fined ten pounds ($50).

Thomas Makepeace, because of his novel disposition, was informed that we were weary of him unless he reformed.

John Spur and John Smith were bound in forty pounds to pay twenty pounds the first day of next Court, 1640.

Their crime was the avowal “that only baptism [i.e., a profession of faith] was the door into the visible church” (Backus).

July 19, 1651, Messrs. John Clark, pastor of the Baptist Church at Newport, O. Holmes, and Crandel, members of the same, upon the request of William Witter, of Lynn, arrived there, he being a brother of the church, who, by reason of his advanced age, could not undertake so great a journey as to visit the church (Newport). He lived about two miles out of town. The next day, being Sabbath, Mr. Clark concluded to preach in his house. In the midst of the sermon two constables appeared, and arrested them, and carried them away to an ale house first, and then proposed to carry them to the meeting. Mr. Clark replied: “Then we shall be constrained to declare ourselves, that we can not hold communion with them,” i.e., even by appearing in their religious assemblies. “We shall declare our dissent from you both by words and gesture.” The constables persisted. Says Mr. Clark: “At my first stepping over the threshold, I unveiled myself, civilly saluted them, and turned into the seat I was appointed to, put on my hat again and sat down, opened my book, and so fell to reading.”

It will be seen that he was not invited up into the pulpit. or even called upon to close by prayer!

At the close of the sermon Mr. Clark arose and courteously asked permission to state why he was there, and why he put on his hat to declare his dissent: “I could not judge that you were gathered together and walk according to the visible order of our Lord.”

Some thoughtless Baptists will think this act of Bro. Clark unchristian and discourteous, but he believed that he, in common with all, favored, and by act approved, of the worship he attended; and he knew that he was forbidden, in any way, to bid an unscriptural worship or teacher of error “God-speed,” and so, by “gesture,” he declared his dissent. Do we, as Baptists, declare our dissent from the teachings and ministrations of Pedobaptists and Campbellites when we attend upon their preaching with our families, month after month, and thus aid, by our presence and personal influence, to increase their congregations, and swell their collections to pay their preachers to oppose our faith, and build up societies in our communities to destroy our own churches? There are many Baptists in the South

who give annually far more to support Pedobaptist preachers than their own, because they take their families three times a month to such meetings, where the collection is never missed, and only once to their own. There are many places where they would cease preaching altogether for want of congregations and support were it not for the attendance and contributions of Baptists. It is a great thing to be consistent Baptists?like John Clark, Holmes, and those early Baptists of New England were. Who dare, before God, to charge them with inconstancy or inconsistency?

They were committed to prison. Mr. John Spur, then a member of the Baptist church at Newport, was present and relates: “Mr. Cotton, in his sermon, immediately before the Court gave their sentence against Mr. Clark, Holmes, and Crandel, affirmed, that denying infant baptism would overthrow all, and this was a capital offense; and therefore they were soul-murderers.”

They were fined, Mr. Clark twenty pounds, Holmes thirty pounds, and Crandel five pounds, and to remain in prison until their fines be either paid or security given, or else to be “well whipped.” Friends, without Mr. Clark’s knowledge, paid his fine. When Mr. Holmes was brought forth to receive his stripes, he desired of the magistrates permission to speak, which was refused him, and they (Flint and Norvel) said to the executioner: “Fellow, do thine office.”

“He, having removed so much of his garments as would hinder the effect of the scourge, and having fastened him to the post, (This was planted on Boston Commons?the soil of liberty!) seized a three-corded whip, and laid on the blows in a most unmerciful manner. Stroke followed stroke as rapidly as was consistent with effective execution, each blow leaving its crimson furrow, or its long blue wale on the sufferer’s quivering flesh. The only pause which occurred was when the executioner ceased for a moment in order to spit in his hands, so as to take a firmer hold of the handle of the whip to render the strokes more severe. This he did three times” (Banvard).

Ninety stripes! The blood flowed down, filled, and overflowed his shoes and bathed the ground. For weeks after he could only rest upon his knees and elbows.

So lacerated was his body, he could not suffer it to touch the bed.

When released from the post, his brother Spur took him by the hand, and with a joyful countenance, said, “Praised be the Lord!” and walked with him to the prison.

For this grievous offense he was arrested and fined by the Pedobaptist Court ?forty shillings, or to be whipped.”

John Hazel, another of Mr. Holmes? brethren, above three-score, and infirm, had traveled nearly fifty miles to see his beloved brother, also gave him his hand, and said, “Blessed be God.” He was likewise arrested, thrown into prison, and fined forty shillings, or to receive ten strokes with a three-corded whip, equal to thirty stripes.

This was the fellowship Protestants had for Baptists in that age.

How Baptists regarded Pedobaptists may be learned from Bro. John Clark’s charge to his church. Says C. E. Barrow, of Newport, Rhode Island: “He also charges the people to steer clear of both Scylla and Charybdis,?of the opinion of those, on the one hand, who destroyed the purity and spirituality of the church by uniting it with the civil power, and by introducing into it unregenerate material by infant baptism; and of the opinion of those, on the other hand, who denied that there were any visible churches. He would have them avoid both extremes,?not turn to the left side in a visible way of worship, indeed, but such as was neither appointed by Christ, nor yet practiced by those who first trusted in him; nor to the right in no visible way of worship or order at all, either pretending . . . that the church is now in the wilderness, or that the time of its recovery is not yet,” etc.

(Semi-centennial Discourse, p. 22).

Thus John Clark warned his people against the false order and worship of Pedobaptists on the one hand, and the no order and anarchy of Roger Williams and his party?the Seekers?on the other.

Those who would pursue the sickening details of Baptist suffering at the hands of Pedobaptists for the next centuries, I refer to the History of Baptists, by Backus, two volumes.

The only instance of affiliation I find for one hundred years after, was the case of a “liberal” Baptist, who invited Bro. P. Robbins to preach to his people. This he did January 6th, 1742, and for this act Mr. Robbins was promptly tried and excluded from his Consociation as a disorderly person.

One hundred and twenty-seven years after this, we find the Baptists in New England still fined and imprisoned, and the objects of the most disgraceful indignities.

This is related by Backus: “For two young ministers were called to preach in Pepperell, near forty miles north-westward of Boston, to whom six persons offered themselves as candidates for baptism. Therefore, on June 26th they met in a field by a river side, where prayers were made, and a sermon begun, when the chief officers of the town, with many followers, came and interrupted their worship . . . A dog was carried into the river and plunged in, in evident contempt of our sentiments. A gentleman of the town then invited the Baptists to go and hold their meetings at his house, which was near another river. They accepted it, and so went through with their worship?at the close of which a man was hired, with a bowl of liquor, to go into the river and dip another two or three times over, when also two or three dogs more were plunged; after which three officers of the town came into the house where the Baptist ministers were, and advised them to immediately depart out of that town for their own safety” (Backus, vol. 2, p. 221).

They left, agreeing to meet the candidates at a distant place of water, where the baptism did take place. This was near Boston, in the year 1778; and it is worthy of

note that the first meeting house Baptists built in Boston was nailed up, and they forbidden to worship in it.

If there can be any doubt in the mind of anyone how the “fathers” of New England Baptists regarded the Puritan Pedobaptists of their day (1770), I copy this from Backus. These Puritans declared to the Court that?

“Some [Baptists] have had the affrontery to say that the standing ministry [Congregationalists] is corrupt; ministers themselves unconverted; the churches impure and unholy, admitting unconverted and unsanctified persons into their communion” (Vol. 2, p. 158).

Can any one believe that Baptists would believe this, which they most undoubtedly did, and then, before the world, by affiliating acts recognize these unconverted ministers, and these impure and unholy sects as scriptural churches, and in every way equal to their own? They certainly did not do it. And are not these charges as true today with respect to all Pedobaptist societies as they were then? And if we walk in the “paths our fathers trod,” what ought to be our testimony?

The Warren Association, which last year voted to exclude the church in Newport, Rhode Island, for its open communion practices, or failure to discipline its pastor and those members who practiced this disorder, is the oldest Association in New England. It was organized in 1767. Three years after, such were the intolerable oppressions of the “standing order,” in selling out their lands and homes to pay the tax to support the hireling ministers of the Puritans, that the Association resolved to appeal at once to the King and Council, and appointed a committee to collect grievances. That committee of leading ministers published the following in the Boston Post, August 20th, 1770, and I publish it? 1, because it will give the Baptists of this age some idea of what our fathers suffered at the hands of those whom we are now taught to call “evangelical brethren,” and “evangelical churches,” and “evangelical ministers,” and what we would suffer today had our old persecutors only the power; and, 2, how our brethren regarded them, not as “Christian brethren” certainly?which they were not ? but enemies and persecutors.

“To the Baptists in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, who are, or have been, oppressed in any way on a religious account, it would be needless to tell you that you have long felt the effects of the laws by which the religion of the government in which you live is established. Your purses have felt the burden of ministerial rates; and, when these would not satisfy your enemies, your property has been taken from you and sold for less than half its value. These things you can not forget. You will, therefore, readily hear and attend when you are desired to collect your cases of suffering, and have them well attested; such as the taxes you have paid to build meeting-houses, to settle ministers and support them [i.e., for their enemies], with all the time, money, and labor you have lost in waiting on courts, feeing lawyers,” etc., etc. (Backus, vol. 2, p. 155).

I add but one more instance of persecution which took place twenty years after the Declaration of Independence: “Mr. Nathan Underwood [Pedobaptist minister of Harwich] and his collector seized six men, who were Baptists, on the 1st day of December, 1795, and carried them as far as Yarmouth, where one of them was taken so ill being old and infirm before, that he saw no way to save his life but to pay the tax and cost [all Baptists were taxed to pay the salaries of Pedobaptist ministers still!]; which he did and the other five were carried to the prison at Barnstable, where they also paid the money rather than to lie in the cold all winter. . . . Their collector went to the house of one of the Baptists when he was not at home, January 8th, 1796, and seized a cow for a tax to said minister; but his wife and daughter came out and took hold of the cow, and his wife promised to pay the money, if her husband would not do it, and they let the cow go, and she went to Mr. Underwood the next day and paid the tax and costs, and took his receipt therefor. Yet four days after, the woman and two daughters, one of whom was not there when the cow was taken, were seized and carried before the authorities, and fined seven dollars for talking to the collector and his aide, and, taking hold of the cow while they had her in possession, so they had to let her go� (Backus, vol. 2, p. 551).

This and scores of such like exactions and oppressions took place in New England, in the year 1796.

I close this century of bitter sufferings with the letter that the Warren Association sent to the Philadelphia Association, only six years before the Declaration of Independence:

Letter from the warren association, massachusetts. ?The laws of this province were never intended to exempt the Baptists from paying toward building and repairing Presbyterian meeting-houses, and making up Presbyterian ministers? salaries; for, besides other insufficiencies, they are all limited, both as to extent and duration. The first law extended only five miles round each Baptist meeting-house; those without this circle had no relief, neither had they within; for, though it exempted their polls, it left their estates to the mercy of harpies, and their estates went to wreck. The Baptists sought a better law, and, with great difficulty and waste of time and money, obtained it, but this was not universal. It extended not to any parish until a Presbyterian meetinghouse should be built and a Presbyterian minister settled there; in consequence of which the Baptists have never been freed from the first and great expenses of their parishes, expenses equal to the current expense of ten or twelve years. This is the present case of the people of Ashfield, which is a Baptist settlement. There were but five families of other denominations in the place when the Baptist Church was constituted; but those five, and a few more, had lately built a Presbyterian meeting-house there, and settled an orthodox minister, as they called him; which last cost them 200 pounds. To pay for both, they laid a tax on the land; and, as the

Baptists are the most numerous, the greatest part fell to their share. The Presbyterians, in April last, demanded the money. The Baptists pleaded poverty, alleging that they had been twice driven from their plantations by the Indians? last war; that they were but new settlers, and had cleared but a few spots of land, and had not been able to build commodious dwelling-houses. Their tyrants would not hear. Then the Baptists pleaded the ingratitude of such conduct; for they had built a fort there at their own expense, and had maintained it for two years, and so, had protected the interior Presbyterians, as well as their neighbors, who now rose against them; that the Baptists to the westward had raised money to relieve the Presbyterians who had, like them, suffered by the Indians; and that it was cruel to take from them what the Indians had left! But nothing touched the hearts of these cruel people. Then the Baptists urged the law of the province; but were soon told that that law extended to no new parish till the meeting-house and minister were paid for. Then the Baptists petitioned the General Court. Proceedings were stopped till further orders, and the poor people went home rejoicing, thinking their property safe; but had not all got home before said order came, and it was an order for the Presbyterians to proceed. Accordingly, in the month of April, they fell foul on their plantations; and not on skirts and corners, but on the cleared and improved spots; and so, have mangled their estates, and left them hardly any but a wilderness. They sold the house and garden of one man, and the young orchards, meadows, and cornfields of another nay, they sold their dead, for they sold their graveyard. The orthodox minister was one of the purchasers. These spots amounted to three hundred and ninety-five acres, and have since been valued at 363 pounds, 8s., but were sold for 35 pounds, 10s. This was the first payment. Two more are coming, which will not leave them an inch of land at this rate.

“The Baptists waited on the Assembly five times this year for relief, but were not heard, under pretense they did no business there. At last the Baptists got together, about a score of the members, at Cambridge, and made their complaints known; but in general they were treated very superciliously. One of them spoke to this effect: “?The General Assembly have a right to do what they did, and, if you don?t like it, you may quit the place!?

“But, alas, they must leave their all behind! These Presbyterians are not only supercilious in power, but mean and cruel in mastery. When they came together to mangle the estates of the Baptists, they diverted themselves with tears and lamentations for the oppressed. One of them, whose name is Welk, stood up to preach a mock sermon on the occasion; and, among other things, used words to this effect: “?The Baptists, for refusing to pay an orthodox minister, shall be cut in pound pieces, and boiled for their fat to grease the devil’s carriage,?” etc.

And yet, in the face of these facts, a Puritan poetess, with the blood of Painter and Holmes flowing before her eyes, and the midwinter prisons filled with Baptists, and the tracks of others leading into the bleak wilderness, into which Christian men were driven by the Puritans, could say: “Aye, call it holy ground, The place where first they trod; They have left unstained what there they found?

Freedom to worship God!”

Conclusion.

Let the most prejudiced Anti-Landmark Baptist?the moat “liberal” Baptist on the continent?if a Christian man, with the facts of this chapter before him, decide whether the Baptists of New England, from 1638 to 1796, regarded or treated Pedobaptist organizations as Evangelical churches, and their bloodthirsty and cormorant preachers as ministers of the gospel of love and peace. Turn back to Chapter XV and learn their decision.

Baptists of that age were what landmark Baptists are in this.

CHAPTER XVI Were the fathers of Virginia Baptists “Old Landmarkers?” ?Did they, like too many of their descendants, receive, as valid, the immersions of Pedobaptists, and recognize them as evangelical churches?

“For the leaders of this people cause them to err” (Isa. 9:16).

It is for the “Landmarks” of the fathers of Virginia Baptists---those men who planted the first churches upon the soil o the Old Dominion---that I inquire, and not for the opinions of their children, who “have stumbled from the ancient paths, to walk in a way the Lord certainly hath not cast up.”

As I said of the first Baptists of New England, I can say of our Virginia fathers, they could not have affiliated with the state church?the Episcopalians?if they would, and they would not if they could: 1. Because they did not regard it a church of Christ; and, 2. They were unrelentingly oppressed and persecuted by it, from the planting of the first Baptist Church in 1714, until the final overthrow of the Episcopalians in 1798.

No one has ever intimated that there was the least recognition of this “church” or its ministry by Baptists, by any act, ministerial or ecclesiastical, during this period or since. This much is settled, Presbyterians stood side by side with the Baptists in influencing the state to divorce itself from the Episcopal church, and from this very fact a kindly sympathy originated by a common oppression, and a common struggle for freedom sprang up, which disposed our brethren more to affiliation in Virginia than in New England or any other States, and the influence remains until this day. That many Associations have invited Pedobaptist ministers to seats in their Associations in the last fifty years, and that very man y churches under the misleading influence of their late teachers, have received, and do now

receive, the immersions of Campbellites and Pedobaptists as valid, we well know, but this was not the practice of the “fathers” of Virginia Baptists.

1. The ministers who organized all the first Baptist Churches in Virginia, came either from New England, or were members of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, whose position will shortly be noticed. These preachers were Shubal Stearnes, Daniel Marshall, who came from New England, and David Thomas, John Garrard, John Corbley, J. Marks, P. P. Vanhorn, Miller and John Gano; and we must believe that they impressed the churches they planted with their own personal convictions, which were those of the Baptists of those sections whence they came. Then some of these churches belonged to the Philadelphia Association, and all the first Associations in Virginia, were in correspondence with it, and must have been influenced by its views.

I have Semple’s History of Virginia Baptists before me, and from it I gather the following facts. Speaking about affairs in the Roanoke Association A.D. 1789, the historian says: “About this time, H. Pattillo, a Presbyterian preacher of distinction, had preached several times in favor of Infant Baptism, in which he had degraded the Baptists in the most scurrilous manner. The Association, in order to rebut his calumny, appointed John Williams to answer him on a certain day; which day they determined should be a day of fasting and prayer. Accordingly Mr. Williams fulfilled the appointment to the general satisfaction of the Baptists and their friends, and to the annoyance of their enemies (p. 234).

There was little affiliation at this time, for Baptists regarded Presbyterians as the enemies of the cross of Christ.

A.D. 1794, I find this in history of New River Association: “It appears that the Baptist interest prevails more than that of any other religious society, there being only two or three Presbyterian congregations in the district, and but few Methodist classes [it appears they do not presume to call either churches]. Between these and the Baptists a good understanding subsisted; insomuch that a considerable party [which has yearly increased] were of opinion in the Association, that they ought to invite the Presbyterian and Methodist ministers to sit with them in their Association as counselors; but not to vote. This subject underwent lengthy investigation, and finally was decided against inviting” (p. 262).

The reasons given would preclude the idea that they could affiliate ministerially or ecclesiastically, viz.? “1. Because it might tend to confusion. 2. Because it would probably rather interrupt than promote friendship’seeing, in most cases, as it respects the intercourse between man and man, too much familiarity often ends in strife. We should be more likely to continue in peace with a neighbor, whom we treated with the distant respect due a neighbor, than if we were to introduce him to our private domestic concerns” (pp. 268-9).

Not a word is intimated about these people being “brethren in Christ,” or “evangelical churches” ?not a word of it? while the plain, square truth is withheld which should have been spoken.

A.D. 1792, I find this concerning Baptist interests on the eastern shore: “The established church here, as well as in most other places in Virginia, declined rapidly after the rise of the Baptists. Of late they have other opponents that are much more successful. For many years past the Methodists have been a very increasing people on the eastern shore. Whether their prosperity is only temporary until the set time to favor Zion shall arrive; or whether, for some cause, God is disposed to permit his people to be led into captivity, and to become subservient to the neighboring nations, we can not determine” (p. 283).

This language leaves us in no doubt but that they regarded Methodists, in common with the other Pedobaptist organizations of that day, as the antitypical nations that harassed and attempted to corrupt and lead into their false religions the Jews, God’s chosen and separated people of old. This is “Old Landmark” doctrine.

But a case came up before the Ketocton Association, A.D. 1791, which determined the position the Baptists of that day occupied.

One Mr. Hutchinson came from Georgia as a Baptist minister, and held meetings in London, and baptized many converts. It was ascertained that he had been received, by some church in Georgia, upon his Methodist immersion. This brought the question before the Association, and it decided that he was unbaptized, and advised against any church receiving those he had immersed. The result was, he and his converts submitted to a proper baptism. They reasoned thus: “1. If such baptism was sanctioned, every thing like ordination might be dispensed with. But that ordination was not only expedient but an institution of the Bible, and, therefore, indispensable. 2. That such proceedings, if allowed, might go to great lengths, and ultimately produce confusion.”

Whatever laxity prevailed in after years, I have shown in what light the fathers of Virginia Baptists, without exception, regarded and treated Pedobaptists and their immersions.

Bro. Jeter received his loose Baptist ideas from the Baptists who constituted the Portsmouth Association, and who came from England, and belonged to the General Baptists. Semple says: “Their manner of gathering churches was very loose indeed; or, at least, was very adverse to the method now prevalent among Baptists in Virginia. They required no experience of grace or account of their conversion. But they baptized all who asked it, and professed to believe in the doctrine of baptism by immersion.”

These arc the kind of baptisms which Bro. Jeter holds and teaches are scriptural and valid today. He indorses a Campbellite immersion as valid, which is just like

the above, for “no experience of grace, or account of conversion” is required by the Campbellites. It is this destructive looseness, and perversion of the ordinances, and subversion of the gospel, that Old Landmarkers are opposing, and from the dire effects of which we are trying to save the churches of this age.

Whether we are traveling in the “old paths” in this respect, let ?the candid reader judge. It was not until the preachers of Virginia and the United States, desirous of popularity, commenced to “burn incense to vanity,” that they caused themselves to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, and to walk in a way not cast up.

CHAPTER XVII What were the Landmarks set by the “fathers” of the Philadelphia Association, the oldest in America?Decisions concerning alien immersion?The testimony of the venerable Bro. Spencer H. Cone?Conclusion of the argument.

“Remove not the ancient landmarks which thy ?fathers? have set” (Prov. 22:28).

“Some remove the old landmarks” (Job 24:2).

The Philadelphia Association was organized, A.D. 1707, and is, therefore, the oldest upon the American continent. Its territory originally embraced all the Middle States and some churches in Virginia. Her correspondence reached to every association on the continent, and from her, as a mother body, advice was widely sought. It was by missionaries sent out from her and from New England, that the first churches in Virginia and North Carolina were formed. Her doctrinal sentiments and denominational policy, were stamped upon the entire denomination in America. In determining her general policy, with respect to Pedobaptist societies, and the views and practices of her Ancients, we must conclusively decide the truth or falsity of the charge made against us by our liberal brethren?viz., that we are attempting to bring in a heresy, and a new departure, in opposing the reception of alien immersion, and the recognition of Pedobaptist societies as evangelical churches. The reader will see who are laboring to establish, and who are trying to “remove, the ancient landmarks which the fathers have set.”

It would seem strange indeed to us for the most liberal of our would-be “undenorninational” brethren, to claim that it could be even probable for the Baptists of 1700, to seek, or to countenance, affiliations and inter-religious communion with Pedobaptist sects, which sought by law to force all men, irrespective of regeneration, into their bodies, and united themselves to the state. and used it as an engine of oppression against them, eating up their substance by taxes levied to support a venal ministry, who consigned them to midwinter prisons; who whipped them, without mercy at the post, and drove them from their own hearth-stones into the wilderness among the wild beasts of winter, because they refused to accept their doctrines and sprinkle their infants to insure their salvation. The great fact stands out in bold relief upon the pages of their history, that they did not regard these sects as churches of Christ, or their ministers as ministers of Christ, and scripturally authorized to preach and administer the

ordinances of the church; and, therefore, they regarded their ordinances?even immersion at their hands?as null and void. This fact can not be truthfully denied.

From the minutes of this Association, covering the first century of its existence, the question touching the validity of immersions by unbaptized and unauthorized administrators?i.e., by men who had no ordinations; since Pedobaptist sects could not ordain, not being churches?came up before the body six times, and was unanimously voted down.

When discussed in 1788, and negatived, these reasons, among others, were given: “First, because a person?that has not been baptized must be disqualified to administer baptism to others, and especially if he be unordained.

“Second, because to admit such baptism as valid, would make void the ordinances of Christ; throw contempt on His authority, and tend to confusion?for if baptism be not necessary for an administrator of it, neither can it be for church communion, which is an inferior act; and if such baptism be valid, then ordination is unnecessary, contrary to Acts 14:23; 1 Timothy 4:14; Titus 1:5; and our Confession of Faith, Chapter 27.”

While indorsing these arguments as solid, I would rather emphasize the more conclusive one, that as those human societies are not scriptural churches, they have no power to authorize a man to preach? i.e., ordain a minister?or to administer the ordinances, and consequently all their ecclesiastical acts and ordinances are null and void; for if we recognize their ordinances as valid, or their preachers as gospel ministers, we thereby recognize their societies as true churches of Christ. The Baptists of America from 1707-1807, did not regard Pedobaptist societies as scriptural churches, or their ministers as baptized or ordained.

I conclude the discussion of the question of “old” Baptist usage, with a letter from Bro. Spencer Cone, for many years the pastor of the First Baptist Church, New York City. His statements of facts will be received, and his opinion, as a sound Bap. tist, should certainly be regarded: “Dear Brethren: “The question you ask was presented to me in July by Brother J. Tripp, Jr., of your church. I replied that, in my opinion, valid baptism could only be administered by a duly authorized minister; and stated my impression also that the ?regular Baptist Churches of England and the United States? had long held the same sentiments. I wrote in the midst of numerous calls, and without dreaming that the hasty line was to appear in print, but make no complaint. My Baptist sentiments are public property, for in things pertaining to faith and practice I have no secrets.

“First, then, what has been the sentiment of ?regular Baptist Churches? in England and the United States upon this subject? The ministers and messengers of

more than one hundred baptized congregations of England and Wales (denying Arminianism) met in London, July 3-11, A.D. 1689, and published what they call ?The Confession of our Faith,? and recommended its perusal not only to the members of our churches, but to all other Christians who differ from us. Among these ministers you have the names of Knollys, Kiffin, Keach, Collins, Harris, Gifford, Vaux, Price, Finch and a host of others, whose praise was in all the regular Baptist Churches?viz., such as was opposed to ?general redemption and open communion.? Under the head of baptism, among other things, they stated that ?it is to be administered by those only who are qualified and thereunto called.? “The Philadelphia Association was formed in 1708, and adopted, with alteration, the London Confession of 1689; so that in this country it has gone by the name of the ?Philadelphia Confession of Faith;? and since that period most of the Associations in the Middle States have been formed upon the same platform. The New York Association, organized in 1791, has always held the views I advocate. In 1821, the particular point before us was discussed and settled, in answer to a ?query? from one of the churches similar to that contained in your letter. Mr. Parkinson was appointed to write a circular letter on baptism, in which he maintained the immersion of professing believers, by a baptized minister, as essential to gospel baptism.? “After the adoption of this circular, a resolution was passed, stating that although they considered the query sufficiently answered in the circular, nevertheless they record the opinion of the Association, that Baptist Churches had better never receive persons, either as members, or even as transient communicants upon such baptism?viz., by unimmersed administrators. Many reasons are embodied in the resolution to sustain the opinion given, as ?the disunion, inconvenience, uneasiness, etc., which have always arisen in churches receiving such members.? But the basis of their opinion is thus set down in plain words??Pedobaptist administrators, as far as we can see, are unknown in the Holy Scriptures.? And that is just as far as I can see, and no farther. “The First Baptist Church in this city, of which I am pastor, was founded in 1745, and as the Bible has not changed, she still adheres to her original confession of faith. The article on baptism closes thus: ?That nothing is a scriptural administration of baptism, but a total immersion of the subject in water in the name of the Holy Trinity, by a man duly authorized to administer gospel ordinances? (Matthew 28:19, 20; Acts 2:40-42). The action of this church for one hundred years has been to reject as invalid baptism administered by an ?unimmersed administrator.? During my residence in Maryland and Virginia, the Baltimore, Columbia, and Ketocton Associations (which I attended for eight or ten years, and was personally acquainted with every minister belonging to them) held the same sentiment. The subject was called up in the Associations while I was pastor of the Alexandria Baptist Church, D.C.?thus: a Mr. Plummer, from down

East, a Free-will Baptist or ?Christian,? as he called himself, immersed a number of persons in Virginia, and formed a Baptist Church. He baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and yet denied the divinity of the Son. In a year or two he departed from our borders ? his disciples were scattered. Some of them were really converted, and wished to unite with some Baptist Church in the vicinity.

The church and pastor in Alexandria being satisfied with the Christian experience and deportment of two of them, I baptized them into the name of our God, Father, Son, and Spirit?coequal and coeternal?and we no more considered their baptism by Plummer as Christian, than we should if they had been dipped by a Mohammedan into the name of his prophet. These Associations, then, held that valid baptism must be administered, not only by an immersed minister, but also one in good standing in our denomination.

“In the early part of my ministry I was intimately acquainted with Gano, Baldwin, Holcombe, Staughton, Williams, Richards, Fristoe, Mercer and many others, now gone to glory; and I never heard one of them drop a hint, that baptism by a Pedobaptist minister opened the door into a regular Baptist Church.

Indispensable engagements compel me to close. That there are now many pastors and churches opposed to my views, I know?painfully know?but all this does not convince me that our fathers were wrong in this matter. I must be made over again before I count that to be valid baptism? when neither the administrator nor those who ordained him, believed immersion of believers any part of their commission, and never submitted to it themselves in obedience to the command of the King in Zion. Affectionately, your brother in gospel bonds, S.H. CONE. NEW YORK, September 30, 1845.

I once more call upon the candid reader to decide if I have made out my case?viz., that “our fathers,” as a body, and as a general thing, were not Old Landmarkers in their views and practice; and if the recognition of Pedobaptists, as evangelical and valid, is not a new thing, and a departure from the “old paths?”

Reader, will you take the old, or the new way that men and not God has cast up?

Conclusions.

I claim that I have demonstrated, by the plain teachings of the Scriptures and the history of our denominational ancestors, the following facts--viz.: 1. It is a fact that the churches of the New Testament, covering the entire apostolic age, were instructed to hold the doctrines, and observe the policy now denominated “Old Landmarkism.” The Christians of the first century, then, were “Old Landmarkers.”

2. It is a fact that all those churches, by whatever name called, which were the recognized witnesses of the truth and the preservers of the gospel during all the

subsequent ages until the Reformation, were strictly “Old Landmark” Baptists, in faith and practice, and were called Anabaptists.

3. It is a fact that the genuine Baptists, from the rise of Protestantism onward, for centuries following, were “Old Landmarkers” in the strictest acceptation of the term, according to the testimony of Bullinger, Mosheim and Owen.

4. It is a fact that the Baptists of England and Wales, from the time churches were planted in those countries until a late day, were Anabaptists who refused in any way to recognize the Pedobaptist persecuting sects of that day, as churches of Christ, and were, therefore, “Old Landmarkers.”

5. It is a fact that the first Baptist Church planted in America at Newport.

Rhode Island, in 1638: and its pastors, Clark and Holmes, were “Old Landmarkers,” and for this were imprisoned, and the latter cruelly whipped upon Boston Common.

6. It is a fact that the Baptist Churches of America, from 1707-1807, according to the published minutes of the Philadelphia Association, were “Old Landmarkers.”

7. It is a fact, according to the testimony of Bro. Spencer H. Cone, that from the earliest planting of Baptist Churches in New York, until 1845, the general sentiment and practice of the churches and all the leading ministers was strictly Old Landmark; and, that only in the latter part of his ministry did a looser sentiment and practice commence to prevail through the influence of those ministers, who loved the praise of men more than that of God?which pained the heart of Bro. Cone. The voice of that venerable man. though he sleeps in Jesus, should be heard today.

8. It is a fact that the venerable Oncken, and all the churches he has planted in Germany, and Prussia, and Russia, comprising tens of thousands of Baptists, are Old Landmark to the core, unless Bro. Oncken and his people have radically changed since I conversed with him, during his last visit to this country.

9. It is a fact that the oldest churches and Associations in Mississippi were Old Landmark, and never affiliated, and do not until this day, with human societies, or their ministers, or accept their ordinances.

10. It is a fact that the oldest and most successful Baptist minis-ten in Tennessee, as the venerable James Whitsett,1 and George Young, deceased, and Joseph H. Borum, now living, for forty years a pastor in West Tennessee, never affiliated with Pedobaptists or Campbellites, and they testify that affiliation is a new practice, and the forerunner of open communion.

1

(The grandfather of Bro. Win. Whitsett, of the Louisville Theo?logical Seminary, who died at an advanced age, left an able paper with me upon this question, which he prepared the last year of his life. His eighth objection is: ?We object to receive the baptism of Pedobaptists, because we think it a dangerous innovation. We have no recollection that the history of the Baptists furnishes an example of the kind, and we are well assured that the common sense and piety of the Baptists were as strong one hundred years ago as they are now. This question we have before us must be a new-comer. We hope it will not be very obtrusive [in this he mistook the ministers of this age] . . . We say again, we think this is a dangerous innovation (South Bapt. Rev., vol. 5, p. 388).

11. It is a fact that the attempt of the few influential and. would-be popular ministers, of the early past and of this present time, to carry the denomination into affiliations and alliances of various kinds with Pedobaptists, and to influence it to recognize their societies as evangelical churches, by accepting their immersions, and their preachers as evangelical ministers, by ministerial associations with them, has caused all the strifes, angry discussions and alienations that have afflicted us as a people in this and other states. And finally?

12. It is a sad fact that in Christ’s last revelation through John, of what would take place toward the close of the present gospel dispensation, and previous to His second advent. He foretold that laxity of views and practices, general indifferentism and lukewarmness, a state which He denominated as “neither cold nor hot,” would characterize a large number in His churches; and these, He declared, unless they repented and turned from their loose ways, He would spew out of His mouth: but the faithful and zealous few would be approved and presented as the “Bride,” without spot, before the Father.

It is my deepest conviction that “this day is this Scripture being fulfilled in our ears and before our eyes!” Reader, where do you stand? Where would you stand?among the faithful few, or the most popular among the lukewarm many?

CHAPTER XVIII The inconsistencies of, and evils abetted by, Baptists who practice inter-denominational affiliations.

Axiom I. A straight line can not cross itself though projected indefinitely.

Axiom II. Truth is never inconsistent with itself, and is never the abettor of error.

Consistency is a jewel.--Old Adage.

The practice of affiliating with unbaptized and unordained men of the various human societies of this age as scriptural ministers, and with those societies which “are but an organized muster against the lordship of Christ” (Bro. Bright, New York) as evangelical churches, involve its advocates in many and glaring inconsistencies, and makes them the abettors of many and pernicious evils. A few of these only have I space to point out.

Inconsistencies of Affiliation.

1. The “liberal” Baptists of today are at a loss for language with which to eulogize the martyr Baptists of the ages past for their steadfast opposition to doctrines and practices they called antichristian, and yet they seem at the same loss to condemn and degrade their own brethren, of this age, for opposing the selfsame doctrines and the self-same practices, put forth by the self-same sects, which those martyrs called antichristian! They certainly “can not love the one and bate the other, or bold to the one and despise the other” (See Chapters XIV and XV).

2. Should a Baptist Church so far depart from the faith as to discard immersion and adopt affusion for baptism, and infants and unregenerate sinners for proper subjects, and accept a hierarchical or aristocratic form of church government, and a ministerial prelacy, every orderly Baptist Church in the land would disfellowship it as, in any sense, a church?would refuse to recognize its minister as evangelical, or receive his ministrations; but let this unscriptural body join a Methodist conference, or a Presbyterian presbytery, and, presto, it is an “evangelical church,” and its minister is “evangelical,” in the estimation of our liberals, and invited into their pulpits and to participate in their “union meetings.” This is the consistency they wish us to admire!

3. Should one of our most highly esteemed ministers renounce our faith, and embrace and advocate fundamental and dangerous errors, he would be promptly expelled from our church, and debarred our pulpits; but let him join himself to a Pedobaptist or Campbellite society, and, with our liberal brethren, he is at once “evangelical;” and, to illustrate Christian charity and its Thread liberality,” is lovingly invited into their pulpits, and treated as a ministerial equal. For one error he would be expelled from the pulpit and the house; but let him go and take unto himself seven ethers worse than the first, and, lo! he returns to find it swept and garnished for his reception!

4. The most liberal of our liberal brethren, by their words, when called upon to answer, will freely admit that Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are not scriptural churches, and therefore, not evangelical, and yet, before the public, by their acts?uniting with them in “union meetings,” and joining their “alliances? of various kinds?they declare that they are evangelical churches of Christ, and indorse and recommend them to the world as such, and thousands are led to join them by Baptists indorsing them as churches.

5. The most liberal of the would-be “undenorninational” brethren will frankly declare, if asked, that no organization, save a scriptural church, can administer Christian baptism, or authorize a man to preach, and, in this, they say truly; yet, by their affiliations, they do say, and they know they are understood to declare, that Pedobaptist and Campbellite preachers are truly baptized and ordained ministers of scriptural churches, and in all respects equal to themselves.

When do they wish us to understand that they tell the truth? When they speak, or when they act?

If Baptist preachers are scriptural ministers. Pedobaptists certainly are not, and vice versa, since two things unlike each other cannot be like the same thing— scriptural.

6. Bro. N. L Rice, the great Presbyterian leader of his day, declared if immersion only is baptism, then we Pedobaptists are all unbaptized, and our societies are not churches in any sense, nor are our preachers baptized, or ordained, or authorized to preach. This is unquestionably true. Now the most “liberal” of our brethren,

Bros. Burrows and Jeter, will assert as stoutly as the stoutest Landmarker, that immersion alone is Christian baptism. But yet, in the face of these logical facts, they will indorse the immersions and ordinations of Pedobaptist societies as valid, and even indorse those societies as “evangelical churches.” Land-markers are abused for not indorsing their course as consistent.

7. The “liberals” among Baptists, by their words, and by frank admissions, will say that Pedobaptist and Campbellite organizations are not scriptural churches, and therefore, that their ministers are both unbaptized and unordained, which is the truth; and yet, when immersed Pedobaptist preachers come to us, our “liberals” will receive them, and continue them as ministers, without either baptism or ordination; or, as in the recent case of Mr. Foote, Campbellite, ordain without baptism. To accept the baptisms of a society is to indorse that society as a scriptural church, since no organization but a scriptural church can baptize.

8. If a Baptist Church should elect a Pedobaptist or Campbellite preacher to occupy its pulpit for one year, and pay him a salary for his services, as she ought if she employs him, all Baptists, and all men, would say that the act would be strangely inconsistent. When Mr. Chambliss, of Richmond, declared his unwillingness to defend, not to advocate, close communion, his church promptly accepted his resignation, and all Baptist Churches approved their course; and only one man, Bro. Jeter, deemed it consistent to continue him as pastor; but, if it is consistent to receive the services of such a preacher once or twice a year, it is equally so to receive his ministrations fifty-two times. A principle cannot be divided. Even the most obstinate of open communionists (The New York Independent admits this to be unanswerable) accept this argument as valid when applied to interdenominational communion, viz.: If Methodists and Presbyterians can commune together occasionally, they can always, and, therefore, can all unite in one church.

9. Our “liberal” brethren are wont to say that it is only the matter of the mere act of baptism?”close baptism”?that separates them from all other sects which they call “evangelical churches,” and, upon these grounds, it is so. To be consistent with themselves they should invite all who have been immersed to their tables?the Greek Catholics, who observe no other act, all immersed Catholics and Protestants, all Campbellites, Mormons, etc., etc. Thus, as I have ever maintained, the antilandmark position swings wide, if not wide open, the doors of the Lord’s Supper.

This glaring inconsistency is now being charged with effect upon the “liberal” Baptists of the North by the New York Independent. We do not say that it is close baptism alone that keeps other denominations from our tables.

10. The position of these affiliating Baptists is so manifestly weak, that it imperils the whole line of our denominational defenses. The fact is, scores of worthy brethren have openly avowed it, and hundreds of others, who have not, now feel all the logical absurdity of closing the table against those to whom we open our

pulpits, and openly indorse as members of evangelical churches. I am free to say that I am forced to admit the consistency of Bros. Jeffery, Thomas, Reeves, and Pentecost in advocating the offering of all our church privileges, and tokens of church recognition, to Pedobaptists, or withholding all. They felt and declared that they were logically compelled to be Old Landmarkers or Open Communionists. I am free to say that, could I be convinced that Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are evangelical churches, and could conscientiously invite their ministers into my pulpit, and granting the general practice of inviting members of all sister churches to the table is scriptural, I would, with the next dip of my pen, proclaim myself an open communionist. A man who cannot feel the irresistible force of this conclusion cannot be made to feel the force of logic. All evangelical churches are scriptural, and, therefore, sister churches; and, when our liberals invite sister churches to their tables, they, in fact, invite all they call evangelical, and they feel this, and, consequently, are falling into the practice of inviting no one, and this is throwing the table open to all?for none are precluded?all who wish can come.

Though not a prophet, yet my personal conviction is that, fifty years from this writing, the Baptists of America will be either Old Landmarkers or Open Communists.

Some two years a go, Elder W. A. Jarrell, of Illinois a Landmark Baptist, proposed to discuss the communion question with Bro. Jeffery, of New York. Bro. Jeffery objected because he was a Landmarker, and occupied consistent and impregnable ground. I quote extracts from two letters: September 11, 1875.

“It would be of advantage to me to discuss the question with a man who will defend the propriety of ministerial and missionary cooperation with Pedobaptists; and then I would charge upon them the inconsistency, and drive them, and the denomination, to choose between Landmarkism and Open Communion. They recognize and act upon the propriety of exchange with Pedobaptists in preaching, prayer-meetings, and general work. This fact enables me to take advantage of their inconsistency. Your position deprives me ?of the argumentum and absurdum.?

The question among us is not: Shall we extend recognition in Christian privilege to Pedobaptists? but it is, rather, Shall we forbid participation simply in communion with persons whom we admit to all other privileges of work and worship?”

11. It has long been noticed that our charitable and liberal brethren exhibit vastly more of their “courtesy” and fellowship towards the unbaptized teachers of acknowledged heresies?men who bitterly and constantly oppose Baptist influence?than they do towards their own brethren, who occupy the position and advocate the doctrine and policy of our historical ancestors in the martyr ages of Christianity. In nine cases out of ten, if there were Landmark Baptist preachers and a Pedobaptist minister present, the liberal minister will pass by his own

brethren, and invite the unbaptized preacher and public opposer of Baptists into his pulpit, or call upon him to close with prayer. Is this consistent?

The Evils Abetted by Anti-Landmarkers 1. It is the duty of Baptist Churches to throw their whole proper weight, as divine institutions, in favor of the authority of Christ, and the correct and proper observance of His laws and ordinances. But this is impossible, if we associate ourselves on an equality with those religious societies not called into existence by the authority of Christ, but in contravention of His will, whose belief, practice, and influence are erroneous. Such associations most effectually paralyze our own influence for the truth by indorsing manifest error. This great evil is abetted by affiliating ministers and churches.

2. If Pedobaptist and Campbellite societies are not scriptural churches, and if they do teach fundamental and dangerous errors, and every Baptist will admit these facts, then it is a fact, that by associating with them as churches, and recognizing their ordinations and immersions as valid, and, by pen or tongue, calling them “evangelical churches” and “evangelical ministers” before the world, we do, by all our influence, indorse their false claims, sanction their pernicious errors, and aid them, to the extent of our influence, in deceiving the multitude to unite with them as churches. And whenever we admit them to be evangelical, we impliedly admit that there is no real necessity for Baptist Churches—we are, in fact, not churches at all, but sectaries, and are guilty of dividing the body of Christ.

3. If Pedobaptists “churches” are “an organized muster against the lordship of Jesus Christ,” as was asserted by Bro. Bright before the New York State Baptist Ministers Conference, which I have shown our fathers have ever believed and acted upon, then, by ministerial and ecclesiastical affiliations with them, we do accredit them as the true ministers and churches of Christ, and bid them “Godspeed,” and become partakers of their sin.

Since writing the above my eye has fallen upon the following: At a recent installation of a Baptist minister in Massachusetts, two Baptist ministers, and five Pedobaptist ministers took part in the proceedings” (Christian at Work).

Pedobaptist ministers in the North are sometimes invited to assist in ordaining Baptist ministers, and why not, as well as to install? In one case no more than another do we accredit them as scriptural ministers.

4. By indorsing human societies, as Protestants and Campbellites admit theirs to be— i.e., originated and set up by men — we say that men may invent and set up evangelical churches equal in all respects to the divine institution which Christ set up, and we degrade the authority of Christ to that of wicked men, and teach the world to give equal respect to man’s work as to that of Christ.

It is a sad fact, seen and deplored by the venerable Oncken when in this country, that Baptists, by their practical endorsement of Pedobaptist societies as evangelical churches, are very largely responsible for the success and prosperity of those organizations in this country. Said Oncken to the writer: “The Baptists of America have done and are now doing more to give success and spread to Pedobaptist sects than those sects could do for themselves without Baptist assistance. You Baptists here are like crutches under the armpits of these societies, upholding them and saying, by all the influence of your acts, these be the true churches of Christ? —evangelical churches.— If Baptists would only put forth the whole weight of their united influence against Pedobaptism, it could not live through the century in America, where it is unsupported by the State.”

And after a pause: “And I believe God will not be left without a body of witnesses in this land who will bear a faithful testimony against the whole family of the vile woman of the apocalypse.” He said that he, and the Baptists of Germany, never called Pedobaptist ministers evangelical, nor their societies churches, nor their members brethren.

5. Our liberal brethren disobey—and teach others to do so—the plain commands of the Holy Spirit concerning the attitude they should occupy toward the teachers of manifest and acknowledged errors and false doctrine, which was “to avoid them” —to have no company with them, that they may be ashamed.”

Will the reader turn back and read Chapters XII and XIII.

CHAPTER XIX Last Words To My Brethren.

“A false system has for accomplice whoever spares it by silence” (Vinet.)

I have now, clearly as possible, in the limited space allotted to this work, placed before you the principles, polity, and practices which characterized our historical ancestors, and something of the terrible sufferings it cost them to maintain them at the hands of Pagans, Papists, and Protestants, from the days of the apostles until now. I wish, in conclusion, to urge a few questions upon your prayerful consideration: 1. Will you now decide, by the evidence submitted, if the scores of thousands of Baptists in America, especially in the South, in England and Germany, who now hold and witness for the principles and polity developed in the preceding chapters, have left the “old paths” and are walking in “a new way, and a way not cast up” by the Master?

Or, whether those Baptists who recognize those very organizations, which persecuted our fathers, as evangelical churches. and accredit their preachers as evangelical ministers, by associating with them upon perfect ministerial equality, and receive their immersions as valid baptisms, and affiliate with them in all things, and extend to them every token of ministerial and ecclesiastical fellowship?the Lord’s Supper excepted?are traveling

“In The Ways Our Fathers Trod?�

This is the practical question of this age. It is vital to the best interests of American Baptists that it should be correctly answered. The world demands its settlement. To assist in determining this question this little book has been written.

My conclusions are before you.

In the thirty odd years past, during which I have discussed and urged upon Baptists the adoption and practice of these views. I have not heard of one man, however, bitterly opposed, who did not acknowledge that these conclusions are logically irresistible, if my premises are granted. May I beg of you, who read these lines, to decide, before you lay down this book, whether the plain unvarnished teachings of the apostles, and the practice of our denominational ancestors, from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries, do not sustain my premises beyond a reasonable doubt? Turn back, if necessary, and re-read Chapter XIV, and not only note what our fathers claim, but what Catholics and Protestants, with united voice, testify they held and practiced in the face of the dungeon and the stake. Are you not compelled by facts to admit that?

1. They did not acknowledge Catholic or Protestant societies to be evangelical churches, but proclaimed them alike to be anti-Christian bodies, and their ordinances null and void?

2. That they did not accredit the ministers of the Protestant sects any more than those of Catholics, by any act as gospel ministers, nor did they associate with them in preaching the gospel or in any Christian work.

If this is not your conclusion, you may as well close the book, for further words of mine will be useless. But these historical facts admitted, let me press upon your fraternal consideration other important questions: 2. Were not our martyr fathers approved of God for bearing the steadfast and unmistakable witness they did for the divine constitution, the doctrine and ordinances of the church of Christ, and against the human societies that opposed, and the corruptions that subverted them in their day? You can not doubt it. John saw their souls under the altar and white robes given unto them, and heard the promise of their future vindication and coming glory.

3. Can you doubt that it is as much your duty and mine to steadfastly hold, faithfully teach, and as cheerfully suffer, if needs be, for these same principles, and to as boldly oppose these self-same sects and their false teachings and practices in this day, as it was their duty in that age? My brother, do not lightly pass this, but decide?upon your knees, with your Bible, your conscience, and your God. “Must I be carried to the skies, On flowery beds of ease; While others fought to win the prize, And sailed thro? bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to fight?

Must I not stem the flood?”

4. Have you ever stopped to think why it is that not one in a thousand to-day, who bears the name, suffer the least opposition or discomfort of any sort for being a Baptist? It was never so before. Why is it that thousands of our ministers finish a life ministry, and sill their advocacy of Baptist principles?or preaching the gospel, if you prefer it?never costs them one word of reproach from the teachers of error, the hatred or ill will of a living man? So that living friends even solace their grief, by inscribing on the tombstone of such?

“None knew him but to love him, Or heard him, but to praise.”

Was the boast of that eminent doctor of divinity to his praise, who said in a recent speech: “If I have offended man, woman, or child with my denominationalism in a pastorate of twenty years, I have never heard of it?”

That minister exchanged pulpits with Unitarians, and invited Universalists even unto his own. If the position of Bros. Jeter and Burrows is correct, that we do not thereby recognize their ordinations or themselves as evangelical ministers, but only as gentlemen, thus lowering the pulpit?which should be the throne of God’s truth on earth?to the level of the parlor, that minister’s course can not be condemned.

Thousands of Baptist ministers can truthfully repeat his boast, after professing to preach the gospel five, ten, and fifteen years; and other thousands are preaching today with no higher ambition than to build up large churches, and to gain an enviable reputation for being “undenominational preachers;” men of “broad” “liberal,” “Catholic” views.

Have you ever seriously asked yourself if these men can be pleasing the Master?

I turn to His Word and it reads: “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you; for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”

Has this passage no application in our day? Is it true, as some preachers tell us, that the days of persecution are ended? Has the offense of the cross indeed ceased?

How am I to understand these declarations of my Savior: “Ye shall be hated of all men for my sake: but he that endureth” (Matthew 10:22). “The disciple is not above his master; if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” “Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: and a man’s foes shall be of his own household.” “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Remember the word I said unto you, The servant is not greater than the lord. If

they have persecuted me, they will persecute you.” (John 15:20). Paul understood the import of this language: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” Do you say all this was spoken of the apostolic age, and is obsolete and utterly meaningless in this; and that the Testament would be as complete to us if these and all similar passages were eliminated? Is it indeed so? has Beelzebub become a faithful ally of Christ?

“And this vile world a friend to grace, To help us on to God?”

If this be so, has it ever occurred to you that we shall lose many and exceedingly precious promises as well? A few occur to me: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Can it be that the blessedness of that kingdom will be the same to those who have never lived for Christ so as to be persecuted? “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad; for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets who were be fore you.” Is it impossible for us to gain this great reward? Is it, alas! true, that we, alone, of all the Christians who have lived on the earth, are denied the distinguished privilege of gaining this “GREAT REWARD? That we can not suffer peril from false brethren?can not so witness for Christ as to suffer reproach or even to be spoken about falsely for Jesus? sake?

If this be so, then indeed are we, of all Christians, the most unblessed; for the crowning glories of salvation are alike predicated upon suffering with and for Christ here. Among a host are these: “If so be that we suffer with him, that we be glorified together” (Rom. 8:17). Is it not here implied that those only are glorified together who have suffered for Christ? “If we suffer for him, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12).

But suppose we live on such terms of amity and concord with the enemies of Christ, and those who oppose His teachings, that they become our friends, and speak well of us, can we hope to reign with Christ? Grant that we may possibly be saved “yet so as by fire,” have we a promise of reigning with Christ? The Scriptures impress me that only sufferers, martyrs, cross-bearers, witnesses of Jesus, and for the Word of God, “have part in the first resurrection, and live and reign with Christ a thousand years” (Rev. 20): that only those Christians who “have not defiled themselves with women”?i.e., affiliated on terms of equality and friendship with false churches?are accounted as “virgins” unto Christ, and are numbered with the one hundred and forty and Jour thousand, and are permitted companionship with Christ (Rev. 14). If one passage more than another has influence, and now influences my life as a Christian and a minister, it is those words of Jesus to His faithful servant at the close of his service: “Well done, good and faithful servant: thou has been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21). What is this world to me if I

have no good hope, through grace, of hearing these words at last from the lips of my master? How unspeakably fearful, though I have gained the praise of earth’s millions, and fail to hear the “well done” of Jesus? Oh, what can the future be to me, though I should have the praise of the angels, and fail to hear these few words?”well done, good and faithful servant”?from the lips of my Savior? I know, that He. whose name is Truth, will never utter them unless I have done well, and been faithful in the things committed to me. If I have failed to openly hold and boldly preach His whole truth, for fear of men. I may not hope to hear them, for He hath said: “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 holy angels.”

Let us not deceive ourselves or be deceived. Satan bears the same hellish hate towards the Savior and His church, he did the day he nailed Him to the cross of ignominy, by the wicked hands of his servants.

The carnal heart is still only enmity to God. The whole world still lieth in the wicked one, and is as thoroughly opposed to the authority of Christ as of old. False systems of religion, and false teachers are a thousand times multiplied; only they assume the character, and demand of us the name of “evangelical churches” and ministers of Christ. The words of Christ and His apostles are equally for this as for any former age; and it is tremendously true now as then?that they “who will live godly shall suffer persecution.” There never was, there is not now, there never will be, till Christ comes, an exception to this declaration. If you and I are not persecuted, if we are not reviled and spoken falsely of, for Christ s sake, it is as certainly true as God’s Word that we are not living godly. We are not persecuted nor reproached because we have struck an unholy truce with sin, and the spirit of this world, and with spiritual wickedness, because throned in high places. In every age when the witnesses of Christ have been faithful to their mission, they have suffered from His avowed enemies and professed friends.

It was not only true when the old Pagan dragon held his authority over the nations, but equally so when its ghost?a counterfeit Christianity?ascended the throne and wore the purple of the Caesars; and more bitterly true when Protestantism shed the blood of the saints in the days of the Reformation, and whenever and wherever it has been able to wield the sword, whether in England old or England new, on the soil of the Old Dominion or of Georgia. In every age and in every land, genuine Christianity has been persecuted by its counterfeit, and shall we by all our influence as Baptists, accredit that counterfeit as “evangelical” and genuine?

Be assured, my brother, were we only as faithful in teaching and defending Christ’s precious truth as our fathers were; if we would no longer sacrifice it by sinful compromises to secure the peace and obtain the friendship of false teachers and their followers, we would not long be strangers to their bitter experiences, and

we would realize that the words of Christ, and the teachings of the apostles, are of real significance in our day; though our blood might not be shed, yet our names would be defamed, our characters blackened, the spirit of the evil one attributed to us when preaching most faithfully, as it was to the first Baptist—for they said, “he hath a devil”—our wives, and daughters, and sons ostracized from “polite society,” and we and ours would be “accounted the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things, even in this day.”

A young lady was converted at meetings held at the Baptist Church in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had given her name to be baptized, when she was visited by the Episcopalian rector, and informed if she should so degrade herself as to join the Baptists, who were of the lower class, she would be no longer invited into polite society, but would sink to their level.

We see and feel enough to be convinced that we have entered the Laodicean age of this dispensation, in which the Master’s knock will soon be heard at the door.

The love, and zeal, and works of the first age have been “left;” the faithfulness to the order of the house of God, and in trying and condemning false teachers, and the hatred of the laxity, and the profane double-dealing of the Nicolaitanes—who, professing to be followers of Christ, fellowshipped false religions as well—which characterized the churches of other ages has well-nigh died out, and instead, a strange indifferentism to gospel doctrine and denominational principles—to church constitution, to church order, to church discipline, and to pastoral support, has seized the great mass of the membership—a state denomination “lukewarm” by the Savior, which is, of all states, the most abhorrent to him.

But, added to this, an overweening desire to be considered “respectable,” and to command the admiration of the world, has taken possession of the churches. We boast of our numerical strength, our power and our influence, and the culture of our ministry. Could an uninspired pen so graphically have described our condition as a denomination as Christ foretold it?

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God; “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then, because thou are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 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. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. 3:14-22).

Whatever other brethren may do, will you not, my brother, resolve, here and now, to join the noble few whom God is raising up to resist this flood-tide of looseness, lukewarmness, and indifferentism, which is rendering powerless the protest of the churches of Christ against sin and error?

The angel, in Revelation 18, is the symbol of a class of ministers who are to come to the front, at the close of this age, to tell Christians and the world what Babylon is, and call upon God’s people to come out of her. Hear the voice of God, cast the fear of men behind you, and become a martyr—a witness for Jesus.

“Perish —policy— and cunning, Perish all that fear the light; Whether losing, whether winning, Trust in God, and do the right.

Some will hate thee, some will love thee, Some will flatter, some will slight; Cease from man, and look above thee— Trust in God, and do the right.”

APPENDIX A. A CORRECTION AND EXPLANATION.

Not a few of our brethren represent me as teaching that we should preach on baptism or communion, when we advocate the presentation and enforcement of some one of our distinctive denominational principles or doctrine in every sermon—i.e., to make this as a general rule. I do not hold that baptism and communion are the Alpha nor the Omega of our religion, though Christianity would not long remain pure were these ordinances perverted, and, therefore, they should have due prominence. I am certain that, in a ministry of thirty-three years, I have not, to my church or the same congregation, preached an entire sermon upon the ordinances oftener than once each year, and no church or congregation can be properly indoctrinated with less instruction than this. But I do mean that some one doctrine or characteristic principle of genuine Christianity, in contradistinction to the prevailing counterfeits of it, should find a place, and be emphasized in each sermon; and thus, without unnecessarily awakening sectarian prejudices, popular errors can be corrected, and our distinctive principles—all of which I believe to be scriptural principles—will be most effectually inculcated, and the church and congregation will be gradually and almost insensibly indoctrinated. I can not better explain what I mean than by illustration: Suppose you were preaching upon the duty and importance of searching the Scriptures. Ask what is the first duty that God enjoins upon His creatures, and suggest: Is it repentance? is it faith? is it obedience? It can not be. It is to learn who He is; it is to learn how just His claims are upon us; it is to learn what He desires us to do, and how He wishes us to do it—in one word, it is to “search the Scriptures.” Say it can not be that God requires any thing of us until we are able to search His Word and know what He would have us to do. It does not read—apply to your parents, or to preachers, or to priests to learn what duty God enjoins upon you. but the command is to you personally, “Search the Scriptures,”—each one of you for yourselves—and learn what the will of God is; and, having learned it for yourself, you must obey it for yourself, moved by love for Him. In this connection the pernicious doctrine of .the Papists can be corrected, viz., that the common people may not freely read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves. The highest duty Christ enjoins upon

each individual is to search the Scriptures for himself, and obey its teachings. And no one may presume to do any religious act until he has himself found it required at his hands by searching the Word of God, etc.

How natural it would be to ask, in this connection, if it is not the sin of this age, that we seek to learn what distinguished preachers and popular churches, or our parents or friends believe or think we should do, rather than to “Search the Scriptures,” and do only what God requires? This one idea, pointed and driven home, will abide forever in the mind, and prove a most effectual blow to infant baptism. If you would strike at human creeds, formulated by human societies, and required to be consulted and held, irrespective of what the Scriptures teach, quote and enforce that inspired declaration: “God hath magnified his word above every name”—i.e., authority. What God wills or wishes concerning us lie has placed in His Word; and when we turn away from it, to seek in creeds, disciplines, confessions, for man’s requirements, we reject God for man: “In vain do they worship me who teach for doctrine the commandments of men.”

Supposing you were urging the duty of repentance, you can say it is not doing penance, or having it done for you by a priest— as the Catholics falsely teach, and everywhere translate it in their version—but a personal act, that, like every other duty of Christianity, each one must do for himself. Explain the act, and then urge and emphasize that in every case it must precede baptism, because an essential qualification for baptism. Baptism is said to belong to repentance—”the baptism of repentance”—because repentance must exist before baptism, so that baptism can be, as it was appointed to be, an expression or profession of repentance previously exercised. So that other expression that ritualists and baptismal regenerationists make so much use of—”the washing of regeneration.” Grant what they claim, that it refers to baptism, then regeneration of heart must necessarily precede the washing” or baptism, since the washing belongs to it, and is a profession of it. By the pressing of these two points, infant baptism and baptismal regeneration can be effectually crushed.

If you are urging the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, you can emphasize the fact that it is not the mere assent of the intellect, as is widely taught, nor accepting the testimony of the evangelists concerning Christ, as we do those of Irving concerning Washington, but it is gladly receiving the Word, because the message is pleasing to us; relief from our lost and helpless condition is offered to us in Christ, and we rejoice to accept Him in the character He is offered to us—the Savior of guilty and lost sinners—and we trust our whole salvation in His hands. Here you can show how repentance does and must, in the plan of salvation, precede saving faith, which is the sinner’s trust in Christ; since Christ only offers Himself to penitent, not self-righteous, sinners. Not until a person has seen and felt himself a guilty and lost sinner, and sorrows for sin after a godly sort, does Christ say “Come unto me.” Only penitent, weary heavy-laden sinners does Christ invite to come. Repentance and faith are everywhere commanded and required as qualifications for baptism, and they, like every duty enjoined by Christianity, are personal. As no one, parent or priest, can repent for you or believe on Christ for you; so no one can perform the duty of baptism for you—i.e., without your own choice and volition, or before you have personally repented towards God and exercised faith in Christ.

Campbellism, and infant baptism, and ritualism all go down under this stroke. Dare to find places, often to say with an impressive boldness, that the one of the infallible tests by which genuine Christianity can be distinguished from some counterfeits, is its intense individuality—that it knows no proxies, no sponsors, no attorney-ship—each and every duty required is a personal duty, an act of personal obedience, which parents nor priests can obey for us. Now the axe is laid at the roots of the trees, and every tree stands or falls upon the basis of its own individual, personal obedience.

If you are preaching the grace of God as the ground of salvation, can you not find a place to show that it is a sure ground? Because not our works, but faith in Christ alone that introduces and keeps us in this grace, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace, so that the promise of salvation “might be sure to all the seed.” If there was the least contingency affecting our salvation, it could not be sure to us.

Therefore the apostle says: “By grace are ye saved, through faith,” and that any admixture of works—any overt act, as baptism—would destroy grace as the sole groundwork of salvation; for if it is of grace it is no more works, or grace is no more grace; and if of works in the least, then is not our salvation of grace at all, else works are no more works; it must rest either upon all grace or upon all works. If it is of grace alone, then must our salvation be sure, because the lack of works will not affect it.

Were you reading the passage, “By deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight,” you could, by way of comment, say there is no definite article in the original, and it should read, by deeds of law—any law, moral, ceremonial, or ecclesiastical—there shall no flesh be justified. Now if baptism is the law of pardon, or a sacrament of salvation, as is so generally taught by Protestants and Campbellites, then this passage is not true; for if by the law of baptism, remission of sins, justification, and the grace of regeneration, are secured, then, by the deed—observance of law—all men can be justified before God! Should you be preaching upon the passage—and you could, and should often reach upon it—” The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin;” or upon that other precious text —”having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed in pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith,” etc., could you not clearly and irresistibly show that blood in every case precedes water; that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, leaving no sin for the water to wash away; that the real cleansing of the conscience is by the blood of Christ. while the washing of our bodies can only be the declaration of it, in symbol? Refer back to all the types of sin-cleansing, and the blood is ever first applied, and then the body bathed in water, symbolizing the cleansing. When the heart of Christ, who was the antitype of all the types, was pierced, “forthwith came out blood and water.” In all the teachings of God’s Word, where the plan of salvation is referred to or pointed to, even by a type, it is blood before water.

This, then, is the infallible test by which genuine Christianity may be tested and known; it places blood before water; it teaches that we come to the church through Christ, to the water of its baptism through His blood; while all human and counterfeit religions reverse this, and teach that we come to Christ through the church, and to the blood of Christ through the water of baptism. Urge the heater to decide on which side he stands, and which he places first in his creed and practice, water before blood or Blood Before Water, and show that this is the grand and distinguishing issue between Baptists and all other denominations; and, so far as the doctrines of salvation are concerned, what makes us Baptists—we put blood before water in every case; while in the creeds and practice of Campbellites and Pedobaptists, water is put before blood—the infant and the sinner are brought first to the water in order to reach the blood that cleanseth from all sin.

These illustrations may serve as a key to my usual manner, whether I read the Scriptures or preach the gospel, to drive here and there a nail in a sure place, and clench it so that it can never be drawn.

Men who are gray now often tell me of distinct and lasting impressions made, by these sharp points, twenty and thirty years ago.

APPENDIX B. PULPIT RECOGNITION. Bro. John W. Broadus, professor of theology in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky., delivered the following statements to his class, upon pulpit affiliation, which have been kindly furnished us by Elder S. M. Province, of Brownsville, Tenn., an old student. There are many thousands of Southern Baptists who will be delighted to learn the exact position Bro. Broadus occupies upon this question. If he doubts for a moment how his invitations are understood, he as well as the reader is referred to the opinions of Bro. Stuart Robinson, and Hodge, and others, in Chapter XII. “Illustrating the adherence to principle which the Apostle Paul showed in refusing to circumcise Titus, while in the case of Timothy, where no principle was involved, he allowed the rite to be performed, Bro. Broadus said: —A Baptist preacher may invite a Pedobaptist to preach for him, so long as it is understood

that he does not thereby indorse the latter’s ordination; i.e., when no principle is involved.— I quote from my notes. In reply to the question of a student, the professor said substantially: —If I were to invite a Pedobaptist to preach in my pulpit, and should afterward learn that he construed the invitation into a recognition of his claim to be a properly ordained minister of a New Testament church, I should not only not repeat the invitation, but I would take pains to tell him why I did not.”

“Now Bro. Broadus should know that all do construe his invitation into a recognition of their claim to be scriptural ministers.”

“Bro. Stuart Robinson says: ?The idea of inviting one to preach in the character of a layman seems to me a paradox.?”

“Bro. Hodge, of Princeton, says: ?When one minister asks another to exchange pulpits with him, such invitation is in fact, and is universally regarded as an acknowledgment of the scriptural ordination of the man receiving the invitation.

No man who believes himself to be a minister can rightfully, expressly, or by implication, deny the validity of his [own] ordination; and, therefore, if invited to lecture or speak in the character of a layman, he must decline.?”

“The editor of the Texas Christian Advocate, being asked, said: ?When one gentleman invites another to his house, receives him into his parlor, and seats him at his table, he recognizes him on terms of perfect social equality. So, when one Christian minister invites another to occupy his pulpit, all who witness the courtesy thus extended, regard it as a proclamation of perfect ministerial equality. Only Christian ministers are invited into the pulpit. If, however, the one who gives the invitation is a Jesuit, a hypocrite, who wishes to make a show of liberality he does not feel, and believes the brother he thus pretends to honor as a minister is only an unbaptized religious teacher, without church membership or ecclesiastical authority of any sort, he should be treated as all hypocrites and pretenders deserve to be treated.?”

“These testimonies must settle the question with every honest man.

Pedobaptists and the world universally do, and have a right to regard all such affiliations as a proclamation that we, the minister, invited to exchange, or to a seat, or to preach in our pulpits, as a scripturally baptized ordained minister of a scriptural church.”

APPENDIX C. OLD LANDMARKISM IN PHILADELPHIA. ANOTHER PROTEST. Bro. E. L Magoon invited a Swedenborgian preacher to occupy his pulpit, and in consequence the following was offered in the Baptist Ministers? Conference in Philadelphia: “Whereas, The public mind has been charged with knowledge of the fact that the pulpit of a Baptist Church of this city, has, by invitation and acceptance, been made the vehicle of publishing grievous and dangerous error; and,

“Whereas. The silence of a representative body of Baptist ministers may be construed as an enactment of such proceedings and utterances; therefore, “Resolved, That while we rightfully continue to disclaim any assumption of ecclesiastical authority, yet we feel called upon to express public dissent from proceedings thus publicly announced, and that, as a conference, we hereby enter upon record our fraternal protest against employing the appointments of any Baptist meeting-house to aid in disseminating opinions that we, as Baptists, believe are contrary to the teaching of the Word of God.” Bros. Wayland and Catheart opposed the resolution as unnecessary, but Brother J.M. Pendleton and others favored it. After some discussion it was adopted. It would seem that there is some Landmarkism even in Philadelphia. What will those do now who condemned the protest of the St. Louis pastors? We are pleased to see the pastors of Philadelphia so sound.?Texas Baptist Herald..

I unite with the Herald in an expression of my gratification at this evidence of the soundness of the Philadelphia Baptist pastors. I am not surprised at ?the opposition of Bro. Wayland to the resolutions, but I am at Bro. Cathcart’s; because I know him to he a consistent and uncompromising Baptist, and the course of Bro. Magoon is fundamentally unbaptistic, inconsistent, and unscriptural.

Paul expressly says: “Now I entreat you, brethren, to watch those who are making factions and laying snares, contrary to the teachings which you have learned, and turn away from them.

“Now we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly, and not according to the instruction which you have received from us, and if any one obey not our word, by this letter, point him out, and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame.”

And he charges Timothy not to be a partaker of other men’s sins, and to bid no false teacher God-speed by an act that may be so construed; since that would involve one in complicity with his false teachings.

John says: “For if there come any one unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God-speed.”

A. Clark well says: “No sound Christian should countenance any man as a gospel minister, who holds and preaches erroneous doctrines.”

If John forbade a beloved sister to receive a teacher of false doctrine into her private house, lest he should contaminate her family with his errors, how much less should he be allowed to occupy our houses of worship and teach the children of God? Where was the church of which Bro. Magoon is the servant? Did he not consult it? Had it nothing to say? Or is it like the churches of some other learned doctors of

divinity?a mere cipher?allowed no voice whatever as to who the pastor may put into the pulpit during his pastorate? There is a class of ministers?who claim that the pulpit belongs to them, and it is not the business of the church to question their right to put into it whom they see fit?that it is their pulpit?and they speak of it as “my pulpit!” They might as well say “my baptism” and “my supper, as “my pulpit.”

The pulpit, like the supper and baptism, belongs solely to the church, and not at all to the pastor of the church; and when he cannot occupy it, it is the duty to refer the filling of it to the church. He might as well claim the right to appoint his successor for all time, as to appoint his substitute for one Sunday, without consulting the church. A principle cannot be divided.

It was indeed eminently proper and right for the pastors of Philadelphia to express their disapprobation of the unscriptural act of Bro. Magoon. But in this protest the Philadelphia pastors placed themselves squarely on Old Landmark ground. If it is wrong for any one preacher of acknowledged heresies to occupy a Baptist pulpit and preach to a Baptist congregation, it certainly is equally improper and unscriptural for any other preacher of unscriptural and pernicious doctrines. There is not a Baptist minister in Philadelphia who will not admit, if called upon, that the doctrine of federal holiness of all children born of believing parents taught by Presbyterians, and the doctrine of infant purity taught by Methodists, and the sacramental character and efficacy of the ordinances taught by all Pedobaptists and Campbellites, are as unscriptural and pernicious?as “grievous and dangerous errors,”?as any thing taught by the Swedenborgians; and, if it is improper and wrong to invite a Swedenborgian to occupy a Baptist pulpit, it is equally so to invite or permit a Pedobaptist or a Campbellite to do so; and we do say, that if one such can properly occupy a Baptist pulpit, by invitation, one Sunday, he can as properly, by election, one year, or always. If Baptists can scripturally commune at the Lord’s Table with Pedobaptists once, they can ten thousand times?and always?and, therefore, they can unite and become one church; and so can and should all denominations that commune together. There is no avoiding the logic of this conclusion. We extend the hand of Landmark fellowship, therefore, to every pastor who voted for the above resolutions.

Another Landmark Established in Philadelphia.

A Mr. Henry Losch, a regularly ordained Presbyterian minister, recently renounced Presbyterianism, and was scripturally baptized into one of the Baptist Churches, which soon invited a number of ministers to assist it in the examination of Bro. Losch, with reference to ordination. Bro. J. Wheaton Smith, one of the Presbytery, and a Baptist pastor in Philadelphia, offered the following resolutions, viz.: “Whereas, our brother, Bro. Henry Losch, a regularly ordained Presbyterian minister, has been brought to believe in the scripturalness of those views which we hold distinctively as Baptists, attesting the earnestness of this belief by uniting

with a Baptist Church, on profession of his faith in Christ by Christian baptism; and, “Whereas, He has related to this council not only the story of his change, but also of his Christian experience, his call from God to the ministry, and of his view of those doctrines which he has held heretofore in common with ourselves; therefore, “Resolved, That we congratulate the Christian brethren from whom he comes, on their wisdom with their views in ordaining him to their ministry, and that now we heartily adopt him into ours, commending him to any Baptist Church who may invite him to be their pastor.”

I have no intimation how many, or the names of the Baptist ministers who, with Bro. Smith, advocated the above resolutions, but I do not believe that Bro. Henson supported it or Bro. Cathcart, who openly avowed that he believed that “Baptist Churches were the only scriptural or evangelical churches on earth; and if that declaration classed him with High Church Baptists, or Landmarkers, then he was a Landmark Baptist, and not ashamed for the world to know it.” Grand and noble words from a grand and noble Baptist! It would seem from the above resolution that Bro. Smith has fully yielded to the “demand” that Bro. A. Barnes made upon him, and recognizes Pedobaptist societies as scriptural churches; in all respects equal to Baptist Churches, for he unquestionably concedes it in the above resolution.

He admits that the ordination or commission to preach the gospel and administer church ordinances, which Bro. Losch received from the Presbyterians, was a valid ordination.

But every sound Baptist on earth, and every intelligent Bible reader of every denomination admits that a scriptural church of Christ alone can ordain?i.e., commission?a man to preach the gospel and administer church ordinances.

If, therefore, Mr. Losch’s ordination was scriptural, the Presbyterian church of America is a scriptural church, and its infant sprinklings, and sprinkling for baptism; its doctrine of federal holiness and eternal reprobation of the larger part of the human race; and its provincial form of church government, are all scriptural, and, therefore, there is but one inevitable conclusion that Bro. Smith cannot escape, viz.: Baptist organizations are not churches of Christ in any sense, but an organized muster against the authority of Christ; because Baptist churches are fundamentally unlike, and radically opposed to, and subversive of, the Presbyterian church. And it is axiomatically true that things unlike each other must be and are unlike the same thing?i.e., if the Presbyterian organization is a scriptural church, Baptist organizations, claiming to be churches, certainly are not, because radically unlike, and subversive of the Presbyterian. The world reasons, if some of our eminent teachers do not, and every thinking man on the continent would have concluded with us?that if Mr. Losch was indeed an ordained minister,

then the Presbyterian organization is a scriptural church, then its sprinklings, and infant baptism, and doctrines are scriptural, and Baptists sin in opposing them.

While we regret that there is a Baptist minister in Philadelphia who would present such a resolution, we exceedingly rejoice that it was not indorsed by that presbytery.

I can but express my astonishment at the position of Bro. Smith, so glaringly unscriptural as well as inconsistent and absurd! The Scriptures teach, by precept and example, that baptism must precede ordination to the ministry, and Baptists have invariably observed this order. I do not think that Bro. Smith could be influenced to lay his hand upon a candidate for ordination, whom he knew was unbaptized, and for the very reason that he believes baptism must precede church membership, and church membership must precede ordination, as unquestionably as faith in Christ precedes baptism and church membership. But, by his resolution, he urges upon a Baptist Presbytery to indorse an utter subversion of this order?i.e., that there can be a scriptural ordination before baptism.

Bro. Smith admits that Mr. Losch was an unbaptized man when the Presbyterians professed to ordain him, and he admits that the Presbyterians, being a society of unbaptized persons, are not a church of Christ; and, therefore, have no shadow of authority to ordain a minister, and, therefore, he required Mr. Losch to he baptized before he would receive him to membership. By his resolution he proposes to indorse Mr. Losch’s Presbyterian ordination, and thus subvert the divine order and establish the precedent among Baptists that there can be a scriptural ordination without baptism?that ordination may scripturally precede baptism!

And more?that an organization which is manifestly not a church, can make an officer for a church of Christ, and even commission an unbaptized man to preach the gospel and baptize!

We claim that those ministers who voted to ordain Bro. Losch, placed themselves squarely by our side on Old Landmark ground?they can not consistently oppose it, and, to he consistent, they are compelled to advocate and practice the Landmark policy.

For if Mr. Losch was an unordained and unbaptized man, he certainly had no right to claim to be a scriptural minister of the gospel, and assume to administer its offices; and it was certainly unscriptural and sinful for Baptist ministers to accredit his false claim by any act whatever.

But, inviting him into their pulpits to preach or pray for them as a minister, or receiving his immersions for valid baptisms, would be accrediting him as such, and the society in which he officiates as a scriptural church.

Furthermore, if Mr. Losch was not, while a Presbyterian either baptized or ordained, his baptismal acts, though by immersion, would be as null and void as though administered by a man who did not profess to belong to a Christian church.

Therefore, those ministers who voted down that resolution, did impliedly declare that the immersions of an unordained and unbaptized man are null. They thus put themselves on the record as opposed to alien immersions.

They cannot, therefore, consistently affiliate with unbaptized and unordained men, as ministers of the gospel, nor can they indorse any of their official acts?though the outward form be correct?as scriptural or valid. Thus these two decisions by the Baptist pastors of Philadelphia indorse all the Old Lan mar principles for which we contend.

Since writing the above I have received the following article from Bro. J. M. Pendleton, of Upland, Pennsylvania, which will set the whole matter in a light before the reader, and must forever settle the question of what Old Landmarkism is, in the mind of every one who can appreciate argument or consistency.

A Philadelphia Ordination

By J. M. Pendleton

“The Memphis Baptist is the paper in which can be most appropriately chronicled an account of a recent ordination in Philadelphia, which has caused some little excitement. The editor of The Baptist will appreciate more highly than any other editor the decision of the council of ordination. The facts in the case are these: “Bro. Henry Losch, a Presbyterian preacher, having learned the way of the Lord more perfectly, united with the Memorial Church, and was baptized by the pastor, Bro. Henson. In due time a council was called to consider the matter of Mr. Losch’s ordination. It was, fortunately, a large council, confined, so far as I know, to our city churches, and therefore it was not my privilege to be present. The council having been organized, Bro. J. Wheaton Smith offered a resolution virtually recognizing and indorsing the validity of the Presbyterian ordination already received by the brother. This led to an earnest discussion, and the vote on the resolution was quite significant?two for it, fifty against it. Bro. Smith was of course chagrined, and referred in no very courteous way to the decision as an ?outrage on a Christian church,? but the council was firm. The brother has been ordained?I do not say reordained, but simply ordained.

“There has been a flurry of excitement among the Presbyterians, and the editor of their paper (The Presbyterian) has come cut with a long article on what he calls ?New Marvels of Sacramentarianism,? and pronounces the vote on Bro. Smith’s resolution as a ‘sign of the survival and revival of ecclesiastical bigotry.? By ?Sacramentarianism? the editor of course means the impartation of grace through ordination, which doctrine he ought to know no Baptist believes. The truth is, there is no more grace imparted in ordination than in baptism, and baptism is symbolic of grace already received.

“The excitement of the editor of The Presbyterian was contagious. Hence when the Philadelphia Central Presbytery met, January 6, a preamble and resolution were offered by Bro. Eva, complaining of the action of the Baptist council, and denouncing its decision as a ?transgression of Protestant principles of equality, unity, fraternity, and charity.? In his remarks, as published in the Public Ledger of January 7, he is reported as saying, ?The Baptist clergymen would not meet with Presbyterian clergymen at the table of the Lord, and now it seems that they will not act with them in the matter of the ordination of the ministry. When his brethren said to him you are neither baptized nor ordained, he desired not to meet with them.? It will be seen that Bro. Eva wishes Baptist ministers to recognize him as baptized and ordained. His idea is that an exchange of pulpits implies this. I ask all anti-Landmark Baptist preachers to take this matter into consideration. Many of them say that Pedobaptist ministers, in being invited by them to preach, know the invitation does not imply a recognition of their baptism or ordination. They can see from the above what Bro. Eva, of Philadelphia, thinks. He wishes to have nothing to do with ?Baptist clergymen? unless they admit that he is ?baptized? and ?ordained.?

“In the same discussion, Bro. Poor said that he had been invited, some time ago, by a Baptist clergyman to preach for him, to which request he replied: ?How can you ask me to occupy your pulpit, if the fact that you do not acknowledge our ordination is correct?? His friend, in reply, said that he did not acknowledge the ordination of Presbyterian ministers. Bro. Poor added that, from that day to this, he had declined to preach in Baptist pulpits. Here we see that another Presbyterian minister makes a recognition of his ordination indispensable to his preaching in Baptist pulpits. Surely when the facts are fully understood by Baptists and Pedobaptists, the interchange of pulpits will cease.

“In the matter of ordination Presbyterians are quite unreasonable, though they, perhaps, think otherwise. I will explain what I mean: They consider baptism and church membership prerequisites to ordination. Very well. Baptists take the same view. Where, then, is the difference? It is concerning baptism and the churchmembership resulting. Believing Pedobaptists without baptism, and consequently without scriptural church-membership, it is impossible for Baptists to recognize the validity of Pedobaptist ordinations. Philadelphia Presbyterians believe that baptism precedes ordination, but they are unwilling for Baptists to believe the same thing, unless the latter will also believe that the sprinkling of an unconscious infant is baptism. This would be as difficult as to swallow not only a camel, but a caravan of camels. What, then, is to be done? The antagonism between Baptists and their opponents is so decided that harmony is impossible, unless one side or the other surrenders. Compromise is utterly out of the question. Compromise is very well in matters involving no principle, but where principle is concerned there is no place for it.

“As to the few Baptists who are satisfied with Pedobaptist ordinations, I scarcely know what to say. They must believe that baptism, to say the least, is not prerequisite to ordination, and how they can believe this defies ordinary comprehension. They find nothing in the Scriptures nor in the customs of Baptist Churches to justify such a belief. Manifestly the elders ordained by Paul and Barnabas in every church were church members, and had, therefore, been baptized. No man is now ordained in any Baptist Church unless the church calls for his ordination, and the church can not go beyond its own members in making a call, for its jurisdiction extends no farther. All its members, however, have been baptized, and therefore every ordination among Baptists presupposes baptism and church-membership. How, then, any Baptist can ignore one of the principles and one of the practices of his denomination, so as to believe that there can be ordination where there has been no baptism, and consequently no churchmembership, is as strange as the Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation. The Baptist who recognizes Pedobaptist ordinations must recognize Pedobaptist sprinkling as baptism, and Pedobaptist organizations as New Testament churches.

He who can do this will find it difficult to say why he is a Baptist. Indeed, if Pedobaptist ordinations are valid, there is no use for the Baptist denomination?it has no moral right to exist and the sooner it surrenders its life the better. Yes, the right of Baptist Churches to exist is involved in the ordination question which has recently created a little stir in Philadelphia.”

APPENDIX D. JESSE MERCER, AN OLD LANDMARKER. In 1811, nine years before the editor of this paper was born, the great and good Mercer wrote the Circular Letter of the Georgia Association, in which he presented “his reasons for regarding the administration of baptism by Pedobaptists, though in the proper mode, as invalid.” The following is an outline of his argument, which is taken from his Memoirs by Mallory: I present them in proof that the principles and practice so bitterly assailed by a class of our ministers as something new and unheard of before their advocacy in The Baptist, are not new, but were considered as the scriptural landmarks of the churches of Christ before we were born. Bro. Mercer uses church figuratively for “churches,” and by apostolic succession he means a succession of churches from the days of the apostles.

“I. The Apostolic Church, continued through all ages to the end of the world, is the only true gospel church.

“II. Of this church Christ is the only head, and true source of all ecclesiastical authority.

“III. Gospel ministers are servants in the church, are all equal, and have no power to lord it over the heritage of the Lord.”

Having established these propositions to his own satisfaction, he infers the following “clear and certain truths.”

“I. That all churches and ministers who originated since the apostles, and not successively to them, are not in gospel order; and, therefore, can not he acknowledged as such.

“II. That all who have been ordained to the work of the ministry without the knowledge and call of the church, by popes, councils, etc., are the creatures of those who constituted them, and are not the servants of Christ or His church, and, therefore, have no right to administer for them.

“III. That those who set aside the discipline of the gospel and have given law to an exercised dominion over the church, are usurpers over the place and office of Christ, are against Him; and, therefore, may not be accepted in their offices.

“IV. That they who administer contrary to their own or the faith of the gospel can not administer for God; since without the gospel faith they have nothing to administer, and without their own He accepts no service; therefore, the administrations of such are unwarrantable impositions in any way.

“Our reasons, therefore, for rejecting baptism by immersion, when administered

by Pedobaptist ministers, are?

“I. That they are connected with ?churches? clearly out of the apostolic succession; and, therefore, clearly out of the apostolic commission.

“II. That they have derived their authority by ordination from the bishops of Rome, or from individuals who have taken it upon themselves to give it.

“III. That they hold a higher rank in the churches than the apostles did, are not accountable to and of consequence not triable by the church; but are amenable only to or among themselves.

“IV. That they all, as we think, administer contrary to the pattern of the gospel; and some, where occasion requires, will act contrary to their professed faith. Now, as we know of none implicated in this case but are in some or all of the above defects, either of which we deem sufficient to disqualify for meet gospel administration, therefore we hold their administrations invalid.”

On the question of apostolic succession, he adds: “But it should be said that the apostolic succession can not be ascertained, and then it is proper to act without it; we say that the loss of the succession can never prove it futile, nor justify any one out of it. The Pedobaptists, by their own histories, admit they are not of it; but we do not, and shall think ourselves entitled to the claim until the reverse be clearly shown. And should any think authority derived from the mother of harlots sufficient to qualify to administer a gospel ordinance, they will be so charitable as not to condemn us for professing what is derived from Christ. And should any still more absurdly plead that ordination received from an individual is sufficient, we leave them to show what is the use of

ordination, and why it exists. If any think an administration will suffice which has no gospel pattern, they will suffer us to act according to the divine order with impunity. And if it should be said that faith in the subject is all that is necessary, we beg to require it where the Scriptures do, that is, everywhere.”

APPENDIX E. WILLIAM KIFFIN, AN OLD LANDMARKER. But there was a consistent Landmarker and a landmark church in London nearly two hundred years before Mercer wrote that letter; and I have shown that every Baptist Association in America was Landmark in faith and practice one hundred years before. I copy the following historical fact from Cramp’s “History of Baptists: “The young man [Wm.. Kiffin] became an independent inquirer, prepared to follow the leadings of truth regardless of consequences. [This is the true Landmark spirit?the spirit of God’s true men]. Observing that some excellent ministers had gone into voluntary banishment, rather than conform to the Church of England, he was induced to examine the points in dispute between that church and her opponents. He had been five years a member of the Independent church, then under the care of Mr. Lathrop, when, with many others, he withdrew, and joined the Baptist Church, the first in England of the particular Baptist order, of which Mr. Spilsbury was pastor. Two years after that, in 1640, a difference of opinion respecting the propriety of allowing ministers who had not been immersed to preach to them?in which Mr. Kiffin took the negative side?occasioned a separation.

Mr. Kiffin and those who agreed with him seceded, and formed another church, which met in Devonshire Square. He was chosen pastor, and held that office until his death, in 1701 [61 years], the longest pastorate on record.”

If the Baptist ministers of America were only such men as Wm. Kiffin, how long would Pedobaptist societies be regarded as churches of Christ? How sad to think that Baptists, by their inconsistent teaching and practice, are doing more than Pedobaptists themselves to build up pedobaptism!

Bro. J. M. Pendleton says: “My opinion is, that the number of Baptists in the United States would he larger by a million today if it had ever been the understanding that there could be no ministerial affiliation between them and Pedobaptists. How strange is such affiliation! The exchange of pulpits makes the impression that these are small matters; and this impression has led many to become Pedobaptists, who would otherwise have copied the example of Christ, who said, concerning His personal immersion, ?Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.?”

APPENDIX F. NOTICE OF THE OBJECTIONS TO THIS BOOK. This little book has elicited a large amount of adverse criticism, and revealed the fact that the most diverse and grossly unscriptural views of the Baptist Church

Polity exist among our authors and writers?the recognized teachers of our churches.

The Religious Herald, and some few other critics, declare that the fundamental error of this book is its “cold, inexorable, mathematical logic.” It asserts that strict logical methods of reasoning are not admissible in discussing such questions as are treated in this book, but “moral and probable reasoning” only. We reply, that since logic has only to do with forms of thought, and is the science of correct thinking, that it is rightly applied to the investigation of all subjects, especially to all moral and religious ones; that this, in my opinion, is the chief merit of the book. Sir Win. Hamilton, Bowen, and all standard authorities, sustain me in this. I have demonstrated something, i.e., that Old Landmark principles and policy are taught and enjoined by the Word of God.

The Relative Rights of Ministers and Churches.

There is an irreconcilable diversity of opinions among the teachers of our Israel on these matters, I will divide them into classes: 1. This class is composed of those who hold and teach that baptism belongs to the kingdom, and only introduces the subject into the kingdom, and never into a local church; and that the subject, to gain admission into a church, must apply and present certificate of his baptism by some one, and upon this the church receives him by an unanimous vote!

The unscripturalness and absurdity of these positions can be shown by these plain facts: (1) The kingdom of Christ has no officer save its one King and Lawgiver, who never baptizes, and hence can not administer an ordinance to any one!

(2) The kingdom of Christ has no ordinance, and therefore no one ever yet received baptism as an ordinance of the kingdom.

(3) The kingdom of Christ is not composed of persons, but of churches, as kingdoms are of provinces, and therefore no person ever was or can be a member of it and not of one of Christ’s churches.

(4) But, if one ordinance belongs to the kingdom, then both do, for what God hath joined together let not man attempt to sever. The advocates of this theory will not admit that the Supper belongs to the kingdom.

(5) But, if the theory be correct, then, when the church excludes a member, she leaves him in the kingdom, where she found him. Think of it?all her excluded members are in the kingdom of Christ, and there is no authority on earth to put them out!

(6) And more, the churches have no disciplinary jurisdiction over ministers, since they belong to the kingdom?if they can administer its ordinance, for it is evident an officer must belong to the government whose laws he executes. If these

are distinct organizations, as these teach, one can not interfere with the subjects of the other!

(7) This class also teach that baptism was delivered to the ministry, and not to the church, and therefore they have a right to administer it to whomsoever they deem fit, and wheresoever they please; though they think it expedient to take the voice of a church, when one is convenient, of which they are the sole judges! They may enter a church, and baptize in its own baptistery, without consulting it, if they please!

Now every Bible-reader knows that both ordinances were delivered to the same organization?not to the kingdom, not to the ministry, but to the churches (1 Cor. 11:2); and the churches are everywhere charged with their guardianship and scriptural administration, and the ministry are nowhere thus charged.

(8) And, finally, if it be true that baptized subjects are only in the kingdom after baptism, and not in a church until they make application with certificate of or witnesses to their baptism by a scriptural minister, and the church must receive them by vote, then there is not a Baptist church on this continent, for no Baptist in America was ever so received! And these advocates themselves are not churchmembers! American Baptists, save the few afflicted with this “crotchet,” believe, with their historical ancestors of 1120, that “by baptism we are initiated into the holy congregation of God’s people;” and with Paul (1 Cor. 12:13), that in one spirit we are all baptized into one and the self-same body ? a local church, and not the kingdom.

2. Another class of teachers claim that both the church and its pastor?though not a member?jointly decide who may be baptized; and, if the pastor objects, no baptism can be performed! All can see this puts the veto-power into the hands of the minister; and he alone, even when not a member, can prevent any one entering the church of Christ, or receiving its ordinances. This would be to make the pastor an Autocrat. It is most passing strange that intelligent Baptists should put forth such theories for Baptist or scriptural church polity!

The polity set forth in this book is that the churches of Christ are absolutely independent bodies; and that to them Christ committed all the ordinances, and constituted them the sole guardians and administrators of them; and that his ministers are the servants, not the masters, of the churches, to administer the ordinances to those whom the churches deem qualified. Let the reader decide whether this theory is scriptural, or the above contradictory ones.

Touching the Lord’s Supper My position has called forth the most confused and conflicting opposition. As in seeking the condemnation of the Author of Truth, the witnesses fail to agree among themselves, and thus virtually destroy their own testimony. Let us see. The position advocated in the book is?

That the Lord’s Supper is a Church ordinance, symbolizing church relations among other things, and therefore should in all cases be so observed, else the ordinance is vitiated and null. Some Baptists oppose this outright, while the most admit that it is a church ordinance, but seek by various indirect methods to evade it, to uphold the present unscriptural and inconsistent practice.

1. The former hold and teach that the Supper belongs to the kingdom, and therefore a member in good standing in one regular Baptist Church has the right to eat with any and all other churches; and that “there is no power in heaven (?!) or on earth that can withhold it from any member where a church is.” (The language of the Baptist Reflector, Nashville, Tenn.). This is blasphemy, denying, as it does, that Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Author and Lord of the ordinance, has a right or power to change it! But this class, while agreeing that the member of one church has the right to eat with every other church in the denomination, disagree.

Some of these consistently apply the absurd theory to all other church rights, acts and privileges, as voting, etc., which the other part repudiate. If the theory is correct, then it is true that the members of one church have a right to vote on all questions in all other churches, and thus discipline them, and determine who shall be pastors, if the non-members can raise an outside majority! Now, all our readers can see that either of these positions utterly destroys the independence of Baptist Churches, and denies to them the guardianship of the ordinance which Christ committed to them (1 Cor. 11:2). This theory is thoroughly unscriptural, revolutionary and absurd to be tolerated for a moment. No standard author or scholar, among Baptists, admits that members of one church have a right to the Supper spread in another.

2. There is a second class that hold and teach that the Supper is unquestionably a Church ordinance, and was appointed by Christ to be so observed; and that it was manifestly so observed universally in the earliest centuries of Christianity.

But this class is divided into three parties: Those who teach that the churches, though not under any obligation to do so, may contravene the appointment, and invite visiting brethren of sister churches to occasional communion, as a matter of courtesy. This is the general opinion, agreeing with the popular practice of the denomination. It cannot be honestly denied that a church has as much right to invite all Baptists present to vote in electing or dismissing a pastor, or discipling a member, as to participate in the Supper. But our standard teachers agree in saying that it has no right to do the latter, and that our local churches cannot do it without self-destruction. These, as well as those of the first class, infer that Paul and the eight brethren with him communed with the church at Troas while two things remain to be proved?as they do in proving that infants were baptized in Lydia’s house? viz., that she ever had any; and, if so, that she brought her babes along with her! It has never been proved that there was a church at Troas at the time of Paul’s last visit.

That the meal spoken of (Acts 20:11) was the Lord’s Supper, and not a common meal.

The fact is, there was no church at Troas in the first century, if ever.

3. Others of this class say that, since it is so clear that the Supper is a Church ordinance, i.e., an act that must be confined to the members of the particular church, and that it symbolizes church relations, therefore those invited must be, in some sense, members, they propose their theory, viz., that all visiting brethren be regarded as members for the time being?quo ad hoc?to enjoy this one church privilege but no other, and regarded as foreigners so soon as the Supper is ended!

This theory is entitled to the credit of originality, for history affords no illustration of it any more than the Scriptures a warrant. To practice this, would be to practice a “pious fraud,” since no conceivable church relations exist, or are recognized either by the church or the individuals. It is seeking to evade the plain law of Christ by a culpable indirection.

4. The author of this book belongs to the fourth party of this class, who hold and teach, that, since Christ appointed the Supper to be observed as a Church ordinance, and to symbolize that all who eat of “the one loaf” are members of one and the self-same church, therefore it must be observed as such; which it never is, nor can be, unless limited to the members of each local church; for, if the thing symbolized does not exist, the symbol is nullified, and the ordinance vitiated.

Therefore, Prof. Curtis, in his able work, “Progress of Baptist Principles,” though evidently desirous of being very kind toward the prevalent practice, says: “It [the Supper] is not only committed to their [the churches] care, but is to be administered among them as a symbol, among other things, of that fraternity which they bear to each other as such. It therefore unquestionably indicates visible Church relations as subsisting among all who by right unite together in its celebration. Occasional communion by invitation must follow, therefore, the principles established for the regular celebration of this ordinance. We may not bend the rule to the exception, but the exception to the rule.” (pp. 303-4).

This means those who wish to commune with any church must become actual members of it. This is my opinion?no more, and no less; and in this opinion it is a satisfaction to know that I stand with the greatest thinkers who have written on this subject, and, better than all, with the Word of God. There are some who insist that the expression of my convictions upon this subject is “the great blunder of my life.” It is my conviction that it will not be so considered by the denomination twenty years hence, and I can well afford to wait that long for the verdict it will then delight to render.

Taken from: The Reformed Reader Home Page Copyright 1999, The Reformed Reader, All Rights Reserved

The Typical Dispensation PART II: The Dispensations; CHAPTER VII.—The Tabernacle and Temple a Type of the Heavens—The Three Heavens—Important Doctrines Established by the Service—Typical.

WHILE all believe that very much of what pertained to the Jewish Dispensation was typical, few perhaps are ready to admit that the whole of it was so. It was preeminently a Typical Dispensation, or a Revelation in types, as the last book in the Bible, from first to last, is a Revelation in symbols. Not only was every rite and ordinance of the ceremonial law, and every article and appurtenance of the tabernacle and temple worship, but the very tabernacle, and even the nation itself, were typical of good things to come, of which Christ and his church were the substance. They, each and all, were but shadows of future good things, and not the substance. And old writer says: "God, in the types of the last Dispensation, was teaching his children their letters: in this, how to put them together. And we find that the letters, arrange them as we will, spell Christ, and nothing but Christ." In that Dispensation, all the principal persons, things, times and events are typical. In a word, we have a whole Christ presented to us in them,--Christ in his offices, in his character, and in his person,--Christ in his relation to the Father and to man,--Christ as giving to God all that he required from man; and Christ as bringing to man all that he required from God: and finally Christ in relation to his church and kingdom.

Christ, in the Jewish or Typical Dispensation, was seen as suffering, and sacrificed in this, and glorified in the one that is to follow this. As those Eastern heavens glowed with countless brilliant stars, which, with the moon, turned the very night into day; so that Dispensation was studded full with the types of Redemption. The whole temple service was eradiated with types of salvation, each one a true evangel, pointing the devout and thoughtful worshiper to Christ as "the end of the law for righteousness,"--the only true sacrifice and priestly mediator whereby sinful man might acceptably come before God. It would be pleasing and profitable to pause here, and trace clearly in the Christian Dispensation the antitype of each type; but it belongs not to the plan of the work before me, and what has been done in this direction in Part I. must suffice. The least informed reader of the word is impressed with the fact that the bestial sacrifices and priestly ministrations all pointed to Christ as their true antitype;--that in and of themselves they were of no value;--that they could not avail to put away sin;--that they made no one perfect who essayed to come to God by them;--that priest and sacrifices served only as finger-boards to the traveler, pointing him the true direction to his distant goal. Aaron, therefore, was no real priest, and those slain beasts no real sacrifices.

But not all clearly apprehend that the tabernacle--and subsequently the temple--was not a type of any thing earthly, but of things in the heavens,--"heavenly things themselves."

This, we think, there is no ground to doubt:— "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."--Heb. 9:23-24.

The tabernacle, then, was a type of heaven itself. Now, the tabernacle consisted of three apartments:— 1. The outer court, in which was the brazen altar and laver, to which no Israelite might draw nigh, unless circumcised and purified by blood; which court represented that portion of the unseen world (hades) denominated paradise, to which the spiritually circumcised in heart and the purified by the blood of Christ alone have access, and where John saw the souls of the martyrs and of those who had been beheaded for the witness of

Jesus. They were still, when he saw them, in the outer court, and under the altar, not in the "most holy place," which represented the third heaven; for they impatiently cried, "How long, O Lord, how long, ere thou wilt avenge our blood upon them that dwell upon the earth:" and white robes were given unto them, and they were told that they must wait yet a little longer. It will be at the second coming of Christ that the blood of his martyrs will be avenged, and his saints glorified; and not until their glorification will any one be fitted to enter heaven, and be presented before the Father and the holy angels. One writer claims that the outer court represented this earth, and "the worship we offer God-ward from hence;" but the sin-offering was not offered in the court, but without it; and not upon the brazen altar, but burned without the camp: and Christ was offered as our sin-offering, not in heaven, but upon this earth, and without the city of Jerusalem.

There is another, and, to my mind, conclusive reason in favor of my theory that the first court was a type of Paradise, --the resting place of the departed saints: There were many offerings made in the first court; but they were all peace or gratitude offerings of a sweet-smelling savor unto God. No sin-offering, which was a bloody sacrifice, was ever offered on the brazen altar, or in this court: they were burned without the camp.

Those who offered in this court had been atoned by the blood of atonement. Now, if we may be instructed by this type, we learn that all in the first court, among whom we know are all the martyrs, including Paul himself, have had the blood of the Great HighPriest offered for them; and, while it is appointed for them to remain there, they will certainly worship, but their offerings will be only gratitude offerings, and are unto God a sweet-smelling savor--through Jesus Christ. Is not this a conclusive argument that the first court is not earth, but Paradise?

Solomon's Temple may be regarded as more fully representing the heavenlies, allowing this earth to be a part of the heavenly system. That temple had another court outer to that of the first, viz., the Court of the Gentiles, which may, with more reason, be regarded as a type of this earth. No Gentile, until he became circumcised and purified,-until he became a Jew, could enter the first court, as no one can enter Paradise or the Court of Heaven unless he becomes a spiritual Jew by circumcision and purification. These types should instruct us, but who studies them?

2. The second apartment, separated from the court by the first veil, was the "Holy Place," which contained but three things only: the table of Show bread, the seven-branched candlestick that made the bread visible, and the altar of incense. The Show bread was a type of Christ; the ever-burning light a type of the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit, whose office is to take the things of Christ and show them to us. As the Show bread in the Holy Place could not be seen by the priests without the aid of the ever-burning lamp, since there was no window or opening in this division, so no one, not the pure in the heavenly worlds, can rightly apprehend Christ unless he is revealed to them by the Holy Spirit, and certainly no one on this earth can do so.

3. The third apartment was the " Most Holy Place," which contained the Mercy Seat that was made upon the Ark of the Covenant. Now Paul tells us distinctly that this was a type "of heaven itself,"--the right hand of God, and as Aaron passed through the court of the Holy Place into the Most Holy to make a typical sacrifice for the people, God's covenanted people, so Christ, our great High - Priest, has passed, dia ouranoon toon, through the heavens into the Most Holy Place at the right hand of God, there to sprinkle his blood upon the Mercy Seat for us, and to make atonement and secure eternal redemption for all he represents, whose names he bears upon his breast-plate.

I have brought up the tabernacle as a type, that the thoughtful reader may be impressed with its important doctrinal teachings. I think we clearly learn--

1. That Aaron went into the Most Holy Place to make atonement for his people, and that he could make it nowhere else.

The slaying and burning of the sin-offering and the saving of the blood of the sacrifice was not the atonement, nor the "making of the atonement," nor any part of the work of the atonement, but was only preparatory to it. This work could only be done by the high-priest after putting on his priestly garments, and taking the blood of atonement and passing through the Tabernacle into the Most Holy Place.

IT WAS BEFORE THE MERCY SEAT ONLY THAT AN ATONEMENT COULD BE MADE. Another important fact should be noticed in connection with the work of the highpriest:-2. While he was within the veil, the blessings of his atonement were not enjoyed

by Israel.

Save their preservation from the impending vengeance of God due their transgressions, they were not benefited,--received not the blessings sought; but they patiently waited at the door of the tabernacle in the outer court until their high-priest returned. They were "prisoners of hope;" and their hopes all hung upon his return. Their hearts were cheered and assured by the sound of the bells that were attached to the hem of the high-priest's garment. The music of those bells assured them that he was still alive; and they knew while he lived, they, for whom he interceded, would live also. It was not until he had accomplished the atonement that he returned to the door of the tabernacle, and lifted up his hands and blessed the people. So, in the antitype, the shedding of the blood of Christ on Calvary was not the atonement, as many represent it; nor did he make, nor could he have made, an atonement on the cross, or on this earth: but he was offered as a sin-offering here; he did shed the blood here that he was to offer for atonement; and he did here satisfy the demands of the divine law; he did, on the cross, finish all the work he came on earth to do in connection with his atonement, or could do on this earth for man's salvation; and this is what he meant when he said, "It is finished;" but he must needs rise from the dead, and take his blood and ascend to the right hand of God, before the true mercy seat on high, and there make atonement for his people. Now, the blessing of his atonement, which is the fruit of adoption, viz., eternal redemption and glorification, no one has ever yet received, and no one will or can receive, until our Great High-Priest returns again to the door of the antitypical tabernacle,--into the air (paradise), into which all his saints, both dead and living, will be caught up, evermore to remain with him.

Therefore the hope of all the New Testament saints, as it was of the martyrs and ancient Christians, was said to be the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, "when he will change this body of our humiliation, and fashion it like unto his own glorious body."

That coming is the day of our redemption, which is drawing nigh;--the day of our salvation, that is nearer than when we first believed. They are pronounced blessed who pray and long and wait for this event. Unless he returns, all our hopes are in vain. How important that all Christians should understand what the Scriptures teach touching the second advent of Christ, and the events in connection with and following it; and yet how few have any correct idea of it, or seem to care to know any thing about it.

There is another fact established by the type of the tabernacle:3. No one of all the worshipers or holy priests ever passed into the most holy place before the high-priest went in to sprinkle the mercy seat with blood; and no one ever passed in before he came out.

So, if the type teaches us any thing, it does teach us that no one from this earth ever passed to the right hand of God before Jesus ascended on high with his own blood to prepare the way into the "Holiest of Holies;" and no one has done so since he entered

heaven for us: and no one will until he has finished his work there, and returns again to earth. Therefore he himself declared to Nicodemus: "No one hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven." (John 3:13.)

And Peter said of David: "He has not ascended into the heavens." (Acts 2:34.) If David, in spirit, had not ascended after Christ had returned, certainly no one has since that day.

It has been preached from the pulpit for years that all the pious dead go directly to heaven at death, and are there now crowned and glorified. How singular that any one should believe this, when Christ has not finished his atonement, nor they received the advantages of it, and when Christ himself has not been crowned. It certainly is not meet for the servant to be above his Master. The majority of ministers and members believe it without a doubt, though there is not a sentence in God's Revelation that teaches or warrants the conception of any such idea. So long as such visionary and unscriptural views are entertained by the ministry, and dispensed from the pulpits of the land, there is little hope that the body of Christians will ever be found holding correct views. "The leaders do cause my people to err" is the sad and fearful charge of God against religious teachers of a former Dispensation, and is it not equally true of the leaders of this?

Will not each reader prayerfully study the Tabernacle as a type of the heavenlies, and receive the lessons taught by it?

Let us now inquire what organization of the New Testament the kingdom of Israel typified.

The Origin of the Kingdom of Israel.

The kingdom of Israel had its primordial origin in two persons,--Abraham and his son. Abraham was made, by Covenant, the federal head of the whole Jewish nation, in the line of his only son Isaac, whom he, by faith, had offered in sacrifice to God. This was typical of the origin of the true Israel. Abraham, by Covenant, was constituted the spiritual father of all them that believe, having himself been justified by faith; and all these are received in the line of Christ, the antitype. True Christians are, one and all, the spiritual children of Abraham by faith in Christ: "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Only Abraham's seed who possessed his faith were made heirs of the promises of the Covenant made with him. Only those justified by faith can heir the promises of the Covenant of Redemption. Only those who received the outward mark of circumcision could be received as belonging to Abraham's natural family, or could heir any of the privileges or blessings promised: so circumcision made with hands was a type of the circumcision made without hands, by the Holy Spirit, upon the heart; and such as these alone are received as the true children of God. Thus was the spiritual family of Abraham constituted. Though God had covenanted with him to make of him a great nation, yet it was more than four hundred years before his children were organized into a visible nation, which act took place at Mount Sinai, by a written constitution; yet they were nevertheless Israelites according to the flesh. The Father, when the Covenant of Redemption was entered into, promised his Son a numerous seed, yet for more than four thousand years there was no visible church, or kingdom, constituted; yet all who, looking through the types, received Christ by faith as their sacrifice for sin, were justified, and were acknowledged as the children of God, and true Israelites indeed.

The descendants of Abraham, redeemed from the bondage of Egypt, gathered around Mount Sinai, were there organized, under a divine constitution, as a nation; and thus Israel became unto God as a first-born son, the first nation God ever adopted and took into covenant with himself. The relation was near and tender, as that of father to son; indeed, more tender and intimate, even as that of husband to wife. Israel was to be separate from all other nations, and not to be reckoned among them, and was to be unto God a "peculiar

people." They were to dwell alone, and not to mix with the nations by intermarriage; nor were they in anywise to affiliate with their religions. God was their husband, and they were to serve him alone. To unite with alien nations in their customs and worship was considered by God as the sin of fornication and adultery. It is important for this to be clearly understood by the Bible student, else there is much of what is said of Israel the reader will not understand.

Now, as the antitype of this nation, Paul calls Christians the "church of first-born ones." Christ says of them: " Ye are not of the world: I have chosen you out of the world." " Be ye separate from the world." "Be not conformed to the world." They are to be unto him "a peculiar people, a royal priesthood;" not to be reckoned among the nations. i. e., organizations which God did not call out, but. man originated and called "churches" after the name which Christ gave his people. If the type was designed to teach us any thing, it is that with such "nations"—human churches—the churches of Christ must not affiliate, nor in any way recognize or approve, by participating in their religious worship, rites or ceremonies. To do so is to commit ecclesiastical adultery and fornication, which was so severely censured in the Jews; and which Christ, in his last revelation, so severely censured in his churches. These false churches are designated "women,"—impure women. It is said of those whom John saw standing with the Son on Mount Zion: "These are they which were not defiled with women." This is worthy of the gravest consideration by the professed followers of Christ in this age. The passage certainly means something; and those who affiliate with human religious societies admittedly originated and set up by men, and, by their acts, recognize them as churches of Christ, should be well assured what this passage means, if they hope to stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion.

There is another feature in the constitution of the kingdom of Israel that strikes me as peculiarly typical of Christ's kingdom: It was composed of a plurality of distinct and independent tribes, organized under one and the self-same constitution, upon the basis of perfect equality. They were purely executive governments. Jehovah alone being the lawgiver and divine head of the nation, no tribe was authorized to make or to repeal a law. Each of these tribes might increase indefinitely, and yet it would in no way interfere with the increase or prosperity of another, though its nearest neighbor. And it took all of these twelve tribes to constitute the one kingdom of Israel. So the kingdom of Christ is composed of a plurality of distinct and independent churches, organized under one divine constitution, upon the basis of perfect equality; and these churches, like the twelve tribes, are purely executive governments, Christ being their only lawgiver and "head over all things" to them, they having no authority to make or repeal the least law. And, like the tribes, not being antagonistic, they can increase so as to entirely occupy and fill the territory assigned to them without absorbing or destroying the existence of a sister church.

And it requires the aggregate of all the visible churches of Christ to constitute his visible kingdom on earth. These twelve tribes had not only the same laws, but the same religion, or faith, the same rites and ordinances, and were not antagonistic to each other; and this is equally true of their anti-types, the true churches of Christ. For a long series of years, while they were possessing the land, they were a kingdom without a visible king; nor was the work completed until David was raised up, who avenged the wrongs done his people, and took by conquest the hill Zion, where he established the throne of his kingdom, and compelled the nations around to bow to his scepter: and after him, Solomon, as "king of peace," reigned, with no one questioning his authority, but all kings and princes laying willing tribute at his feet. So the kingdom of Christ, for many centuries, has existed without a visible king, gradually permeating the nations with its principles, and possessing the earth; but the conquest will not be complete until the antitypical David shall appear as its visible king, who shall avenge all its wrongs and vindicate all its honor, and subdue all

nations unto his authority, and, as Solomon, then establish a reign of peace over all the earth. It often requires two types to foreshadow one antitype, as the two goats, the one for a sin-offering, and the other as a sin-bearer, to make a type of Christ; so it required both David, the warrior, and Solomon, the peaceful, to type the Messiah in his twofold character, as the conqueror of all nations, and as reigning on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, before his ancients gloriously.

In confirmation of the purely typical character of the Jewish nation, and that the church of Christ is its antitype, I refer to the plain teachings of Paul in Heb. 12:18-29. I am aware that this passage is claimed by many to refer exclusively to an invisible church as opposed to the State of Israel, or the " church in the wilderness," but the design of the apostle most evidently is to contrast the superior advantages of the visible church of Christ under the Gospel, as the antitype, over its type or shadow--the congregation of Israel under the law. A critical examination will demonstrate thin position to be true. Let us read verses 18-23: "For ye are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (for they could not so much as endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) but ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirit of just men made perfect."

This evidently referred to the literal, visible Mount Sinai, around which Israel was encamped, and with its fiery terrors represented the law, and the legal state under which those worshipers were.

In opposition to this is the divine institution under the Gospel Dispensation.

1. "But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." "Mount Sion," "city of God," "heavenly Jerusalem,"-- these phrases denote the church of the New Testament, say A. Clark and Schoetgen, and all the best critics. It evidently can not mean an invisible church in heaven, if there was one there, for it was something here to which the living Hebrews had already come --" ye are come; " nor yet an invisible church of living Christians on the earth, for such an institution does not exist. The very terms used to denote such a thing or idea are contradictions, for church, i. e., congregation, assembly, etc., must be a collected body, and therefore visible. And then Christians of this age could no more be said to have come to it than Christians of other ages. The theory is that all Christians of all ages equally belonged to it. Then it can not be conceived that there is need of any "mediator" or " blood of sprinkling" in the "invisible church," which, to say the most of it, is only a mere conception of the imagination.

2. "To an innumerable company of angels." These are associated with the saints here, "for they are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation." Each member of Christ's church has one or more ministering angels to guard and guide and influence him. By these the children of God are protected against danger, disease and death, until their time comes, and above all against the myriads of malignant spirits that fill the air. Of each child it can be truly said, "He giveth his angels charge concerning him; and in their hands they bear him up, lest at any time he should dash his foot against a stone." It is recorded that the angels of the Lord encamp around the just, that no harm may come near his dwelling. Their number must be uncounted. Eminent critics

read this, "Ye are come to the general assembly of innumerable angels;" and Adam Clark says this is probably the true connection.

3. Ye are come "to the church of the first-born " (prototokoon), genitive plural," firstborn ones." Each member of the church of Christ, by regeneration, is equally a first-born son or daughter,--a king and priest unto God; and of only such can a scriptural church be composed; and these are written, enrolled or registered in heaven, where they were born: for the members of this church must be all born from above (John iii. 3);' and their citizenship is in heaven, and there they are registered, their names being written in the Lamb's book of life. It can not be denied that the visible church of Christ is the antitype of the old typical church, or congregation, in the wilderness.

4. "And to God, the Judge of all." The Judge of all is Christ, who is very God. Every real member of the New Testament church has been before the Judge, tried, convicted, sentenced, and pardoned. They rejoice in being pardoned sinners; and, if really so, they must have had their trial, been convicted, and pardoned by the Judge of all. There can, therefore, be no future judgment awaiting them. " There is, therefore, now no future judgment to those who are in Christ Jesus," says Paul in Rom. viii. t. "He that believeth on the Son is not judged" any more, says Christ.

5. "And to the spirits of just men made perfect." This means a church of perfectly justified persons, in opposition to the congregation in the wilderness, who were not made perfect; for the blood of bulls and of goats could not make any one perfect: but the blood of Christ perfectly justifies all who come unto God by it.

6. And ye are come "to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel." If the shadow of a doubt still rests on any mind, this verse must dissipate it forever. The Israelites under the law were shut up unto Aaron, a human mediator, the mere shadow and type of Christ, the real and only true one, whose intercessions are availing, and his blood is better than that which Abel or Aaron could offer. "The blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin," and forever puts away sin by one offering of it, and, therefore, it needed to be offered or applied to the conscience but once, and there was no provision for it to be applied in any case but once, because no possible necessity for it, because its saving efficacy could never be lost; and, therefore, says Paul, if it could be,--if one could fall from this grace; there could be no repentance or recovery, for there is no more offering for sin--there can never be a fresh application of the blood of Jesus. For one to say that the one application of this blood does not forever perfect those who are sanctified by it,--to say that it is possible to lose its efficacy, is virtually to say that the blood of Jesus is no better than that of a bull or a goat, for that could be reapplied, while the blood of Jesus could not be, and his blood could do no more than that of a beast, i. e., could not forever put away sin. Paul caps and crowns all these striking antitheses with this conclusive one: "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."--Heb. 12:28.

That old Jewish kingdom was an impermanent one; and it has been shaken, and forever removed, and the church and kingdom of Christ has taken its place. It is a kingdom that we have already received; and it was set up never to be broken in pieces, or given to another people, but to stand forever. It was built up and established by Christ himself; and he pledged his power and veracity that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. Israel will be incorporated into this kingdom, but only so many as believe on Christ.

Thus have I conclusively shown, that, so far from Israel, under the law, being identical with the church under the gospel, it was only the type or shadow of it.

Then there is the last and striking antithesis: Not a nation that ever lifted its hand to oppose or to oppress the Jews escaped the fierce judgments of God: he "utterly wasted and destroyed them" as nations with an "everlasting destruction," that continues until this day, and will continue to the end of this age. They are not enjoying the blessings of this Dispensation, nor walking in the light of this gospel day; while the innocent nations have enjoyed it, and been saved. So Christ, at his Second Coming, "with all his saints," will judge the nations, and avenge the blood of his saints upon all those which have oppressed them.

These will be the "goat" nations, that will be consigned to punishment; while the "sheep" or innocent nations will be blessed, and saved from national judgments, and pass, unbroken, into the next and most glorious Dispensation.

Let the reader run over the history of the nation during the afternoon of this Dispensation, and mark the sun's gradual decline for the one thousand and seventy-five years following, until it set in the deep darkness of the shadow of death, over the ruins of temple, altar, city, and the mighty nation itself. Only here and there a star shone out of the heavy gloom. Elizabeth and Zacharias walked in all the statutes of the Lord blameless, and remembered the Covenant made with Abraham, and the "sure mercies of David." Here and there a Simeon and Anna who remembered the Covenant, and waited for the consolation of Israel; "darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people."

THURSDAY NIGHT, ANNO MUNDI 4004.

Graves’ Eschatology

by J. R. Graves, 1883 A.D., in: THE WORK OF CHRIST IN THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION; DEVELOPED IN SEVEN DISPENSATIONS. An excerption out of Part III, Eschatology, Covering the Period from the Birth of Christ until the Final Consummation. Christ ’s Redemptive Work Finished and GOD “All in All” as it was in the Beginning. Earth the Home and Heaven of the Redeemed -- chps. 1, 2, 3, 7, 9-12.

“I claim that liberty which I willingly yield to others – in subjects of difficulty to put forward as true such things as appear to be profitable, until proved to be manifestly false.”--- Hervey

INTRODUCTION. [In entering, as we now are about to do, upon the study of the prophecies of Christ fulfilled and unfulfilled we give our readers the eloquent remarks of Dr. Bonar, of Scotland, upon the importance and duty of prophetic study. Unless his words succeed in interesting our brethren in “ the things about to come to pass,” the preparation of these chapters will be all in vain.]

The Importance of Prophetic Study—What is Prophecy? Its Use?—The Duty of Every Christian to Study the Prophetic Writings.

MAN’S thoughts about the future and the unseen are of little worth.

They are, at best, but dreams--no more than the blind guesses of fancy.

They approach no nearer to the truth than do a child’s conjectures regarding the history of some distant star, or as to the peopling of space beyond the outskirts of the visible creation.

But the thoughts of God respecting the future are precious beyond measure. They are truth and certainty, whether they touch upon the far-off

or the near, the likely or the unlikely. They are disfigured with no miscalculations; for they are the thoughts of the great Designer regarding his own handiwork. Of however little moment it may be for us to know what man thinks about the future, it is of vast moment for us to know what GOD thinks of it. However few these revealed thoughts of God may be, yet they ought to be estimated by us as above all price. They are the thoughts of an infinite mind; and they are the thoughts of that mind upon a subject utterly inaccessible to us, yet entirely familiar to Him who sees the end from the beginning, and whose wisdom has pre-arranged the whole.

These thoughts of God about the future are what we call prophecy; and, in studying prophecy, we are studying the thoughts of God--the purposes of his heart. Of these his secrets, he is not unwilling that we should be partakers; nay, he has spread them out before us--he has recorded them for our use; and deep must be the guilt, as well as incalculable the loss, of those who turn aside from such a study; who will listen with some interest, perhaps, to man’s ideas of what is coming to pass upon the earth, but never think of inquiring what is the mind of God. With what breathless interest will a company sometimes gather round a sagacious observer of the times, who has seen much, and noted much, of what is passing in the various circles--outer and inner--of this ever-moving world! How eagerly will they catch up and repeat his opinions as to coming events, though all is conjecture and uncertainty! But let a hint be cast in favor of what God has spoken--how coldly it is received! As if human uncertainties were better than divine certainties; the guesses and dreams of man more worthy of being listened to than the sure revelations of God. When the prophet is man, all men listen: when the prophet is God, they turn heedlessly away.

Yet that future, with all its vastness of interest and of moment, is man’s future, we may say, more than God’s. It is a future in which all human destinies are wrapt up; and to discover what that future is to be, is worth the most profound and painful inquiry. If that future is to be my future, and not a future of shadows, but of realities, how deeply does it concern me to know whether these are to be the realities of an endless night, or the realities of an everlasting day! It is not enough that my own individual lot for eternity be made sure, so that, in believing the record which God has given to his Son, I know that I shall never die. I can not help looking around me upon this miserable world, and asking, what is its future history--its final destiny? Is it light, or is it darkness? Is it but a prolongation of its present wretchedness and sin, or is it a restoration to blessed. ness and glory?

Should it not, then, be with deepest and most thankful joy that we learn that God has drawn aside a slight fold in the curtain, and given us a glance into the long vista of events on which we and our world are so soon to enter? Should not every thing that God has revealed concerning our future be welcomed,

both for its interest and its certainty? Should it not be studied and searched, that we may stand and survey that future, somewhat at least, in the position and from the point in which God surveys it, and may in some measure be enabled to enter into his mind respecting it?

For we are not one, but many; or rather, I should say, we are not many, but one. We are members of one household, and our household interests should not be absorbed in our individual ones. We belong to one world; we are the tenants of one star; and our inquiry should not be merely, how shall I escape from the calamities of which all its inhabitants are the heirs, and wing my way to some brighter orb, on which darkness and the curse have never alighted? but, what is to be the destiny of this my native planet, and of that race which has peopled it for six thousand years?

All creation lies in ruins. The garden of the Lord has become a wilderness; and that which rose up into beauty under the blessing of Jehovah is now withering away beneath its curse. Its falling leaves, its dying flowers, its clouded skies, its stormy deep, its swollen rivers, its crumbling rocks--all tell us this. These are its weeds of mourning; these are the groans of its travail and bondage. But what is to be the issue of all this blight and change and death? God alone can inform us; and he has done so in his prophetic Word. The destiny of the earth is written there; and he calls on us to read what he has written concerning it.

The whole world lieth in wickedness. Righteousness has fled, and, with righteousness, all peace and order. Kingdoms rise and sink, like the rising and sinking surges of the ocean. There is no stability, no compactness, no coherence, either in themselves or with each other. Misrule, tumult and change are rocking them to and fro; the reins of government lie broken upon the necks of a hundred nations, either overstrained by the ruler, or wantonly cut asunder by the ruled. “The nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing.” How is this to end? Prophecy alone reveals the consummation. Let us gladly welcome so sure a light in this “dark place.”

The church is faithless and feeble, with much of earth--little of heaven about her to declare her high parentage and destiny. Few in numbers, with persecution as her portion, and sorrow as her heritage below, she passes the time of her sojourning here in fear, breathing an atmosphere altogether uncongenial; a lily among thorns; an Israelite in Babylon, hanging her harp upon the willows. Who shall tell what is to be the end of all this? Who shall foretell the issue of her pilgrimage, and the recompense of her sore oppression? The Lord himself has done it; he has forespoken the things concerning her in the latter day, and she is invited to contemplate these “glorious things.”

Israel is an exile, scattered and bleeding, without a city, a temple, a home. She traverses the plains of the earth, or dwells in its cities; yet still an

outcast, for whom no man careth, with whom no man will share his honor or his influence, and to whom, in death, no man will build a monument. Her land is a desolation; her vineyards are trodden down; her cities are a ruinous heap. Is it always thus to be? Is there to be no restoration--no rebuilding for her? Has not God recorded “thoughts of peace” for her in the appointed time? Let us search and see: prophecy alone can tell us.

Antichrist gathers strength. Like a specter from the abyss, he rises, overshadowing the earth, and going forth to write his name upon the forehead and the hand of his myriad worshipers. “Even now are there many antichrists,” each of them like a demon from the pit: all of them banded together against the saints of the Most High. What is to be the career, and what the end, of these hosts of darkness, especially of their great head and captain. God has revealed the things concerning him, lest the hearts of his saints should fail. The same word of prophecy makes known his doom--swift and speedy, as his exaltation. It is our wisdom to inquire what has been written concerning him. How shall the church know her great adversary, and prepare for his onset, if she does not set herself to study the prophetic picture in which God is holding him up to her gaze?

We hear much of the difference between things essential and things non-essential, but who will undertake to draw the dividing line? or who will venture to affirm that the prophetic portions of the Word are its nonessentials? Do not such truths as the Advent, the Resurrection, the Judgment, form some of the chief scenes of the prophecy? and are these non-essentials? Strange, truly strange, that man should make such a division of the Word of God. Stranger still that he should make it for the purpose of excusing himself for the neglect of so large and precious a portion of revelation. Is not the fact of its being revealed enough to show us that God thought it essential? or if not essential absolutely and with reference to salvation, at least essential relatively and as pertaining to holiness? If a man will persist in calling it non-essential, surely he will not irreverently pronounce it unimportant! And if he admits it to be important, then surely all further argument is at end; it must be studied; we dare not overlook or postpone the duty.

Never did we more require such a light to guide our uncertain steps, and to strengthen our wavering faith, broken down with overflowing iniquity, sick and weary with the long disappointment of hope deferred. Never did futurity wear so wild an aspect--never did God’s ways seem so strange and intricate-never were the church’s prospects more perilous and perplexed, or “the world’s turns so slippery” as now. Above all, never was there a time when events developed themselves with such rapidity. This seems especially one of the characteristics of the last days. As the world moves onward, it appears to accelerate its speed, and precipitate itself with headlong recklessness and feverish haste. Events, alike the evil and the good, though especially the

former, seem to ripen before their season, as if Satan were in haste to carry through his devices, knowing that now he hath but a short time. The crisis comes ere we are well aware of the commencement. Speed, whirlwind speed, is the order of the day. All things are now conducted upon a larger scale, and cast in a more commanding mold. There is less of the commonplace, and more of the startling ; less of the gradual movement, and more of the sudden shock and convulsion in the events of the age; an age which is destined, we believe, to concentrate in its history more of the terrible and the calamitous than has ever heretofore witnessed, or shall be witnessed hereafter.

What are our prospects? Some would paint them bright, others gloomy.

All, indeed, are full of expectation as to the glory that is yet to brighten over the earth--the peace that is yet to gladden it. But as to what that glory is, how it is to be introduced, and how present events are making way for its arrival, men are divided. The fond idolaters of science and reason are hailing the day of triumph, as if its day were already brightening in the east-as if, in the march of intellect, every one might discern the progress of righteousness and truth. Some in the church, not so unscriptural in their optimism, nor trusting so vainly to human intellect, see the gospel gradually leaving the world, and all things advancing onward resistlessly to their glorious issue. There are others, however, who see the shadows gathering deeper and broader every-where, and darkness denser than Egypt settling down upon Christendom; and who look for no triumph till there has been a time of trouble such as never was nor shall be.

Which of these opinions is right, prophecy alone can inform us. This is our only guide; it is our watch-tower, into which we must betake ourselves in order, on the one hand, to note the troubled scenes that are passing below, and on the other hand, to watch for every token of the ascending dawn. On the early morn of jubilee men were stationed on the eastern hills about Jerusalem to catch the first gleam of sunshine silvering the cloud or the mountain-top afar off, that they might announce it to the priests waiting in the temple with their silver trumpets to proclaim it to the expecting city, from which the tidings, caught up by the watchmen of the surrounding hills, were echoed from mountain to mountain, till all Judea hailed the welcome note. So we are to take our stand on our prophetic watch-tower, that we may catch the earliest glimpse of approaching glory, and proclaim it over earth as glad tidings of great joy to a groaning creation and a sorrowing church. Woe be to us if we keep the world in ignorance of what is coming, so that when the day arrives, it may turn round on us in reproach, and say: “We never heard of all this; they who professed to know it kept silence; no utterance of warning from their lips ever reached our ears.�

Viewing the subject even thus generally, we not only find strong reasons urging us to the study of prophecy, but we see also how profitable and how

practical that study is. There are many circumstances, however, at present, fitted to call our keenest attention to its predicted scenes, and to invest them with a profounder interest. When the heavens are gathering blackness, and the night is deepening its gloom; when the earth is laboring and convulsed, reeling to and fro like a drunkard, and every thing is out of course; when infidelity, like some universal solvent, is dismembering and leveling the national and social systems; when every thing seems starting from its longrooted base, as if gravitation itself had given way; when the church is sore pressed and straightened, seeing traitors admitted within its camp, and the enemy’s ranks augmented by desertions from its own; when Popery, Infidelity and Liberalism, firm leagued together in well-pleased confederacy, are maddening against her with infuriated zeal; when the kings of the earth and the governments of the people are taking counsel against the Lord and his Anointed--how intense the interest which the church ought to feel in the “sure word of prophecy”! how earnestly ought she to take heed to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the Day-star arise!

Most Christians, we fear, content themselves with very vague and general views of prophecy. They have caught up some of the prominent statements of Scripture regarding the future, such as that there will be a millennium, a resurrection, and a judgment-day; and with these, or very little more, they are satisfied--quite satisfied. Here they consider that their impecunious creed ought to terminate; they advance to no details; they shrink from all minuter investigation, condemning it as presumptuous, or, at least, refusing it as barren speculation.

With regard to such details of the future as we speak of, there are two sorts of inquiries--inquiries into what God has revealed, and inquiries into what God has not revealed. As to the latter, I would hand them over, freely and without scruple, to the unsparing condemnation of all who love the truth. With these the student of prophecy has no concern at all. But so long as our investigations relate to the former only, so long are we in the path of duty, from which it is at our peril if we step aside. Nay, the very example of these timid friends refutes their own arguments. They have gone a certain way along the same path; and all that we want is that they should go a little farther, but still only so far as the road lies open, and as God gives light. We would not have them move one step beyond that. They have fixed certain landmarks of prophecy; and all we desire is that they should gather up all the information that Scripture gives, in order to fill up the spaces between.

We know how sadly many are fettered with prejudices upon this subject, and haunted with the idea of the presumptuous nature of the study.

But surely the mere fact of prophecy forming a part of the Divine revelation is quite sufficient to satisfy us of the lawfulness, nay, the strict duty of studying it, not only in its general heads, but in its most minute particulars.

“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy of

this book,” are the words of encouragement; and though we had not another similar text in Scripture, that single one would be enough for us. I confess that not only do I not sympathize with, but I do not at all understand, the principle or reason of this prejudice; nor is it very, easy to trace it to any thing like a Scriptural or rational source. Surely no one can think of maintaining that the mere futurity of a thing renders it unprofitable, and stamps with the charge of rashness any attempt to investigate it minutely.

Yet this is the only conceivable meaning of the objection. And if so, how foolish--how sinful is it when calmly weighed! For the unlawfulness or unprofitableness of our inquiries into any subject consists not in the matter being either past, present or future, but simply in its not being revealed. It would be just as wise to bar all minute search into Scripture history on the ground of its being past, as it is to inhibit all minute inquiry into prophecy because it is future.

The fact of God having revealed so many particulars regarding the future settles the whole question as to the duty of every believer to examine these.

It is as plain as truth can be, that no investigation, however minute, can be called presumptuous, so long as it restricts itself to what is written; nay, the more minute, the more accurate it is likely to be, and therefore more accordant with the mind of the Spirit. The presumption is all the other way.

It is the presumption of closing the ear against the voice of God--the presumption of professing to decide how much of God’s Word may be studied with safety, and how much ought to be neglected as mysterious and unprofitable. Will the reader consider well these Scriptures?--Isa. xlv. 11; Mark xiii. 23; Luke xxiv. 25; Matt. xvi. 3; Matt. xxiv. 25; Peter i. 19; iii. 17; Rev. i. 3; xix 10; xxii. 7, 10.

CHAPTER I ~ FRIDAY MORNING OF THE WORLD’S WEEK. The Incarnation of the Second Person in the Trinity as the Son of God, fulfilling the exact Predictions of the Prophets ages before the Event--Demonstrative Evidence of the Authenticity of the Scriptures--Christ came to Earth to set up a Kingdom--The Kingdom set up in the Days of John the Baptist, and both He and Christ in the Kingdom.

THE Anthem of the Angels, which broke upon the deep darkness of the moral night, which had settled down upon the whole world, as Thursday’s sun sunk behind the dark cloud of a ritualized and perverted Christianity, announced the day-break of a brighter dispensation to be ushered in by the personal Advent and incarnation of the Second Person in the Godhead, as the Son of God. He came to fulfill the prophecies concerning himself, and to inaugurate a new era by setting up a new institution--a visible kingdom--on this earth, as prophets and holy men had predicted during the ages past.

As demonstrative proof of the authenticity of our Holy Scriptures it may not be amiss to refer to some of these here.

Moses, fourteen hundred and thirty-one years before the event, foretold that a Divine Prophet would be raised up unto Israel in coming ages, of which he was a type, and that he who heard not the voice of that Prophet would be cut off. (Deut. xviii. 18-19.) This Prophet was none other than the Son of God, and made by the oath of God a Priest forever, after the order of Melchisedec.

It was foretold by Isaiah seven hundred and fifty-eight years before the event, that he was to be born of a virgin: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel “--God with us.--Isa. vii. 14.

It was foretold by Micah seven hundred and ten years before, that this wonderful event would take place in the insignificant town of Bethlehem of Judea: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me who is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”--Mic. v. 2.

The very age of the world in which the Son of God, as the Messiah of Israel, was to appear, was pointed out by the holy men of old as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

The dying Jacob, in blessing Judah, sixteen hundred and eightynine years previously, said: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.”--Gen. xlix. 10.

The obvious meaning of this is, that Judah should retain the supremacy among the tribes, and should yield it to no other. History verifies this. Judah maintained its nationality despite the dismemberment of the kingdom, and the seventy years of captivity, and, at the coming of Messiah, still retained its national institutions and laws, soon after which they ceased forever; which should be convincing to every Jew and Gentile that the Messiah of Israel appeared shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem.

It was foretold by Daniel six hundred and three years before the event, that Messiah should appear in the days of the Roman empire -the kings of the fourth universal empire--and should himself set up a kingdom on earth. (See Dan, ii. 40, and onward.)

“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. . . . And in the days of these kings [i. e., of the fourth kingdom,] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”

The four kingdoms represented by this image as confessed by all commentators, were: 1. The Babylonian, under Nebuchadnezzar; 2.

The Medo-Persian, under Darius; 3. The Grecian, under Alexander; 4.

The Roman, under the Caesars. All these have forever passed away, never more to rise; and therefore, the period when Christ, the God of heaven, should set up his kingdom is passed; and, unless he did set

it up in the days of these kings “--the life-time of one of the Roman emperors--this prophecy is evidently false: for if it was not then fulfilled, it never can be fulfilled. The attempt of some modern theorists to make it refer to the kings of ten kingdoms symbolized by the ten toes, in order to place the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in some far, distant age, is groundless; for it must be evident to all that the toes, with the legs and feet of this image, have, with the Roman empire in all its parts, forever passed away. It is a conceded fact that this prophecy was understood by the Jews, and by the Romans themselves, as one that would be fulfilled in the days of the Caesars; and Virgil, in a beautiful Eclogue, manifestly based upon the prophecy of Isaiah, wrote as though it was to be fulfilled in the Consul Pollio.

“Now the virgin returns, now the kingdom of Saturn returns, now a new progeny is sent down from high heaven. By means of these, whatever reliques of our crimes remain shall be wiped away, and free the world from perpetual fears.

He shall govern the earth in peace with the virtues of his Father.”--Ecl. iv.

Daniel foretells the exact time when the promised Messiah should appear, and the time when he should be cut off, with all of which dates we must suppose the Jews of that age were perfectly familiar: “Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after three-score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city, and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.”--Dan. ix. 25-26.

So well satisfied was the Jewish nation that the time was at hand when the Messiah was to appear, that it was already upon the very tiptoe of expectancy when his herald, in the wilderness of Judea, announced his approach.

It was foretold that he was to be a lineal descendant of the royal family of David--who should reign as king on the throne of David: “And there shall come a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”--Isa. xi. 1.

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will rise up unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” --Jer. xxxiii.15.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders ; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”--Isa. ix. 6-7.

Instead of “Everlasting Father,” read “Father of the Everlasting Ages,” which better agrees with the original, for it is evident that he could not be both Son and Father at the same time, or any time, and no being could literally be an “Everlasting Father,” or an “Everlasting Son,” since the very terms involve a contradiction.

Now these things specifically prophesied of Christ, of which we must look for the fulfillment in connection with Jesus of Nazareth, before we are justified in claiming him as the promised Messiah and our Saviour: 1. That he was born of a virgin. This is established by the testimony of -2. That he was of the family of David. This is proved by his genealogy as given by Matthew.

3. He did set up a new religious organization, which he called the Kingdom of God--of heaven--his kingdom.

4. He honored the law of God in all its preceptive requirements by a sinless life.

5. He satisfied the violated law for his people by suffering its penal sanctions.

These two last prophecies concerning him all Christians freely and joyfully concede. The only question before us for discussion is, “Did Christ set up a religious organization which he called his kingdom, in the days of the Caesars?” If he did not, then we are warranted in rejecting him as the Messiah of Israel, and the Saviour of lost men.

Daniel had declared (ii. 44) that this fact would be accomplished in the days of the Roman Caesars, as we have already noticed, by the God of heaven himself, in person, and not by agencies, angelic or human. In the 44th verse it is stated that the God of heaven would set up a kingdom, which is explained in the 45th verse to be by his own sole and personal agency; “Thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands,” which certainly must mean that he did not do it through created agencies, but directly; and if so, the kingdom must have been set up during his personal ministry. But Christ himself declared that he would build his church, and, therefore, it must have been founded before his ascension.

Now, unless we can find an organization called the “kingdom of God and church of Christ,” set up during the three years of Christ’s ministry on this earth, and unlike any organization that had preceded it, we are compelled to discredit the declarations of the prophets as well as that of Christ himself. Those who deny that the institution we call church, and kingdom of Christ, was established by Christ himself while on this earth, though they may be his professed friends, are, practically, the enemies of Christ and Christianity.

Let us see what proofs there are of the establishment of a new religious institution during this period:

Luke tells us that the first proclamation of his kingdom was made in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, by a commissioned officer of the King named John the Baptist.

Mark tells us that this proclamation was the beginning of the Gospel Dispensation, and if so, John was a true Gospel minister. He was officially commissioned by Christ himself. In proof of this, Mark (i. 2) refers to Malachi (iii.

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”

No one will question that it is Christ who speaks here. Christ (Matt. xi. 10) acknowledges that John was his messenger, i. e., apostle, and he was therefore as truly a Christian minister and legal and valid officer of the government as any other commissioned officer subsequently appointed. His baptism, therefore, was in all respects equal to, and as valid as any other officer Christ subsequently commissioned, whatever may have been the design or the formula with which he baptized. He baptized in every respect as Christ commissioned him, and this divine commission made his acts valid, though he himself was unbaptized. We may as well set aside the baptisms of the seventy, or of the twelve apostles, as that of John ’s.

To do so would evidently be. to “reject the counsel of God against our own souls.” In John’s first address to the multitude he declared that the kingdom of heaven was “at hand,” literally, “has approached,” which means it was then and there present. There must have been a sense, therefore, in which this was true. It was there authoritatively.

John was a commissioned officer of the kingdom. He was officially charged with a message from its King. He was authorized to proclaim the terms on which pardon could be procured and citizenship secured in the kingdom, and demand submission to the coming King.

Christ, immediately after his baptism by John, made the same proclamation: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven has approached “--the verb is in the perfect tense. It was then present in the person of its king as a government. When he received the people prepared by John, the kingdom was present in all that was essential to constitute a kingdom, viz., a king, subjects, government, which implies laws and locality. These subjects, together with John, received Christ as their king as well as Saviour; and they professed a hearty acquiescence in his authority as king of this kingdom, which, they understood by the prophets, he was to set up at his coming. The day that Christ received the disciples of John, he certainly possessed the “Bride,” and therefore John could, in truth, say, as he did, when he saw his disciples following Jesus, “He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom.”

This term, like the “Lamb’s wife,” is but another name for his churn i; and I feel justified in saying that, at this exact point of time, in the first week of Christ’s ministry, he had a visible church, and that it was composed of all who had believed on him as the Christ, and had received him as their Saviour and King. John certainly was among this number, and was, therefore, in the kingdom, or church, of which he certainly was an officer.

I am here using church and kingdom as synonymous terms, and it is evident that this body of disciples John called the “bride,” is referred to as the “kingdom of God,” “of heaven,” “of Christ,” by all the evangelists; but so soon as like bodies of disciples were multiplied they were called churches of Christ, and no one of them “kingdom of God, or Christ.” The explanation of this is easy. The churches of Christ are the constituencies of his kingdom--each church being the unit or integral part of the kingdom--and all the churches under one divine constitution and the sole headship of Christ, constitute the outward visible form or manifestation of Christ’s kingdom on earth.

“Jesus Christ has a kingdom on earth and he has churches, but each one is an integral portion of his kingdom.” (A. P. Williams, D. D.) “The church is the visible earthly form of the kingdom of Christ, and is the divine organization appointed for its advancement and triumph. Organized and governed by the laws of the invisible King, and composed of the subjects of the heavenly kingdom, who, by the symbol of fealty, have publicly professed allegiance to him--the church [i. e., churches] fitly represent the kingdom. Hence the apostles, in receiving authority to establish, under divine inspiration, the form and order of the church, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Wherever they gathered disciples they organized a church, and at their death they left this [i. e., these] as the distinctive and only visible form of the kingdom of Christ on earth.” H. Harvey, D. D. “The Church,” pp. 24, 25.

To make this plain to the most common reader, let me illustrate: Provinces, not individuals, are the constituents or parts of a kingdom, and these are the executives of the kingdom. A kingdom may consist of only one province. So the kingdom of Christ--”of God,” “of heaven”-during the ministry of John and Christ, consisted of but one church, constituted of that body of baptized disciples which Christ received, from John, and those disciples which were added to them from time to time during Christ’s ministry. This stage of the kingdom was the blade of the mustard seed just appearing, but it was his ecclesiaassembly, church-as well as his kingdom. The accepted definition of a Christian church is, a body of Scripturally baptized disciples accepting Christ only as their Redeemer, his sole authority for their government, his teachings for their faith, and administering the ordinances as he delivered them.

It was quite sufficient to have found the church the day it was called into existence, but it is denied that it was ever assembled while Christ was on. earth. I think that several gatherings of this church are mentioned, directly or indirectly, by the evangelists:

The first full church meeting--a gathering together of his disciples into one place for general instruction--is recorded by Matthew (v. 1) “And seeing the multitude, he ascended a mountain, and having sat down, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying.”

These disciples were not the twelve apostles, nor yet the seventy merely, for they had not yet been chosen from the whole body, but the multitude of his disciples.

“The disciples, in the wider sense, including those of the apostles already called, and all who had, either for a longer or a shorter time, attached themselves to him as hearers. . . The discourse was spoken directly to the disciples,” etc.

(Alford, Corn. in loco.)

Here, then, was a real church meeting; a visible assembly of men, possessing certain qualifications called from the oklos (multitude) for a specific purpose, and this is the essential signification of ecclesia in Greek. We may add, an organized assembly, since they recognize the supreme authority of Christ over them. At this first general meeting of his disciples, which soon after he named his ecclesia-his assembly, church--he instructed them touching their individual Christian duties, and clearly indicated their mission as his assembly--church.

“Ye are the light of the world--a city set on a hill. Let your light so shine that men, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

This I consider Christ’s first great commission to his church, and by which he made it the great missionary agency for the Gospel enlightenment of the whole world; for it was of the whole world, he constituted his church to be the light.

Here was a church, of which Christ was the living present Head, and the source of all law and government; but as yet there were no commissioned officers, since the apostles, nor the seventy, were chosen for some time after this. (See Matt. ix. 9.)

The second general gathering together of his disciples into one place was by a special summons. Luke thus records it (vi. 12): “And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called [summoned] his disciples [the whole body of them] to him. And having chosen from them twelve, whom he called also apostles. . . And having come down with them, he stood on a plain, and a company of his disciples [not all in this instance] and a great multitude of people from all Judea, etc. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed are ye, poor ones; for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Those disciples at this time alone composed the kingdom of God, and it was indeed literally theirs, being entirely of them.

“After this (Luke x.) Christ appointed seventy others [officers], and sent them, two by two, before his face into every place whither he himself was about to come.”

It is not much to infer that after these two general meetings of the whole or main body of the disciples, and the appointment of officers, that his disciples would understand Christ should he call

them his assembly--church--and as constituting the kingdom which, as Messiah, he was to set up on this earth. This was soon formally announced: “And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this Rock--a stone--will I build my assembly--church--and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven,� etc. Matt. xvi. 18-19.

There was a kingdom and a church in existence at this time, but not as separate organizations; for the kingdom included the church and the church composed the kingdom.

Soon after this the Lawgiver delivers to his church the fundamental law for dealing with all personal offenses among the members, which has never been modified or abrogated; and the giving of this law, and the express mention of the body of his disciples as a church, puts it beyond all question that there was an organization at this time, since laws imply and necessitate organization.

The third general meeting of the brethren of his ecclesia was after his resurrection, where, at a place he appointed before his death, he met more than five hundred brethren at one time. (1 Cor. xv. 6.)

The number with Christ as witnesses of his ascension is not told, but it seems that one hundred and twenty, upon their return, held a church meeting in an upper room in Jerusalem, where they, by popular vote, elected Matthias to fill the place left vacant by the death of Judas.

The body of brethren which Christ had three times gathered into an assembly, and had designated as his church, and spoken of as his kingdom, the Holy Spirit expressly calls a church, after the ascension of Christ. We have not the slightest intimation that there was the least modification made in its organization, much less that a new and unheard of body was originated by the apostles. To that organized body of disciples which Christ left, the three thousand were added by baptism on the day of Pentecost; and it was to the church then existing that the saved were added daily for some time afterward.

(Acts ii. 47.) The closing days of this period were marked by great activity, since it entered with the zeal of a new convert upon the work assigned it by its risen Head. The Gospel was preached, converts baptized in large numbers, and the Lord’s supper observed, the doctrine of the apostles steadfastly adhered to, and brotherly love abounded. Let this be borne in mind, that before the days of Pentecost and the great revival that marked those days, a church was in existence, and that no church was organized during the days of Pentecost nor afterwards in the city of Jerusalem, and that the body of disciples gathered by Christ constituted his kingdom prior to his ascension.

CHAPTER II The Kingdom of Christ set up during his Public Ministry Exposition of Matt. xi. 12, Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence, etc. --Of Luke xvi. 16, All Men Press into the Kingdom of Heaven--Of Matt. xi. 11, The Least in the Kingdom of Heaven Greater than John--Of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom Come”--Objections Answered.

THESE passages at the head of this chapter, which I propose to explain, have been quite universally misinterpreted and misapplied by Protestant expositors, and their views generally adopted by Baptists.

Why the former should be the fact is easily understood when it is remembered that these passages clearly teach, if it is allowed that they teach any thing specifically, that the Kingdom of Heaven and the Church of Christ were primarily set up during the ministry of John the Baptist and Christ, and this directly militates the theory of Protestants, that the church was established in Eden, or, at least, in the family of Abraham, and that the old Jewish Theocracy was the real kingdom of Christ, and embraced the church. But why intelligent Baptists should accept this, and contend for the universal invisible church of the Protestants, is more than passing strange!

Let us carefully examine these passages, to ascertain their literal teachings, and be willing to accept them:

Matt. 11:11 “Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of woman there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

There are few passages that has called out a greater diversity of opinions, or wilder ones, than this and the verse following it. To the English reader they do present insuperable difficulties.

The plain statement is that no one born of woman was greater than John the Baptist. It does not say a greater prophet, as some interpret it, and if it did, it is not in any sense true, for John was not a prophet--he was “more than a prophet.” The burden of the prophet’s messages was the events that were to come to pass in the future, but John was sent to announce and make manifest the King of his people. John was a preacher of righteousness, and the first apostle of the Christian Dispensation, and his preaching and ministry were the beginning of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ.

But Christ, John’s Master and King, was born of a woman, and can we believe that he intended to say that John was, in any respect, greater than himself? Certainly not. So far, the way is clear. But one exception is made, an exception of either one individual or one class of persons: “Yet he that is least in the kingdom is greater than he.” To whom can this refer if we accept this translation? Christ was by no means “the least” in the kingdom of heaven, but the greatest, being King over all. Nor can we believe that he intended to say that the least

saint or infant that was then in Paradise was greater than John; for it could not have been the truth. Nor, that the youngest child or most ignorant publican or harlot then in the kingdom, or who would hereafter be in the kingdom, was greater than John; for this was not, and could never be, in any sense, the fact. How, then, must the declaration be understood? We must evidently refer to the original.

The term, mikros, is here translated as an adjective in the superlative degree, though it has not this form in the Greek, but the comparative, and, if used as an adjective here, should be translated “ less; “ but this does not, in the least, remove the difficulty. To render it “least” the translators are compelled to translate the comparative degree as a superlative, and nothing is thereby gained. If it can be claimed that one degree of comparison is used for another in this place, why not as well, and far better, claim that mikros is used adverbially, qualifying “is,” and not any person or class of persons, and the more so, when the sense positively demands this construction? Admit its adjective form, but give it an adverbial signification, and it will then read: “Notwithstanding he that is later in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

The Herald preceded the king. Christ was manifest to Israel later in point of time than John; therefore, I understand him to say, that while John was greater than any man who had preceded him, nevertheless, he himself was greater than John. John, speaking of Christ, said: “He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.”--Matt. 3:11.

“There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.” -Mark 1:7.

This is he of whom I said: “He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.”--John i. 15.

“Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom ; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice; this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all.”--John iii. 28-31.

This translation of mikros makes Christ speak the truth, and also makes the statements of John coincide with those, of Christ. If mikros were nowhere else in the whole range of Greek literature used adverbially, it evidently is here. The facts compel us to so read it.

Both John and Christ were therefore in the kingdom.

“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”-- Matt. 11:12.

By some, the phrase “kingdom of heaven” here is explained to mean “heaven above”-- ultimate glory; and the phrases “suffereth violence” and “take by force” to mean violent exertions, etc. Some interpret the passage to teach that, for a Christian to pass through

this world, overcome all obstacles, and reach the climes of “everlasting deliverance,” requires the most violent efforts of vigilance, persistent fightings, etc. This may be true in fact, but not taught by the passage. Why should Christ say that it has been so difficult to get to heaven “from the days of John the Baptist,” implying that it has only been difficult since his day? What was there in his preaching that obstructed the way to heaven? This interpretation is hardly admissible.

Other expositors, and perhaps most public teachers, explain that the “kingdom of heaven” here means “the grace of salvation,” and “suffereth violence” means “ the seeking of religion” by the sinner; and “taking it by force” alludes to the violent exertions of spirit, soul and body, on the part of the sinner, in “getting religion,” as the operation is called by Arminians. Then the passage would teach that “from the days of John the Baptist until now,” it has been a most difficult affair to get religion, requiring such efforts of soul and spirit as often to throw the body into the most violent contortions, convulsions, spasms and protracted comatose state. But why so difficult, and why all this bodily effort required since the days of John the Baptist, and not before? Have not sin and Satan, the human heart and the demands of God been the same in all ages? If the introduction of the Gospel Dispensation (which is a day of increased light, giving us the meridian sunlight for the reflected light of moon and stars, the substance instead of the types and shadows) has made it more difficult, then has it not been a blessing, but a curse to the race.

This interpretation can not, with any show of reason, be countenanced.

What, then, does it mean? I offer the following as agreeing in all points with the other teachings of God’s Word: By the phrase “kingdom of heaven” here, I understand that visible institution which Christ came to set up on this earth; and the phrase “suffereth violence” means to do violence to, to outrage, to treat in a ruthless and violent manner. The Greek writers use biazomai in no other sense; e. g., “biazesthai ten gunaikan, to force a woman.” (Al. Pl. 1092, and al.) It never means to treat kindly, or to press toward or into in a friendly manner. By the phrase “take it by force” I understand “to destroy, make havoc of.” The verb harpazoo primarily means to “tear, snatch, ravish away;” secondarily, “to seize and overpower, overmaster.” I translate the whole passage: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the visible kingdom of Christ has been violently assailed, and its enemies have sought to destroy or overpower it.”

This passage, properly translated, determines three facts: 1.

That Christ’s visible kingdom was at that time--in the first year of his ministry--in existence; and 2. That it was most violently opposed and

sought to be destroyed by its enemies; and 3. That this kingdom has been continuously in existence “from the days of John the Baptist until” this day. This passage is conclusive proof that the kingdom of Christ has been in existence from John’s day until this, since it could not have been constantly assailed unless it has continuously existed.

If it is asked, “Why was not the ‘kingdom of heaven’ and church of Christ assaulted before the days of John the Baptist?” I answer, For the best of reasons: neither existed before, and therefore the theory that they existed in the days of Abraham or Moses is false, as is the modern theory of those who teach that they did not exist before the days of Pentecost, and were then set up, not by Christ, but by men after his ascension.

A kindred passage to the above with equal force sustains my position, and is obscured by our versions : “The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.”

Luke 16:17.

If it is claimed that “kingdom of God” here means “the grace of God,” or “the gospel of salvation,” why should Christ declare, by implication, that it has been preached only since the time of John the Baptist, when the gospel was preached to Abraham (Gal. iii. 8), and the grace of God was known to all the Old Testament saints as well as to us? Christ certainly meant the visible kingdom he had set up in their midst! “The kingdom of heaven” was not preached before the days of John the Baptist, because it did not exist before. Will any one, familiar with the manner in which John and Christ and the gospel they preached had been treated by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish nation, say that it was true that all men pressed forward in their eagerness to embrace the gospel, and to become the disciples of Christ? How, then, could an Evangelist say, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”? ( John 1.)--i, e., his own people, the Jews. Read the context in which this very passage stands, and mark the bitter opposition of the Pharisees that called it forth, and remember this sect embraced by far the larger portion of the better class of the Jews: “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things; and they derided him. “-- Luke xvi. 14.

They had charged him with casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Luke 11), and Christ declared that of that generation the blood of all the prophets that had been shed from the foundation of the world would be required; and the chapter closes his lament over Jerusalem, that had universally rejected his teachings.

But there is nothing in the Greek text to justify the translation, “press into it,”2 but the text is against such a rendering. The preposition eis (into) before an accusative preceded by a verb implying violence or hostile intent, should be translated “against.” Now, biadzoo, from the noun bia,-- force,-- always implies violence,-- hostile intent,- as to overpower, constrain, do violence to. I, therefore, translate the phrase, kai pas eis auteen biazetai, and every one assaults, or violently opposes it.

Translated thus, this passage is in accord with its context and all the other teachings of Christ. The blood of John the Baptist had been shed, and they were even now thirsting for Christ’s own blood.

After a public ministry of more than three years, notwithstanding all the mighty miracles he had performed, assisted as he was by eighty efficient missionaries, all endowed with the power to work miracles in his name, and their ministry confined to the narrow limits of Palestine,-smaller than one of the States of this Union,--his disciples amounted to but a few hundred. Not one of the cities or towns of Palestine, not even the village of Bethlehem, where he was born, “the least among thousands of Israel,” or that of Nazareth, where he was brought up, nor Capernaum, in which his mightiest works were done, was converted by all his preaching and his miracles; but, so far from pressing into his kingdom, they rejected him as an impostor, and even sought his life. The declaration of John, that “No man received his testimony” (John iii. 32), and of Christ, “strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. vii. 14), agree with the translation, “The kingdom of heaven is preached and every man is violently opposing it.” I, therefore, conclude that (1) the kingdom of Christ not only existed in the days of John the Baptist, but, (2) he was himself recognized

by Christ as a member of it.

Objections To This View Answered.

With respect to the time of the setting up of Christ’s kingdom, foretold by Daniel, there is a strange contrariety of views held upon 2

We submitted some years since our translations,--i. e., Matt. 11:12; Luke 16:14,--to Prof. J. R. Boise, D.D., LL.D., of Morgan Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, and this was his reply: “Your questions suggest a new, and, to my mind, more satisfactory interpretation of Matt. xi. 12. I think the clause may be rendered literally : the kingdom of heaven is treated with (hostile) violence, and violent persons are trying to ravage it ‘--harposonsin, used, de conatu. This meaning is certainly in keeping with the classic use of the words, and also with the verses following.”

Touching the passage in Luke 16:14, he says: “The ordinary use of the words does seem to me more naturally to denote the violence of hostile forces; that of the scribes and Pharisees, which resulted in the crucifixion of our Lord. Nor can I see that this interpretation is inconsistent with the context, particularly that which follows in Matthew. That eis with the accusative may mean “against,” is unquestionable. Kai pas eis auteen biazetai (Luke 16:16), may certainly, so far as the Greek is concerned, be rendered, ‘every one is violently opposing it.’ In this remark our Lord may have had in mind the rich and powerful, the leaders of society, and this thought may naturally have suggested the parable of the rich man, (Vs. 19-31.) This view of the verses in question is adopted by Lightfoot, Schneckenberger, and Hilgenfeld.”

this subject. 1. By Protestants generally, that Christ had a church and Kingdom from the days of Abel, or at least from Abraham until now. 2. By others--Campbellites universally--that the Christian Church and Kingdom were not set up until the Pentecost, since Christ taught his disciples, while he was with them, to pray, “Thy Kingdom come.” 3. By others --generally “Adventists”--that the Kingdom has never yet been set up, and will not be until Christ’s second Advent. 4.

Others regard the Kingdom of Christ as an invisible something--the spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts of his people. These antagonistic theories and the passages forced into their support I will briefly notice.

Had Christ a Church and Kingdom before his Advent, A. M. 4004?

I have, in Part II. of this work, shown that there was no Church organized in Eden, or by the Covenant of Circumcision in the family of Abraham. But to close all controversy on this point forever I submit this conclusive proof: This axiom will be admitted by all, that What is already in existence, God nor man can bring into existence.

All anti-Catholics will admit the force of this axiom against the doctrine of transubstantiation. Christ exists ; he can not therefore be brought into existence--be duplicated, much less multiplied a million of times. Daniel, interpreting the king’s dream, (Dan. ii. 42,) declared that “in the days of these kings [i. e., the Caesars] the God of heaven would set up a kingdom.” If Christ’s kingdom was then in existence, and had been since the days of Abraham or Adam, and was to continue to exist, the God of heaven could not bring it into existence.

Therefore, until “the days of these kings” the God of heaven--Christ-had no kingdom on this earth; and if no kingdom, then no church, since there can be no kingdom without one or more churches, as there can be no human kingdom without a province or provinces.

1. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Those who urge this objection manifestly do not comprehend the petition. This prayer was taught the disciples, who were at that time citizens of Christ’s kingdom, and none save the children of God by adoption can pray this prayer. It is to be addressed, not to Chris t, but to the Father ; and the petition is that His kingdom, not Christ’s, might come, and his will be done in this earth as it is in heaven.

This prayer has never yet been answered; but it will be, and then this earth will be a heaven--none but the sinless will inherit it. We are not to pray that this condition of things may take place in this Dispensation, nor in the next, for the Scriptures specifically inform us that it is not to be fulfilled until the seventh day of the World’s Week, earth’s great Sabbath, when “Christ’s redeeming work is done,” and a

new heaven and a new earth are created, in place of this, which the redeemed alone will inherit, and dwell therein forever. (See Ps. 37 and Rev. 22) It was for this glorious consummation of his Redemptive work, Christ taught his disciples then and now to pray, at which time he would give up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when all things will forever be as they were before sin entered the world, and the whole universe will be under one undivided reign. (1 Cor. xv. 24-29.)3 This, then, is a very comprehensive prayer, little suited to the understanding of children, if it were proper for them to use it; and certainly no unregenerated person can say, “Our Father,”--”Abba Father,”--Our Father who art in heaven. The reader can see that the petition does not teach that Christ’s kingdom had not then come, but it is a prayer for the earth to become a heaven, and be returned to its original condition in the government of the Godhead.

Let there be no misunderstanding of this point, i. e., that Christ had at this time “set up” his visible kingdom, called “the kingdom of God,” “of heaven,” “of God’s dear Son,” and that at this time, and during his ministry on earth, that body of disciples who received him as their Saviour and King, and which he called his Church--assembly-was the visible and outward form and manifestation of his kingdom. (See Drs. Harvey, Buck, Williams, et mul. al.)

2. The Spiritual Theory--”The Kingdom within us.”

There are those who hold and teach that the kingdom of God, spoken of in the New Testament, so far as it is on earth and in relation to us, is the reign of grace within us, and their main text is Christ’s declaration recorded by Luke xvii. 21: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; and neither shall they say, Lo, here ! or there! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.”

The difficulty arises from a wrong translation. Christ did not say the kingdom was within those wicked Pharisees, but as the Revision has it, “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

3

John Gill‘s Exposition of the Entire Bible has it this way: Thy kingdom come,…. The form of expression used by the ancient Jews, relating to this article, before the coming of Christ, doubtless was, as it now stands in their prayers, “the kingdom of thy Messiah come”. Christ alters the expression, leaves out the word “Messiah”, and puts it thus, “thy kingdom come”, to let them know that the Messiah was come; and that it was the kingdom of the Father, in the power of his grace, upon the souls of men, they must pray for and expect: however, he conformed to a rule of their’s in this, as well as in the former petition; that “every blessing, or prayer, in which there is no, ‘mention made of the name’, i.e. of God, is no prayer; and that every prayer, in which there is not, ‘the kingdom’, is no prayer.” In this petition the disciples were taught to pray for the success of the Gospel, both among Jews and Gentiles; for the conversion of God’s elect, in which the kingdom of God would greatly appear, to the destruction of the kingdom of Satan, and the abolition of the kingdom of the beast, in the latter day; which will usher in the kingdom, of the mediator, he will receive from his Father, and this will terminate in the kingdom of glory: in a word, not the kingdom of nature and providence is meant, which always was; but the kingdom of heaven, which was at hand, nay had taken place, though as yet was not very visible, and which is spiritual in the hearts of God’s people, Jews and Gentiles; and which will appear exceeding glorious in the latter day, and at last be swallowed up in the ultimate glory; all which must be very desirable by the sincere lovers of Jesus Christ. ~ John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible.

This rendering of entos, humoon, “among you,” is supported by the best critics.

“On this interpretation, the best commentators are agreed, and adduce examples of this use of entos.” (Bloomfield.)

“My kingdom is among you, not within you.” (Alford.)

¶And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: {with…: or, with outward shew} Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. {within you: or, among you}--[ Luke 17:20-21 KJB and the translators notes--Ed.] Just as consistently might Christ have said, “My church is within you;” for evidently the subject matter of that conversation was concerning his visible kingdom. The Pharisees had asked him when his kingdom would appear, which was the kingdom that both he and John had preached as “at hand”--i. e., then present; and he had replied to them that the kingdom of God comes not with observation, i. e., outward show, pomp or splendor; with such external appearances as to attract men’s attention or admiration. So silently had it been set up, and so unlike any kingdom of this world, that th e y c o u ld n ot c o m p r e h e n d it.

I regard this as an explicit declaration that his kingdom was then existing, and on this earth.

3. Another passage urged against the visibility of the kingdom is Christ’s declaration before Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world,” etc.

This expression can not be construed to mean that his kingdom was not in this world. He had said to his disciples before this: “Ye are not of this world, but I choose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”--John xv. 19.

It was in the same sense that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. In the form of its government, in the character of its citizens, in the purity of its principles, and in its aim and its mission it is wholly unlike, and infinitely above all human kingdoms. Yet it was upon the earth, and he required every disciple to enter it.

4. Another much used passage is: “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”--Rom. 14:17. (Revision.)

This evidently means nothing more than the peculiarities or characteristics of the kingdom--or churches--of Christ do not consist in observing distinctions in meats and drinks, etc., hence the injunction in Col. 2:16: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.”

But the end and aim of the kingdom of Christ are to promote righteousness, joy and peace in all its subjects upon earth. When the

last Napoleon accepted the crown of Empire he remarked, in the hearing of the representatives of the nations, “The Empire Is Peace.”

All understood that to maintain peace would be the end and aim of his government.

Haldane, that eminent expositor of Romans, says: “This imports that the service which belongs to the kingdom of God, and which he requires from all his subjects, does not consist in abstaining from, or in using any kind of meats. Men are peculiarly prone to cling to externals in religious worship. It is, then, of great importance to attend to this decision of the Holy Spirit by the Apostle Paul.

The distinction of meats has nothing to do in the service of God under the New Testament.”

The kingdom of God is characterized by righteousness, joy and peace ; and these are the aims and natural fruits of it.

5. Christ’s declaration to the Jews is used to support the theory that the old Jewish nation was the true kingdom of God and church of Christ visible.

“Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”--Matt. 21:43; 8:12.

It is claimed from this passage that the old Jewish theocratic government and the church and kingdom of Christ, are one and identical, and opposed to the idea of the recent setting up of the kingdom among the Jews, since the natural inference is that they had, for a long time, been in possession of it and had abused it. I am willing to grant the Jews had been, for ages, in possession of the typical kingdom of God, which was but the shadow and type of the real and true visible kingdom which Christ set up; and that they had misused and abused it, and their guilt was, therefore, as great as though they had so treated the real, and this typical kingdom was taken from them; but this is not the meaning of this passage. The real kingdom was given to the Jews--set up in their midst--and all its first citizens were composed of Jews. Christ came to his own, and his own, as a people, received him not; but they put his Messenger to death, abused his servants, and finally murdered the Son and Heir. It was to be taken away from them and given to the Gentiles. This same sentence was again pronounced, by Paul and Barnabas, against the Jews at Antioch: “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said: ‘It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.’”-- Acts 13:46.

Who can doubt that this has been literally fulfilled for eighteen hundred years past, and is fulfilling before our eyes to-day? God has sent upon them judicial blindness, “given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this day.” (Rom. 11:8.) If there is a Christian church in America, or the world, composed entirely of this people, I have not heard of it;

nor does the Holy Spirit move the hearts of Gentile Christians to pray for the Jews.[I can’t fathom this statement except as a kind of “overbroad generality.”]

6. THE WILD, GRAFTED INTO THE GOOD OLIVE TREE. Great use is also made of Paul’s olive tree illustration in support of the theory that Christ did not “set up” a new, but reformed an old church, which had been composed of Jews for thousands of years previous. We invite attention to the careful reading of the passage and its entire connection: “For if the casting away of them [the Jews] be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakers of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, the branches were broken off that I might he graffed in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standeth by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee. 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. And they also, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature, into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written: There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them, when I shall take away their sins.”--Rom. 11:1527.

The idea that Paul meant the old Jewish nation, without doubt the most wicked that existed on the whole face of the earth, was the real church of Christ and kingdom of God, was conceived for the express purpose of supporting infant baptism. By all these it is claimed that the “good olive tree” represented the Jewish church from the days of Abraham to John the Baptist; and that, by the ministry of Christ and his apostles, the old church was reformed, the unworthy members put away, and only worthy ones received, etc. Now, for the sake of argument let it be granted, to see if it lends the cause of infant baptism and church membership the semblance of support. Why were the branches broken off? Because of unbelief.

Then we learn that only those who exercised personal faith legitimately belonged to the old church--”the good olive tree;” for the reformation consisted in the breaking off all in unbelief. The new or reformed church consisted only of such as professed personal faith; for all who were grafted in stand by faith.

According to this exposition the churches of both the Old and the New Dispensation are churches of professed believers only; no infants were or can be taken in upon the faith of their parents or sponsors. Thus we see the very passage brought forward to sustain, most signally overthrows the whole theory of infant baptism!

But this is not the correct exposition of this passage. The good olive tree does not represent the literal family of Abraham, or the Jewish nation, because faith was

not an essential condition of membership in either the one or the other; nor has the Jewish nation been in existence for the past eighteen hundred years so that Gentiles could be grafted into it; nor is it true that the Gentiles are ever to be grafted into it. It can not, therefore, be said that the good olive tree represented the Christian church under the Old Dispensation; for in no sense did such a church exist. The first Christian church ever gathered was composed of believing Jews, and Jews only. The first gathering was the “root” of the whole tree--the “first fruit” of the lump. (See Lev. 23:16; Neh. 10:37.) Now, into this tree the Gentiles have been grafted by faith since the gospel was first preached in the house of Cornelius, while the unbelieving Jews have been rejected, and the kingdom taken from them.

Permit me to illustrate this by a simple diagram: J.D. represents the Jewish Dispensation. C.C. is where, at the preaching of John and Christ, the church and kingdom of Christ were set up. The first church was composed entirely of Jews, and the church and kingdom continued exclusively with the Jews seven years after the ascension of Christ, when Cornelius sent for Peter. D.J. marks the time when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews dispersed among all nations. The kingdom and church can then be said to have been taken from them and given unto the Gentiles. The “root of the good olive tree and the first fruit” were believing Jews only; and “the first fruits” of the Christian church were Jews only; and the tree with its branches, and the “lump”--the Jewish nation--is not unholy in God’s sight and forever cast away. It was because of unbelief the Jews were broken off, and it was by faith that we Gentiles have been grafted in; but the day is coming when the Jews will, by faith in Christ, again be grafted in and become a part of the kingdom, even the first dominion of the kingdom of God’s dear Son. The reader will see that these so oft quoted passages afford no evidence that the church and kingdom of Christ, and the Jewish Kingdom before Christ, were one and the same, but contrariwise.

From these Scriptures we learn several important facts, viz.: 1. That the blindness to gospel truth that characterizes the Jewish race since the apostolic days has not been accidental, but is a judicial punishment for their inexcusable rejection of Christ and the gospel, offered them by the apostles.

2. That this blindness is not universal, but only “in part.” Here and there a Jew is grafted in; but a real conversion is a rare occurrence ; and, while there are entire churches of almost all other nationalities, if there is a church of this people on earth I have never heard of it.

3. That this blindness is only for a season--”until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” This “fullness” means after the full number of Gentiles Christ designs to save in this Dispensation, or the full time appointed for the gospel to be preached unto the Gentiles before the Second Advent, or it may include both ideas ; but it does not mean until all the Gentiles, severally and individually, receive the gospel.

Christ explains it in Matt. 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come.”

4. We learn also, that, when the fullness of the Gentiles shall have been brought in through the preaching of the gospel, the Jews--all the Jews who survive the slaughter of the second conquest and sack of Jerusalem by the forces of Gog, King of the North--will embrace Christ and be saved; and, by faith, be grafted into the good olive tree--the true kingdom of Christ--with the multitudes of believing Gentiles, and thus, in Christ, constitute “one new man.”

5. Finally, we learn that, when the Jews thus universally receive Christ, and are saved, the influence of the event will be like awakening the whole Gentile world from the dead.

Says Haldane on this passage: “But if the casting away of the Jews was such a blessing to the world, their recall will be a blessing unspeakably greater. It will occasion a revival among the Gentile churches from a dead and almost lifeless state, which will resemble a resurrection. The numbers then converted will be as if all the dead had risen out of their graves. The Divine Dispensations being at that period so far developed, and the prophecies respecting the rejection and restoration of the Jews so fully accomplished, no doubt will any longer be entertained regarding the divine origin of the Holy Scriptures. A great additional light, too, will be thrown on those parts of them which at present are most obscure ; so that, in the providence of God, the result will be an unexampled blessing both to Jews and Gentiles.”

So far from its being understood by the apostles that the kingdom of Christ--or, as it is elsewhere called, the “kingdom of heaven,” “of God”-- was not to be set up on the earth until after the Second Advent, they understood themselves to be in possession of it, and members of it: “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”--Heb. xii. 28.

The expression “we receiving a kingdom” is equivalent to we having received a kingdom, as the context shows: Echomen charin--”let us hold fast the favor by means of which we may serve God acceptably,” etc. The receiving of the kingdom was the distinguishing favor which Paul exhorted the brethren to hold fast; and they certainly could not hold fast what they did not have in possession.

There are several passages used by Adventists, and those they have converted to their views, to prove that the kingdom has not yet been set up, and will not be until Christ returns to this earth.

Among these the following: And in the days of these kings will the God of heaven set up a kingdom,” etc.--Dan. ii. 44.

And the kingdom, and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting one, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” --Dan. vii. 27.

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.”--Mark ix. i.

With reference to the first passage they claim that “these kings” refer to the ten kings symbolized by the “ten toes” of the image. Let it be granted the legs and feet symbolized the Roman empire, it has confessedly passed away, never to reappear. An empire may, and, I believe, will appear, embracing all the territory of these four kingdoms, but it will no more be Roman than Persian,--it will be Russian. The kingdom must have been set up in the days of the Caesars, or this prophecy must remain forever unfulfilled.

The second passage refers to the kingdom in the Messianic Dispensation, when Christ and his saints will rule over all the earth.

These and other kindred passages refer not to another and different kingdom, but to a different and more glorious administration of his present kingdom.

The little stone which the king of Babylon saw cut out of the mountain without hands (Dan. ii.), continued until it became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. How unlike a little stone this earth-filling mountain!

And let the reader bear in mind that this self-same stone continued to exist and to increase all the time until it became a mountain. The Messianic Kingdom under the personal reign of Christ will not be, in any sense, “a little stone” or “a grain of mustard seed.”

Touching the last, Christ fulfilled the promise when he took Peter, James and John into a high mountain and in vision showed them the character and glory of his future kingdom. Peter understood that this promise was fulfilled to them in that vision. (2 Pet. 1:18.)

I conclude with this: If the kingdom was set up in the days of the Roman emperors,--during the ministry of John and Christ, as I have certainly demonstrated,--then it was not set up before nor since their day.

CHAPTER III (excerpt) the “Gospel Dispensation”

The special mission of Christ’s kingdom in this Dispensation.

It certainly was for a specific purpose. If I rightly apprehend it, it is:

1. To make a revelation to the world of its ruin by sin, and the great work of redemption undertaken by Christ for its recovery—that the provisions of this remedy were all-embracing—to be offered to every man of Adam’s fallen race. The organization of all the beneficiaries of this grace into distinct bodies was, that, as organized and co-operative forces, they might act the more efficiently and potentially in preaching the gospel to all nations, and by the proper administration of the ordinances, preserve pure the vital doctrines of Christianity. It should be borne in mind that, since the ordinances set forth in most forceful symbolism, all the saving truths of the gospel, so long as they are duly administered, the faith of the church will be preserved in its purity, but that a corruption of the saving doctrines follow immediately upon a perversion of the ordinances. Let these be perverted in their design, and the more extensive the missionary operations of the churches, the greater the injury resulting to both Christianity and the world. The first and most important work of the churches is to guard the purity of the ordinances, that a pure faith and a pure practice may be conserved.

This fact should rebuke those Baptists who now are carrying fagots to the feet of the faithful few who are witnessing for a pure faith and a pure practice, while they at the same time encourage missions!

2. It is not the mission of the churches of Christ, the only constituents of his kingdom, to convert all nations, as many teach, and especially upon the platforms of missionary conventions, to the manifest disparagement of Christianity and discouragement of all thinking Christians. There is nothing in the teachings or the effects of the preaching of Christ and his apostles to warrant the idea. How very little did Christ himself and his eighty-two official ministers, with the aid of manifold miracles, accomplish during his entire ministry! In his commission to his apostles he does not command them to preach to the nations until all were converted, and then the end should come, but to preach the gospel “for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come,” i. e., the end of this dispensation. If this be the mission of the “gospel of the kingdom,” then has it been a tremendous success; but if to convert the world, it has been a most signal and disheartening failure, and it is the part of honesty to confess it. It is questionable if there are as many real Christians in proportion to the population of the earth to-day as there were twelve hundred years ago, and the number is doubtless growing less, while mere nominal Christianity may be increasing. Christ never designed that all the world should be converted by the preaching of the gospel in this or the age to come.

He knew it would not be, and therefore he never made it the mission of his churches to accomplish it. But what he commanded the apostles was accomplished by them; for, before the death of the last one of them—even before the close of the Jewish Dispensation—the hope of the gospel had been preached in every nation of the known earth. (Col. 1:23.) It must be confessed that we are very nigh the end of this Age, since the Bible and the living minister have been sent to nearly every

nation of the habitable earth, and island of the sea, and thousands and tens of thousands in all lands are renouncing idolatry for the Cross. Yes, the gospel is accomplishing its glorious work, the mission of the kingdom in this Age is wellnigh completed, and his people may lift up their joyful eyes, since “the day of their redemption draweth nigh.”

If the world is to be converted by the learning of theological schools, the eloquence of modern pulpits, and the efforts of our boards of home and foreign missions, aided by Bible and tract societies, why should Christ ‘come in flames of fire, taking vengeance on a guilty world,’ striking through kings in the way of His wrath, ‘executing his vengeance in fury, and his judgments in flaming fire,’ visiting a scoffing world with judgments and distress such as they never heard of? This idea originated in the self-sufficiency and importance of the human heart; it is the popular doctrine of the schools and doctors of our modern divinity, and tickles and lulls to repose a guilty world. It will prove a failure, and the world will be made skeptical thereby, and reject it as false. Theirs is the dangerous theory; for they teach the world that the Gospel was designed to do this, and should it fail to accomplish it, as it will, universal unbelief will sweep over the land, or to the extent of the influence of their teaching. But the Gospel was not sent to convert the whole world, but only to be preached as a witness to all the nations until God should call out from among the Gentiles a people for His name. And this it will do, and not fail, while the subjection of a rebellious world and wicked nations to Christian rule and government will be effected by Christ Himself at His second advent. --[Graves in “Satan Dethroned”-Ed.]

A People Must Be Prepared.

Christ has a definite object to accomplish in the dispensation of his grace in this Age beyond the mere salvation of sinners. Before his first Advent he sent John, not to convert a whole nation or city, but to preach to all, and make ready a people prepared to receive him, and with whom he might form the nucleus of his church and kingdom. He is doing the self-same thing now, although on a far grander scale. The gospel is not confined to one nation and race of people as then, but is being published to every race, among all nations, and for the self-same purpose, not to convert all of any nation or city or village--and in the course of eighteen hundred and eighty years it has not converted a race or nation, a city or town, however small-but “to take out of them a people for his name.”(Acts 15:14-18) This people will be prepared to receive him, prepared and qualified by the instruction and discipline as subjects of his government in this, to be associated with him as joint rulers over the nations in the Dispensation to come. In this, his children, though heirs of the kingdom in its universal and glorious phase, are servants and subjects, under tutelage and government until the time appointed:

“Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.” (Gal. 4:1-2) But this feature will be more fully treated in future chapters. If these positions are well grounded, we are warranted in drawing the following

Practical Conclusions.

1. That John the Baptist was a duly called and qualified Christian minister, belonging to the Gospel, and not the Legal Dispensation.

2. That he was both a member of Christ’s church and officer of his kingdom.

3. That he preached the Gospel, and his baptism was therefore as valid as those administered by the apostles.

4. We have proof conclusive that the church and the kingdom of Christ were institutions of the Gospel Dispensation, and not reformed phases of the old Jewish Theocracy.

5. We conclude that the locality of the churches, which alone constitute the kingdom of Christ, is this earth, and that where he has no church he has no kingdom.

6. We conclude that Christ has no kingdom in heaven, and that it is teaching falsely when we pray him, as so many do, that when we die he may “ save us in his upper and better kingdom.” We teach those who hear us that we are not saved before death, and do not want to be, and that Christ has two kingdoms—one on earth and one in heaven—which is not true.

7. We conclude that a great deal of the teaching in our missionary meetings is contrary to the Word and intent of God, i. e., when it is urged as the bounden duty of the churches to convert the whole world by missions, and that it is fast being done by money, and even the time computed when the last heathen shall be converted, etc., etc.

8. We conclude, if Christ’s second and glorious Advent is waiting upon the Gospel being published among all nations as a witness by the instrumentality of the churches, that by greater zeal, activity and sacrifice the coming of Christ can be hastened, and this makes clear an inexplicable passage as it stands in our Common Version : “Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” (2Pet. 3:12.) What a powerful incentive to push forward the missionary enterprise on the part of those who love and earnestly desire the Presence of the blessed Lord once more upon this earth!

CHAPTER VII (excerpt) “Prophecies Fulfilling and To Be Fulfilled Before the Coming of Christ.”

The times of the Gentiles must be fulfilled, and their fullness be brought in.

It is clearly predicted that the present desolated condition of the Jews, and of their city and country, must continue until this second prophecy is fulfilled. The prophecies referring to both events are : 1. “And for the overspreading of abominations he [the king of the North,] shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined, shall be poured upon the desolate.”—Dan. 9:27.

2. “And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”—Luke 21:24.

3. “That blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.”—Rom. 11:5, 25.

4. “But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” —Rev. 11:2.

There are a variety of opinions as to the meaning of these passages.

Commentators are divided between these two : (1.) Until the time appointed for the domination of the Gentiles and their oppression of the Jews is accomplished, after which the Jews will return to their land, and rebuild their city.

(2.) Until the full number determined by God to be saved out of the Gentile nation shall come in—i. e., into the kingdom—and be saved.

It is quite clear to my mind that both these views are established by these predictions. Daniel, Luke and Revelations certainly refer to the time, and Paul manifestly to the complement of a definite number to come in; i. e., to be converted out of the Gentiles.

Let the thoughtful reader examine these suggestions: 1. That Christ and his saints are to reign over all the earth, in the Dispensation to come, is taught in both Covenants. No unregenerate person is to have any share in the government or instruction of the nations in that age.

2. The number of saints required for this “ high vocation “ will be many millions, since it will require not less than five per cent. of the population of a country to govern and instruct it properly.

3. Christ can not come and establish his reign on this earth, until there have been a sufficient number of Jews and Gentiles converted to be associated with him

as rulers and instructors—i. e., to subserve the ends of good government and the most perfect instruction of the entire race.

4. If a sufficient number has not yet been saved to accomplish this, Christ can not come to establish his jurisdiction over the nations.

5. When this number is converted and prepared for his service, “he will come and will not tarry.”

6. The mission of his churches, by the preaching of the gospel and the energizing influences of the Holy Spirit, is to gather in this full and required number. The greater, therefore, their zeal, activity and sacrifice, the sooner this end will be accomplished. This appears to me a satisfactory explanation of this perplexing passage, viz.: “Expecting and hastening the presence of the day of God” (literally translated).

The passage, as it stands in our Common Version, is inexplicable.

2Pe 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? {hasting…: or, hasting the coming} Php 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: {perform: or, finish} While all the true lovers of Christ must certainly expect and earnestly long for his coming, they are exhorted to hasten his coming by their efforts, as instruments in God’s hands, to complete the number that must be saved before Christ can come and reign. May we not, therefore, conclude, with reason, that as Jewish saints will in that day reign over the seed of Abraham, when the fullness of Israel has been gathered, that the Dispensation of the Gospel closed to that race, and was given to the Gentiles; so that this Gentile Dispensation of gospel privileges, will be continued until the fullness—the requisite number, known only to the Omniscient— shall have been saved out of all the nations to be associated with Christ “as kings and priests” for the Gentile nations, and will then be suddenly closed by the coming of Christ “to take to himself his great power and reign?”[see also Gal. 4:9; Acts 15:14-17, 18 -ed.]

This is my view of the subject, and, therefore, as I long for the speedy coming of my Saviour, and, that it may even be in my day, I am anxious for the gospel to be preached and the Bible sent to every nation and people of earth, that the fullness of the Gentiles may be speedily gathered in.

Graves’ Signs of “the End” THE WORK OF CHRIST IN THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION; DEVELOPED IN SEVEN DISPENSATIONS. An excerption out of part III, Eschatology: ch. IX, THE MARSHALING OF THE NATIONS. The Nations of Europe and Asia Marshaled for the Last Great Battle of Gog and Magog--This Accomplished by Three Unclean Spirits like Frogs--They Symbolize What?--The Time When, and the Place Where this Battle will be Fought. FRIDAY EVENING OF THE WORLDS GREAT WEEK.; ch. X, The Church of Laodicea Symbolizes the

Character of the Churches of Christ in the Last Days of this Dispensation; ch. XI, THE COMING OF CHRIST FOR HIS SAINTS. The Second Coming of Christ under two Aspects--He Comes “into the Air” for His Saints--The “Resurrection of the Just”--The Translation or Rapture of Living Saints--They meet their Lord in the Air and receive their Glorified Bodies. And ch. XII, THE TRANSLATION OF ALL LIVING SAINTS. Christ comes into the Air for his Saints--They are suddenly Caught up, Glorified and Receive their Rewards--They remain in Paradise until the Tribulation Period has Passed.

The nations of Europe are armed to the teeth, and the vast standing armies of all these kings cause the very earth to groan beneath their weight, and the populations are being exhausted in feeding them. A general war is expected and inevitable by every Cabinet of Europe, and then – the End. ...

The reader need not doubt these combinations, nor the ultimate result--the frogs are at work. This war, the last, may burst forth any day, and, once commenced, will not close until the armies engaged are destroyed by the manifest judgment of Christ at his coming.

The Unmistakable Signs of Christ’s Coming.

The disciples, after hearing his predictions of his coming and of the ending of the Gospel or Gentile Dispensation, eagerly asked what would be the sign of the coming and of the end of the age that would close at his coming. I will suppose my readers as eagerly ask me to answer these two questions, but essentially one. I will endeavor to find the answers to both of these questions, under the same division, and present not only the Saviour’s teachings, but also of his apostles, whom he instructed.

From these sources we learn that his coming, and the close of this Dispensation will be immediately preceded by the following portentous signs:

1. Gross ignorance of divine things will be prevalent among all classes, with respect to his coming.

In his address of comfort to Zion and Jerusalem, in view of his immediate appearing, Christ Jehovah puts these words into the mouth of his prophet : “Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen above thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people ; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen above thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”--Isa. lx. 1-3.

“But the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand.”--Dan. xii. 10.

“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”-2 Thess. ii. 10-12.

2. A great apostasy from the faith once delivered to the saints on the part of its professors.

“Nevertheless when the Lord cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”--Luke 18:8.

If this is not equivalent to an assertion that there will not be a saint on the earth at his second coming (see future chapter), it certainly indicates that there will be very few indeed at that time.

“Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day [i. e., the coming of Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling away first.”- 2 Thess. 2:3.

“Now, the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons ; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron.”-- 1 Tim. 4:1-2.

“There shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways ; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you; whose judgment lingereth not and their damnation slumbereth not. ”-2 Pet. 2:1-3. (Read onward to the end.)

3. A general unbelief in Christ’s coming, abounding iniquity, hypocrisy, untruthfulness, disobedience to parents, and scoffing Infidelity.

We learn from God’s Word to what depths of abominable iniquity and infidelity the world had reached, “while the long suffering of God waited, in the days of Noah”--and how few believed God’s Word, spoken by him concerning the coming flood; and also the wickedness and infidelity of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the days of Lot. And Jesus said this would be the case with the whole world just before his coming, and he gave it as one of the signs of his coming: “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat and they drank [i. e., to drunkenness], they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so shall it be when the Son of man is revealed.”--Luke 17:26-31.

What more irrefragable proof than this could be framed in human language, that the world is not to be converted before the revelation of the Son of God from heaven, and consequently that his coming is pre-millennial ? And is not this a graphic picture of the present state of the world--an inveterate unbelief in his second coming, and a presumptuous recklessness under its proclamation, and an inordinate greed for lust and gain? I quote other passages only to emphasize this clear statement of Christ : “This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthoughtful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now, as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth ; men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.”-2 Tim. 3:1–10.

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last clays scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”-2 Pet. 3:3-4.

Perhaps there never has been a time since Christ’s ascension when the very idea of Christ’s personal coming, and the near approach of it, would be more generally met with this identical scoff than now, or by a larger number of the professed friends, and even ministers of Christ!

Could a darker picture possibly be drawn of the moral condition of the world, out of Christ, than this? Christ will make their destruction manifest unto all men at his coming.

With this dark and fearful picture of universal and most abominable wickedness before their eyes, how can any candid mind believe that the world is to be converted before Christ comes?

Thus we have delineated before us the state of the churches, and of the world, just prior to the coming of the Lord for his saints, to take them away from the most terrible evils to come upon all them left upon the face of the whole earth. There is but one commendable feature connected with all this, and it is given as a sign of the end.

4. There will be an extensive spirit of inquiry, among the faithful few followers of Christ, concerning his coming.

The Saviour has left on record most emphatic commands to his faithful disciples to watch for and recognize the signs of his near approach, and pronounced especial blessings upon all who do study his word and compare the events that are transpiring among the nations, with the moral condition of the world and the spiritual state of the churches; with the signs he has given we must believe that “the wise”--the truly justified in Christ--will, in a good measure, understand the things, and be found ready and waiting for his appearing.

“And none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise [the justified] shall understand.”-Dan. 12:10.

A distaste for prophetic study, to search and to understand what is written concerning Christ’s second coming, should be to each professor of Christianity a satisfactory evidence of unregeneracy. But many will search most diligently into these prophecies as the time of the end approaches, and great attainments in a knowledge of them will be made.

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book [not always, but only] to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”--Dan. 12:4.

“Many shall endeavor to search out the sense, and knowledge shall be increased by their means.”(A. Clark.)

“And there will be many teachers who will understand, for they will give the timely warning of the Bridegroom’s approach, and all the wise virgins will hear and be prepared to go into the marriage.”(On Matt. 25.)

This sign is being fulfilled in this, our day, as is evidenced by the numerous new books and tracts almost weekly offered to the public in this country and England, and the Prophetical Conferences that have been held in New York and London ; and the papers, weekly and quarterly, devoted to the discussion of prophecy and the signs of the second coming. These must find patrons, and by the thousands, or they would not be published. It is said that not less than three hundred ministers of eminence and scholarship in England, and nearly one thousand in America, have embraced pre-millennial views, and are engaged in studying the prophecies, and many of these preach and write upon the subjects. Many are indeed diligently

searching the teachings of God’s Word with respect to Christ’s coming, and knowledge upon this subject is being largely increased and widely diffused.

CHAPTER X. The Church of Laodicea Symbolizes the Character of the Churches of Christ in the Last Days of this Dispensation.

H

AVING considered the predicted state of the nations, their political agitations and marshalings for a general conflict, let us now notice the religious aspects of society and state of the churches, given by Christ as signs of his near coming--his being at the door and knocking.

What is the predicted state of the Church of Christ at the close of this dispensation?

The sure word of prophecy on which I rely, for it most certainly is a prophecy, is Christ’s message to the last of “the seven churches in Asia.”

It is true that various views are entertained by expositors, with respect to these letters, as there is touching the Revelation itself; and, since these letters partake of the character of the book in which they stand, I will briefly state...that of the historical interpreters, or those who hold that the prophecy embraces the whole history of the church and its foes, from the time of its composition to the end of the world. The expositors of this school, while they differ among themselves in detail, agree in regarding the Book of Revelation as a continuous prophetic history of the church, describing in symbolical language the various phases through which it was ordained to pass; and they look for the proper interpretation of the book largely to the events which have occurred in the history of the church thus far.

The view held, though in different forms, by the greater number of evangelical scholars, and the one I fully adopt, the reasons for which I will briefly lay before the reader.

1. These letters containing messages, like all the other parts of the book, were by an angel dictated to John in ecstatic vision when an exile in the Isle of Patmos. In this respect they are like the revelations made to Daniel by the angel, and must be explained by the same laws of interpretation--i. e., those governing symbols.

2. The messages to these churches are all prophetic.

This revelation was given by Christ to show unto his servants what things must shortly come to pass (ch. i. t). These messages, as well as the book, must be interpreted by the same rules--symbolically.

The simple explanation upon this view is: The seven cities bearing these names were all the churches then existing on the peninsular, which the Isle of Patmos overlooked, called Proconsular Asia. Since these seven churches were then the sole representatives of Christianity in all Proconsular Asia when he wrote this, and because the inditing spirit knew there never would be any others, the Saviour selected them to symbolize all his churches that would exist until the close of the Dispensation. Each church, with the characteristics and trials given it, was designed to symbolize the characteristic and trials of all his churches during the period it represented. In this respect they partake of the character of the seven

seals, trumpets and vials, for these divided all prophetic time into periods--i. e., each one characterized by its own peculiar characteristics and trials. Thus, in the history of the seven symbolic churches, we have presented a complete panoramic history of Christianity from the first century until, in answer to the prayers of a long-waiting Bride, the Lord shall come....

We trust God will raise up some one in our day to write a history of the churches of Christ, by developing the historical application and fulfillment of what is predicted of these seven symbolic churches-i e., the churches of Christ in the seven periods of the Gentile Dispensation. If our view is correct, that they have a symbolical import, then does the Word of God establish the fact disputed by some of our own writers (to their shame be it said), that Christ has preserved a succession of witnessing churches until now, and will until his return.

1. These seven churches are in prophetic accordance with the other parts of the Apocalypse, and John gives us no room for other conclusions.

2. No proof exists that the actual state of those seven churches was described at the time of writing these addresses, and a forced construction is given by literal expounders.

3. No one can support, from historic details, a reasonable and literal accomplishment of the things contained in the addresses to those churches; the candlestick is removed, not from one, but from all.4 4. The addresses close with an application to ALL the churches--i. e., of the age to which the prophecy alludes, and not to the one church only bearing the inscription of the address.

5. The state of the things at Pergamos does not accord with that church being “the seat of Satan,” which must be at Rome, agreeably to other plain passages, and which is allowed

by McCrie and others.

6. The other symbols of the Apocalypse are divided into prophetic periods ; and there is not the least indication from the writer of a change in the mode of address.

7. It is “a revelation of things to come,” but if the things in those churches actually existed, John could have forwarded an epistle to each church, as the other apostles did, and so have rectified the abuses without calling it “a revelation of things which must shortly come to pass,” the character the whole book sustains. And finally and conclusively8. The seven churches were in one small proconsulate, and within a circle whose diameter would be only sixty miles, and they would all, therefore, possess a like characteristic, and they must have all suffered from the same false teachers and impostors; and it is certain, they would all have suffered from the same persecuting edicts--a few of the members of one church could not suffer and the others not, or, one church suffer and the others not.

Admitting that the symbolic view is the correct one, and that these churches represent church periods, as the trumpets do State periods, and admitting that the universal belief of the Jews is correct, viz., that six thousand years closes the world’s week, and the seventh introduces the world’s grand Sabbatism, there remained about two thousand years from the 4

Those who hold the literal view must believe that the Catholic Hierarchy is the true and apostolic church of Christ, since a few dilapidated churches and ignorant Catholic priests remain in Philadelphia, and their services are in a language they do not understand.

First to the Second Advent of Christ, and this divided by seven, the number of church periods, the average length of these periods would be about three hundred years.

But the blasts of the trumpets were some longer and some shorter, so the periods symbolized by the churches, or “lamp-stands,” varied in duration. One period may’ have been only one hundred, another one hundred and fifty, and yet another three hundred or more years.

Ephesus was the first city and capital of proconsular Asia, and it is made the symbol of the first and most distinguished period of Christianity. The very word, if derived from ephesis, signifies ardent zeal, intense desire, and may be designed to express the fervent love and labors of the churches in the first period, and their eager desire after the knowledge of and communion with Christ. It is a striking fact that the character as well as the trials here ascribed to the church at Ephesus, characterized the churches for two hundred years after John wrote this, and it is also true that at the close of the third and at the beginning of the fourth there was an abatement of primitive zeal and works. It is also evident that the churches of this age alone could be troubled with a class of religious teachers who claimed to be “apostles,” but were apostates. And it must be evident to all that these pseudo-apostles would not have infested one church only, and allowed all the rest to go free, but would have troubled the seven equally, if this language is to be interpreted literally. This covered the whole period from Patmos until the rise of Constantine, A. D. 303. The prophecy concerning Smyrna, the next symbolic church, is so strikingly fulfilled in the history of the next period, embracing the three following centuries, that I can not forbear noticing it here : “I know thy works and tribulation and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them who say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days ; be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.”--Rev. 2:9-10.

There is as conclusive evidence of the symbolic as of the prophetic character of this message.

The very name of the church signifies myrrh--bitterness--indicating the bitterness of poverty, persecutions and imprisonments that was in store for them ; also the term “Jew,” and “synagogue of Satan,” and “ten days,” are all symbolical terms. There were no Gentiles who endeavored to pass themselves upon this church as Jews; there was no organization known as “the synagogue of Satan,” nor was there ever a persecution that lasted only ten literal days. Then if these were indeed literal churches, not some of the members only of one church, but all zealous, active members of all these churches would have suffered persecution. But it is a fact that the edict of persecution by Diocletian, commencing A. D. 303 and closed in 313 lasting just ten years, aimed at the extermination of all Christians in the empire. The reader of history also is aware that the first apostasy took place in the reign of Constantine, A. D. 313-30, under whose auspices the first man-invented religious organization was formed, and this claimed to be the church of Christ, and its members alone Catholic Christians, true “spiritual Jews, and they denounced all true Christians as heretics. This manmade church is here pronounced by Christ the “synagogue--

church--of Satan,” and can any one doubt that every man-invented church organization is likewise a “synagogue of Satan”? What is said of one other church, the Philadelphia, is worthy of special note. This church, according to our theory, symbolized the church period from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. “These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, . . behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.”

Through the instrumentality of the religio-political revolution of the sixteenth century, the churches of Christ enjoyed the first taste of religious liberty they had known in ten centuries, and that door has never been closed to them, but opened wider and wider. It was opened only to this church, and if it is not here used as a symbol, how can this Scripture be reconciled to unrelenting facts?

But Christ further says: “Behold I will make them of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee.”

The human persecuting religious organizations, that sprang up in the sixteenth century, claiming to be the only true churches of Christ, are here symbolized by these false Jews, and Christ himself says they are of the synagogue of Satan--that organization which he at first pronounced the synagogue of Satan. But I may be delaying the attention of the reader too long from the symbolic church under discussion.

The Laodicean Age. As the Ephesian church symbolized the apostolic age, the first period, so the Laodicean., the last period; and the terms used to describe its character are symbolic of the general condition of the churches of the period covered by the symbol. The very name selected to symbolize the period, like the names of the other churches, is significant. It is compounded of two Greek words, laos, the people, and, dike, judgment, and indicates, that, in this age, the people or nations will be judged ; and it may very properly be called the Judgment Age. This is the view that Dr. Gill takes of this name: “It signifies the judgment of the people, for in this church state, at the end of it, will bring on the general judgment [he should have said the judgment of the wicked nations--Matt. xxv.] the Judge will now be at the door indeed, standing and knocking, and they that are ready to meet the Bridegroom when he comes, will be admitted into the nuptial chamber, and sit down with him on his throne, in the thousand years kingdom, at the close of which will be the second resurrection,” etc. (Corn. in loco.)

Mark the peculiar address to this church, and what may be implied in it. He refers to his own title, “the faithful and true Witness,” thus reminding them of the mission to which he had appointed them, “ye shall be witnesses unto me,” which, at the close, would be fulfilled in them. Not only the opening address, but the closing promise, indicates the severe trial through which, at last, they had to pass to their thrones and crowns.

He does not charge this church, as he did others, with unsoundness touching vital doctrine, but with a sinful laxity and indifferentism both as to their faith and practice ; a tepidness and milk-warm sentimentality, that was nauseating ; an easy accommodating themselves to influences around them, that was more sinful than even positive coldness with respect to the truth committed to them. They had become rich in their own estimation, having “need of nothing,” boastful, self-sufficient and arrogant, when he who sees the heart saw they were miserably “poor, blind and naked.” Yet, notwithstanding all this, he gives them the assurance that he loves them, and the proof of it in that he rebuked and chastened them ; for whom God loves, he does not let alone.

Now let us look for the application of this Symbol. The Laodicean Church state embraces a period extending from the Philadelphian state until the Second Advent. There are good and sufficient reasons to place its commencement about A. D. 1776, when the church in Europe and America ceased to suffer from the civil rulers the vigorous persecutions that had followed it onward from the days of John the Baptist. From this period the churches multiplied, and, their substance no longer distrained for “fines and penalties,” they commenced to rapidly increase in “this world’s goods”--on account of their great numbers and wealth they began to be esteemed respectable, and treated with consideration, by those who had persecuted and shed their blood. In turn, the witnesses of Christ began to weaken in the boldness and faithfulness of their testimony against the heresies and Antichristian position the sects occupied towards the kingdom of Christ, and in this way, with thief-like stealthiness, a false liberalism stole in upon the churches which had fruited into full affiliation with manifest heresies in their organized forms, and fellowship with the teachers of those heresies by public association with them.

Notice again the charges brought against the churches of this period, not because they had departed from or renounced any vital, fundamental doctrine of Christ, but their sinful indifferentism, nauseating tepidness and lukewarmness with respect to all that pertain to the honor and cause of their Divine Master. They had not only become indifferent in the defense of the faith delivered to them, but lukewarm in their opposition to the destructive errors that threatened the corruption and very existence of His Truth. But more than this, the churches of this period had become, in their own estimation, “rich and increased in goods”-had become more than self-complacent, even boastful, saying, we “have need of nothing.” The goods and riches in this passage are symbolic, and represent a species different from themselves, i. e.. its numbers, its social influence, the number and the talents of its ministry, its activities and ability to accomplish desired results, and its respectability.

Now all this is true of the churches of Christ in this age as it never has been since Christ established his church on earth; and, when I allude to his church, I mean those organizations that, in their form of government, the order of their ministry, the form of their ordinances, the character of their membership, and their form of doctrine, conform to the teachings of the New Testament, and that have been known since the fourth century as Waldenses and Anabaptists.

We, as a people, have vastly increased in numbers--over two millions of adult members in America alone; and we are continually boasting of this sort of wealth. But how poor in a really regenerated and truly spiritual membership we may be, the one who walks amid the golden candlesticks alone knows, and he pronounces us miserably “poor.” Doubtless there never was so large a proportion of our membership unregenerated as it is to-day, and becoming yearly more so through the specious revivals and periodical excitements that sweep over the land under the control of professional revival makers and their singers, by which thousands are pressed into our churches unrenewed in heart and with sadly perverted views of Christianity. We were never before possessed of so much material wealth. Cathedral-like temples for worship, costing from $50,000 to hundreds of thousands, are seen in our larger cities and more populous towns. These are the monuments of our pride rather than of our piety; for in them are buried, as in the earth, the talents the Lord committed to his disciples to put into active employment for the conversion of the heathen, and the extension of his kingdom until he comes. It was not until the churches became corrupted, not until piety lapsed into pride, that costly houses were built. While the apostles lived, only the plainest edifices were provided for public worship, and indeed few churches owned the houses they worshiped in--Paul had no meeting house in Rome, and he nowhere exhorted the brethren to build one.

We have, as a people, won a high social position on account of our wealth, intelligence and refinement, and of this we are proud and boastful, and it has become a cross we feel quite unable to bear, to sacrifice all this by a faithful advocacy and defense of the doctrine of Christ, so unpopular and hateful to the world and false religionists.

We have already become proud of our ministers, and boast of their number, their talents and power, but the thoughtful observe with saddened hearts that as they become eminent and popular, the temptation to “save their lives,” i.e., enhance their personal influence and popularity, to win the favor of men and to gain or retain rank with educated teachers of the popular religious errors of the day, is far too strong with most, and they are influenced to affiliate with them, and thus acknowledge them before the world as their equals in all things that constitute true ministers of Christ. It would be quite unsupportable for one of our ministers in any of our cities or towns not to be allowed a seat in the evangelical pastors’ conference. This is a trap that seldom fails to commit our preachers to a recognition of the preachers of all the sects as truly evangelical ! Thus they surrender every inch of ground upon which to stand to protest against their errors, and, as witnesses, their voices are effectually hushed, and they lose their moral courage and sink down into indifferency with respect to the maintenance of all the principles that distinguish us from the adherents of false doctrine.

We may not shut our eyes to the painful truth ; Spiritual declension and religious indifferentism, wide-spread, inveterate and increasing, characterize the churches of this period, and furnish indubitable proof to us that we have progressed very far into the Laodicean church period. Where only a score of years .ago there was, in comparison to the present, an ardor of life, a zeal for, and devotion to the distinguishing principles and doctrines of

Christ, and a cheerful liberality in giving to extend the cause, there is to-day almost the absence of life manifested; and, as to warmth, only a little less than the coldness of death. It is even urged that the preaching and defense of the doctrines and ordinances of Christ is at the sacrifice of all that is spiritual in religion, and it does not fail to bring down upon the head of the offender the bitter opposition and persecution of his own brethren. It seems now to be considered as the highest type of spirituality to indorse, by affiliating with, one form of religion as fully equal to another, and to regard that man as only a “sectarian bigot” who will hold and “teach the ordinances as they were delivered,” and have no religious association with false teachers. It is boldly maintained from the pulpit and the religious press that a zeal for the doctrines and ordinances of the church is an evident sign of lack of spirituality; and it has passed into an adage with some, that such “are more partisans than Christians.” And those ministers and public teachers are held up as models of piety who ignore ecclesiasticism altogether, and consider one religious organization equal to another, however unscriptural in its form, or heretical in its doctrine, and freely co-operates in religious meetings. This is called Christian liberality, and a “catholic spirit ; “but it is a sickly and sinful sentimentalism.

Our ministry is feeling this declension most severely, for so little interest is taken in the stated preaching of the Word that they are driven to the fields and the school-rooms to feed their families. Our religious press is feeling it, for only here and there a Christian family patronizes a religious periodical. Our missionaries, in home and foreign fields, are withheld or recalled from the white harvest field because the churches refuse them bread.

If this state of things is allowed to continue, what must the end be ? Evidently this spacious liberalism and indifferency, if left to grow, will work the extinction of true Christianity. But the Master will not let those he loves alone, he will rebuke and chastise them into dutiful obedience. He has been for years past raising up within his churches a body of witnesses to plead for the maintenance of our principles, and to rebuke those who would approve, fellowship, and affiliate with the teachers of acknowledged heresies, and while, as yet, these are lukewarm when compared with the faithful witnesses and martyrs of old, yet there is pleasing evidence that the tone of their protest has yearly acquired depth and strength and boldness.

The statement of the 19th verse--”As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : be zealous therefore and repent “--seems to us pregnant with meaning. He can not recover his church from its sinful lukewarmness by letting it alone--he must rebuke and chasten it. In this message, by the angel of the church, he administers a severe rebuke, and he may rebuke them instrumentally by the agency of the faithful witnesses he is raising up in their midst, to protest against their indifferency and sinful inconsistencies, while he foreshadows the fact that he has chastisements in store for them. The fires of persecution by which his martyr church was kept purified must be rekindled, the persecuting power he has restrained for a sea, son, while his church has grown rich and degenerate, must he let loose to chastise them until they will be awakened out of their state of apathy and indifference. It may be necessary, in order to recall them to their senses, for those self-same organizations with which they “have lived

deliciously “to shed their blood and waste them, as they did in former ages. They will then be made to see and feel the true character of these organizations, 1. e., that they are opposed to the true churches, as they are to the truth of Christ. Persecutions yets await the churches of Christ, which, in comparison to those of the past, are denominated by the Holy Spirit, “The Great Tribulation,” and only those who are able to pass through it, and triumphantly overcome, will be allowed to sit down with Christ on his throne. The Laodicean church state, then, closes with Christ being at the door and knocking, which event will be considered in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XI. The Coming Of Christ For His Saints.

The Second Coming of Christ under two Aspects--He Comes “into the Air” for his Saints--The “Resurrection of the Just”--The Translation or Rapture of Living Saints-They meet their Lord in the Air and Receive their Glorified Bodies.

THE Second Advent of Christ manifestly has two aspects or comprises two events: 1. His coming into the air for all his saints, and 2. His visible appearing in glory to the whole world with all his saints.

The first is that aspect of his coming which relates to the resurrection of all the righteous dead and the translation of all the then living saints, and the second is that aspect which relates to the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles--the world. He comes not in the same manner to his friends and his foes.

I propose in this chapter to examine what the Scriptures teach concerning the first of these two wonderful and most desirable events.

Christ directly foretold that the last event, just preceding his appearance to the world, would be “a time of trouble such as never had been experienced since there was a nation on this earth, and such as never will be again,” which has been denominated “The Tribulation Period,” occasioned by the pouring out of the vials of the last plagues upon a guilty world of implacable enemies of God. Just preceding this event, Christ will come into the air-Paradise--and with the voice of a trumpet, awaken “those that are asleep in Jesus,” from Abel to the one who died but an hour before, restore to them their bodies glorified, and immediately after catch up, change and glorify all the saints then living on the earth. Thus all the saints who have ever lived on earth will be taken up and receive their glorified bodies, and will evermore be with the Lord. These raised and changed saints are, doubtless, those referred to by Paul as “those who are Christ’s at his coming,” and by John (Rev. vii.) the 144,000, a definite for an indefinite number.

While all Christian expositors hold and teach that there will be a resurrection of all the dead, they are divided upon the question whether it be a simultaneous or a mixed resurrection, i. e., do the Scriptures teach that there will be a distinction as to time between the resurrection of the righteous and of the wicked? The settlement of this question is of the first importance to a Scriptural Eschatology--to the right understanding of the doctrine of the things that must shortly come to pass. The proper interpretation of the Scriptures--not human opinions--must and will settle this question.

The Faith Of The Old Testament Saints.

It was the general belief of all orthodox Jews that the resurrection of the just would precede, and be separate from that of the unjust. Martha’s answer to Jesus is sufficient proof of this.

“Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”-John 11:24.

She refers to the resurrection of the just only, and not to a mixed resurrection of saints and sinners; the ground for this faith they must have derived from their Sacred Scriptures.

Daniel, alluding to a resurrection at the time of Jacob’s trouble, says : “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever.”--Dan. 12:2-3.

Tragelles translates this, “Many from among the sleepers shall arise, . . these shall be unto everlasting life ; but those (the rest of the sleepers who do not awake at this time) shall be unto shame.”

This resurrection to everlasting life entitled the saints to see face to face and to be associated with their Redeemer.

Job’s faith also took hold on this hope which he expressed, notwithstanding all the attempts of critics to rob his language of the idea. To our mind he said nothing sensible unless he expressed this hope of the ancient saints: “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in after time will stand upon the earth; and after this my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh5 shall I see God : whom I shall see for my self and my eyes behold, and not another.”(Job 19:26-27.)

Before considering the passages in the Old and New Covenants referring to the resurrection, I wish to call attention to this fact in their construction, viz.: That in all passages which refer to the indiscriminate resurrection of the dead it is h anastasiv twn necrwn, the resurrection of the dead; but when the resurrection of the righteous is alluded to, it is ec twn necron, the resurrection from or out of the dead.

That the preposition from is never used when the resurrection of the wicked is spoken of. I refer the reader to Acts 17:23; 23:6; 24:21; 1Cor. 15:12-13, 21, 42.

Lightfoot recognizes this as an invariable rule. “‘The general resurrection from the dead,’ says Prof. Lightfoot, ‘whether good or bad, is h anastasiv twn necrwn (e.g., 1Cor. 15:42); on the other hand, the resurrection of Christ, and of those who rise with Christ, is generally [h] anastasiv [h] ec necrwn, (Luke 20:35; Acts 4:2; 1Peter 1:3); the former includes both the anastasiv zwhv and the anastasiv, crisewv (John 5:29); the latter is confined to the anastasiv zwhv.’”...

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This is rendered by some (Conant, Ewald, et al.) sine came mea --without my flesh--and these interpret it to teach an existence beyond the grave ; while C. V. and Rosenmuller, tamene carmine mea videbo Deum, i. e., corpore mea redintegrato, in my body restored I will see God my Redeemer. And this has been the hope of Christians in all ages.

CHAPTER XII. THE TRANSLATION OF ALL LIVING SAINTS. Christ comes into the Air for his Saints—They are suddenly Caught up, Glorified and Receive their Rewards—They remain in Paradise until the Tribulation Period has Passed.

THIS is what is called by writers on Eschatology, “The Rapture of the Saints,” the taking of them away from the evil to come, from the tribulation and distress of nations (Matt.

24:21) which will take place during the period intervening between the coming of Christ for his saints and his appearing to all the world with his saints.

I have shown that the righteous dead will first rise, after which all the saints, then living on the earth at that time, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Paul tells us that-“The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel6 with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, [not heaven, not in sight of men, but into Paradise, whence the dead saints came for their bodies] and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”--1 Thess. 4:16-17.

It will not be announced by trumpet sounds audible to the world, or characterized by the visible pomp and pageantry that will make notable his coming with his saints to judge the nations, but his sleeping saints will hear his voice, and come forth, and their open graves may be the only evidence to the living wicked that they have been raised, while the living saints will be silently as suddenly caught away, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to meet their Lord in the air”--Paradise--and the sudden absence from their midst of all the recognized righteous will be the only warning of their coming doom the wicked will ever receive.

For, instead of the world growing better until entirely or mostly converted before the coming of Christ, and, in fact, to constitute his coming, as the opponents of a pre-millennial and personal coming teach, “evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” and scoffing infidelity will be the characteristic feature and sign of the last day.

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”--2 Pet. 3:3-4.

The translation of God’s children above the clouds of heaven, there to remain during the period that God visits an unbelieving, wicked world with desolating punishments, is most clearly revealed both by the prophets and Christ himself through his evangelists and apostles. Isaiah foretells it in these words : “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.”--Isa. 26:20-21.

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It should be remembered that there is but one archangel and one devil, whose name was Lucifer before he fell—that is, Light-bearer.

Christ refers us to the days that were before the flood and in connection with it, as foreshadowing the state of the world and the scenes in connection with his second coming: “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. . . . I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.

Two women shall be grinding together ; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord ? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”--Luke 17:26-27, 34-37.

The disciples very naturally asked where they should be taken. Christ only answered them, “Where the body is, there also the eagles will assemble.”

That is, where he was in his glorified body, thither the whole body of his people, raised and glorified, would be gathered together unto him, to be evermore with him.

It seems worthy of remark that in the above passage Christ evidently anticipates the discoveries of scientists by some thousand of years, indicating as he does the spherical form of the earth and its revolution on its axis, making day and night in different localities at the same time. At one place it will be evening, at another midnight, at another cock-crowing, at another morning, or, as in the passage just quoted, in one part of the world two men will be asleep together at the time for slumber, in another two women will be preparing the morning meal, and in another part, still further east, two men will be plowing the field, when one will be taken, mounting up as on the wings of an eagle, to meet the Lord in the air, and the other shall be left to the deluge of wrath that shall break in successive waves of desolation over an utterly godless world.

Paul alluded to this event as a gathering together unto Christ: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him.”(2 Thess. 2:1. See 1 John 4.)

This promise of being caught away from earth and “gathered together unto Christ,” and with all his brethren, was to Paul, as it should be to us, a most precious promise, and how comforting it was to the souls of those persecuted and suffering saints.

But let us for a moment look to the days before and in connection with the flood.

Was not the translation of Enoch, the eighth from Adam, prior to God’s visiting the wickedness of the age with his des. olating fury, a prophecy of the translation of the saints before the distress of nations and the inauguration of a new dispensation ? But when God’s judgments were ripe and ready to fall upon the ungodly antediluvians, did he not remove Noah and his family from among them by inclosing them in the chambers of the ark ? Was there a saint without the ark after Noah and his family entered? How long was it after God closed the door before the deluge came? Were these not days of fearful suspense and torturing anguish and despair ?

So it will be at the unseen coming of Christ for his saints ; they, and they alone, will hear his voice, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, will be silently caught up to meet the Lord in the air--Paradise--whither the risen saints have just preceded them to receive their glorified bodies.

Christ, in his last address to his disciples, assures them of his return for them, at which time he would receive them unto himself, nevermore to be separated from him.

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”(John 14:3. See Rev. 14. also.)

The last sound that lingers upon our ear as the formula of the communion is repeated, is a refrain of this blessed hope: “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye show the Lord’s death till he come--till he come.”

Paul minutely describes this momentous and, to the child of God, most glorious event: “Behold, I show you a mystery ; we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead [i. e., righteous dead] shall be raised incorruptible, and we [all who may then be living] 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 [Hades], 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. unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”-- 1 Cor. 15:51-58.

To the church at Thessalonica thus : “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 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.”--1Thess. 4:13-18.

“Prevent them which sleep.” He did not use this word, but a Greek word which means “to precede “or “go before,” and this was the meaning of our English word “prevent” three hundred years ago, and we still find the term “prevenient “sometimes used, e.g., “prevenient grace,” grace going before an act. The saints who are upon the earth when Christ comes for his saints, will not, in the Rapture, precede or go before those whose bodies are in their graves, for the dead in Christ will first rise, and then the living ones will be caught up to meet them in Paradise.

“Oh, what rapture shall thrill the hearts of the redeemed, what ecstasy of bliss shall ravish the sorrowing, tempted, troubled disciples of Jesus, when responding to his shout that will sound to the world only as a strange clap of thunder, they shall in the twinkling of an eye be changed into the likeness of his glorious body, and together with the risen saints, hand in hand with some whose graves have cast a shadow all along their pathway of life, they shall

ascend to be with him forever, and to be done with sin and suffering forever! But what amazement and horror must seize upon the careless, the unbelieving, the worldly, when the husband shall miss from his side the wife who had wept bitter tears over his rejection of her Saviour, and the child shall look around in vain for the mother whose entreaties had been disregarded, and the friends who mingled their sympathies shall silently and suddenly part to meet no more! ‘“What horrors shall roll o’er the Godless soul, Waked from its death-like sleep; Of all hope bereft, and to judgment left Forever to wail and weep! ‘“O worldling, give ear, while the saints are near!

Soon must the tie be riven, And men, side by side, God’s hand shall divide, As far as hell’s depths from heaven. ‘“Some husband whose head was laid on his bed, Throbbing with mad excess, Awakes from that dream, by the lightning’s gleam, Alone in his last distress: ‘“For the patient wife, who through each day’s life Watched and wept for his soul, Is taken away, and no more shall pray-For the judgment thunders roll ! ‘“The children of day are summoned away; Left are the children of night-Sealed is their doom, for there’s no more room; Filled are the mansions of light!’”

This day of the resurrection of the dead and the rapture of the living saints is called in the Scriptures

The Day of Our Redemption.

It is properly so called because our perfect redemption, purchased by the precious blood of Christ, will not be consummated and made manifest until that day, for not until then will we exchange these bodies of our humiliation for bodies fashioned like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul, writing to the church at Philippi, says: “For our [politumenos, not conversation, but registration as citizens]-citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body--[the body of our humiliation] that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all this unto himself.”--Phil. 3:2021.

Paul points to this day as the time when the saints will have, through Christ, the victory over death and Hades; for the living righteous will not be touched by the sting of

death, and the righteous dead will be delivered as .”prisoners of hope” from the custody of Hades into the glorious liberty of the children of God. It is called the “Day of our Redemption,” since it is the carrying of our adoption into effect, manifesting us to the world as the sons of God. “And when these things begin to come to pass then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”--Luke 21:28.

“And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies.”--Rom. 8:23.

“And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”-Eph. 4:30.

This work Christ secured by his resurrection from the dead.

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”--Heb. 9:12.

It is by pre-eminence called the day of our salvation that is drawing daily nearer.

“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”--Rom. 13:11.

No one who had been .in heaven could say this, but as nothing imperfect has, or can ever enter heaven and stand in the presence of God, therefore no saint will ever appear there until redeemed and perfectly saved, body as well as soul. All saints will be glorified.

The Manifestation of the Sons of God. It is the day when the saints will be for the first time made manifest to the angels and the world as the sons of God, by the act of glorification, being made like Christ--the body like its glorious head: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not 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.”--1 John 3:2.

The sense of this will be made clear by a more literal rendering : “It hath not yet been made manifest, or seen, what or how glorious we shall be.” No saint has ever yet been glorified, and, therefore, made fit for heaven, or to be presented before the Father and the holy angels, and when one is glorified and presented, at that same time all will be glorified together.

This event is called the “manifestation of the sons of God.” “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”--Rom. 8:19.

The Judgment of Rewards, or the Justification by Works.

It is when Christ comes for his saints that they will appear before him to be justified by their works and receive the judgment of awards for all they have labored and endured, sacrificed and suffered for him in this world. “We [Paul is addressing Christians] must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things he hath done, whether good or bad.”(2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:12.) Then will the parable of the talents be fulfilled and the servant who made ten talents, by the faithful use of the talents intrusted, be made ruler over ten cities, and the one who made five, over five cities,

while the evil, who was only a professed servant, will be left with those whose resurrection will be to shame and everlasting contempt. That there will be different awards, positions of honor and glory, according as our works are found to be by the impartial Judge, is recognized by the inspired writers under both dispensations. Daniel says: “They that be wise--[i. e., justified, barely saved, and nothing more] shall shine as the brightness of the firmament [with an undistinguished light] and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever.”--Dan. 12:3.

Paul says: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars : for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.”--1 Cor. 15:41-42.

Salvation is solely by grace, and is not in the least conditioned upon our works; but God graciously rewards his children for each good work they have done from the right motive, love to him, even the giving to his disciples a cup of cold water ; but there will be some, and very many ministers, who will receive no reward in that world, no position of honor, but barely salvation.

Paul, in his first letter to the church at Corinth (ch. iii.), seems to address a warning to ministers and master-churchbuilders under Christ, the Great Architect, and he warns his fellow-laborers to take heed with what material they build upon the foundation Christ has laid.

“And if on this foundation any one build up gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, straw, the work of each will become manifest, for the day will show it, because it is revealed by fire, and so every one’s work, whatever it is, the same fire will prove. If the work of any one remain which he built up, he will receive a recompense; if the work of any one shall be consumed, he will suffer loss; he himself, however, will be saved, but as through a fire”(Emp. Diaglott)-Escape with nothing but his bare life.

If this is of universal application, to sinners as well as to saints, then the doctrine of universal salvation is taught by this passage - i. e., all men saved, but their evil deeds - sins -burned up,--as though the sin could be punished and the sinner receive no detriment!

The Prize Day. This will be the day that the prizes will be awarded to Christians--not salvation, which is a free gift and not contingent upon works, but something more than salvation, and which does depend upon the Christian’s works and his faithfulness in this life.

“Behold, I come quickly,” says the Rewarder to his churches, “and my reward is with me to give every man as his works shall be [deserve]. No Christian has yet received his reward; the apostles have not theirs; therefore, no one has yet enjoyed the reward of heaven. This Christ and the Holy Spirit positively assert.--John 3:13; Acts 2:34.

“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. . . . And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.”--1 Cor. 9:2425.

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”--Phil. 3:14.

The fruition of heaven in the very presence of God must be the highest prize, and those who have attained to that fruition have gained the highest prize. But no prize will be given until Christ appears.

It Is The Crowning Day. Those who are rewarded with the highest vocation, i. e., to reign with Christ, will receive their crowns at Christ’s coming, but not before. There can be no doubt of this.

Peter says: “And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.”--1 Pet. 5:4.

Paul says: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”-2 Tim. 4:8.

How is it that, notwithstanding these clear and explicit teachings of the apostles, we constantly hear it from the lips of our most learned ministers, editors and authors, as well as generally from those called unlearned, when speaking of a departed saint, “He has gone to his reward,” or, “He has received his reward,” “He has received his crown of glory,” “He is reigning with Christ in heaven,” etc. ? Do they not know that Christ has not yet been crowned, and that he is not reigning in heaven, and, as M Messiah, will never reign there, but when he is crowned and reigns, it will be on the throne of his father David, which was an earthly throne ? If any Christians are now crowned and reigning in heaven, over whom, pray, are they reigning--who are their subjects ? Not God, nor the angels, and certainly not over one another! No Christian has yet received his crown, nor will any one until the chief Shepherd appears and shall have been crowned, and then, all who are crowned will be crowned together with him, and when he takes his throne, as joint heirs we will receive our thrones also and reign with him on the earth, and nowhere else.

There are many, very many, Christians who will win no crown in that day, and very many Christian ministers, perhaps those most popular in this world, if indeed Christians, who will have no reward there. They may be saved, indeed, yet so as by fire—with their life only, but without a semblance of a reward of any kind. Ambitious to win a name as successful, popular preachers, they built up their churches with hay, wood and stubble;—they will have all their reward in this life, the praise of men.

It is also clearly implied that there will be some Christians who will stand ashamed in the presence of Christ at his coming; “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.”—1 John 2:28.

And it is also implied that there will be many eminent members and ministers who will not receive a crown of righteousness, i.e., of personal right doing—not of Christ’s righteousness—for this is given only to those saints who have well done and been faithful— those to whom Christ can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful.” What multitudes of ministers to whom Christ will be unable to say this!

They may have occupied a very high place in the world, and secured the grand end of their preaching—a wide popularity—but they will occupy, if indeed Christians, a very low place in the age to come.

Then it would seem that only those will receive a crown who love the appearing of Christ. (2 Tim. 4:8) What a crucial test is this! Can any one believe that all the ministers of this age long and wait and pray for this coming of Christ? That one half, if even one in ten, do so?

Are all Christians really praying for his coming to-day? Are they with glad hearts hastening his coming by aiding to send the gospel to those that sit in darkness and under the shadow of death? Would they be willing for him to come to-day? Would they not prefer, if they knew he was ready, that he should postpone it one year, five, or even ten? How is it with you, reader?

Are you willing for him to come to-day? Are you praying him to hasten his coming, and are you aiding to hasten it? Let us be honest with ourselves. Do we desire a crown when he comes?

This coming is what the faith of the primitive Christians took hold of, and constituted their “blessed hope”—for this they suffered, for this they looked, waited and prayed.

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”—Titus 2:13.

“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin [ i.e., without a sin-offering ] unto salvation.”—Hebrews 9:28.

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”—James 5:7-8.

“And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”—1 Thessalonians 1:10.

“When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.”—2 Thessalonians 1:10.

“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.”—2 Thessalonians 3:5.

Will not my reader turn back to Matthew (24:42 and on ) and mark what our Lord says of the unwatchful 7goodman, of the faithful and wise servant, and of the evil servant who will not believe in his Lord’s immediate coming: “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.

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See his later comments on the PARABLES: EXPOSITIONS: REMARKS INTRODUCTORY

Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”—Matthew 24:42-51.

Then follows the parable which as yet has not had, and which will never have, a fulfillment until at the coming of Christ, for his saints, to own, manifest and reward them; and I introduce it here as another and conclusive proof that his coming will be pre-millenial.

“THEN shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins,8 which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”—Matthew 25:1-13.

This parable at least teaches this great truth, that only those who are prepared and are truly waiting for the appearing of the Bridegroom will be received and blessed by him. While the only apparently but not really prepared will be rejected by him; and also this other fact, that it will be too late to prepare when the summons is heard. The warrior’s maxim will then be found sadly true: “Too late to whet the sword when the trumpet sounds to draw it.”

Christ added still another parable illustrating his dealings with good and evil servants, which should interest us all, as we are studying the subject of his coming.

“And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, L ord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.

And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, 8

I do not think that woman, good or bad, is ever used in our Scriptures to represent an individual, but a religious organization—a church, true or false; a meretricious woman, a “harlot,” or “foolish virgins” represent spurious and apostate churches. {See his later and fuller comments below.}

saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.

And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.

And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?

And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and g iv e it to him t hat ha th ten pounds. (And they sa id unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)

For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hith er, and slay them before me. ”—Luke 19:11-27.

This parable evidently teaches this lesson: 1. That we are all his servants, good or bad; that he has given to each one powers of mind and opportunities to advance his cause and kingdom, in this world; 2. That it is his will that we should do so to the extent of the ability given us; and 3. If we are his children indeed, we will both desire and attempt to do this, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) And we know that a good tree will bring forth good fruit, and an evil—bad—tree will bring forth evil fruit, and therefore by our works we can be known, and judged as this “unprofitable servant” was. His heart was not right, he entertained only hatred for his master, regarding him as a hard, unjust man. We learn— 4. That the master will require as our reasonable service that we use our powers of mind, our worldly means and influence for the advancement of his interests in this world, to the extent of our abilities and opportunities.

5. That he will abundantly and royally reward us for thus doing, and that our reward will be in accordance to the work we have done and the ability to do which we have developed by serving him here.

Will we not, as good servants, heed our Master’s earnest, loving warning to watch and be ready for his coming? whether it be to-night or to-morrow,—it is not far off—it is nearer than we imagine. Let us heed the words, the last words, of the Bridegroom: “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.”—Revelation 16:15.

“Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me”

The prayer of the waiting Bride of Christ is, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”

TO-DAY OR TO-MORROW. The dark stream of evil is flowing apace, And man is still walking a stranger to grace, While daring rebellion is on the increase, Which mar not my joy, which disturb not my peace.

For my heart is engaged with its own happy song; The Lord who has loved me will come before long; It may be to-morrow, or even to-night, That I shall behold him in unclouded light!

The house, and the land, and the wealth in the chest, Bring plenty of trouble, but never bring rest; The Lord is my portion! and when I have grief, His rich consolation brings instant relief.

I list not to doubts that my reason may bring, I trust to his mercy, and cheerfully sing— It may be to-morrow, or even to-day, That Christ will descend and call us away.

I know not the way he will bring it about, But I do know He’ll come with the archangel’s shout; I know not the hour, whether morning or night, But I’m waiting with patience, with untold delight.

Though thickly around me sad errors may roll, This one blessed hope is the stay of my soul— It may be to-morrow, or even to-day, That I shall be called to his presence away!

The world in its wisdom may scorn and deny The worth of the One upon whom I rely, But from Him all blessing and holiness flows And in Him I have the most blessed repose.

The night closes in, and the morn reappears, And thus it has been for a number of years, But still on the hill-tops of hope I would stay, And eagerly look for the breaking of day!

To-morrow may come with its sorrows and joys, And the evil which often my pleasure alloys, And still find the world with its poor little aim, And the scoffer in nature and practice the same; May it never find me looking earthward for bliss; My hope is above, my rejoicing is this— It may be to-morrow, or even this eve, That I, for my place in the glory, shall leave.

To-morrow may come with its sickness and death, And I may be called to relinquish my breath, But that makes me happy, because I am sure My soul with the Lord will be sweetly secure; But faith takes the word as its own proper range,

And looks not for death, but that wonderful change, From weakness and sickness to vigor and might; From evil and darkness to beauty and light.

Adorable Saviour! by faith I descry The long-looked for day of redemption draws nigh, When the shame and contempt and grief shall give place To the holy rejoicings, the triumphs of grace!

Till we from this terrible desert are caught, My heart would rejoice in this comforting thought— It may be to-morrow, or even to-night, The fullness of glory will burst on my sight!

As I close this chapter, I have honestly examined my hope and my heart, and I can conscientiously say that I am willing, and more than willing, for the Rapture of the Saints to take place to-night before I sleep or wake, and it is my solemn conviction that it will occur in the life-time of some who will read this chapter. My prayer is, that the belief of this fact may influence our lives as it did the Christians of the first ages.

Spurgeon, when he was once asked when he thought Jesus would come, replied: “I don’t know when he will come, but if he were to come to-day, I would be glad to see him.”

Dear reader, can you truly say this?

The Parables and Prophecies of Christ Explained Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by J. R. GRAVES, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. COPYRIGHT, 1928, By BAPTIST SUNDAY SCHOOL COMMITTEE TEXARKANA, ARK., - TEXAS Second Edition

PREFACE

THESE Expositions are eminently providential. Had their author not been stricken down by a severe and protracted affliction,9 they doubtless would never have been written. They were mainly “thought out” to beguile the long, weary months the Author was confined to his bed, the Scriptures being read to him by some member of his family. They were “written out” for his paper in the brief intervals he was able to sit by a table and use a pencil. They are offered to the public in this more permanent form at the urgent request of his patrons and the many friends who had read them in the paper, whose kind partiality he fears has too willingly condoned their many imperfections.

The Author’s reasons for Expositions of Our Lord’s Parables; so variant, in so many particulars, from the many already before the public, are fully set forth in the introductory chapter, and if they are not considered satisfactory he can only cast himself upon the leniency of his judges - his readers.

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He received a stroke of paralysis while preaching In the First Baptist Church, Memphis, from which he lay in a critical condition for months, and confined to his bed or room for nearly two years.

He can truly say these years were spent in Beulah, in almost unalloyed spiritual enjoyment of the “full assurance of hope,” while he rested on the sunlit river of death for the hourly expected summons to pass over.

PART 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. – THE SCHEME OF CHRIST’S PARABOLIC TEACHINGS FROM a careful study of the parabolic and prophetic teachings of Christ, I am convinced that He designed to unfold to the understanding of His disciples the whole scheme of His redemption, from its inception onward through all its progressive stages and its mysteries (Mark 4:11), as connected with His visible “kingdom of heaven on earth,” until its glorious consummation at the end of the age.

We would therefore naturally expect to meet with a parable introductory to all that are to follow, revealing to His disciples how evil was introduced into the world, through the baneful influences of which, His original design in creating the world and the human race seems to have been thwarted, and universal ruin and wreck following as a natural consequence. Following this revelation we would naturally look for parables illustrating His redemptive work in seeking the recovery of a lost world and a lost race - the comprehensiveness of His redeeming work - whether it extended to one race or nation or embracing all races and all nations. If the malignant opposition of Satan is to be continued until the end of the Gospel Ages to obstruct the progress of this merciful work, we should expect that the character of his subtle machinations and the extent of them would be also illustrated in His parabolic teachings.

And, then, the Jewish nation, having been for four thousand years God’s peculiar people, the possessors of all the covenants and the promises, we should expect He would instruct His disciples the attitude this ancient people would assume towards the newly-organized kingdom of Christ and His purposes with reference to them.

If this is a correct scheme of Christ’s parabolic teachings, it certainly would not be complete without a full development of His final dealings with His friends and His foes - the ultimate rewards of the one and the destiny of the other party, and the ultimate destiny of this once fair and beautiful, but now wrecked and ruined, earth.

Now, all these features of His gracious work in connection with His earthly kingdom are fully illustrated by the parables and prophecies he delivered to His disciples; and, as we have no certain clue to the order in which He delivered them, I shall explain them topically, classifying them in the order indicated above.

Remarks on Parabolic Interpretation Many readers stumble at the opening comparisons of the parables, under the impression that they must find a likeness in “the kingdom of heaven” to the first person or object mentioned in the parable, while in most cases there is no comparison intended; but we must seek the proper “likeness” between the principal features of the parable and one or more of the particular phases in the administration of “the kingdom of heaven,” and sometimes the likeness is to be sought between the administration of the kingdom and the whole parable. I submit the remarks of Dr. Broadus in his comments on {Matt. 13:47-50}, “The Net:” “The opening verbal comparison of the several parables is not uniform and essential to the meaning, but incidental and varying. In Matt. 13:45, the kingdom of heaven is like a man seeking pearls, but in Matt. 13:44 it is compared not to the finder, but to the thing found. In Matt. 13:24 it is like the owner of a field, i.e. the Messiah (Matt. 13:37), but in Matt. 13:47 it is compared not to the owner of the net, but to the net. So, in Matt. 22:2, the kingdom of heaven is likened to the king, who gave a marriage feast for his son, but in Matt. 25:1 it is likened not to the bridegroom, but to the virgins who desired to attend the feast. These and other examples show that our Lord does not in each case carefully assert a special relation between the Messianic reign and this or that particular object in the parable, but means to say that something is true of the Messianic reign which resembles the case in the parable; and, instead of speaking in vague terms of general comparison (as in Matt. 25:14), He often sets out by saying that the kingdom of heaven is like some leading person or object of the story, or some feature that readily presents itself at the beginning. (Comp. Matt. 11:16.) In this parable (i.e. of The Net), then, we are not at liberty to lay any stress upon the comparison of the kingdom of heaven to the net itself. The comparison is to the whole story, and its particular point is given by our Lord himself in Matt. 13:49.”

- Commentary on Matthew.

The author, after more than three years of patient study of the prophetic Scriptures since writing “The Seven Dispensations,” has modified his views set forth in that work touching two questions, viz.: 1. Will all Christians of all ages compose the Bride of Christ? and (2) will all Christians at the advent of Christ be “caught away to meet Him in the air?” He is now thoroughly satisfied that these questions should be answered in the negative, and his reasons will be apparent to all who examine his expositions of The Virgins, The Talents, and The Pounds. It has been said, “A wise man by investigation sometimes changes his opinion, but a fool never.”

If this production of a mind impaired and a body enfeebled by disease, and prepared for the press in the midst of pains and great weariness of the flesh, should prove acceptable to his brethren, stimulating them in studying and aiding

them in the better understanding of the parabolic teachings of Christ, and in any respect contribute to prepare them for His glorious appearing, the author will feel that two years of his life of confinement have not been passed in vain.

SOME REASONS FOR OFFERING THESE NEW EXPOSITIONS OF THE PARABLES OF CHRIST TO THE PUBLIC It is my conviction that no part of the word of God, unless it be the prophecies, has been more generally misinterpreted by commentators, and therefore misunderstood by the people, than the parables of Christ. Most of them have been interpreted, by even Calvinistic writers, to teach that salvation, or the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, can and must be purchased by the personal merits or endeavours of the sinner himself. Examine the current expositions of the “Hid Treasure,” of the “Costly Pearl,” and “The Labourers,” etc.

We are told that the treasure, as well as the pearl, is salvation, or the blessings connected with the kingdom of heaven; and the sinner must not only diligently seek to find, but to sell all and PURCHASE it. So, by the Parable of the “Vineyard Labourers,” we are taught that sinners, some young, some old, enter the vineyard - the service of God - and all work for the same reward, i.e. salvation, as the price of their work! Take even Christ’s statement in Matt. 11:12. It is universally interpreted as teaching that the sinner can and must obtain the blessings of the kingdom of heaven as the result or reward of his own intense personal exertions; while everywhere in God’s word it is taught and emphasized that it is Christ himself who came to seek and to save the lost, and that salvation is of God’s free grace through Christ, and that “not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Certainly all Christians who believe that salvation is by grace, without works or deeds of law, will agree with me that such interpretations are exceedingly pernicious, because subversive of the fundamental principles of Christianity, and lead the sinner away from instead of to Christ. It is a constant and surpassing wonder that Calvinistic expositors construe so many of the parables to the support of Arminianism, and make them teach that a child of God may, by an act of simple improvidence (as in the case of the improvident virgins), or slothfulness (as in the case of the slothful servant, in the Parable of the Talents and the Pounds), be finally lost.

I think Christ designed to teach and illustrate by His parables the great fundamental facts that underlie the covenant of redemption, and His dispensational work* in the administration of His government, and His dealings with sin, until He has consummated His work in righteousness at the end of the coming or Millennial Age.10 While some of His parables had, without doubt, application to His hearers, and were spoken for their personal instruction in 10

{*see “The 3 Stages of Christ’s Kingdom~Church~Bride“}

righteousness, yet we know the principal ones were pregnant with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven for the instruction of His disciples, and all who, with honesty of heart, desired to be instructed. Christ himself declared this: “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” - Matt. 13:11.

And one of the greatest mysteries of the administration of the kingdom of Christ,11 Paul tells us, was that in the fulness of time the Gentiles were to be made partakers and fellow-heirs, with the Jews, of God’s grace in Christ Jesus: “How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel.”- Eph. 3:3.

From this standpoint, we see the introduction of Sin into the world, and the world lost through sin, and Christ’s long forbearance with a race of sinners, illustrated by the Parable of the Tares; and from it we learn that sinners will abound in the earth, and oppress the good until the day of judgment, when they will be judged, and the earth purged of them and made the glorious abode of the righteous only.

In the Parables of the Wandering Sheep and the Lost Coin we see illustrated God’s love, not only for a lost sinner, and the lost of the house of Israel, but for a lost world, and the amazing, self-sacrificing, seeking love of Christ in leaving all that He might seek and save it, and return it in sweet subjection to the possession and government of the Father. (See 1 Cor. 15:24-29.) And in the Parables of the Hid Treasure and the Costly Pearl, what it cost Him to purchase the salvation of His people, and the redemption of a lost world.

In the Parable of the Labourers we are taught the sovereignty of God, coupled with His goodness, in calling the nations by His gospel, at different periods, to enter His service, in connection with the Jews. And we also see in this, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the deep-seated prejudice and envy of the Jews in seeing God’s favour extended to the Gentiles as well as to themselves. Our readers are aware that this parable is universally interpreted to illustrate either the conversion of a profligate sinner, or the restoration of a backslidden Christian to the divine favour. But the trouble has ever been to say whom the elder brother represented; for he is and ever will be quite as important a personage as the younger son.

Christians rejoice with “exceeding great joy” when they witness the conversion of a sinner, however old he may be, or however wicked he may have been; and equally

11

See Rev. 3:21. The Millennial Kingdom of “a thousand years,” is primarily ‘the kingdom of Christ/Messiah: and this coming “Kingdom” must be distinguished, in the minds of His disciples, from His Eternal Kingdom in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1).

so in witnessing the restoration of a backslidden Christian. Neither of these interpretations will do.

From the Parable of the Hidden Leaven we see the disastrous effect of the introduction of false teachings into the doctrine of Christ, which is the bread of life, or into a church of Christ; and, unless purged out, even a little leaven is sufficient to leaven “the whole lump.” The Parable is universally interpreted to teach the permeating influence of the gospel, and that the whole world is to be converted to God by it. Leaven is nowhere in God’s word, unless here, used as a symbol of the gospel, or of anything pure or good - and we can not believe it is so used here. And to teach that the gospel is to convert the whole world, or the greatest mass of its population, is to contradict other and plain teachings of the Scriptures, as will be fully demonstrated in this Series of Expositions.

That the Parables of the Rented Vineyard (Matt. 21:33), the Great Supper (Luke 16:16), the Barren Tree and the Cursed Fig Tree, generally interpreted as applicable to sinners or barren Christians, will be found to refer solely to the Jewish nation, and God’s dealings with it. The Pharisees saw and felt their force when Christ delivered them, and yet these have been and indeed are generally applied to individual sinners!

I have intimated enough to convince the intelligent reader that the parables of Christ demand new and different interpretations, if it is necessary that their teachings should accord with the other plain and unfigurative teachings of Christ.

The candid reader will agree with me that the parables of Christ, if rightly interpreted, will not conflict with the unfigurative teachings of Christ and His apostles. Of this I am confident, however widely my interpretations may differ from those now before the public, they will be found by all students of God’s word in perfect harmony with the plain, unfigurative teachings of the Scriptures. This certainly will be a great gain over the commonly received interpretations of the parables and prophecies of Christ.

I only ask an impartial reading of these Expositions by all Bible students.

A Parable Illustrating The Introduction Of Evil Into The World ~ The WheatField Oversown By The Enemy - Satan. The Parable Of The Wheat And Tares

CHAPTER 2 THE WHEAT AND THE TARES IN ENTERING upon the exposition of the parables of Christ, it is important for the reader to bear in mind that he is not to seek for the likeness of the kingdom of heaven in the character or peculiar, quality of the immediate subject of the narrative; as, for example, in the man who sowed the good seed, or in a mustard seed, in the hid treasure, the lost coin, in leaven, or a fishing net, although it

is said the kingdom of heaven is like a man - like a mustard seed - like a treasure hid - like leaven - like a drag net, and like ten virgins.

“Unto a man.” The Messianic reign resembles not simply a man who sowed, but the parable as a whole; the comparison is simply affirmed here and elsewhere with reference to the leading personage of the story or the object it is natural to mention. First comp. Matt. 5:44-45, 47; 18:23; 20:1; 25:1. - Broadus’ Commentary in loco.

From the interpretation of Christ himself we must learn to interpret; and from Him we learn that He designed to illustrate some one or more of the great and important truths which He called “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” connected with the administration of His mediatorial kingdom on earth by the principle features of His parables. We are therefore not to attempt to find something in His kingdom to correspond with everything related in the narrative.

Some things are thrown in to round out - to make the relation or allegory more lifelike and striking; as, while men slept the enemy sowed tares, or the number ten in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, etc.

I will commence with the Parable of the Tares, said to be the most difficult of all the parables.

THIS IS A HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL PARABLE ILLUSTRATING THE INTRODUCTION OF EVIL INTO THE WORLD, AND THAT THE EVIL DONE BY SATAN AND EVIL-DOERS WILL NOT ALWAYS BE TOLERATED, BUT FINALLY THEY WILL BE PUNISHED, AND THE EVIL RECTIFIED. THE PARABLE - NO. 1 “Another parable He put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.” - Matt. 13:24-30.

This parable is called by expositors one of the most difficult of all the parables of Christ; this too in the face of Christ’s own explanation of it.* I have studied the various interpretations, and am fully convinced that the whole difficulty arises from the determination of writers to force it to teach what Christ never intended it

to teach, and to contradict what He did teach; i.e. making the field to symbolize the kingdom or “the church”(?) of Christ on earth, when Christ explicitly tells us that the field represents the world.* “This is one of the most difficult in the whole series of our Lord’s parables. As Luther remarks, it appears very simple and easy to understand, especially as the Lord himself has explained it, and told us what the field and the good seed and the tares are; but there is such a diversity of opinion among interpreters that much attention is needed to hit the right meaning.” - DR. BRUCE. CHRIST’S INTERPRETATION “He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man; and the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; [or age, that closes with the final judgment.] The reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the [that age] world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.

There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears let him hear.”

GLOSSARY The Sower, The Son of Man. Good seed; wheat, Sons of the kingdom; sinless persons. The field, The world. The enemy, The Evil One; the Devil. Tares, Sons of the Wicked One. Harvest, The end of the age. The reapers, The angels of God. Barn, Eternal felicity.

This parable, so replete with rich and important truths relating to the administration of the kingdom of Christ, all expositors connected with State churches, and those who follow their leading, unite in wresting by interpretation in the support of those false churches, by teaching that the field is the visible State church, in which the notoriously bad must be allowed to grow without disturbance by healthy discipline, thus using God’s word to defend corrupt churches and to keep manifestly wicked men in the church. Christ explicitly declares that the field is the world, and not the church, which he everywhere commands his servants to keep pure by the prompt expulsion of all classes of evil men.

Christ originally sowed this world with good seed - His own children, formed in His own image, which He pronounced “good.” Pure and sinless were our first parents in their first estate; and in a beautiful and fertile field were they placed, in which there was not a noxious weed or a tare. It was Satan, that old enemy, the devil, who oversowed this beautiful world with tares, from whence his children and servants like unto himself. So thickly has he succeeded in seeding the field with

tares that, to all human appearances, they must evidently choke and shade out the wheat. The wicked far outnumber the righteous, and they appropriate to themselves the largest and best part of the field, and materially disturb the increase and well-being of the children of the kingdom, and even threaten to destroy them from the face of the earth.

WHAT WE LEARN 1. We learn that the devil is a person, and not a mere abstract principle of evil.

No man who believes that Christ is a real personality can reasonably question the personality of the devil.

2. And we learn that, how numerous soever his demon evil spirits may be, there is but one devil.

3. We learn from this parable the wonderful long-suffering and forbearance of God in permitting the tares to grow up with the wheat. Worldly wisdom would dictate that the tares should be rooted up as fast as they appear, and that a pure and holy God should not suffer wicked men, “the children of the wicked one,” to overbear His own children and overrun the earth to their unhappiness and detriment; but 4. We learn that it is only for a season that the wicked are allowed to dominate this earth. The Psalmist says: “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree; yet he passed away, and lo! he was not; yea, I sought him, and he could not be found.”

The interpreters in Luther’s day all belonged to State churches, and they interpreted in the interest of those churches. i.e. that the church should include the entire population of the State, and they therefore interpreted the field in the parable to symbolize the church.

5. We learn that God denies to the children of the kingdom the use of force, oppression or persecution. Christian rulers are forbidden the use of the sword or force to extirpate heretics. While the churches of Christ must be kept pure, the wicked must be permitted to exist in the world, since the attempt to forcibly root them out of it now would break up the foundations of society and destroy the kingdom of Christ, because it would have no material out of which to renew its membership by conversion to itself.

6. We learn, also, that the world is not to be converted by the children of the kingdom, through the preaching of the gospel, and thus cleared of the taxes, before the second coming of Christ, as post-millennialists teach, for the tares are to retain their hold and grow until the close of the harvest age - until the final judgment.

7. We learn from this that it is not required of the churches in this age to convert the world. This is not their mission, but to preach the gospel “as a witness” among all nations, and thus prepare the way for the coming of their Lord.

It will be His work to separate, through the agency of His angels. It is then that the words of His herald will be fulfilled: “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor, separate the tares from the wheat, gather His wheat into the garner, and burn up the chaff (tares) in unquenchable fire.”

8. We learn that wicked men will exist and abound upon this earth not only during all of this dispensation, but through all the thousand years of the millennial age. Only the incorrigibly wicked - those who have had the gospel offered to them and rejected it, like the rebellious Israelites who fell in the desert - and those nations that have persecuted the saints, will be destroyed at the coming of Christ.

All the “sheep” nations - the inoffensive and non-persecuting nations, will be preserved to enjoy the brighter age to come; and over these in the flesh will the saints reign with Christ for a thousand years; and from these nations will that vast multitude be saved “which no man can number [count].”

9. We learn that ultimately, at the close of the harvest age, Christ will thoroughly cleanse His floor. He will send forth His angels and exterminate the tares, root and branch, out of His field, and burn them. They will never more be permitted to infest it. And the earth, thus cleansed, will forever be occupied by His people alone. Read, in connection with this, Psalm 37. and Rev. 21. and 22. When Christ shall have fully consummated His work, and the world (His field) has been redeemed from all the evils wrought by His enemy, and be fully and safely occupied

by His redeemed ones, then will He deliver up His sceptre to the Father, and then will the Father’s kingdom come, as Christ taught His disciples to pray, when His Father’s will will be done in all the earth as it is done in heaven; and then we know this earth will be a heaven.

“Then shall the righteous shine forth m the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Who hath ears to hear let him hear.” - Matt. 13:43.

This is a historical parable, because Christ gives us the history of the introduction of evil into this world, and tells by whose agency evil was introduced, and that it is by His all-wise purpose that evil and evil-doers have been allowed to exist on the earth.

“Evil in the human race owes its origin to Satan.” “As to the reasons why God permitted its original appearance in the universe speculation has scarcely proven satisfactory, and Scripture is silent.” – Broadus’ Commentary in loco.

It is prophetical, because Christ foretells that the children of the wicked one (sinners) will exist upon this earth and dominate over the righteous until the end

of the harvest age. Finally He foretells the final separation of the wicked from the righteous, and the fearful, but deserved, doom of the wicked. This interpretation certainly harmonizes with all the other teachings of Christ and His apostles touching the administration of His kingdom on this earth, and the transactions of the final judgment. It certainly teaches, beyond reasonable doubt, the premillennial advent of Christ - i.e. the coming of Christ before the conversion and subjugation of the world to Him, since the tares will possess the field until He comes, and His first act will be to root them out and destroy them. (Rev. 14.)

On this point says Dr. Broadus: “We learn here that good and bad will both be found intermingled in the world until the consummation of the present age, at the second coming of Christ, which seems quite contrary to the notion of a previous millennium, during which all men, without exception, will be faultless Christians.” - Commentary in loco. *** PARABLES ILLUSTRATING THE WILES AND MACHINATIONS SATAN WOULD EMPLOY TO OBSTRUCT AND DESTROY THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST (PROPHETICAL) ------1. THE LEAVEN HIDDEN. 2. THE MUSTARD TREE AND BIRDS OF THE AIR. 3. THE SOWER AND BIRDS OF THE AIR.

CHAPTER 3 THE HIDDEN LEAVEN CHRIST undoubtedly, by the parable of the wheat oversown by tares, taught His disciples the agency (Satanic) and the manner (stealthily) by which evil was originally introduced into this world; and by the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Hidden Treasure, He illustrated the compassionate love that moved Him to undertake, and the infinite sacrifice it cost Him to achieve, the redemption of His people, and the restoration of a lost and ruined world to its primitive perfectness and loveliness as the eternal home and heaven of the joint heirs of His glory and inheritance.

From this first revelation we are certainly warranted in the conclusion that through the machinations of His great adversary, who oversowed the field with tares, a corrupting element, or agency, would be stealthily infused into the saving doctrine of man’s salvation, “the bread of life,” to corrupt and destroy it, and enemies introduced into the constituencies of His kingdom to subvert rather than friends to conserve it, and are certainly warranted in concluding that by parables He would also indicate these facts, so that His disciples in after ages might not be overtaken by surprise or overwhelmed by discouragement when they saw their

Master’s work seemingly thwarted and frustrated in their hands. This fact - i.e. the subsequent corruption of His doctrine of life and the gospel of our salvation by the influence of soul-destroying error, and the introduction of evil men and seducers into the constituencies of His kingdom - I think He has unquestionably set forth by the parables of the leaven hid in the meal, and the fowls of the air lodging in the branches of the mustard tree.

With this introduction I address myself to the exposition of these parables.

THE HIDDEN LEAVEN(PROPHETICAL) ILLUSTRATING THE UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST BY THE INJECTION OF FALSE DOCTRINE INTO IT BY A CORRUPT CHURCH. GLOSSARY Leaven, False doctrine.

Woman (pure), A true church.

Woman (vile), A false church.

To hide, To surreptitiously introduce.

Meal, The saving truth-the doctrine of Christ.

Wholly leavened, Wholly corrupted.

PARABLE “Another parable spake He unto them: The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” - Matt. 13:33.

The principal features of this parable are: 1. The three measures, or one ephah, of meal.

2. The leaven.

3. A woman hiding it.

4. The effect upon the meal.

Commentators, so far as my information extends, most unanimously misinterpret this parable, teaching that the meal symbolizes this world - the whole mass of depraved humanity - and the leaven symbolizes the gospel, which, once planted in it, like leaven in the meal, will work irresistibly and silently on and on, permeating and assimilating it thoroughly to itself, until the whole world is leavened, i.e. Christianized.

Accepting this glaring misinterpretation of the parable, men who address our great missionary conventions and convocations urge it upon Christians, as the most potent motive to plant the gospel in heathen lands, because Christ teaches us that it is the appointed mission of the church to convert the whole world by the

gospel, and that this parable contains the promise that the whole world shall be finally Christianized, brought under sweet subjection to Christ, by the hallowed influence of the gospel. If Christ taught this in this parable, then He contradicted what He taught in His other parables and everywhere else in the New Testament.

The wheat did not crowd out or assimilate all the tares to itself, and occupy the whole field, but the tares held their place, to the injury of the wheat, until the harvest - the final judgment. (See exposition of the tares.) He also contradicts all of His own plain, unfigurative teaching concerning the state of the world at the close of this present gospel dispensation. In Matt. 24:37, He declares most explicitly that what the state of society was in the days of Noah it will be at His second coming, thus teaching that the whole world, with comparatively few exceptions, will have become thoroughly corrupted, and be in a state of open-handed rebellion to God; and when Christ comes it will be to “render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire.” See also Matt. 25., where the goat nations are to be judged and punished at the second coming of Christ. He also plainly contradicts the express teaching of the Holy Ghost: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience scared with a hot iron.” - 1Tim. 4:1-2.

He also flatly contradicts the teaching of His holy apostles: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. From such turn away.” - 2Tim. 3:1-5.

And He contradicts His last revelation to His servant John. See and read Rev. 19.

What Christ did teach by this parable we can ascertain, if we give to the symbols Christ employed the same signification they manifestly have in all His other teachings, and in sacred Scriptures universally. No one can reasonably object to this. Let us do this.

The meal. This term is interpreted to symbolize human hearts - the whole mass of depraved humanity - the world; but it is nowhere else in God’s word so used, but to represent saving truth. Meal, of which bread is made, is called the staff of our temporal life throughout the Scriptures. Christ called himself “the bread of life,” the “true bread which cometh down from heaven.” Of His words (doctrine) He said: “The words I have spoken unto you are spirit, and they are life.” These words, this doctrine, corrupted and vitiated, must be but the savour of death.

The ephah (three measures) of meal, the usual quantity used for a baking, then, do not symbolize the world - the three divisions of the then known world the whole mass of depraved humanity - as some teach - but saving truth “the doctrine of Christ” - “the gospel of salvation.”

Leaven in this parable must certainly symbolize what it invariably represents elsewhere throughout the sacred writings - false doctrine, and anything that is unholy and corrupting in its nature, since it is the property of leaven to assimilate a mass of kneaded meal, or flour, however large, to itself by corrupting it. Why should its use in this one passage be so unlike and opposite to its use in every other passage in God’s word?

It is urged that Christ expressly said it is “the kingdom of heaven” that is like leaven. The objection is not tenable; for He says, “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man,” and “is like unto a merchant,” and “a treasure hid,” “a net,” “a mustard seed,” “a woman,” “a king,” “a householder,” etc. The meaning is that there are facts in connection with the administration of Christ’s visible kingdom on earth illustrated by one or more of the features of the parable used - this and nothing more. (See remarks on parabolic interpretation in Chapter 1.)

The invariable use of the term leaven by Christ elsewhere, and of His apostles everywhere, to denote something vile and unholy in principle or doctrine, that is corrupting, certainly forbids its being used here to represent something pure and holy, as the pure gospel of Christ- as Christ’s church. Nowhere else, if it is here, is anything vile, impure, corrupting, used to represent that which is pure and holy; and I can not believe it is here. This is an invariable rule unless this be an exception. And why should it be forced in as an exception here, when to do so would put a palpable untruth in the lips of Christ; in fact, would be to make Him contradict what both He and the Holy Spirit have taught everywhere else? In the first parable He addressed to the people in this connection, He taught them that the field which He sowed with good seed was oversown by the enemy with tares, which worked injury and almost ruin to His crop, and that they continued to do so to the end of the world. Would He be likely to teach the very opposite in this parable?

Christ nowhere else teaches that His kingdom, in this dispensation, will continue to increase until it assimilates all things to itself - that Christianity will spread until the whole world is converted to Him; but far otherwise. This dispensation closes with the “whole world wondering after the beast” under the influence of the antichrist. He foretold that His followers would be persecuted to the end of this age; that “evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse;” that abounding iniquity and the love of many growing cold were sure signs of the last times; that brazen-faced impiety and arrogant skepticism would unblushingly lift their heads and demand: “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the

fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning.” In a word, Christ declared that as it was in the days of Noah, just before the flood, so would the coming of the Son of Man be. Did the preaching of Noah convert the world? If not, are we authorized by Christ’s declaration to believe the Christianity preached by ministers of this age will be able to do it? Christianity was planted in the city of Jerusalem by Christ and His apostles, but did it work upon its society until it assimilated the whole mass to itself? It was planted in Judea, in Galilee, in Samaria, in Macedonia, in Galatia, in Pontus, in Cappadocia, in many of the principal cities of Asia, and did it ever assimilate any one province, country, city, village or hamlet, however small, to itself? or, was it not rather itself leavened, and entirely corrupted, in every country and city of the East? If we read the Bible we know it was not intended to do it; and therefore there is no command for the churches to do it, and no promise to the churches that it shall be done. It would thwart the mission of Christ should they do it, and falsify all the prophecies concerning the times.

Leaven, put into a mass of meal, leavens it - assimilates it to itself by corrupting it: so false doctrine, intermixed with the soul-saving doctrine of Christ, corrupts and destroys it.

Will the reader notice what leaven is everywhere else used to represent, and how Christians are warned to treat it?

“Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” - Ex. 12:15.

“No meat offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven; for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the Lord made by fire.” - Lev. 2:11.

“Then Jesus said tinto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” - Matt. 16:6.

“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” - Luke 12:1.

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Cor. 5:6-8.* Should not leavened bread be banished from the Lord’s table, symbolizing as it does something impure and vile - a man’s works? If its presence would have vitiated a sin-offering or the passover, will it not the Lord’s supper? The Lord used unleavened bread.

Will any one say that Paul intended to teach that a little Christianity planted in the world would Christianize the whole mass?

If Christ used leaven to represent the working of His gospel-saving truth - He used a contradictious figure - a figure that contradicted an established fact. It is not the province of truth to irresistibly work on, correcting error and permeating corruption, and assimilating it to itself, but, when brought in contact with error or untruth, it is ever tainted and corrupted by it. A sound apple, placed in a barrel of rotten ones, will not correct their unsoundness, nor will a healthy man, introduced into a hospital filled with patients dying with smallpox, restore them all to health; but the sound apple will soon become rotten, and the healthy man infected with the contagious disease. On the contrary, place one rotten apple in a barrel or bin of sound ones, and it, like leaven, will infect all; and one case of smallpox, if left to itself, will infect a whole city. Truth is an exotic, and can only exist and grow by the most assiduous cultivation.

A handful of wheat or corn sown in a well ploughed field, if left to itself, will soon die out, being overshadowed and choked by the grass and noxious weeds, and not a kernel would be harvested; but lo! if a handful of cockle seed or coco-grass nuts be sowed, ere long the whole field will be overrun and irredeemably ruined by the coco. So with truth and error. Deadly error is indigenous to the soil of carnal hearts, like coco-grass to the natural soil, and will, without the least cultivation, take full and ineradicable possession of humanity, while saving truth, like an exotic flower, without the most careful and constant cultivation, will be overshadowed and die.

Christ never used leaven to symbolize saving truth - the vile and corrupting to represent His pure and holy gospel.

If leaven symbolizes the gospel, or Christianity, then the woman must symbolize the agent or the agencies that first introduced, and are now introducing and infusing, it into the world - Christ and His apostles, and Christians, operating through the true churches of Christ! But this woman evidently symbolizes an enemy, and not a friend. And the leaven was introduced with an inimical intent: for it was not done openly, as the gospel was preached by Christ and His apostles, but was “hid� - stealthily and surreptitiously introduced into the meal, as not the right thing to do - as something not belonging to the meal, but calculated to injure and destroy it. How very like the enemy who sowed the tares among the wheat while the men slept! And, as the tares could not be detected until they had somewhat grown, so could not the presence of the leaven until its corrupting effects were observed.

Woman, throughout the Scriptures, with but one solitary exception, where it represents Christ himself, is used to symbolize a professed church and people of

God. A chaste wife, a pure woman, everywhere a pure church, while an adulterous or meretricious and vile woman, the opposite.

The deeper significancy than that upon the surface of this parable, without a doubt in my mind, points to an apostate church, the very “Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth,” secretly hiding – insinuating - the leaven of her false doctrines into the doctrine of Christ, and thus corrupting the faith of the largest part of the professed Christian world. It is charged against this mother of all corruptions (Rev. 17:2) that she made the “inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication” - deceived and bewildered them to their ruin by the subtlety of her false doctrines. This is the very work the apostate Roman church has done. She has “hid” – infused - the leaven of her false and abominable doctrines into the doctrine of Christ, which she once received pure, and has thoroughly leavened it; and the faith received from her by all Protestant communions is corrupted by the infusion of her deadly leaven, as the communication of saying grace through the ordinances, called by them “sacraments.” Hence the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and salvation and all its attendant evils. And if there is a word of prophecy couched in this parable we may safely conclude that the world, with the exception of “the witnesses of Jesus,” will be ultimately leavened by her false doctrines, until the whole is leavened. Do we not read of the last times, “And the whole world wondered after the beast?” (Rev. 13:3.)

Let any intelligent Christian examine the creeds of the Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist and Campbellite denominations and say if, by strictly following their teachings, a soul could be saved. They one and all make baptism a sacrament of the remission of sins - of regeneration, and therefore of salvation.

This is the leaven the woman hid in the meal.

Does leaven, in this parable, mean the permeating power of the gospel or rather the diffusive tendency of false doctrine? I accept the latter alternative, and proceed to give reasons.

Before doing this, however, suppose we admit for a moment the other alternative - that leaven means the gospel pervading “the mass of humanity” “until the whole is leavened.” The mass of humanity can be leavened only as the individuals are thus wrought upon. But it is a fact that no individual of the race is wholly leavened with the gospel. Every Christian has two natures - the human and the divine - but the divine nature never leavens the human nature. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and never becomes anything but flesh. The Holy Ghost never sanctifies the flesh. We are to “crucify the flesh with the passions and lusts.”

Now if no individual is ever leavened, so to speak, by the gospel, no aggregation of individuals is thus leavened. Hence, if this interpretation is not true of any one of the parts, it is not true of the whole.

There are eight reasons in my mind for interpreting this parable to mean the final and universal prevalence of false doctrine.

1. My first argument is based on the meaning of the word leaven. It comes from the Hebrew word seor, the Greek gume, the Latin fermentum, and the English leaven from levare. The Hebrew word seor has the radical sense of effervescence or fermentation, and therefore corresponds in point of etymology with the Greek word gume and the Latin fermentum. There is also another Hebrew word, kahmetz, which signifies fermented or leavened; literally, sharpened bread. Both Hebrew words are synonymous, being used for the same object, the only difference being that kahmetz has a more general signification, so as to he applicable to both kinds of fermentation - vinous and acetous. The Greek word gume, corresponding to the Hebrew seor, Dr. Robinson defines in its metaphorical sense to be “anything which tends to corrupt and pervert any one; for example, false doctrine or corrupt conduct.” The corresponding Latin word fermentum was applied by Tacitus and Prudentius “to the manners and conduct of the people as being corrupt and bad.”

It is instructive to show what the opposite term, unleavened, means. The Hebrew word is matzzoth, signifying sweetness or purity. In Ex. 13:7, we have these three Hebrew words in juxtaposition: “Unleavened bread (matzzoth) shall be eaten seven days; and there shall be no leavened bread (kahmetz) seen with thee, neither shall there he leaven (seor) seen with thee in all thy quarters.”

Webster says, “Leaven is any substance that produces fermentation, as in dough; anything that makes a general, especially a corrupting, change in the mass.” Worcester says, “Leaven is commonly used of something which depraves that with which it is mixed; as, for instance, ‘Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’” Calmet, Smith and Kitto fully concur in their Bible dictionaries with Webster and Worcester. Scott, Adam Clark, Alexander and others say the same.

With this weight of authority from Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English lexicographers as to the very meaning of the word leaven, I do not see how any man can speak of it as a symbol of the gospel.

2. My second argument is based upon the use of the term in the Old and New Testaments. I unhesitatingly affirm that there is not a passage in the Bible which uses the word leaven in a good sense - it is always the symbol of corruption. Not only was its use forbidden at the Passover, but its very presence was prohibited. So imperative was this command that he who violated it was cut off from all civil and religious rights, if not from life itself. The Passover was a type of Christ, who was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners; and hence unleavened bread, the symbol of purity, sincerity and truth, must be used, and no leaven whatever.

There are two passages in the Old Testament which seem to form an exception, but they not only confirm the rule, but establish the law that leaven always means

evil. In Lev. 23:17, two wave loaves are commanded to be baked with leaven. These two wave loaves baked with leaven, and offered on the Day of Pentecost, were obvious types of the church composed of Jew and Gentile, but having evil in it, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles. Hence a sin-offering was presented with two leavened loaves. There was nothing spotless and pure to be symbolized here, but rather the depraved and human, and hence leaven was used, which confirms the rule - yea, more, it establishes the law - that leaven always represents corruption.

Notwithstanding their offering of thanksgiving, the leaven of ungodliness and idolatry was already working in the heart of Israel, and fast preparing them to be carried into a land wholly corrupted with idolatry. So great was their moral corruption that the molten gods of Dan and Bethel and Gilgal, and the golden calves of Beersheba, the symbols of a corrupt and beastly worship, drew them away from the God of Israel. No wonder the prophet Amos, with bitter irony, exclaimed, “Come to Bethel and transgress: at Gilgal multiply transgressions, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven.” (Amos 4:4-5.) That is, burn a thank-offering with leaven, in contempt of law. Thus leavened, Israel fell. And this is the last of Israel, and the last of the leaven in the Old Testament, where we have found it always to mean evil.

Turning now to the New Testament, we find Christ saying, “Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” By this He meant the “doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” There was the leaven of Herod legality; the leaven of the Sadducees - worldliness; and the leaven of the Pharisees - ritualism. We never read of the leaven of the gospel and righteousness, but we do read of “leaven of malice and wickedness.” We never read of the leaven of the saints, which is sincerity, but we do read of “the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” We never read that leaven means good; it always means evil.

Now it is a sound principle of interpretation that we must understand a metaphor which is not explained in the light of a similar metaphor which is explained. In like manner we are to understand the use of the word leaven in this parable, where it is not explained, in the light of the nineteen other passages in the Bible where it is explained. If everywhere in the Old Testament and New Testament leaven is explained to mean corruption, is it not a logical inference that in this unexplained parable it means corruption also? Adam Clark, in commenting on the other passages where leaven occurs, says: “Bad doctrines act in the soul as leaven does in bread: they assimilate the spirit to its own nature.”

Christ well knew that the Pharisee doctrine and the Sadducee doctrine would invade the kingdom of heaven and corrupt the truth; hence the need of His warning - “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

There are only two instances of the word leaven in the New Testament, aside from the parable under consideration, and in those passages it means moral corruption also. The first is in 1 Cor. 5:1-8. The church at Corinth had, to a large extent, relapsed into heathenish vices of profligacy and licentiousness. They even tolerated in the church a man who was openly living in incestuous relations with his step-mother, and that while his father was living. Even the holy communion had been perverted into gluttony, and was profaned by scenes of revelling and debauchery. No wonder Paul, with righteous indignation, exclaims: “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Paul did not say, purge out the old leaven and put in the new leaven.

He said, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven (of heathenish practices), nor with the new “leaven of malice and wickedness.” Once more Paul warns the Galatian church against the influences of Judaism in enforcing circumcision upon those who had become Christians. He says: “This persuasion cometh not of Him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” And when Paul interprets leaven to mean “malice and wickedness,” how is it that where it is not interpreted it is made to mean righteousness and holiness? When Christ interprets leaven to mean hypocrisy and formalism, how is it that where it is not interpreted, as in the parable, it is made to mean the diffusive power of the gospel?

How is it that leaven is used twenty times in the Bible, and in nineteen cases it means corruption, and in the one parable it means moral purity, the saving gospel of Christ? Does baptizo mean in nineteen cases to immerse, and in the twentieth instance to sprinkle? If Christ always interpreted the leaven to mean evil in every other passage where it occurs, how were the disciples to know that it meant good in this single parable? If Christ used a word with a well-understood meaning in every other case, how is it that the word has just the opposite meaning in this solitary instance? It is a very safe canon of interpretation never to explain a difficult passage to mean what is not taught in some other so clearly as not to need any explanation. Leaven in the parable, then, though unexplained, must mean what leaven does in other passages where it is explained.

3. My third argument is based upon Christ’s own interpretation of two preceding parables.

We have appealed to lexicographers for the meaning of the word leaven; we have searched the Old Testament and New Testament for the use of the term, and have found it always symbolizes corruption. But suppose we had no dictionary Hebrew, Greek, Latin or English - suppose we had not consulted the Scriptures outside the chapter where the parable of the leaven is recorded - if Christ’s own interpretation of two preceding parables in the immediate context teaches us that

the kingdom of heaven has in it a subtle, mysterious power - corrupting, perverting, and evermore penetrating it with evil - that fact of itself should determine the meaning of leaven in its application to the same formula - “the kingdom of heaven.” Let us also remember Christ is not illustrating the kingdom of heaven so much as certain “mysteries of the kingdom.”

In the Parable of the Sower, three kinds of soil brought forth nothing, and the one-fourth part which did produce anything was hindered by the tares. Now, if leaven means the gospel permeating “the mass of mankind” “until the whole is leavened,” then “the good ground” ought to leaven “the wayside” ground, “stony ground,” and the thorny ground, or else the good seed ought finally to grow on all these unproductive soils. Again, to carry out the analogy, the tares ought to be crowded out by the wheat, whereas it is a fact in natural history that tares grow faster than the wheat, encroaching upon it more and more until the harvest.

To make the leaven mean the gospel permeating mankind is to contradict Christ’s interpretation of the Parables of The Sower and of The Wheat and Tares.

One parable can not contradict another.

My interpretation of the leaven harmonizes not only in the preceding parables that evil is in the kingdom, evermore subverting the good - but it also agrees with the succeeding parables in the same chapter. Take the Parable of the Net for example: “They gathered the good into the vessels, and cast the bad away.” Now, unclean or putrid fishes are not a less befitting illustration of the leavening element than the tares - their characteristic tendency, like that of leaven, being the putrefaction of the whole mass.

Our interpretation corresponds with the explained and unexplained parables of Christ.

4. My fourth argument is based upon the testimony of Christ and His apostles concerning the condition of things at the end of this age. If leaven means the gospel, then “the last days” will be the best days, since the whole world is thus to be leavened. But how does this accord with other Scriptures? The tares and wheat are to grow together until the harvest. The wheat is not to root out the tares. If the whole “mass of humanity” is thus to be leavened by the gospel, there will be nothing left to offend. How, then, will Christ, at His coming, “gather out of His kingdom all things which offend and them which do iniquity?” If all men are to be converted at the end of the age, what does Christ mean when He says that at the end of this dispensation He “will render His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire?” Why will He “smite the nations with anger,” and “rule them with a rod of iron?” Why will He “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel,” and “tread them in the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God?” If the whole lump of humanity is to be leavened with the gospel, what is there left for God to destroy in His anger? If all men will finally have faith, what does Christ

mean by saying, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith on the12 earth?” According the theory we oppose “the last days” will be blessed times; but the apostle says: “This know, that in the last days shall come perilous times;” “that there shall come in the last days scoffers,” etc.; “now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith,” etc. All these passages, and many others, absolutely contradict the idea that the whole “mass of humanity” is to be leavened by the gospel in the last days. Instead of Christ being revealed to all men in the last days, “that wicked shall be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy with the brightness of His coming.” The fact is, the last days of this dispensation are to end in fearful apostasy: “The end shall not come except there be a falling away first,” etc.

The interpretation of the leaven which makes it to mean “the gospel permeating the mass of humanity” until the whole is leavened, contradicts the explained and unexplained parables of Christ; it contradicts what Christ and all the apostles foretold concerning the last days. On the other hand, my interpretation harmonizes with all these passages.

5. My fifth argument is based upon the fact that the leaven was hid in three measures of meal. There is something suspicious about that word hid. Are we ever commanded to hide the gospel? Are we commanded to hide our light under a bushel? “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.” If the psalmist hid God’s word in his heart, he went and told of it, and so confessed Christ before men.

It is said of Christ, “He could not be hid.” Nor can the gospel be hid. “It is like fire shut up in our bones,” it will burn through. “We can but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” This does not look much like hiding the gospel in the world.

The word hid, in connection with the leaven, looks ominous. It looks like the enemy who sowed tares while men slept. It looks like the servant who hid his lord’s money. It looks like the secret, subtle influence of error, which loves darkness rather than light.

But who hid the leaven of corruption in the kingdom? A woman! What woman?

The meritorious one, the bride of Christ, or the meretricious one, the Mother of Harlots? Evidently the latter committed the corrupt act, and the former permitted it to spread. A woman hid the leaven! Has this woman ever done any secret, subtle, Jesuitical work in the world? Has she ever corrupted the church with false doctrine? Has she ever worn a mask? Has she ever done any thing by stealth? Do you recognize the woman who took the leaven of corrupt doctrine and hid it in three measures of meal?

6. My sixth argument is based upon the fact that meal is everywhere in the Bible used as a symbol of truth or doctrine. Bread, the staff of life, is a symbol of 12

Note the definite article before the word “faith.” There is a particular “faith,” in a particular truth, referred to here; and it is related to a future, prophetic event. See 1 Pet. 1:5, 9, 11, R.V.]

Christ, and His doctrine the bread of life: “For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” As leaven is meal soured and corrupted, it would be natural to expect that it would represent corrupt doctrine. Accordingly the disciples understood how He made them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Now if the three measures of pure meal represent doctrine as uncorrupted, they can not represent the entire “mass of humanity.” If meal represents doctrine pure and uncontaminated, it can not represent depraved humanity. Now a question arises, Can the doctrine of Christ become corrupted by the leaven of false doctrine? We answer, it is not only possible, but certain, that men “have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man.” Men have “changed the truth of God lie.” “They have wrested the Scriptures to their destruction.” The true doctrine has been perverted by its mixture with the leaven of false doctrine.

One thing is worse than error, and that is truth mixed with it. Just as men can corrupt God’s pure grain in soil, so can men corrupt the pure word of God. 7. My seventh argument is based upon the fact that three measures do not represent the whole world, and therefore if leaven meant the gospel it would not permeate the whole mass of humanity. Three is never used to represent completeness. Seven is the number for totality. All divine truth will not become corrupted; only that which is allowed to come into the domain of the leaven.

The next Step is from corrupt doctrine to corrupt men who embrace it and live upon it. As the kingdom of heaven does not and will not embrace the whole world in this dispensation, although it certainly will in the next, so the three parts affected by the leaven of perverted doctrine will not embrace the whole world, but only that part where the kingdom of heaven in its present unorganized condition may exist. The leaven will not work in heathenism. Only where the pure doctrine has been preached will it corrupt creeds and men.

The gospel of the kingdom may be preached in the world for a witness, and not reach more than three measures out of seven. The leaven, consisting of three principles - the leaven of Herod, the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of the Sadducees - is fast leavening Christendom to-day, and the whole is destined to be leavened after God’s true people have been caught away. Then comes apostasy and the great tribulations, and then the millennium.

8. My eighth and last argument is based on the fact that the gospel does not work like leaven. This is thought to be the strong point in the interpretation which we antagonize. They say the point of analogy is not in the character of the leaven, but in its silent, gradual and accelerated operation. But this is not true to fact. The gospel never had any such gradual and accelerated movement. It has advanced in one age and retrograded in another. It has become totally extinct in

one nation, and has succeeded in another. On the other hand, the pure doctrines of Christ in part have been more and more corrupt from the beginning. Like streams of water, the further they flow from their source the more impure they become.

The time will come when the earth will not have a real Christian left in it, nor a pure doctrine taught from any of its so-called wise men. The whole fabric of professed Christianity will be leavened and corrupted with false teaching. But blessed be God, His true people will be saved out of this tribulation that is to come on the earth!

When men tell us that the gospel works like leaven we reply, the assertion is not true to fact.

When they tell us that “three measures of meal” represent the “whole mass of humanity” it is not true to fact.

When they tell us that such an interpretation is in harmony with Christ’s explained parables, it is not true to fact.

A scientist was once reminded that his theory did not correspond with the facts.

“Then,” said he, “so much the worse for the facts.”

We believe our interpretation to be in harmony with all the facts of the Parable of the Leaven and with all other parables and the whole word of God. The only objection to our interpretation of the Parable of the Leaven comes to us from an old minister in Arkansas, who, in sustaining the current but erroneous idea that the leaven which was hidden in the meal symbolizes the gospel of our salvation, urges the literal language of the parable of Christ – “the kingdom of heaven is like leaven,” etc. The kingdom of heaven is a visible earthly organization, and he can not for the life of him find anything in this organization that is like leaven. To this good brother’s theory, held by him in common with the majority of readers, we submit the very just remarks of a brother editor on the parable of the “drag net,” in answer to one who asks him, if the net does not represent the visible church of Christ, because Christ said “the kingdom of heaven is like a net:” “Those who take that position ought to notice that while, in the present instance, the kingdom of heaven is compared to a net, in the Parable of the Tares it is compared to ‘a man’ who sowed seed; and the true idea is that in neither case is the thing mentioned first as an element in the comparison the real thing to be contemplated in it. In the one case, the important thing is not the man sowing the seed, but the field in which it is sown, and the treatment meted out to the tares at harvest-time; and in the other case, the important thing is not the net, but the discrimination which will finally be made.”

So in this parable the kingdom of heaven is not the important idea designed to be compared, but the corrupting power of leaven in an ephah of meal is compared

to the corrupting power of error, or false doctrine, when infused into the saving doctrine of Christ - the gospel of man’s salvation - and prophetically teaches us that a power inimical to Christ would corrupt the pure gospel of Christ by stealthily introducing soul-destroying error into it, until the whole was leavened. ***

CHAPTER 4 THE MUSTARD TREE AND BIRDS OF THE AIR THE MUSTARD TREE THIS is one of the four parables delivered in connection to teach and illustrate the same sad fact - the malignant, subtle and persistent opposition of Satan, the great adversary, to the work Christ undertook to accomplish. In the Parable of the Tares we see how stealthily Satan oversowed with tares the field which Christ sowed with good seed. In the Parable of the Leaven we see a false [or deceived] church, under the symbol of a woman, hiding, stealthily infusing, false doctrine into the true doctrine of Christ, to corrupt and thereby pervert it. In the Parable of the Mustard Tree and the Birds of the Air, which is prophetical, we learn how His kingdom, when it became large and prosperous, would be injured by the introduction into it of foreign, hostile influences.

The principal features of this parable are: 1. The insignificant seed sown.

2. The sower.

3. The tree.

4. The fowls of the air.

5. Their work - lodgement in the branches.

1. By the small seed sown it is evident the kingdom of Christ in its incipiency is symbolized. It was at first, indeed, the least of all kingdoms ever founded. Greece and Rome commenced with but a few hundred men and their leader: but this with the King and the few people prepared for Him by His herald, John the Baptist. It was the object of the world’s ridicule and scorn and fierce opposition. Those who beheld it did not believe that anything could possibly come of it; it was, indeed, the most insignificant of all kingdoms. It was pointed forward to by Isaiah as “a handful of corn on the top of the mountain,” and by Daniel as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands.

The sower of the seed was the same personage who is represented as sowing the good seed in the Parable of the Tares, and in the subsequent parable, and He it was who founded His kingdom by His own personal efforts, and not through the agency of others; for the stone was cut out without hands - human agency. Let this vital fact be constantly borne in mind that Christ has but one kingdom, and that

this He “set up,” organized Himself, during His personal ministry on this earth, and not through the agency of others before His advent or subsequent to His ascension. It was a part of the work that was given Him to do, and which made it necessary for Him to come to this earth.

Religious organizations set up by men since the ascension of Christ, though called churches, certainly are not churches, nor do they compose in whole or in part the kingdom of Christ. As He never set up but one kingdom, and never has had but one, so from the day He set it up He has always had one. From the day He constituted it, although the malignant enemy has done all in his power to impede its growth, and to destroy it, nevertheless, like the stone of the mountain, it has never ceased for one hour to roll, and, like the mustard tree, for one moment to grow; and, blessed be God, it will roll on, and grow on, until under the personal administration and reign of Christ it shall become “a great mountain and fill the whole earth.”** With this prophecy (Dan. 2:44) and this parable before his eyes, how can a candid interpreter of God’s word say that this kingdom has for ages together ceased to exist, or deny that there has been an unbroken succession of the true churches of Christ since as the constituents of His kingdom? The kingdom could not exist for one day or an hour without the existence of one or more true churches of Christ.

The mustard tree symbolizes the kingdom of Christ - small at first and insignificant, yet growing steadily on until, by its wide-spreading branches and cooling shade, it will attract “the birds of the air.” The stone became a great mountain, and the handful of corn on the mountain top waved like the forests of Lebanon. So the little handful of disciples which Christ first organized into a kingdom has already become a large and far-spreading empire, and the birds of the air are everywhere seeking lodgement in its branches.

THE BIRDS OF THE AIR It is important that we ascertain who are represented by these.

It is as true as it is an old adage that “the Scriptures are their own interpreters.” It is certainly a doubtful procedure to explain one part of the Scriptures independent of other Scriptures, since no Scripture is of private - i.e. separate - interpretation.

As in algebra, although we make several independent equations in working out a given problem, if we find the value of x or y in one we can safely substitute that value for the x or y in each of the other equations.

In the Parable of the Leaven and Meal we found that leaven in both the Old and New Testaments represented that which is corrupt, false doctrine, and therefore this must be its true meaning in the Parable of the Leaven and Meal. Let us apply

this rule. In the following Parable of the Sower, they were fowls, “the birds of the air,” that caught away the seed that was sown by the wayside.

Christ interprets these to represent the agencies Satan employs to catch away the good seed of the gospel [of the kingdom], which was sown in the hearts of the class of men represented by the “wayside.”

“Satan employs a variety of agents, as wicked men,13 and other evil spirits.” – Williams’ Commentary in loco.

We are safe, therefore, in interpreting fowls of the air as representing “wicked” [or deceived] men.

What is done by the emissaries and men under the instigation and influence of the wicked one, is properly said to be done by himself. Here the fowls of the air are doubtless wicked men moved by Satan. They appertain to his kingdom; and he is the prince of the powers of the air - the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience.

This “tree” was cultivated for its seed, and when ripe vast quantities of it were destroyed by the birds of the air. They did the tree no good, but injury.

Every orchardist knows how destructive the birds are to his fruit trees, and several kinds of fruit, as cherries, of which birds are peculiarly fond, have to be constantly guarded, and the birds driven out, to secure anything like a crop.

These “fowls of the air” did not come to sing, but to “lodge” - to roost - in the branches. If any one doubts the result of this use of a tree, or a forest of trees, let him examine a pigeon or turkey roost, where they do, in multitudes, congregate at night to lodge. The limbs are broken down and the tree defiled with their excrescences; its beauty and symmetry defaced, its growth impeded; and, unless the lodge or roost is soon broken up, the tree is destroyed. This was a prophetic parable, pointing forward to the time when the kingdom of Christ would become so extensive and popular that the [duped regenerate and] unregenerate and wicked worldly men and women - would flock into it, not to succour and cultivate, but simply to lodge in it - use it for their own advantage. The result of the gathering of the children of this world into any church of Christ is to it what the lodging of a multitude of the “birds of the air” is to a young and tender tree. They will effectually deface its beauty, mar its symmetry, break down its moral strength, and if they are not driven out they will ultimately ruin the church itself. Turn and read the most earnest exhortations of the apostles to the early churches to cut off and put away from themselves all worldly and wicked* characters. It does not follow because wicked men should not be rooted out of the earth before the end of

13

NOTE. He also is in the business of the employment of regenerate men whom he has duped! We draw this conclusion from Postmillennialist and Anti-Millennialist Christians.

the next age, that therefore the manifestly ungodly should not be excluded from the church.[* See 1 Cor. 5:13, R.V.] The teaching of this parable agrees with that of the apostles everywhere that, unless unregenerate and wicked men and women are strictly kept out of, and excluded, when found in, the churches of Christ, they will be corrupted and their moral and spiritual influence destroyed.

This Scripture is being fulfilled before our eyes in this age. The churches have become so conformed to the world that they have become popular with the world; all persecution for Christ’s sake has ceased, and worldly, wicked men and women are flocking into the churches. In fact, it has become fashionable to be an active and much respected member of “some church” - of some religious organization called a church.

It is also a fact, owing to the multitude of those “lodgers” - unregenerate worldly men and women - in our churches, that scriptural discipline has become impossible, and the spiritual life and moral power of our churches are paralyzed.

An aged and thoughtful pastor not long since remarked in our hearing that he feared that not more than half of the members of his church were truly regenerated men and women.

I have heard several pastors in the last five years make substantially the same remark. Verily, verily, the fowls of the air are flocking to lodge in the branches of the symbolized “Mustard Tree.”

There can nothing be gathered from this parable to favour the theory that the whole world will be truly converted and gathered into the kingdom of Christ before His second coming. If by the fowls of the air wicked men are represented, then the parable teaches that “the kingdom of heaven” - the true churches of Christ that constitute it - in the latter days, will be filled with unregenerate men, and the last phase of Christianity in this dispensation will be worse than the first - the field overcrowded with tares, the pure doctrine of Christ perverted by the infusion of deadly error, and the kingdom of Christ demoralized by a worldly, unregenerate membership.

The advocates of that theory known as the Church-Branch Theory refer to this parable, and to this alone, for its support.

I suppose the misunderstanding and misconstruction of the parable originated the theory. The mustard tree, they claim, represents the one true church of Christ; and, as the tree is composed of many branches, so the church is composed of many denominations; indeed, that all the so-called denominations claiming to be churches that have existed, or that now exist, on this earth, taken together, have constituted, and do now constitute, the church.

There are many and insuperable difficulties in the way of this most irrational and absurd theory.

1. Christ has no visible or invisible organization called “the church.” There is no visible or invisible organization on earth known in the word of God as “the church,” composed of all existing churches. It is a mere conception, not a reality.

Whenever the phrase “the church of Christ” occurs, it is a figurative expression, by metonomy one being put for all.

2. Christ did not say that His church was like a mustard tree, but that His kingdom was. And the branches of this tree would therefore represent the constituents of which the kingdom is composed - all of Christ’s true local churches.

3. The branches of this mustard tree, like the branches of any other tree, were identically of the same wood, and not each of a different kind of wood. And these branches were organically united with the one body, and therefore with each other, like the members of our bodies, and each “branch” bore identically the same seed.

But in the conceptional tree of the church-branch theory the tree is all branches, without any trunk or body. And, stranger yet, if it is indeed possible for anything to be stranger, each branch is of a widely different species of wood, and bears radically different doctrines, having no organic connection with each other, and of course not with its body or trunk, for it has none. Most wonderful freak of nature! Most wonderful monstrosity! Nothing more monstrously absurd, save the church theory built upon the idea!

The kingdom of heaven, of God, of Christ, is composed, as I have said, of all Christ’s true local churches. These are the only executives of His kingdom, and they alone give it visibility. These churches are not heterogeneous and radically diverse, and therefore antagonistic bodies, but homogeneous - essentially alike and therefore harmonious.

Christ himself said that a house divided against itself could not stand, and a kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. Christ, therefore, did not build His “church,” which He calls His house, or constitute His kingdom, of diverse and antagonistic organizations, like the various existing denominations that must conflict with each other because holding different, contradictious doctrines, and, from the very nature of the case, as one prevails in a given section all the others are exterminated by it. Built of such heterogeneous material, His house would soon fall and His kingdom be brought to desolation.

Surely what a flagrant perversion of Christ’s teachings is this gross travesty of this parable, by which it is wrested so as to contradict the unfigurative teachings of Christ and his apostles!

If I do no more by these expositions than to rescue this one parable from such misleading teachings, my humble effort will not be altogether in vain. But by

another and a large class of expositors it is claimed that Christ intended to teach by this parable that ultimately the whole world will be Christianized and gathered into His church or kingdom, because He said, “The fowls of the air lodged in the branches of this tree.” But, unfortunately for this theory, Christ in the next parable tells us that the “fowls of the air” represent the devil - i.e. evil spirits or wicked men - since he used these to accomplish his wicked purposes, and in this case his purpose is certainly not to help the kingdom of Christ, but to injure it by the introduction of wicked men into it.

I can not doubt that this parable is a prophecy foreshadowing the fact that in after years Christianity would become so extended and popular that His churches which compose His kingdom - would be demoralized by the introduction of masses of unregenerate members.

The thoughtful student of church history is impressed with no fact more forcibly than that the great apostasy of the primitive churches which occurred in the third, fourth and fifth centuries was brought about by the introduction of the world unregenerate men - those churches and this was effected by corrupting the true doctrine of Christ by the introduction of the leaven of false doctrine, sacramental salvation, viz: teaching that the grace of remission of sins and regeneration, and consequently salvation, was communicated alone through the ordinances of the church.

Hence the Catholic aphorism, “No salvation out of the church” - a doctrine still held by the Catholics and all Protestant State churches until this day. The natural result of this teaching, as all can see, was to bring all infants and the whole world all “the fowls of the air” - to lodge in those “churches,” and thus has this prophecy had a fulfilment before our eyes. And every thoughtful Christian will freely admit that the greatest danger that now menaces the kingdom of Christ in this age is the easy and rapid introduction of the worldly and unregenerate into our churches.

A willingness to join the church and be baptized is, alas! too generally accounted a satisfactory qualification for the rite and church membership. Unless this tendency is speedily and effectively checked, a second and general apostasy will follow, as certainly as one sun-set follows another, from the same cause.

This parable should impress both the ministry and membership of our churches with the sacred duty of guarding with holy vigilance against the entrance of the unregenerate into our churches, and, by the exercise of a strict gospel discipline, driving out all “the fowls of the air” that are now lodging in them. ***

CHAPTER 5 THE SOWER AND BIRDS OF THE AIR PARABLE “AND He spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth; and when the sun was up they were scorched, and, because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.” - Matt. 13:3-8.

DIVINE INTERPRETATION “Hear ye, therefore, the Parable of the Sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not,* then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by, he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” - Matt.

13:18-23.* It has been said there are four different kinds of hearers of the word [of the KINGDOM]: Those like a sponge, that suck up good and bad together, and let both run out immediately - “having ears and hearing not;” those like a sand-glass, that let what enters in at one ear pass out at the other - hearing without thinking; those like a strainer, letting go the good and retaining the bad; and those like the sieve, letting go the chaff and retaining the good grain.

This parable is so specifically interpreted by Christ that no extended exposition is needed, and I shall therefore only call attention to its general scope and dispensational teaching.

I think the first great fact taught by this parable is, that the whole field - i.e. the whole world, for He has told us the field is the world (Matt. 13.) - is, by the ministry of His disciples to be sown with the good seed of the gospel of salvation, notwithstanding its size or its apparent hard or stony or thorny parts (unpromising parts), and not here and there a patch only to be put in the highest state of cultivation. This was the duty Christ enjoined upon His apostles, and commanded them to teach all those discipled by them to observe all things He had commanded them - His apostles. If, then, it was the duty of the apostles and the primitive churches to preach the gospel [of the kingdom as well as the grace of God] to all

nations, it is manifestly the duty of every one who hears the gospel to receive it, and obey its requirements; and if any are unable, by natural defects, to do so, it certainly can not rightfully be made their duty to do so. I will illustrate to the reader.

Suppose a benevolent agriculturist should propose to plant for you, a farmer, one acre of your land with an exceedingly rare and valuable variety of cotton-seed, each seed fruiting being worth to you five or ten dollars. What would be your conduct?

1. Would you not put a good fence around that acre that would effectually close up any neighbourhood road leading over it, and shut off any foot-paths leading through it, and this for the most obvious purposes?

2. Would you not thoroughly plow up the hard soil, and put it in good tilth for the proposed planting?

3. If there were briar or thorn patches on this acre, would you not carefully grub them up, “root and branch” and burn them, and gather up the stones, if any, and carry them off? So teach the Scriptures. Break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and sow not among thorns (Jer. 4:3). “And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof.”

4. If there was a glady or barren spot on it, where the soil was thin and poor, would you not treat it with a few loads of richer earth, and enrich it with manure?

You would do all these things, and give that acre the most diligent cultivation most certainly, and not think them either too hard or unreasonable; and you would give that acre, while that crop was growing, the most diligent cultivation, and allow nothing of minor importance to divert your attention until that crop was made, and the rich results secured.

Is it not a gospel truth that sinners are in a great measure responsible for the hardness and thorny condition of their hearts, and their inconsiderateness and trifling with divine things?

5. By this parable Christ further taught His disciples how subtle and successful and constant would the efforts of Satan to abort and render ineffectual the good seed of the gospel [of the kingdom] sown by their ministry, and all spiritual influences exerted on the hearts of their hearers. And He doubtless gave them this instruction to the end that they might not be discouraged or overwhelmed with disappointment when they saw how very few of all the multitudes they preached to would receive and be benefited by their preaching. In this parable only one-fourth of all who heard the word [of the kingdom] brought forth any fruit. This would be a very large estimate when applied to the ministry of His disciples during this gospel dispensation. Not one in a hundred - nay, not even in a thousand - of those who heard the gospel preached by Christ and His apostles

“in the demonstration of the Spirit and in power” by manifold and wonderful miracles. Indeed, of all that vast throng then before Him, and of the throng at one time of five thousand, and another of seven thousand, all went back save the twelve apostles, and followed Him no more, because they were displeased with His teachings!

6. By the manifest teachings of this parable we are justified and warranted in the belief - aye forced to conclude - that this will be the case during the entire gospel, or Gentile, dispensation as it was during the ministry of Christ and His apostles, and as we see it is at this present time. How confirmatory of this sad fact is the express declaration of Christ, which will be as true the day before His second advent as it was in His day, and we see it is in our day: “Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat.” - Matt. 7:13.

“Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” - Matt. 7:14.

This will be true to the very close of this dispensation, until the law that shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem shall take the place of this written word.

Think of seventy-two ministers and seventy-two Baptist churches with their twenty thousand members who have for years been labouring to Christianize one hundred inhabited square miles of Pennsylvania, at a cost of $117,284 per annum for preaching, and an outlay of $2,642,580 already made for houses of worship to preach the gospel in, and yet the number of non-professors is increasing yearly!

How long will it take to Christianize this small area? and how many millions of money? and so of Boston, New York and all the other towns and cities on this continent?

It is not for this purpose that Christ commanded the gospel to he preached to all nations. He leaves us not to speculate about this, but expressly tells us, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matt. 24:14.) And to the intent that all nations might be judged by it, and to take out of them a people for His name.

“Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name.” (Acts 15:14.)

The churches have been taught, and are now being taught, that Christ has imposed the duty upon them to Christianize all men of all nations, which He certainly has nowhere done, or intimated that such is their duty. That it is the duty of the churches of this age to preach the gospel to every nation under the whole heaven to the extent of their ability no one has a right for one moment to doubt. It was for this purpose His churches were organized. This duty He enjoined

upon them in His first sermon on the mount. This duty He commanded His apostles to enjoin upon all those who should be discipled by them, and this duty He enjoined in His farewell address to His disciples on the Mount of Olives. We are failing to do this by aiming at universal Christianization, and not at universal evangelization, of the nations - endeavouring to convert parts, patches, and not to evangelize the whole.

We are spending millions of money and scores of lives in attempting to Christianize all the inhabitants dwelling upon a few square miles, high farming on a few patches, and leaving the great field unsown.

This is not the age of universal conversion. That can not be even comparatively effected until Satan is bound, and cast out of the earth, so that he can deceive the nations no more. Hear what Christ says: “Verily the strong man armed [Satan] keepeth his palace [this world] and his goods in peace, and he will keep it until the stronger than he cometh and he will first bind him and cast him out and take possession of his goods.” (See Rev. 20:l.)

This is the age of universal evangelization, and not for the conversion of every creature. We are not left to speculate as to Christ’s design in this. He has most explicitly informed us: “And this GOSPEL [i.e., the ‘good news’ or ‘glad tidings’] of THE KINGDOM shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end [of this evil age - not of this world] come.” - Matt. 26:14.

As we would hasten that end, and, as lovers of the Saviour, hasten His glorious coming, to dethrone Satan, and enthrone Himself and His saints as rulers of this world, we should do all in our power, by effort, by prayer, and by our means, to aid in preaching the gospel [of Messiah’s coming kingdom] “to all nations for a witness.”

The apostles clearly understood that it was their duty to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and they as clearly understood that but comparatively few of earth’s population would be saved.

Let us then, as churches of the living Christ, clearly understand the duty He enjoins on us. When He gave His marching orders He did not say, “All will be born at once,” or “All will be converted before you,” or “before My second advent” - no such thought is ever found in all His teachings. The command is, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The only promise is, “Lo, I am with you alway.” He knew how much we would need His presence. He knew that the messenger would be rejected as His Master had been. His presence, not our success, was to be our comfort.

He is a poor servant who goes merely by success. At the day of the Lord the word will not be, “Well done good and successful servant,” but, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” We can not command success. But we can all aim at faithfulness; we can...all, by relying upon His grace and presence, be faithful unto death. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life,” the Master said to those who were to be His witnesses, not to be received but to be murdered. Faithful in the little, we shall be rewarded with the crown He will give, for, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him” – “We shall be glorified together.” To-day is the day of the Cross, and our witnessing to Him, to the uttermost ends of the earth. The glory, the crown, the reward, will soon be there, and above all Himself. The Man of Calvary, the Man whom Stephen saw standing at the right hand of God, whom Saul saw on the way to Damascus, will appear in royal glory to put down all the wrong, to exalt all the right - to put down all rule and authority opposed to God, and reign in righteousness over a sinblighted world.

Let us, then, cheerfully labour, and sacrifice liberally of the means He himself has given us, to hasten His coming by aiding in sending forth the missionaries of the Cross to sow the whole field, by preaching the gospel to the nations now sitting in darkness, and to the isles that are waiting for His law. *** PARABLES ILLUSTRATING CHRIST SEEKING, FINDING AND REDEEMING A LOST WORLD AND A LOST RACE. ------1. THE LOST SHEEP. 2. THE LOST COIN. 3. THE PURCHASED FIELD. 4. THE PURCHASED PEARL.

CHAPTER 6 THE LOST SHEEP THE Saviour having taught His disciples how sin was introduced into the world through the personal machinations of His Arch Adversary, the devil, and its disastrous consequences to the world and a wicked race, we would naturally expect that He would reveal to them, and through them to us, His own gracious mission to this earth, His own amazing, wondrous love in seeking to save a lost world, and restore it to its primitive relation to the unfallen worlds of God’s universe, since a failure to recover what was lost would be a reflection upon His care or His honour.

This I think He has done. By referring to Luke’s record of His teachings (Luke 15.), we find He makes the murmuring of the Pharisees because He received sinners, and ate with them, the occasion of teaching them that His mission was to seek and

save the lost - lost men and the lost world. This He does in three striking parabolic illustrations, in which the careful reader will discover an advance in the thought from the care of a shepherd for a wandering sheep to the anxiety of a woman for a lost ornament, reaching its climax in the deeper love of a father for his banished and lost son.

These parables of Christ were designedly constructed by Him, He tells us (Matt.

3:10, 18), so as to convey a sense that the Jews seeing could see, and yet not perceive, and hearing could hear, and yet not understand. Does not this language imply that there was a primary or superficial sense and application of them that the Jews could readily see, as the tender care and responsibility of a good shepherd for all his sheep, the anxiety of a woman for a lost ornament – coin which is a part of a valuable ornament - and the deeper love of a fond father for a lost son; and yet does it not imply that there was a broader and deeper “meaning which they did not and could not perceive” or “understand,” embracing, as it did, the great truths of His redeeming love, and the mysteries of His mediatorial kingdom on earth - i.e. His equal love for all men, and His merciful provision of salvation for the Gentiles as well as the Jews?

If I am right in this, the primary sense or application of the parables bears the same relation to their deeper and real meaning as the hull or shell does to the luscious meat of the kernel or nut. With this key in hand let us examine the three parables recorded together by Luke (chapter 15.) in their order. I call attention to the first: THE LOST SHEEP “Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And He spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” - Luke 15:1-7.

The Saviour undoubtedly designed by this parable primarily to teach these selfrighteous and scornful Pharisees that all which the Father had given to Him were equally dear to Him, and that among those were the poor and the degraded and the outcasts of earth, the lightly esteemed of men, and He came to seek and save these very persons because they were lost. Upon another occasion He shows that, by dining with Zacchaeus, who was a publican, He came not to call the selfrighteous, but sinners, to repentance. In this parable, then, we have:

1. The shepherd.

2. The lost sheep.

3. The long and painful search.

4. The joy upon the discovery.

5. The Father as the owner of the sheep.

Christ is the Shepherd, He of whom David sang in that sweetest of his pastoral songs: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” Christ assumes this character towards all whom the Father gave Him to save in the covenant of redemption. He says: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” - John 10:11-16.

The lost sheep in its lowest parabolic symbolism, then, represents lost sinners given to the Son in the covenant of redemption to save, and therefore the obligation upon Him to seek and save it. Used in this sense, His leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness while he goes to seek the lost one would be but the more striking and true to life. I submit the following account of what a traveller saw upon the Alps: “One day we were making our way, with ice-axe and alpenstock, down the Aletusch Glacier, when we observed a flock of sheep following their shepherds over the intricate windings between crevasses, and so passing from the pastures on the one side of the glacier to the pastures on the other. The flock had numbered two hundred all told; but on the way one sheep had got lost. One of the shepherds, in his German patois, appealed to us if we had seen it. Fortunately, one of the party had a field-glass. With its aid we discovered the lost sheep far up amid a tangle of brushwood, on the rocky mountain side. It was beautiful to see how the shepherd, without a word, left his hundred and ninety-nine sheep out on the glacier waste (knowing that they would stand there perfectly still and safe), and went clambering back after the lost sheep until he found it. And he actually put it on his shoulder and ‘returned rejoicing.’ Here was our Lord’s parable enacted before our eyes, though the shepherd was all unconscious of it, and it brought our Lord’s teaching home to us with a vividness which none can realize but those who saw the incident.”

For a shepherd to lose a sheep would be a severe reflection upon his qualifications as a good shepherd.

These in all countries are: 1. Ability to defend them.

2. Fidelity.

3. Tenderness.

4. Responsibility.

He said in the sheep-raising countries (shepherds are professional characters they make it a life business) these qualifications are always required, and especially the last, for the shepherd is made responsible for all he takes the care of, and the life and welfare, therefore, of one sheep is as important to him, and as much the subject of his care, as of another. It was so from the earliest times in the East. Jacob said to Laban that while he had served him in the capacity of shepherd or herdsman “This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hands didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.” - Gen. 31:38-39.

It is the joy of every Christian that our Shepherd-Redeemer possesses these qualifications in an infinite degree. 1. He is omnipotent to save. 2. He is omniscient to see all that can possibly happen to the least of His sheep. 3. He is all-merciful, and His tender mercies are over all committed to His care. 4. He is infinitely responsible, and has made Himself so to the Father in an “Everlasting Covenant.”

It is impossible, therefore, for one of His to be lost. It would be an everlasting dishonour to the Shepherd of Israel to lose the least lamb of His flock: “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and Him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that all of which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” - John 6:37-39.

“But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My band.

My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.” - John 10:26-29.

“Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none.” - John 18:9.

Well has the poet expressed it:

“His honour is engaged to save The weakest of His sheep; All whom the heavenly Father gave, His hands securely keep.”

Upon such a firm foundation, then, does the preservation of His people rest. Let this lost sheep, in its primary application, therefore, represent lost sinners for whom Christ died, and whom He came to seek that He might save, and these are generally among the very “publicans and sinners” in the estimation of the world and the self-righteous, His leaving the ninety-nine and going after that which was lost, represents all that He did and suffered in His life and in His death, as well as all the agencies He now inspires and employs in connection with His church in the recovery of lost men. In the wilderness of this world will He prosecute this mission until all given Him - every “sheep” - shall have been found and brought into the fold.

Not the least feature of this parable is the joy manifested upon the recovery of the lost sheep. The Saviour manifestly emphasized the fact, that He might impress those Pharisees with the inestimable value God placed upon the soul of one of the wickedest and most degraded of those publicans who gathered around Him, and whom He sought to save. There is joy in heaven over the least one of them more than over ninety and nine, or nine hundred and ninety-nine, sinless angels who need no repentance.

There is another thought that a teacher in Israel might use. If the angels in heaven rejoice when a sinner repents, is it not because of the fact that his salvation is secured, and there is no possibility of his ever being again lost? Otherwise they may be rejoicing in heaven over his repentance, and he have fallen lower than at first since the news reached them, if the angel that bore it was as long as was the angel God sent to communicate with Daniel - i.e. three weeks.

With the following song, based on this interpretation, Mr. Sankey moved all Scotland, pre-eminently a country of shepherds and sheep-owners, as it was never moved by song. The relation of a good shepherd to the weakest of his sheep, the scribes and Pharisees, to whom it was addressed, hearing could hear, while its deeper and broader meaning they did not understand; but Christ explained it to His disciples.

THE NINETY AND NINE There were ninety and nine that safely lay In the shelter of the fold; But one was out on the hills away, Far off from the gates of gold -

Away on the mountains wild and bare Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.

“Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine, Are they not enough for Thee?”

But the Shepherd made answer: “‘Tis of Mine Has wandered away from Me, And, although the road be rough and steep, I go to the desert to find My sheep.”

But none of the ransomed ever knew How deep the waters crossed, Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through Ere He found His sheep that was lost.

Out in the desert He heard its cry Sick and helpless and ready to die.

“Lord, whence are those blood drops, all the way, That mark out the mountain’s track?”

“They were shed for one who had gone astray Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.”

“Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn?”

“They are pierced to-night by many a thorn.”

But all through the mountains, thunder-riven, And up from the rocky steep, There rose a cry to the gate of heaven “Rejoice! I have found My sheep!”

And the angels echoed around the throne, “Rejoice! for the Lord brings back His own!”

I think this parable may safely be interpreted, in its deeper and broader significance, so as to supplement that of the tares, revealing to His disciples of that age, and through them to the world of all ages, the wonderful self-sacrificing love that moved the Son of God to engage to seek and to save one of the lost worlds of God’s universe - lost through the machinations of Satan. If we may so understand it, the lost sheep, the original and rightful property of the Father, symbolizes this lost world of ours, alienated by reason of sin, and rolling far away from God, into

the blackness of hopeless darkness forever - lost without the merciful intervention of a compassionate and an almighty and merciful Redeemer. In this sense the good shepherd beautifully symbolizes the Son of God, who, moved by compassionate love, left all the sinless, unfallen worlds of the many-mansioned universe of God, and came down from the heights of His heavenly glory to seek and to save the one that was lost.

This would be the history of the redemptive scheme.

The prophecy is its glorious and jewelled setting.

The world, despite the powers of darkness, is ultimately to be found and restored to its pristine condition. This sin-cursed, this wicked and ruined, world is to be redeemed, and brought back and safely folded again with the worlds of light that have never fallen. Or still more explicitly, that Christ’s redemptive work, already begun, will go on and on, until it is consummated in the redemption of this physical earth, on which God’s curse now rests for man’s sin - when it shall be renovated and refashioned to become what God originally intended it to be - the glorious residence of sinless beings, and, prospectively, the eternal habitation and heaven of Christ’s redeemed saints.

That this literal earth is ultimately to be redeemed from the curse and ruinous effects of sin, which, for man’s sake, were visited upon it, is a matter of undoubted revelation: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only it, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” - Rom. 8:18-23.

This is a striking example of personification. This earth is represented as a person unwillingly and innocently suffering for the wrong-doing of another; and, having heard the promise of ultimate deliverance made in Eden, that the seed of the woman shall bruise - i.e. crush - the serpent’s head, and that the power and works of Satan shall ultimately be exterminated and obliterated, it impatiently suffers on in expectancy, groaning and waiting in hopeful expectation of its ultimate perfect deliverance from its bondage of corruption, all the manifold evils it has for so many ages suffered, and receive honour for its long disgrace; and it is represented as recognizing that its deliverance will be coetaneous with the full and completed redemption of the children of God.

That this literal earth is ultimately to become the eternal habitation, home and heaven of all the redeemed is also undoubtedly and expressly revealed in both the Old and New Covenants: “Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the earth, and verily thou shalt be fed. ... For evildoers shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” - Ps. 37:3, 9.

Evil-doers (the tares) have never yet been rooted up and cut off from the earth, and this earth given solely to the righteous; nor, as we learned from the Parable of the Tares, will they be destroyed from the field (the face of the earth) until the end of the harvest age, but that then they will be utterly cut off; so that however diligently one wicked man might he sought for he could not be found on the face of the whole earth; and when this takes place the earth will be the eternal abode of the righteous only: “For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. ... the Lord knoweth the days of the upright; and their inheritance shall be forever. ... But the wicked shall perish; and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume, into smoke shall they consume away. ... The righteous shall inherit the earth, and dwell therein forever.” - Ps. 37:10-11, 18, 20, 29.

Without referring to other passages in the Old Covenant, let my readers consider the explicit promises and prophecies of Christ: “Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.” - Matt. 5:5.

And this, which the apostles refer to with the greatest confidence: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” John 14:2-3.

Peter, referring to this promise, tells us plainly where this place, prepared by Christ for the future and eternal home and heaven of the redeemed, will be: “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” - 2 Peter 3:13.

He learned the fact that this earth was to be the place Christ would prepare for His disciples either from the lips of Christ himself or it was revealed to him by the Spirit.

In the last revelation Christ made to His beloved disciple, He showed him “a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea.” (Rev. 21: 1)

Neither the firmament above nor the economy of the face of the earth itself will bear the appearance of the present earth while under the curse of its Maker; for He that “sat upon the throne” said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

But why is this material earth to be regenerated, refashioned and adorned with such care, and furnished and embellished with such unparalleled munificence beyond any other spot in the universe? Certainly not to be annihilated, or to be left desolate and un-inhabited. But well may it thus be made new and inconceivably glorious, if it is to be, more than any other place, the special abode of the glorified Saviour with His people. It is to be prepared for His redeemed: “And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold the tabernacle [i.e. the dwelling, the abode] of God is with men [on the new earth]; and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people; and GOD-WITH-MEN himself shall be their God.” - Rev. 21: 3, R. V. Read all that Christ reveals to us concerning our final heaven-made home in His last revelation, commencing at the twenty-first chapter, after the last judgment has been held and the new earth prepared: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people; and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My son. But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” - Rev. 21:1-8.

Here, for the first time since the fall, do we find the whole earth freed from the curse of sin and sinners – the tares having all been gathered out of it and burned, and the righteous in full and sole possession of it, “to dwell therein forever.” Here, for the first time, the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray, which for long ages has welled up from the hearts and been breathed from the lips of so many thousands, will be answered, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as in heaven.” Now, for the first time, Christ’s redemptive work will have been completely consummated, all enemies having been put under His feet, and

uncounted millions of the once ruined race redeemed, and the wrecked world restored. Now will He, as Messiah, according to covenant stipulations, having abrogated all anti-Christian governments, organizations, authorities and opposing powers, abrogate all governments and all authority and power, give up His kingdom (the absolute government and authority and power vested in Him as King of this world - Matt. 28: 18) to God and the Father - that God (i.e. the Godhead) may from henceforth be all in all. “‘Then cometh the end, when He shall give up the kingdom to God and the Father, when He shall abrogate all government and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has placed all enemies under His feet. Even death, the last enemy, will be rendered powerless.’ (1 Cor. 15:24-26.)” - Seven Dispensations, pp.

550-552.

This last quotation contains the announcement of the full and final consummation of the work of Christ - of His long seeking, crowned with His finding, and saving the lost, and His bringing back and restoring a lost and ruined world, symbolized by the lost sheep, to God, even the Father. There will indeed be greater joy in heaven over this one world saved than over all the countless worlds that never needed deliverance. Their inhabitants will be summoned to rejoice over the consummated work of Christ when the Son shall return it to the Father.** I refer the reader to The Seven Dispensations, last chapter, for the full development of “this earth the home and heaven of the redeemed.”

The lofty peerage of the heavens, with all their mighty principalities and powers and dominions, will be assembled in their most resplendent holiday pageantry to celebrate and make forever illustrious this grand and most glorious event of all the eternities past. Surely the returning Shepherd, with His precious treasure found a world redeemed and saved - will be hailed with loftier songs and louder shouts of joy than those which once shook the universe and caused the “heaven of heavens” to vibrate with thrills of ecstasy when “the morning stars first sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” over its creation.

Surely this parable, in this extended sense, should encourage and inspire every Christian’s heart. This world is not always to be left under the power of the evil one. A most glorious destiny awaits it. It is to be emancipated and disenthralled, and made the most glorious orb of all the countless worlds - the palatial mansion of the Lamb’s wife, His redeemed saints. ***

CHAPTER 7 THE LOST COIN COMPANION to and spoken in connection with the last is the Parable of THE LOST COIN.

PARABLE “Either what woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” - Luke 15: 8-10.

This parable is generally preached as illustrating one of two things: 1. That the lost coin represents a lost soul - i.e. a sinner awakened to the fact that his soul is lost, and that no efforts should be spared by him to find it, and thus secure its salvation - that he should seek and seek, and never give over the search until he finds it.

There is at least one insuperable difficulty opposed to this interpretation. The woman would symbolize the sinner, dead in trespasses and in sin, discovering that he has lost his soul, and, awakening to a sense of his loss, setting about to recover it by his own efforts and labour; and that at last, by his own unaided efforts (for the woman had no aid), he does find it - secures its salvation. The reader can see that there is no Christly Saviour in all this - no grace - no help from above or without himself, but it is all works. It is not in harmony with the other teachings of the Scriptures. They everywhere represent that it is Christ who seeks after the lost sinner, and not the lost sinner after Christ. See the preceding Parable of the Lost Sheep. It was the shepherd who sought after the sheep, and not the sheep after the shepherd. He himself says: “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” - Luke 19: 10.

2. The second sense in which it is so often preached is, that the woman who lost her valuable coin represents a Christian who has lost his hope of salvation - has fallen from grace; and, of course, unless he finds it, he is forever lost. The efforts of the woman to find her coin illustrates the diligent and persistent efforts the awakened apostate should make in recovering his hope, in becoming renewed again to repentance and spiritual life and hope. The rejoicing falls in naturally.

I can not accept this interpretation for two good and sufficient reasons: 1. It is evidently out of harmony with the teachings of the other parables spoken at the same time; and we can not think that Christ intended to teach any such doctrine here. It manifestly contradicts the other teachings of Christ* and His apostles. This interpretation represents the Christian as intrusted with the keeping of his own soul’s salvation - of his Christian hope, and that he may lose it,

and, indeed, is in constant danger of losing it; and that, having lost it (the grace of salvation), he may, by his own diligent and persistent efforts, find and recover it again, which is contrary to the teachings of Christ and His apostles elsewhere.* The so often quoted promise, “Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you,” was addressed to His disciples to encourage them to pray, and has no application to sinners dead in sin. The sinner, convicted of sin, and deeply sorrowing for sin, and weary of sin, is invited to come to Christ for rest.

The Christian is not intrusted with the keeping of his own soul’s salvation, but this is and can be the work of an Almighty One only: “The Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not His saints; they are PRESERVED FOREVER.” - Psalms 37:28.

And not only are they themselves preserved from falling, but their inheritance of life and glory eternal reserved for them in heaven: “Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” - Jude 24.

Now, if Christ alone is able to keep His children from falling and perishing, will He not do it?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” - 1 Peter 1: 3-5.

It is said by those who teach apostasy that it is through faith - the Christian’s faith - that he is kept; but that if this fails in the day of severe trial, as it may, he is lost. But will his faith ever perish and fail him however severely tried, even as though by fire? Peter’s faith did not fail him, for Christ had prayed for him that it should not fail; and, in like manner, Christ prays for every one of His tempted and sorely tried saints. Peter’s faith did not keep him from sin, but it did keep him from final apostasy. And now hear him strengthen his brethren, as Christ commanded him, after he was converted from his self-trust - Arminianism: “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time; wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” - 1 Peter 1: 5-7.

Pure gold can not be destroyed or lessened in value by exposure to the fiercest fire, but is only purified by it; and so it is with the Christian’s faith.

Again, the interpretation I oppose takes it for granted that the Christian must keep his hope of salvation, while the Scriptures teach that it is the Christian’s hope that keeps him: “Which hope we have as anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth to that within the vail.” - Heb. 7: 19.

While I might continue these objections to the Arminian interpretation, I will notice but one more, which must to every candid Christian mind be a conclusive one. It assumes not only that a Christian - a truly regenerated man - can so fall away and apostatize as to lose his regeneration and Christian hope, but that he may renew himself again, or be renewed again, to repentance, and be regenerated and saved, which doctrine is in palpable contradiction to the express declaration of God’s word. Paul says if these might, could or should fall away - i.e. fall from the grace of regeneration - it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.

(Heb. 6: 6.)

“There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” - Heb. 10: 26, 27.

For these and many other reasons, I can not accept either of the above interpretations.

THE EXPOSITION The superficial sense clearly illustrated the natural anxiety of a Judean woman to recover a coin lost from her head-dress, and, therefore, the unreasonableness of the murmuring of the Pharisees because He would save a lost sinner, who, though a publican, was of so much greater value in the eyes of God. But may it not, like the Parable of the Lost Sheep, have a deeper and more comprehensive signification? That the reader may the more clearly see this, they should know how highly this piece of coin might have been valued by the woman, and how great the loss to her. And this we have in the remarks of an Eastern traveller that no commentator that I have seen alludes to. He says: “The women of Bethlehem, and of other parts of the Holy Land, still wear a row of coins sewed upon their head-dress, and pendent over their brows. And the number of coins is very commonly ten, as I, in common with other travellers, have ascertained by counting. The custom reaches back far beyond the Christian era. In all probability, therefore, it was not simply a piece of silver which was lost out of her purse by the woman of our parable, but one of the ten precious coins which formed her most cherishes ornament. And this would be a loss more vividly felt than that of the shepherd when one out of his flock of a hundred went

astray. So that, immense as is the advance from both the care of the shepherd for his sheep and of the pride of the woman in the burnished coins which gleamed upon her forehead, we can nevertheless find a link between the first and last terms of the climax, and trace an advance even between the grief of the shepherd over his stray sheep and that of the woman over her lost coin. A piece of money in her purse might easily be stolen or spent; but a coin from the head-dress could not be so much as touched by any stranger, nor even taken from its wearer by her husband, unless she cut it off of her own accord and placed it in his hands. It was safe, sacred, dear. It was a strictly personal possession, and might very well be an heir-loom - like ‘the silvers’ of the Swiss women, hallowed by many fond and gracious memories.”

Had Aaron lost but one of the least valuable stones from his breastplate, the breastplate itself would have been marred and rendered useless, and the value of that one gem was that of the breastplate. So it was not the essential value of that one piece of silver which gave that woman anxiety, but it was the value of the beautiful head-dress itself, while its loss would be a reflection upon her carefulness, etc. And so, in the possible broader and higher sense, the loss of one of the bright worlds that make resplendent the crown of God’s declarative glory would not only mar the beauty and dim the lustre of that crown, but be a continual reflection upon the all-wisdom and all-power of the Creator himself.

The woman in this parable represents the same person the good shepherd did in the former one, and I can but think that in its higher sense is intended to illustrate the persistent anxiety and unremitting diligence of Christ in seeking to find and recover a lost world.

The prophecy of the parable, then, is that His redemptive work will not for one moment cease until this world, this physical earth, once so bright and beautiful, like that lost coin, though all blurred and tarnished now it be, but still bearing the image and superscription of its divine Maker and Owner, is found and cleansed, refurnished and reset in more than its pristine resplendency in that diadem which shall ultimately encircle the brow of the world’s Redeemer. ***

CHAPTER 8 THE TREASURE HID IN A FIELD THE COST OF THE WORLD’S REDEMPTION IN the Parable of the Tares we learn how sin was first introduced into the world and its disastrous effects; in the Parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, the diligent seeking and searching on the part of the shepherd in the one case, and the woman in the other, to find and regain that which was lost. From the two I now propose to examine in their order, we learn what the redemption of the world,

under the figure of a hid treasure and a pearl of great price, cost the world’s Redeemer.

PARABLE “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found he hideth, and for joy, thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” - Matt. 13: 44.

The principal symbols of this parable are: 1. The field.

2 The hid treasure.

3. The finder and buyer.

As generally preached and interpreted by commentators, the man is made to represent a sinner seeking religion or a “hope of salvation,” which, when he finds, or where and when it may be obtained, gladly goes and sells all he has, and exchanges it for the inestimable treasure of eternal life and glory. (See Scott, and others.)

“This hidden treasure represents the invaluable blessings of the gospel, and these are contained in the Scriptures.” - Scott.

To this generally received theory of interpretation 1 oppose insuperable objections: 1. It makes the field the Scriptures, when Christ declares “the field is the world.”

2. It teaches that salvation can and is to be purchased by the sinner, which is contrary to and subversive of the teachings of Christ and His apostles throughout the Scriptures. I understand the field to represent this world (see Chapter I.); and that the fact that Christ uses the term field in another parable in the same chapter, and explains it to mean this world, I think should determine what He designed it to mean in this. It is, I think, safe to say, in interpreting the parables representing the kingdom of heaven, that each of these parables must harmonize with all, and all with each, for in each there are things in common, inasmuch as they are “like unto the kingdom of heaven,” and if like unto the same thing they must, in one or two respects, be like unto each other.

It is a well-known rule of interpretation that figures must not be made to “go on all fours,” i.e. force a meaning on every part - upon the mere accidents - of the parable, but only the most important features are representative. The field in this parable is an important feature, and must mean something, and I can refer it to nothing else to make sense; and it does not only make sense, but harmonizes with the teachings of Christ to understand it of this world. That the people of God, the “seed of Abraham,” are the treasures hid in this field, is amply sustained by the teachings of the Word.

The saints are called the riches of the glory of Christ’s inheritance. (Eph. 1: 18.)

They are a “peculiar treasure” to Him: “For the Lord has chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure.” - Psalms 135: 4.

The people of God are expressly designated as His “hidden ones.”

The universal exposition of this text makes [eternal] salvation the treasure which, upon the sinner finding, he gives and exchanges all he has, and adds a life of righteousness to obtain it. If this were so, then [this] salvation can be purchased by the sinner’s works and righteousness.

The “travail” of the Saviour’s soul was contained in the world, hidden to the eyes of men and angels, and known or found by Christ himself, (Isaiah 52.) He had hid their names in His own breast from all, though it may be considered an accidental feature of the parable.

3. Christ was the purchaser of the field.

He purchased the world and the treasure He discovered in it by the stipulations of the covenant of redemption. He purchased the earth and His people by His own blood. The Father, in that covenant, made over to His Son this earth as His purchased possession: “Ask of Me and I shall give the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thine inheritance.” - Psalms 2: 8.

“Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed.” - Psalms 74: 2.

Paul refers (Eph. 1: 14) to both the earth and the saints as the purchased possession of Christ.

4. Christ paid a great price for His “treasure” - “His people.”

He surrendered the throne of heaven, gave up the glory He had with the Father, the adoration of angels, and “emptied himself,” so that He might become incarnated in our flesh, and “Brother to our souls become.”

He condescended to become a servant and debtor to the law, that He might become our substitute. He paid a life of privation and disgrace, suffered the contradiction of sinners against Himself, and finally laid down His own life, paid the infinite claims that eternal justice demanded for the redemption of His people, and it was no less than the price of “His own blood.”

Thus it may be truly said of Christ, “He sold all He had and gave it for that field.” What more could He have given than He did give? “For our sakes He became poor.” He is throughout the Scriptures represented as the Purchaser, the Buyer,

the Redeemer, of His people, and they are represented as the purchased, the bought, the redeemed: “The church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” - Acts 20:28.

“For ye are bought with a price.”

“Even denying the Lord who bought them.”

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.”

And surely it was with great price - “all that He had:” “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, … but with the precious blood of Christ.” - 1 Peter 1: 18.

It is a deep mystery, yet a great fact, that an usurper has still possession of the field as “tenant at will;” but we find a glorious fact against this mystery, that the usurper will one day be bound hand and foot and cast out, and that Christ, the Purchaser, will take possession of His own “field,” and bring to light the hid treasure it contains.

Christ will never regret the purchase of this field, nor will He be disappointed in the treasure it contains: “He shall see the travail of His soul, and he satisfied.” - Isaiah. ***

CHAPTER 9 THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE FOUND “AGAIN, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”* - Matt. 13: 45-46.* “Pliny tells us that Cleopatra’s two famous pearls were valued at about four hundred thousand dollars of our money, and the purchasing power of money was then ten or fifteen times as great as now.”- Bruce.

This parable was designed to inculcate the same great truths that were taught in the parable interpreted in the last chapter, but in language to attract and impress another and a large class of His hearers - merchantmen.

We have here the three leading features of the former parable: 1. The pearl of vast value.

2. The buyer.

3. The price paid.

1. The pearl of great price represents the same object that the hid treasure did in the preceding parable - the seed, the people, the sheep, contemplated to be

saved in the covenant of redemption. It was in the light of the provisions of that covenant that the “hid treasure” and the “pearl” were discovered, found and brought to light.

2. The merchantman seeking goodly pearls represents the Son of God, who came to this world “to seek and to save the lost.” This “Pearl” had been lost by the transgression of Adam; and it was the covenanted work of Christ to seek and to find His people. His found and redeemed ones will constitute the most precious and brilliant jewel in the Saviour’s crown of glory, and that which will awaken the admiration and adoration of the angels. His redeemed ones will ever be to Him his “peculiar treasure” - “the riches of the glory of His inheritance.”

3. For this pearl He did indeed pay a great price. He gave all that He had for it.

He became poor that we, through His poverty, might become rich; that we might be brought up from the deep darkness and filth of sin and polished for His crown, as the pearl from the deep, dark waters and slime of the ocean to adorn the diadem of a monarch, and to receive the admiration of all beholders.

4. We see the priceless value of human souls in the estimation of Jesus.

5. We see what it cost Him to redeem us from the possession of Satan, and from the curse of the law, and to save us.

6. We see in this the matchless love and compassion of Christ, so loving us as to be willing to pay such an infinite price for us.

7. We see the infinite obligations we are under to Him for our redemption.

“Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

8. We see, in the light of this, that we are not our own, but are bought with a price; hence arises the obligation and reasonable duty to honour and serve Him with our bodies and our spirits, which are His. 9. We see that to interpret this, as it generally is preached, to mean that when a sinner, after diligent search, has found salvation, or when it can be obtained, and the price for which it can be purchased, [the regenerate believer] must go and sell all that he has, and buy it, is to teach that [God’s initial and eternal] salvation is a marketable commodity - [which] can and is to be purchased with what the [regenerate] sinner has or can command by his own sacrifices, or by works of righteousness which his own hands can do, which doctrine is contrary to all the teachings of the Word of God.

“Nothing either great or small Remains for me to do; Jesus died and paid it all Yes, all the debt I owe.

When He, from His lofty throne, Stooped down to do and die, Everything was fully done Yes, ‘finished’ was the cry.

Weary, working, plodding one, Oh, wherefore toil you so?

Cease your doing - all was done Yes, ages long ago.

Till to Jesus’ work you cling Alone by simple faith, ‘Doing’ is a deadly thing All ‘doing’ ends in death.

Cast your deadly ‘doing’ down – Down all at Jesus’ feet; Stand in Him - in Him alone All glorious and complete.”

PARABLES UNFOLDING THE MYSTERIES OF “THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN” “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.”

THE MYSTERIES CONSIST OF TWO FACTS: 1. That the Gentiles were to share in the salvation of the gospel on equal terms with the Jews.

2. That as a nation the Jews were to be rejected, because of their rejection of Christ, until the fullness of the Gentiles is brought in.

PARABLES 1. THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 2. THE TWO SONS. 3. THE ELDER AND YOUNGER BROTHERS. 4. THE LABORERS AND THE HOURS. 5. THE GREAT SUPPER. 6. THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 7. THE BARREN FIG TREE. 8. THE CURSED AND WITHERED FIG TREE.

CHAPTER 10 THE GOOD SHEPHERD

BY REV. C. C. Mc DANIEL.-------BY REQUEST OF THE AUTHOR

IN the treatment of this parable, which the Saviour spoke to the Pharisees, we feel that what we shall write will be original, for we have not been able in our research to find anything that has been written upon it showing that it is a parable. We might say it is a neglected parable. Here it is (John, tenth chapter): PARABLE “(1) Indeed, I truly say to you, he who enters not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up another way, he is a thief and a robber; (2) but he who comes in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. (3) The door-keeper (porter) opens to him: and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. (4) When he puts forth his own (sheep), he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. (5) But a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, because they know not the voice of strangers. (6) This parable spoke Jesus to them, but they knew not what things they were which he spoke to them.”

The fifth verse closes that part of the parable which alludes to the fold in which the shepherd had sheep shut up, into which the shepherd must enter by the “door,” in order to “call them by name” and “lead them out.”1. The fold.

2. The door.

3. The shepherd.

4. The door-keeper. (Porter.)

5. The sheep called and led out.

6. Other sheep.

7. Going in and out.

1. The “fold,” in the first verse, represents the house of Israel; the literal house of Israel. The Greek word aulen, here translated fold, means house or enclosure.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by His promises to them, His leadings of their posterity through the wilderness and establishment of them in the Land of Promise, and His choice of them as His own peculiar nation, and His preservation of them in all their vicissitudes, had made them as a flock of sheep enclosed. They were indeed said to be His flock. They had been enclosed by His law from all other people, “because they were entrusted with the oracles of God.” Their government was a theocracy. Their form of worship was God-given, and proclaimed by its types the Mighty One of Jacob, the Stone of Israel’s faith, the true Shepherd, who would bless them “with the blessings of the heavens above.” Their prophets built their faith on this foundation, and, guided by the [Holy] Spirit, foretold His coming.

And thousands of this chosen nation in all the centuries before His advent saw Him by faith, and adored Him, as the true Shepherd, and were led by Him. Such were the true Israel indeed. Paul said all were not Israel who were of that fold, but only such as were of like faith with Abraham. Such were the sheep of the fold. And there were many. Paul spoke of them as “a great cloud of witnesses.”

But as the day approached when the Shepherd of Israel should appear, there was a decline. The prophets were all dead. The teachers in Israel ceased to feed the flock, and became covetous, and took away the key of knowledge, and taught the people more of tradition than of faith, and fed themselves of the fat of the flock, and ruled by force and cruelty. They made the law of God of none effect by their traditions. When one who had faith in the Coming One went to their synagogues, his eyes and ears were greeted only by the hollow and empty husks of the cold formalism of the hypocritical Pharisees. They were blind guides, and the masses were blindly led by them. Midnight had come. Only a few faithful ones were waiting and watching for the consolation of Israel, as old Simeon and Anna.

Into this fold the Good Shepherd must enter to call out His sheep who were “hungering and thirsting after righteousness,” but could not be filled, because there was no pasture for the soul in the cold ritual of the Judaistic fold.

To enter this fold as the Chief Shepherd, to call and lead out the sheep into a good pasture, He must enter by the door into the fold.

2. The door. What is it?

A false shepherd would be known at once by failing to come in at the door. There was but one door through which Christ, the Good Shepherd, could come, and that was the door of fulfilment, or “all righteousness.” He was to come saying, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God, as it is written in the volume of the book concerning me.” He must come “in the days of these kings” - the Caesars. He must be born of a Jewish virgin. He must come before the septre departs from Judah. He must be circumcised and keep all the law. He must be born in Bethlehem, the city of David.

He must be heralded by John the Baptist. (See Mal. 3: 1; Matt. 3: 3; Isa. 11: 3.) He was to be baptized in the river Jordan. (Matt. 3: 15) By consulting, also, John 1: 31-33, we find all this was the will of the Father. He [Jesus] said: “I came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil.”

When He was manifested to Israel, and entered upon His work in the Jewish synagogue in Nazareth, He read from Isaiah 61: 1, which portrayed His mission and the condition of the fold He had entered. Luke 4: 18, 19: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind - to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

The rich and haughty scribes and Pharisees, with all the rulers, had fleeced and starved the sheep to that extent that they were poor indeed, and so burdened and harassed by oppression that they were “broken-hearted,” and, like prisoners shut up in the dark prison-house, so the true Israel were longing and desiring to be freed, and to enjoy the light and liberty of the sons of God, which they felt the coming of Christ, the true Shepherd, would afford.

The rulers and teachers of the Judaistic fold had taken away the key of knowledge, had thrust themselves into Moses’ seat, set aside the law by him, and substituted tradition therefor, and, by teaching and example, exalted ritualism for or instead of faith and spiritual obedience. Hence they were the destroyers, “thieves and robbers,” who had over-riden the law - climbed over, instead of fulfilling, the requirements of the law. The time had come when the Shepherd should be made manifest to Israel, His true people.

3. The Shepherd is Christ. He had a legal right to be such. In the covenant of grace, the Father gave them unto Him for and in consideration of the redemptive price which His Son was to and did pay for them. He had the right to call and lead the sheep as His own. He had a right to enclose all His sheep within His own enclosure or fold. This He did, as we will subsequently show.

4. The porter, or door-keeper, is pre-eminently the Holy Spirit.

Christ was begotten by the Spirit. John the Baptist was begotten by an earthly father, but filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb. He was “sent to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” He preached repentance and faith in Him who was to be manifested. He said he did not know Him. He only knew of Him. It was the duty of the porter to keep the door, and open the door to the Shepherd when He came for the sheep, hence must know the Shepherd. John was only one of the sheep in the fold, who proclaimed to his fellows, by the aid of the [Holy] Spirit, or porter, that the Shepherd was about to appear in their midst, to call and lead them out. And the [Holy] Spirit regenerated the hearts of all those who believed on Him by John’s preaching.

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6: 37. Also see thirty-ninth verse. This “giving is the opening of the door” to Him. 5. The sheep are those who hear His voice and follow Him, as Matthew did.

6. Other sheep from another fold are those from among the Gentiles. “He came to His own,” and as many as received Him, believed on Him, were denominated “the sons of God.” These were those He led out from the Jewish fold. Again it is written: “It shall come to pass that in the place where it is said unto them, ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God.” (Hos. 1: 10.) These are those from the Gentile fold. Thus the Good Shepherd leads

both Jews and Gentiles alike out of their respective folds into one new flock. In entering this flock they pass through the door Christ; for He says in the ninth verse, “I am the door.” These are all fenced by one law, the law of Christ, and hence are said to be one fold.

In this dispensation the visible kingdom of Christ is the antitype of the Jewish kingdom. It was one, under one law, but was subdivided into local families; yet each family was under the same law. In this dispensation Christ’s flock are all put under one law, but are divided into churches. Each Jewish family was commanded to see that the law should be observed by each member of the family. So with the churches of Christ.

Any person who claims to be of Christ’s flock who has not come in by the door is not of the flock. They will not hear His voice, nor do they permit Him to lead them.

They are, if in an organized capacity, “the synagogue of Satan.”

7. “Go in and out and find pasture.” This may refer to those of the flock who have been fenced by Christ’s law, and, by disobedience, broken out of the fold, been excluded from the church, yet, if sheep, will find pasturage, divine sustenance, and, after having been chastised for awhile, are brought back to the fold again. It may also allude to going out of the flock here on earth by death, yet his soul shall find pasturage, divine sustenance in life, unto the resurrection. Then shall all such hear His voice, and come forth, and be led by the Good Shepherd into the fold, or city, which has everlasting foundations, “whose maker and builder is God.” There “they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” (Rev. 7: 16, 17.) “Even so come, Lord Jesus.” Amen. ***

CHAPTER 11 THE TWO SONS I PLACE the Parable of The Two Sons before that of “The Elder and Younger Brothers,” since the true interpretation of this is a quite satisfactory exposition of the latter, which seems to follow it in natural topical order.

PARABLE “But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not; but afterward he repented and went. And he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir, and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first.

Jesus saith unto them, Verily, I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and the harlots believed

him; and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” - Matt. 21: 28-32.

This is the briefest of all the parables of Christ - all of it being condensed into two simple statements with one correct answer. Brief as it is, it is a historicalprophetical parable, and has a purely national application. Its primary sense needs no comment to elucidate it. The Jews, to whom it was addressed, answered it correctly, although they had an indefinite impression, as at other times, that they thereby condemned themselves.

In its deeper and broader meaning, I think the son who was called, and promised to work, but refused, represents the Jews as a nation. This nation, as we have seen, God called His “son” - His “first-born.”

God did twice specifically call His son, [redeemed] Israel, to enter His service once by Moses, before they entered Canaan (Deut. 30.), and again by Joshua: “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; for the Lord our God, He it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed; and the Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land; therefore will we also serve the Lord, for He is our God.” - Josh. 24: 15-18.

Let the reader read the whole chapter.

To both calls Israel said, “I will go,” but went not.

Limiting the vineyard service to the gospel dispensation, the Jewish nation was specifically called of God, by John the Baptist and Christ and the apostles, to enter His service; and the crowds that at first thronged the Jordan and received baptism at the hands of John, and the still larger numbers baptized by the seventy evangelists during their ministry, and the thousands that gladly received the word at Pentecost and in the second great revival that followed (Acts 4.), seemed to be the answer of the Jews, “We will go;” but still they went not; and for now eighteen hundred years they still persistently refuse to enter the vineyard. If any one who reads this knows of one Jewish church in America, I should like to be informed of the fact.

On the refusal of the Jews to obey this call, the apostles turned away from them, leaving them in disobedience to await their sad and awful punishment, and made the call upon the other son - the Gentiles:

“And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting* life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Acts 13: 44-46.[* NOTE. When the context is one of WORKS, as appears to be the case here, then the word translated “everlasting” should be ‘aionian’ i.e., “agelasting life”. Only those who are redeemed, are called by God to work in His “vineyard”.]The cruel treatment they at first received seemed to be their answer “We will not go into the vineyard.” But age after age this second son has been repenting, and more and more fully entering the vineyard of service.

The prophecy of this parable is the encouraging part of it to all the friends of missions. The son repented and went, from which we know that the fullness of the Gentiles will be brought in. We also learn that the son who promised and went not will not enter the vineyard during the continuance of the gospel dispensation.

THE IMPORTANT FACTS WE LEARN FROM THIS PARABLE 1. The son that at first refused to go afterwards repented and went, from which we learn, most encouraging to the friends of missions, that, despite all the opposition and discouraging obstacles, nevertheless the fullness of the Gentiles will be brought into the service of God. 2. That the Jews are not, in any considerable number, to be converted to Christianity by the preaching of the gospel, or by any human means, during this present dispensation or before Christ comes. The first called, they will be the last to accept of Christ as their Saviour and Redeemer; but then not by missionary effort, but, as Paul was, by a personal appearing of Christ. Paul declares, with respect to himself, that he was one born out of due time - a premature birth - born before the rest of his nation, and yet in the same way as his nation, that is to be born in a day - i.e. by the personal appearing of Christ at His second advent.

3. We learn that the Jews, as a race or people, will not be converted, or accept Christ as their Saviour and Redeemer, until after Christ’s Second Advent. Until then the elder brother (see Parable of the Prodigal Son) will remain without, and this son, referring to the same nation, will refuse to come in.

[4. NOTE. When ones repentance for entrance into the “Kingdom” is an absolute necessity, then it is always the Messiah’s Millennial Kingdom which is in view.] ***

CHAPTER 12 THE ELDER AND YOUNGER BROTHERS THE Saviour closed His rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees, who murmured because He received sinners and ate with them, with this parable. It is introductory to His teachings concerning “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” - i.e. that the Gentiles are to be made fellow-heirs with the Jews in all the privileges and blessings of the gospel dispensation, and their final restoration to their forfeited heirship in the kingdom of God’s dear Son. PARABLE “And He said, A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy fight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry: for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.

And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go in. Therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he answering, said to his father, Lo these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment, and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends; but as soon as this thy son was come which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this thy brother was dead and is alive again, * and was lost and is found.” - Luke 15:11-32.[* NOTE. This is a parable teaching RESTORATION: it

is not one of REGENERATION as it is commonly believed to be! See Rev. 3:1-3, R.V. ] The principal features to be interpreted in this parable are: 1. The elder brother.

2. The younger son.

3. His voluntary alienation and self-banishment from 4. His reckless prodigality.

5. The utter degradation and ruin to which he brought him.

6. His reflections and resolution.

7. His return and reception by his father and the servants.

8. The unbrotherly conduct of the elder brother.

The superficial sense or application of this parable, which the Jews seeing could see, and hearing could hear, was that a son, however un-filial, and even though ruined by his own extreme sinfulness, was still a son, and dear to his father; and his recovery should be sought and considered just cause of rejoicing; and from this fact they could see that a son of Abraham, though deep sunk in sin and degradation, as they regarded “the publicans and sinners” of their own nation to be, were still the objects of God’s compassionate love, and should not be despised by them; and that even Roman publicans, being members of the human family and God’s creatures, were not altogether beyond His compassionate and loving favour, and, should they turn unto Him, they would be accepted. This lesson, notwithstanding the obdurate prejudices that blinded their eyes and deafened their ears, they could see, although its deeper and broader sense they could neither perceive nor understand.

The general interpretations are two: 1. That by this younger and prodigal son Christ intended to represent the sinner of that and of every age, who, instigated by his own innate depravity of heart, alienates himself from God by his own wickedness and plunges himself into utter degradation, at length, convicted of his own extreme sinfulness, and fully awakened to a sense of his utter ruin, arises and returns to the God from whom he had departed.

His being seen by his father a long way off, and being met, pardoned and received as a son by his father, indeed most beautifully and touchingly represents the freeness of God’s love and His abounding grace extended to every penitent sinner who seeks His face and favour; and the joy of the servant falls in very naturally.

This interpretation appears complete so long as the elder brother and his conduct are wholly ignored, and he certainly is quite as important a personage in the parable as the younger son.* But so soon as the question is asked, whom does the elder brother represent? insuperable difficulties arise, two or three of which only I notice here.* This parable is generally spoken of as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” as though the younger son is the main or only feature in the narrative. This is misleading. I have denominated it as “The Parable of the Elder and Younger Brothers,” which introduces the brothers as equally important persons.

If the younger son represents sinners, the elder brother, who was ever with the father, certainly represents Christians. But who ever heard of Christians becoming offended because God extended His pardoning grace and love to a poor, self-ruined sinner, and refusing to rejoice over the conversion of the most wicked prodigal, and refuse to own him as a fellow-heir with God’s children? But then these Christians were not always with the Father as sons, but were each of them once the children of wrath, even as others. Again, this prodigal, as Major Whittle, the great revivalist, expressed it, was not so much influenced to return through unfeigned repentance as by an empty stomach and a longing for the abundance of food which his father’s servants enjoyed, and one of which he was willing to be, so that his appetite might be satisfied.

Still another difficulty: The prodigal son in the midst of his wanton riotings, and even while in filth and rags he was feeding the swine as he was before he left his father’s house which can in no sense be predicated of an unregenerate sinner.

This so plausible and universal interpretation breaks down under the weight of any one of these difficulties, and the Second interpretation is at once resorted to, and certainly with but little examination: viz., that the prodigal son is intended to represent a backslidden Christian - a son of God by regeneration, who, awakened from his self-alienated and degraded condition, arises and turns himself to “Seek an injured Father’s face,” and a place, at least, among the servants in his Father’s house and at his Father’s table. All the parts of the parable fall in naturally and beautifully with this theory until the question again arises, Whom does the elder brother represent who is so offended by the return and reinstatement of his younger brother in the family, and refuses to recognize him as a brother or take any part in the rejoicing?

He certainly can not represent Christians; for who ever heard of old churchmembers - Christians - becoming offended at the reclamation of a backslidden brother, or refusing to rejoice with exceeding great joy, when such an one, however

far he may have wandered from his God and from duty, returned with every manifestation of godly sorrow and humble penitence of heart, and confessed all his sin? Who, I say, ever heard of Christians becoming offended at the return of such a “prodigal son,” and refusing to rejoice over him, and opposing his being reinstated as a son and heir among them? They universally rejoice with exceeding great joy.

This interpretation, like the former one, although so long accepted as true, must be abandoned as untenable.

The question then arises, “What, then, is the fuller and deeper meaning of this parable, which those scribes and Pharisees to whom it was addressed did not fully perceive or understand?”

With our “pass-key” in hand - viz., that this, as many of the other parables, contains “the mystery of the kingdom of heaven,” that is, that the Gentiles are to be made fellow-heirs with the Jews in the full enjoyment of the blessings of the [millennial] kingdom of Christ we boldly approach to open the door of the deeper, fuller meaning.

The elder son unquestionably represents the Jewish nation. Of this we need be in no doubt with God’s word before us. God expressly said to Moses, “Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my first-born.” (Ex. 4: 22.) This first-born nation is, then, the elder son, begotten by God when He made the covenant with Abraham, and called out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, as it is written, “When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” (Hosea 2: l.)

This elder brother Israel, as a nation, has nominally “ever been with God as His ‘peculiar people’” and chosen nation, and of them He could truly say, “All that I have is thine,” for to the Jews pertained “the adoption, the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.” (Rom. 9: 4.)

The Gentiles were of a common parentage with the Jews, being the descendants of Noah, and originally members of the same family, and participants of the same blessing - the true knowledge of God. But they sadly and voluntarily departed from God, and the extreme depth of sinfulness and moral degradation into which they fell can be learned from Paul’s letter to the Romans (chapter 1: 21-32) : “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of women, burned in their lust, one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

The first awakening of the Gentiles, and the first step of their return, and the first token of God’s loving favour, was at Caesarea, in the house of Cornelius; and the first note of joy ever heard in the household over this event was heard in the church at Jerusalem, where Peter announced the gladness to them: “When they heard these things they held their peace and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life*.” - Acts 11: 18.[* NOTE. The “life” here, is not synonymous with the “life” in Rom. 6:23: the former is based on repentance – i.e., a turning away from sin unto God (a believer’s WORKS of righteousness); and the latter is “life” received (at the time of regeneration) as a “free GIFT,” because of the WORKS of Another – our Lord Jesus Christ.]

From the prophecy of this parable we learn that the Gentiles are ultimately to come to the light and love of Him who will be the “glory of His people Israel,” as it is written: “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” - Isaiah 60:3.

This returning of this prodigal son commenced, as I have said, the day the gospel was preached in the house of Cornelius, and from that day the elder brother has been offended; and as the feasting and joy have been going on in the family, the elder brother has been standing without, refusing to come in and refusing to acknowledge the prodigal as his brother, and even charging the father with lack of equity and positive injustice in being willing to reinstate the squanderer of his parental estate and the disgracer of the family name, and he is still standing without, and still the halls of the old mansion are resounding with louder and still louder shouts of joy over him who was lost but now is found, and these glad shouts will go on and on, with increasing gladness, until the very fullness of the

Gentiles shall have been brought in.*[* That is, brought in as “first-born” sons of God. See “Firstborn Sons Their Rights and Risks,” by G. H. Lang.]

“The morning light is breaking; The darkness disappears; The sons of earth are waking To penitential tears: |Each breeze that sweeps the ocean Brings tidings from afar Of nations in commotion, Prepared for Zion’s war.

See heathen nations bending Before the God we love, And thousand hearts ascending In gratitude above; While sinners, now confessing, The gospel call obey, And seek the Saviour’s blessing A nation in a day.

Blest river of salvation, Pursue thy onward way; Flow thou to every nation, Nor in thy richness stay: Stay not till all the lowly Triumphant reach their home; Stay not till all the holy Proclaim, ‘The Lord is come.’” ***

CHAPTER 13 THE LABOURERS AND THE HOURS “FOR the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you; and they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right that shall ye receive. So, when the even was come the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came

that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it they murmured against the good man of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that is thine and go thy way: I will give unto this last even as unto you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good? So the last shall be first and the first last; for many be called but few chosen.” - Matt. 20:1-16.

This parable is generally interpreted from the pulpit as applicable to individuals, the unemployed labourers representing sinners only, and the vineyard the service of God in connection with His church; those who entered early in the morning representing persons brought in in early youth, and the penny received for their labour, salvation; those who were hired at the third, sixth and ninth hours representing those brought in along later in life; while those hired at the eleventh hour represent old sinners of sixty, seventy or eighty years. Who is not familiar with the expressions that such and such a person was “brought in at the eleventh hour,” and “he was an eleventh-hour sinner?” Those who claimed to have borne the burden and heat of the day, according to this theory, are then the old fathers and mothers in the churches.

There are insuperable difficulties opposing this interpretation: 1. The excuse of these labourers for standing all the day idle in the market-place can in no sense be rendered by sinners. These labourers wished to work, and went, as it was then and is still the custom in Oriental lands, to the usual place where day labourers went to be hired, and patiently waited for an offer. Why all did not go to work in the morning was because no man came to hire them, and not because they refused to work. Can the sinner of thirty, forty, or fifty, or any old grey-headed sinner of seventy or eighty, in gospel lands, plead this excuse for refusing to enter the Master’s service - because no man has hired, or offered to hire? Have not all sinners, from their earliest youth, heard the gospel offer, and been repeatedly pressed to enter the Master’s vineyard? But, instead of cheerfully and promptly accepting it, as did these labourers the offer of work, have they not persistently rejected the proffer of salvation, and refused to enter the service of God? 2. Then who ever heard of the old brethren and sisters of a church becoming angry with and murmuring against God, and charging Him with injustice, when they see an old sinner of eighty converted, and rejoicing with as great joy as they themselves ever experienced in the hope of salvation? No one ever heard of such an occurrence, and no one ever will. The oldest members always rejoice over such an

one with joy even exceeding that which they express when a young person of ten or fifteen years enters the service.

3. This interpretation is Arminian throughout. Salvation is not the offered reward for work in God’s service; and we dismiss it, trusting no Baptist minister will ever again preach or exhort it in his ministrations, or Baptist Sunday-school teacher so teach it to his class. Salvation is the gift of God through His allabounding grace in Christ Jesus, and not of works, lest any one should boast. But the Master will reward every servant according to his works. And so faithful is He in this that no one can give a cup of cold water to one of His disciples, in the name of a disciple, and lose his reward.

In the parable of the supper the king made on the marriage of his son, we saw that those who were first bidden, who were undoubtedly the Jews, were accounted unworthy because of their treatment of the king’s invitation, and of his servants who bore it; and that he sent his servants forthwith out into the highways and hedges to persuade all they found to come in, and to pursue this course until his wedding should be fully furnished with guests. The last bidden I interpret as referring to the Gentiles. This prophetical parable of the labourers I understand as referring to the self-same two classes of people - the Jews and Gentiles - but more especially illustrating the fact that the Gentile nations would be, as they have been, called at different periods in the gospel dispensation.

Those who were first called, and entered, represent the Jews, to whom the gospel was first preached. They (a portion of them) did answer its call, and entered the Master’s service. They were the first to hear it, and were the first to answer its call. The first church that was formed was composed entirely of Jews. Paul alludes to this when he says: “If the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.” (Rom. 11: 16.)

The hiring of the labourers at different hours of the day represents the calling of the Gentile nations at different periods in the gospel dispensation. The Gentile nations are well represented as standing ready to hear the gospel call; and they have been hearing and accepting it all through the gospel age, and been received into the Master’s service; and it is true that some have been waiting all the day long uncalled. How true is it that China, and Japan, and South America, and Mexico, and Cuba, are now even anxiously waiting for the gospel to be preached to them! And, at the eleventh hour, thousands of their people are gladly receiving it; and, according to prophecy, “the isles of the sea are waiting for His law.” (Isaiah 42:4.)

From the prophecy of this parable we learn that the last one of the waiting nations will be visited by the missionaries of the cross, and that representatives of all nations will ultimately be found engaged in the Master’s service. The blessings

granted to one nation will be the same as those bestowed upon the others, irrespective of the earliness or lateness of the hour in which they embraced them.

It is true also that the Jews, as a people, always claimed superiority over their Gentile brethren, and to be deserving of superior consideration; but how true is it that the first called are to-day last, and the last first, in the service of the Master! ***

CHAPTER 14 THE GREAT SUPPER THAT I may more forcibly impress my readers with my conviction that in all the principal parables, beyond their apparent meaning and application, are taught the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven - viz., that the Gentiles are to be brought into the full enjoyment of the blessings of the gospel kingdom as well as the Jews - I present here several additional ones, which none will deny as having, in their deeper meaning, reference to God’s intended dealing with the Jews and Gentiles.

One parable rightly interpreted throws a flood of light upon others.

I present first the Parable of the Great Supper, as related by Luke: “Then said He unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it; I pray thee have rue excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married me a wife, and therefore I can not come. So that servant came and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto his servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may he filled. For I say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.” - Luke 14:16-24.

Also the same parable as given in its more extended form by Matthew: “And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. Again, he sent forth another servant, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: and the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers

and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment; and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment?

And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.” - Matt.

22:1-14.

If not the same parable, it is certain that a correct interpretation of the one given by Matthew will fully interpret the briefer one recorded by Luke.

EXPOSITION The great supper and marriage feast represent the [Millennial] kingdom of Christ, with all its honour and gracious privileges, prepared for the human family by the atoning work of God’s own Son. The setting up of this kingdom, and the first issuing of the invitation to the enjoyments of its honours and privileges, was first made by the Harbinger to the Jews. He announced the good news that all things were ready in these words: “Repent, ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand [has approached].” The Jews, who were those first bidden, were again and again called

by Christ and His twelve apostles and seventy disciples during the whole period of their ministry on earth, but, as a people, they rejected the invitations on the most irrational and frivolous excuses.

It will be remembered that during the entire ministry of Christ the invitation to the great supper was confined [at that time] to the Jews only by special command of Christ: “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” - Matt. 10:5-7.

The Jews were undoubtedly those who were first bidden. But after His resurrection Christ commanded His heralds to go into all the world, and make the offer of salvation to every rational creature, however high and good, and however degraded, low, mean and vile in the world’s estimation, and, by all the persuasive power and drawing influences of God’s love, influence (morally compel) them to come in and enjoy the gracious feast, and so honour the King. And this commission the servants have been doing from the day that Peter gave the invitation to the Roman nation in the house of Cornelius. And to-day the devoted missionaries of the cross are stepping upon the shores of every known nation of

earth to bid the poor, the lowly and the lost to come; and the prophecy of the parable will be fulfilled despite the opposition of the opposers of missions, who thereby prove themselves the opposers of the will of the King who has made the marriage supper for His Son. The faithful servants of the King will still go out; and they will, by God’s favouring aid, continue to gather together of all they find, until the fullness of the Gentiles shall be brought in, and the wedding, bless God, will be furnished with guests.

The question “Who are represented by the man found by the king among the guests without a wedding garment?” has ever been the most perplexing one connected with this parable. That it is not essential to the integrity of this parable, is evident from the fact that Luke omits it altogether. That there is a lesson to be learned from it touching the great doctrines connected with the administration of Christ’s [coming millennial] kingdom, we equally learn from the fact that it is mentioned by Matthew. A knowledge of Eastern customs will help us in the understanding of this as well as the other parables.

The wealth of individuals, as well as the riches of kings and princely men, consisted largely of the number of costly garments possessed by them. These were not cut to the form and sewed up to fit the person as garments are made by us, but cloth of the proper width, cut to the proper length, to wrap in folds gracefully over the shoulders and about the person. The garment that was suitable for one person would fit every other one of the same height.

The wealthy possessed these garments by the hundreds, and kings and princes by the thousands. These were the hoarded “treasures” that, without the greatest care, the moth would consume and render useless.

The presents of kings, and of the wealthy, usually consisted in part, if not largely, of changes of raiment. (See 2 Kings 5: 5.) On occasions of princely and kingly feasts, and especially upon marriage feasts, the guests were presented with a festal or wedding garment befitting the occasion, and, in richness, the rank of the guest. In the case under consideration the man had evidently declined to accept the garment, or had been overlooked through the carelessness of the servants, and his unadorned person arrested the attention of the king when he came in to see if the guests were suitably arrayed to go into the supper, so as to do honour to the occasion. It was because the wedding garment was provided and freely offered to each guest that he might do honour to the king and his son, can we see, that the man was speechless when asked the reason for not having on the wedding garment.

The question then returns, Who were designed to be represented by this man who offered this indignity to the king, and suffered such condign punishment? We think the same class of persons as those represented by the “children of the

kingdom” who were denied the right to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom: “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall he given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” - Matt. 8: 11, 12.

Who are these but the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees who claimed a right to all the immunities of the kingdom of God by virtue of their birth, or righteousness which is by the law?

Who are represented by this man but those who will at the last day plead their right to enter into the supper of the Lamb because of the good works they have done in this world in the name of the Christ?

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” - Matt. 7: 2123.

In a word, then, this wedding garment is [NOT] the righteousness of Christ with which [ALL] the saints are clothed, and which is given to them: “And white robes were given unto every one of them.” (Rev. 6: 11.)*[* See Rev. 19: 7, 8. cf.

Matt. 5: 20, R.V.] This wedding garment is the righteousness which Paul so much desired to possess in that day, and without which no one will be allowed to enter in to the wedding supper of the Lamb: “And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” - Phil. 3: 9.* [* The imputed righteousness of Christ is common to ALL the regenerate; but for entrance into Christ’s coming millennial kingdom, more than this will required, before the time of the resurrection, at His Judgment Seat (Heb. 9: 27. cf.

Luke 20: 35; Rev. 2: 25, 26; 3: 21) from those who are justified by faith, as Paul, in the following verses 11- 21 makes perfectly clear. SEE NOTE at end of the Appendix.]

Bunyan, the peerless allegorist, says this is of the professed Christian, destitute of this righteousness, whom he names Ignorance - i.e. ignorant of spiritual things:

“Now, while I was gazing upon all these things, I turned my head to look back, and saw Ignorance come up to the riverside. But he soon got over, and without half that difficulty which the other two men met with; for it happened that there was then in that place one Vainhope, a ferryman, that with his boat helped him over.

So he, as the others I saw, did ascend the hill to come up to the gate, only he came alone; neither did any man meet him with the least encouragement. When he was come up to the gate he looked up to the writing that was above, and then began to knock, supposing that entrance should have been quickly administered to him; but he was asked by the men that looked over the top of the gate, Whence came you? and what would you have? He answered, I have ate and drank in the presence of the King, and he has taught in our streets. Then they asked him for his certificate, that they might go in and show it to the King; so he fumbled in his bosom for one, and found none. Then said they, Have you none? But the man answered never a word. So they told the King, but he would not come down to see him, but commanded the two Shining Ones that conducted Christian and Hopeful to the city to go out and take Ignorance and bind him hand and foot, and have him away.

Then they took him up, and carried him through the air, to the door that I saw in the side of the hill, and put him in there. Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction. So I awoke, and behold it was a dream.” - The Pilgrim’s Progress, pages 240; 241. ***

CHAPTER 15 THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN (HISTORICOPROPHETICAL) “THERE was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.

When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on

whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.” - Matt.

21:33-45.

The interpretation and application of this parable is clearly learned from the forty-second and forty-third verses. The only possible question that can arise is, What institution did Christ refer to by the phrase “the kingdom of God?” We should have a clear conception of this kingdom.

1. It must be a visible local institution, or it could not be visibly removed from one locality to another, or from one nation to another, and such a removal or change of place be seen to have taken place; otherwise the Jews, nor others, could not have known whether the prophecy of its removal had ever been fulfilled.

This kingdom, then, could not have been the ideal conceptional invisible kingdom of Christ of some, consisting of all the saved of all nations and in all ages, known in the Scriptures as “the ‘family’ of God” (Eph. 3: 15); for this family is nowhere called a kingdom. It was never set up or organized. It has no organization, and is therefore not an institution, and can not properly be called a kingdom, which implies organization, and can not be or exist without it. Such a body could not be said to be removed from one locality to another, as from one nation to another, since it never was, and never can be, confined to one people or nation; for it is a truth that God is no respecter of persons: “But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.” (Acts 10: 35.) “To Him [Christ] give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins.” (Acts 10: 43.) It can therefore never be given to one nation exclusively, or taken from one nation and given to another; nor is this spiritual family of God entered by baptism, as is the kingdom Christ referred to: “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3: 5.) Something, then, existing.

2. This kingdom can not refer to that peculiar system of religion known as the Jewish economy, because that was intended for the Jews only, and never has been, and never will be, transferred to another nation. Its design has been consummated, and that economy has been forever abolished from the earth.

3. Nor can it refer to the Jewish commonwealth, called into existence by the covenant of circumcision God made with Abraham, because that is an everlasting covenant; and its promised blessings, and the token and seal of that covenant (circumcision), can never, by the express declaration of God, be transferred to any other nation or people, save the natural descendants of Abraham.** If it can be supposed that, in after ages, anything, as water baptism, has been substituted for circumcision, it remains equally true that no other people, or persons, save the Jews, can receive water baptism.

The kingdom, therefore, which Christ refers to in this parable must be that kingdom which Christ, by His prophet Daniel, foretold He himself would set up on this earth in the days of the kings or emperors of the fourth and last universal empire, which was the Roman. (Dan. 2: 44.) It must be the kingdom which He sent His herald, John the Baptist, to proclaim as at hand in the days of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3: 1), and which Christ himself, in His first public proclamation, also declared was at hand.

It was a visible and therefore local kingdom, which, according to the word spoken by Daniel, He came to this earth to set up - an institution that He could remove from one nation to another. A kingdom is composed of parts – constituents - integers. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom, we learn from Daniel, was constituted of provinces as its parts, or integers - one hundred and twenty; and these provinces were the only executives of the laws of the kingdom, and were the only visible form of his kingdom. These provinces were composed of peoples in professed subjection and loyalty to the one supreme head of that kingdom. This kingdom of Christ must likewise consist of parts - constituents - integers - the executives of it corresponding to the provinces of earthly kingdoms. It is universally admitted that local institutions called churches are the only executives of Christ’s kingdom; and, therefore, we conclude that local churches - and there are no other churches save local bodies - are the parts, constituents, or integers, of Christ’s kingdom; and these give visibility to it, and are the only visible form of His kingdom.

The most authoritative writers on ecclesiology indorse this position.

A. P. Williams, D. D.: “Jesus Christ has a kingdom on earth, and He has churches. No one of His churches is His kingdom, but each one is an integral portion of His kingdom.” Work on Commentaries.

Then it follows that the aggregate of Christ’s true churches constitute His kingdom.

E. J. Fish, D. R: “The churches are the executives of the laws of the kingdom.” - Ecclesiology.

H. Harvey, D. D.: “The church [i.e. churches] is the visible, earthly form of the kingdom of Christ, and is the divine organization appointed for its advancement and triumph.

Organized and governed by the laws of the invisible King, and composed of the subjects of the heavenly kingdom, who, by the symbol of fealty, have publicly professed allegiance to Him, the church[es] fitly represents that kingdom. Hence the apostles, in receiving authority to establish, under divine inspiration, the form

and order of the church, received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ Whenever they gathered disciples, they organized a church; and, at their death, they left this as a distinctive and only visible form of the kingdom of Christ on earth.” - Pages 24, 25.

As one province may constitute a kingdom, and so long as there is but one, that province and kingdom would be synonymous terms, indicate and refer to the same institution; and as one State may constitute a republic, so one church could, and did, represent the kingdom of Christ so long as there was but one body; but when the churches were multiplied, then the kingdom was no longer represented by one organization, but by the sum total of all of them.

A church of Christ is composed of peculiar subjects, not of this world - merely carnal - but in professed spiritual subjection and loyalty to Christ, and this implies a prepared people.

So Christ sent John the Baptist before His face to make ready a people prepared for Him - the proper materials for a church were to be the nucleus of His kingdom. John prepared these by preaching the doctrine of repentance towards God, and faith in the Christ to come, and baptizing them upon this profession, and satisfactory evidence given him of it.

This people, so prepared, Christ received, and they constituted this perfect church on earth, and it alone represented His kingdom, “the kingdom of heaven,” so long as He had but one church. This was at first, and during the ministry of Christ, given to and confined to the Jewish nation only. Its subjects and officers were Jews only. Its privileges and honours were offered to Jews only.

As some teach that the kingdom of heaven was not in existence during Christ’s ministry, I submit the following Scriptures demonstratively proving that it was, so that only a mere caviller will dispute it.

1. Both John and Christ declared in their first proclamations that “the kingdom of heaven was at hand.”** In answering a letter we often say, “Your letter of the 1st inst. is at hand.” What do we mean?

2. Mark tells us that John’s preaching was the beginning of the gospel of Christ.

(Mark 1: l.)

3. Matthew 11: 12: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence [i.e. is assailed, assaulted or opposed], and the violent take it by force” [i.e. seek to destroy it]. An invisible or non-existing kingdom could neither be assaulted, nor would its enemies, if it could be conceived to have any, seek to destroy it.

“The kingdom of heaven is here (Matt. 11: 12) conceived of as not simply near, but as in actual existence, and as having begun to exist with the beginning of John’s ministry.” – Broadus’ Commentary in loco.

It was, therefore, a visible, real kingdom composed of His true churches.

4. “The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached, and [the correct rendering is] every one [all men] assault [or oppose] it.” This rendering agrees with Matt. 11: 12, while the common rendering would contradict it. The kingdom could not be assaulted or opposed, and, at the same time, all men so love it as to press into it.** We submitted, some years since, our translations (i.e. Matt. 11: 12; Luke 16: 14) to Prof. J. R. Boise, D. D., LL. D., of Morgan Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, and this was his reply: “Your questions suggest a new and, to my mind, more satisfactory interpretation of Matt.

11: 12. 1 think the clause may be rendered literally: ‘The kingdom of heaven is treated with [hostile] violence; and violent persons are trying to ravage it [harposonsin, used de conatu].’ This meaning is certainly in keeping with the classic use of the words, and also with the verses following.” Touching the passage in Luke 16: 14, he says: “The ordinary use of the words does seem to me more naturally to denote the violence of hostile forces - that of the scribes and Pharisees, which resulted in the crucifixion of our Lord. Nor can I see that this interpretation is inconsistent with the context, particularly that which follows in Matthew. That eis, with the accusative, may mean against is unquestionable. Kai pas eis auteen biazetai (Luke 16: 16) may certainly, so far as the Greek is concerned, be rendered, ‘Every one is violently opposing it.’ In this remark our Lord may have had in mind the rich and powerful - the leaders of society; and this thought may naturally have suggested the Parable of the Rich Man. (Vs. 19-31).

This view of the verses in question is adopted by Lightfoot, Scheekenberger and Hilgenfeld.”

5. Matthew 21: 31, 32: “Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” And it was by faith and obedience they entered.

They certainly could not enter the kingdom before it was set up - in existence.

But how did those publicans enter the kingdom? “And the people that heard Him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of Him.” (Luke 7: 29, 30.)

6. Luke 17: 20, 21: “And when He was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for,

behold, the kingdom of God is among or in the midst of you.” (See marginal reading and American Revision.)

The kingdom of God certainly could not have been in any sense within - i.e. in the hearts of - these wicked Pharisees, but it was among or in the midst of them.

7. Luke 11: 20: “But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.” Christ did cast out devils by the finger of God, for He himself was the very God; and who will presume to doubt that the kingdom of God had then, when Jesus spoke this, come upon or among that Jewish nation?

THE PROPHECY Christ foretold that His kingdom, which was given to the Jews at its first establishment on earth, and had continued solely with them during the ministry of John, His own and that of His seventy disciples, should be taken from them. This was literally fulfilled a few years after His crucifixion, by taking the gospel of the kingdom from them and giving it to the Gentiles, and thus transferring His kingdom from them to the Gentiles: “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting [i.e., Gk. ‘aionian’ or ‘age-lasting’] life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” (Acts 13: 46) When during the ministry of Christ it belonged to the Jews only, in no sense can the kingdom now be said to belong to them or any considerable number of them, to be members of His kingdom; nor am I warranted by Christ’s own declaration in believing that the kingdom will in any degree be restored to them, or they brought into it during this gospel dispensation, and therefore I do not consider that Gentile Christians are in duty bound to expend their time and means in preaching the gospel to them.

Mark also the statement of Paul: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” (Rom. 11: 25.) When this has been accomplished, this gospel dispensation will close, and Christ appear. The Jews are not forever cast away - they are yet to be saved as a nation, all of them, but not until after the advent of Christ, and, as Paul was, they will be convicted, and be brought to accept Him by the brightness of His appearing.

Let us read a few prophecies as to the manner of their conversion to Christ.

They, as a people, are again to see His face in the midst of great affliction: “Ye shall see me henceforth no more till ye shall say, ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’” Matt. 23: 23, 39.

“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 great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.”Zech. 14: 4.

“And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication; 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 is in bitterness for his first-born.” - Zech.

12: 10.

“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” - Zech. 13: 1.

Thus those who fall on this stone in sorrowful penitence are broken to be healed and lifted up, but the rebellious and impenitent upon whom it falls will be ground to powder. How could the Jews who heard Him fail to perceive that He spoke of them? ***

CHAPTER 16 THE BARREN FIG TREE “HE SPAKE also this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it. And if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.” - Luke 13: 6-9.

This parable is generally interpreted from the pulpit to refer to the probation offered to impenitent sinners or the fate that awaits the barren Christian.

I can not think that Christ intended it to be applied to impenitent sinners, for reasons, viz.: 1. This was not a thistle or a thorn bush, but a fig tree, in itself a good tree. It needed no change in its nature for it to bear good fruit, as every impenitent sinner does.

2. Nor can I think Christ intended it to be applied to individual Christians, since He would by it teach that Christians are under the covenant of works, and their [eternal] salvation depends upon the fruit they bear - their good works. But Christians are not under the law, but under grace. With them it is not do and live; but Christ says to His children, “Because I live ye shall live also.” And the inspired apostle said to Christians in his day: “Ye are dead, and your life is hid

with Christ in God; and when He who is your life shall appear, ye shall appear with Him in glory.” (Col. 3: 3.) The Christian’s [eternal] life is secured - depends not upon his bearing fruit, much or little - good works - but upon the existence of Christ, who is his life. He must therefore live so long as Christ lives.

Nor can it be supposed that a Christian can live here all his life without bearing some fruit to the glory of his God. His very existence as an illustrious example of God’s love and redeeming grace is fruit to the glory of God’s saving grace; and his very life is an evangel. But that Christian never yet lived, nor ever will live, who did not or will not bear those richest and most excellent fruits of the Spirit - faith, hope, love, the spirit of obedience, etc.

Christ says: “If ye love me, keep my commandments; and if any man love me he will keep my commandments.” The spirit of Christ was the spirit of obedience; and “he that hath not the spirit of Christ is none of His.” Love for the children of God is an inseparable mark of the child of God, as good works are of the existence of saving faith; for faith without works is dead - i.e. not a living, but a dead, false faith.

With these and many other considerations that might be mentioned, I dismiss the idea that this fig tree was intended to represent a child of God; and to so teach and preach it is to make this parable misteach God’s word.

I think Christ referred to the Jewish nation. God was the planter of this fig tree.

The dresser and intercessor represents Christ.

The Jewish nation was, as a vine or fig tree, brought up out of Egypt, and planted in God’s land - the goodly land of Canaan, comparable to God’s vineyard and was unto God a peculiar people. They were as peculiarly situated to bear fruit as this fig tree, planted in a vineyard where it was sure to have the best cultivation. And this the Jewish nation received. God had a right and every reason to expect fruit of this nation under the ministry of John the Baptist, Christ and His seventy missionaries and the twelve apostles. And the personal ministry of Christ continued three years, so that it was literally true that for three years He had come seeking fruit, and had found none to justify the continuance of the tree to occupy and shade the ground that could be devoted to a better use.

God would have been just in the sight of all His angels had He dealt with the Jews as He did with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and Nineveh, when they rejected His counsels against themselves, by rejecting, as they did, the ministry of John the Baptist; but the Dresser interceded for God’s forbearance for one more year - yet a little while longer - consenting that if at the end of that time the tree did not bear fruit it should be cut down without a word of remonstrance.

We have a right to conclude that the fig tree was spared another year. The Jewish nation was likewise spared, and the gospel preached in all their cities and villages

with the demonstration of the Spirit, in the performance of untold and most convincing miracles, wrought before their eyes, until they wilfully rejected it, and crucified Christ himself.

This parable is fully pre-interpreted by Isaiah: “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.

My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill; and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine press therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard! What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall he eaten up, and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant. And He looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry.” - Isaiah 5: 1-7.

THE CURSED FIG TREE WITHERED THE SENTENCE OF DEATH AGAINST THE JEWISH NATION EXECUTED We see the prefigured execution of the sentence of the owner of the vineyard upon the barren fig tree in Christ’s treatment of a barren fig tree that mocked His hunger with leaves only, as He and His disciples were returning one morning from Bethany to Jerusalem: “And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever [Gk. ‘to the age’]. And when the disciples saw it they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!” - Matt 21: 19, 20.

The fate of the Jews and their proud city, Jerusalem, is plainly foretold by Christ in this prophecy, and the cause of it - their rejection of His offered ministry for their salvation: “And when He was come near He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace - but now are they hid from thine eyes! For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy

children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” - Luke 19: 41-44.

This prophecy was literally fulfilled in less than forty years afterwards in the complete destruction of Jerusalem, and the unparalleled slaughter of the Jews, and the destruction of their nation. *** PARABLES ILLUSTRATING THE MATTER AND MANNER OF ACCEPTABLE PRAYER ------1. THE IMPORTUNATE NEIGHBOUR 2. THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW 3. THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN 4 THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT

CHAPTER 17 THE IMPORTUNATE NEIGHBOUR WHAT TO PRAY FOR AND HOW TO PRAY “AND it came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’ And He said unto them, ‘When ye pray, say: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us day by day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.’”

PARABLE “And He said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I can not rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall he opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” - Luke 11:1-13.

I have placed not the parable only but the whole context before the eyes of the reader for his better understanding of its true scope.

While Jesus was praying in a certain place, a little apart from His disciples, and they doubtless looking on and impressed with His whole manner, and wishing to be instructed as to what to pray for and how to pray acceptably, and remembering that John taught his disciples to pray, one of them came to Him and said “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.” He immediately complied by giving them both the form and matter of acceptable prayer. This I call not the Lord’s prayer, but a Christian’s prayer. Christ never prayed it. He could not. For the Lord’s prayer see John 17.

This prayer was not intended for all men, but for Christians only- the children of God - because none but such can pray it. To say, “Our Father,” is to assert a claim to spiritual relationship, and there is no such relationship existing between God and a sinner; it would be a falsehood in his mouth. Christ said: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the works of your father ye do.”

“Our Father” is an expression of filial love, and no unregenerate person possesses such an emotion, and it would be a falsehood on his lips. The common Fatherhood of God is a delusion. He is the Father of only those who are His children by faith in Christ Jesus. It is as true of all the unregenerate as it was of the unbelieving Jews.

But of children Paul said: “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father” (i.e. Our Father). - Gal. 4: 6.

“Hallowed be Thy name.” No sinner, young or old, can say this. No sinner ever hallows or adores the name of God, or can truly or acceptably worship Him. “Thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done in earth as in heaven.” No sinner ever prayed this, or can pray this. He does not want the will of God to be done with himself or on the earth as it is in heaven. This language would be little less than blasphemy against God on the lips of sinners.

But in this prayer Christ taught His apostles and His disciples, to the end of time, what to pray for.

Of this prayer it has been eloquently said: “It is a remarkable collection of petitions, and Scriptures which contain within themselves the elements of every true prayer that can ever be offered by the faithful heart to our Father in heaven.

Each want of the renewed soul, each object of its most anxious desire, everything for which it can pray aright, lies enfolded in some one or other of the petitions of this prayer as the majestic oak lies wrapped up in the acorn. The more we meditate upon the paragraphs of this prayer the more profound and comprehensive do they

appear; no human mind can grasp the full meaning of any one of the sentences of this prayer, or sound the depths of its spiritual mysteries. It carries in itself the proof that Christ is divine; for only a mind possessing divinity could frame a prayer that should concentrate every possible aspiration of the soul, and every known attribute of the Godhead.”

Having taught His disciples what they should pray for, He next proceeds to teach them by parables and illustrations occurring in His daily ministrations how to pray, and commencing with the parable before us.

In Palestine, then as now, as in all hot countries, in order to avoid the intense heat of the sun, much of the travelling is done in the night. The falling in of a friend at midnight seemed nothing strange; and borrowing a few loaves for a friend, unexpectedly arriving at so late an hour, presented nothing singular to the minds of the disciples. The time and circumstances constitute important features of the parable. Had the visit been made in the day-time, when the neighbour’s house was open and all the family up and stirring, how readily and cheerfully the loan or gift of a few loaves or cakes of bread would have been granted! but as it was - the hour so late, the house securely fastened up, the man himself undressed and in bed, and his children all asleep in bed with him, the lights all put out - it would indeed be with no little trouble, and a positive inconvenience, indeed, to get up, dress, light up the house, have his children all awakened, remove the fastenings from the door; therefore it is not strange, friend though he was, that he felt a positive disinclination in the circumstances to rise and accommodate him on his first request, and excuse himself as he did. But the need of the neighbour was urgent for his friend’s sake, who was hungry, and he would not easily be denied, but continued to repeat, urge his request until it was granted; and he arose and gave him as many as he needed.

The key-word to this parable, as brought out by Christ, is importunity in prayer: “I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.” And for the encouragement of His disciples then around Him, for all to the end of the dispensation, he adds: “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” - Luke 11: 9-13.

From this parable we learn:

1. That it is the duty of all Christians to pray daily. “Give us this day,” is to be daily prayed.

2. That this prayer, called the Lord’s prayer, was intended for Christians only, and can and should be prayed by Christians only; and, therefore, our children should not be taught to say it over - for pray it they can not - and it is but a vain repetition on their tongues and a mockery.

3. We learn that it is right to pray for others; And, 4. For our prayers to be acceptable, and prevailing in the sight of God, we should feel our need, and be, 5. Importunate. ***

CHAPTER 18 THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW “AND He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for awhile: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?

I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” - Luke 18:1-8.

The scope of this parable is simple and clearly stated by Christ before uttering it, viz.: 1. That men ought always to pray.

2. To pray, and not to faint.

It was spoken to His disciples, and for the comfort and encouragement of His elect ones in all ages until prayers and tears are no more. Prayer has ever characterized the children of God in every age. It is as natural to a Christian as his vital breath. It is the breath of his soul. That His disciples might be encouraged to pray, although their prayers were not immediately answered, Christ relates this parable.

The two characters introduced into this parable are 1. An unjust judge.

Of this judge two things are said: “He feared not God, neither regarded man.”

Both Homer and Euripides use this as a proverbial expression in their day, denoting consummate and unblushing wickedness - a man totally abandoned to all evil, capable of any injustice or atrocity. It has been said, “Take away the fear of God, and you fill the soul with every inward sin, and make it a cage of unclean birds.”

Take away from a man “a regard for man, a proper respect for human opinion, when sound and wholesome, and you surround him with every outward sin, and make him a selfish despot, grinding out from his fellow-men whatever may contribute to his own lusts or aggrandizement, reckless of their happiness, and solicitous only for his own. Strike from the heart of a man both these elements, and you make him a monster with a human shape but a devil’s heart.”

With such a moral monster in the seat of law and equity, and the people will be forced to take up the lamentation of Isaiah: “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the streets and equity can not enter.”

2. The other personage is a widow.

Bereavement, friendlessness and poverty naturally cast their cold, dark shadows over the word. Oh! how like a vine torn from its tree by a rude blast, or a stroke from the passing storm-cloud, is woman when “death” writes “widow” upon her broken heart! What heart is not moved to sympathy and kindness at the very word? It gives to this parable its peculiar interest and pathos, that touches every heart, and at once enlists all our sympathies in behalf of this woman.

That she was without friends, true and strong, we gather from the fact that she comes in person and alone to plead her cause, instead of through a powerful friend or advocate. That she was poor, we gather from the fact that oft-coming and urgent prayer was her only recourse, and not a full purse, which was the only thing that could move this judge to give a favourable hearing. It was for the glittering bribe he waited, but in this instance waited in vain. Had he feared God, the curse uttered from Mt. Ebal. in the ears of all Israel would have sounded in his ears and terrified his heart: “Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless. Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen!”

This widow did not come to entreat this judge to revenge her upon, or to punish, her adversary - some one who had wronged her.

The word here translated “avenge” means “obtain justice for me from my opponent.” It was justice, not revenge - simple justice from her opponent - she came so often and sought so earnestly from this judge. She only besought him to do his simple duty - the duty that he had taken a solemn oath in the name of God and

before men to do when he entered into his office. This act of simple justice he refused to grant. But not to be easily put off, and so confident of the justness of her cause, she came “oft,” again and again, and each rebuff only served to increase the urgency and persistency of her appeals. She was not compelled to urge her case in his regular office hours, but she could, and doubtless did, in the public concourse, and wherever she met with him, until she positively annoyed him; until he was moved by purely selfish considerations to listen to her. And he reasoned thus with himself: “Though I fear not God, neither regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me I shall give her justice, lest by her continual coming she weary me;” literally “wear me out” [or ‘pester me’.] Tyndale, in his version made three hundred years ago, translates this “lest at least she come and hagge on me.” Hagge, in old Anglo-Saxon, means a witch-fury, goblin or enchantress. To hagge any one was to harass, torment one. And, moved by pure selfishness and fear of some indefinable evil she might bring upon him, he, at last, granted her request.

Christ makes the application of His parable: “And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?

I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find [the]* faith on the earth?” - Luke 18: 6-8.[* NOTE. The definite article ‘the,’ is shown in the Greek text.]

God, for an all-wise purpose, often bears long with the earnest supplications of His children - delays until it seems to them that He does not hear, or is unwilling to answer their petitions. Is it not that they may fully realize their necessity, and so the more fully appreciate and enjoy the blessing sought? Is it not that He may increase their faith by a severe trial of it?

This parable only serves to emphasize the last one we considered; and both this and that give force to the declaration of the apostle: “The earnest, wrought out of prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

There are two striking instances in the ministry of Christ that illustrate how pleasing to God is importunate prayer when offered for others, and encourage God’s children to be importunate in their petitions when offered for others, and disprove the teachings of those who say that prayer to God is only availing for good by its reflex influence upon the petitioner, which reduces it to a mere spiritual gymnasium.

1. The first is the case of the Syrophenician woman: “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us. But He

answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Then came she and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” Matt. 15: 22-28.

Had she asked but once, and ceased to ask, we are not authorized to believe that her daughter would have been relieved.

2. The second notable case is that of the Roman centurion, or captain, related by Luke: “And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear unto him, was sick and ready to die. And when he heard of Jesus he sent unto Him the elders of the Jews, beseeching Him that He would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus they besought Him instantly, saying that he was worthy for whom He should do this: For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with them. And when He was now not far from the house the centurion sent friends to Him, saying unto Him, Lord, trouble not Thyself, for I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my roof; wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee, but say in a word and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers; and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard these things He marvelled at him, and turned Him about and said unto the people that followed Him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick.” - Luke 7: 2-10.

From the parable, and these illustrations from the ministry of Christ, we learn that importunity, conjoined with faith, are two essential elements of prevailing prayer.

The reader will readily call to mind the most noteworthy instances of such prayers. Jacob, when he was aware that on the morrow he would meet his deeply injured brother, Esau, who had come out with an armed band with the intent, doubtless, to avenge himself upon him, went apart from his family, and spent the whole night wrestling in earnest prayer with the angel, who was none other than the Lord Jesus himself, seeking from Him the blessing of pardon for his sin against his brother Esau, and protection from his just indignation; and, when the day was dawning, and the angel would have left him, saying, “Let me go, for the day breaketh,” Jacob replied, “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” And thus, by his faith and importunity, he prevailed with God and obtained the blessing sought; and this Jehovah-angel then and there changed his name from Jacob to

Israel - prevailer with God and men. (See Genesis 32.) Would Jacob have prevailed with God had he continued in prayer but an hour, and then given up his suit? How deeply he was made to realize his need and how persistently did he wrestle in prayer until he was heard! He was not only blessed, but highly honoured by God and before man, as the result of that night’s pleading with God for himself and his family.

The case of Elijah is familiar with every Bible reader. He knew that it was God’s intention to send the rain which had been withheld for more than three years, but he equally knew that it was God’s will that the rain should be given in answer to his prayer: that he, as God’s prophet, might be honoured in the sight of all the people. Elijah, therefore, went out upon the mount and prayed for the rain, and sent his servant to look upon the heavens for an indication of an answer in gathering clouds; but he saw none. The prophet prayed again and again, each time sending his servant out upon the brow of the mountain to look for a sign of coming rain with like results. But Elijah was not disheartened. He renewed his prayer still more earnestly, until the seventh time the servant came and reported he saw gathering over the western sea a cloud about the size of a man’s hand. It was enough. The prophet knew that his prayers were answered. His faith and importunity are left upon record for the encouragement of God’s people in all ages, as were these parables and the instances alluded to in the ministry of Jesus.

The lesson taught in this parable is: That importunity and implicit faith are two inseparable elements of prevailing prayer.

The encouragement to God’s children to pray is in this: If an unjust judge, who had not the least kind feeling for this poor widow, would grant her request merely to escape her importunity, how much more will a just and all-merciful Father listen to the prayers of His own children who incessantly cry unto Him, and avenge them of their adversaries, though He seems to defer a long while to move to redress their wrongs, and restore to them their inheritance (this earth wrested from them by Satan, their great adversary) and the enjoyment of their rights (i.e. to inherit and reign over it) now in the possession of their enemies!

Yea, verily, He will do it. “Shall not the Lord of the whole earth do right” by them?

Very soon will their Kinsman-Redeemer take the title book, with its seven seals now broken, and, placing His right foot on the sea and His left on the land, take possession of the whole earth, and dispossess it of all its usurpers, and restore it to His [good, faithful and obedient] people, avenging them of all their wrongs and restoring to them all their rights, when, with Him, they will reign over it forever.*[* That is, for as long as He has decreed it should remain, before replacing it with “a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away...:” (Rev. 21: 1, R.V.). cf. 1 Cor. 15: 22-25; Rom. 8: 17-25, R.V.]

Well did Christ prophetically ask, “When the Lord cometh will he find this [the] faith on the earth?” How few hold it to-day! And as the years go by it is more and more rejected, even by professed Christians themselves. (See 2 Peter 3., 2 Thess.

2., and let the thoughtful Christian read Rev. 6. - 20.)

This feature of the parable will be more fully developed in the expositions of the Eschatological Parables. ***

CHAPTER 19 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN “TWO men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” - Luke 18: 10-14.

I do not regard this as a race, or even as a caste, parable, as some do - i.e. that the Pharisee in it was intended to represent the Jews as a race, and the publican the Gentiles, who were regarded by the Jews as heathens and publicans; nor that He intended by the Pharisee to represent the Jewish Pharisees as the religious patricians of the nation, and by the publican the lowest and vilest class - the plebeians of Jewish society - but as a rebuke to religious Phariseeism, and teach the elements of acceptable and prevailing prayer among all people and in all ages.

Let us carefully notice the characteristics of the two men whom Christ puts before us so prominently, and their acts, and the results, by which He would teach us these important lessons, wherein they were alike and diverse.

1. In the sight of men.

The Pharisee, in the estimation of men, was in every respect far superior to the publican.

The Pharisees, as a class, represented the wealthy and aristocratic, the cultivated and pre-eminently religious portion of the Jewish nation. It was indeed peculiarly characteristic of them that they “trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” The publicans, as a class, belonged to the poorer, and to the lowest, class of society. They were the officers of the Romans, by whom the Jewish nation were held in subjection and oppressed, and their business occupation was to collect the heavy taxes imposed upon them, and were looked upon as the aiders and abettors of their enemies in degrading and oppressing the nation. As a class the publicans were extortioners, exacting and collecting more

than the law required, and appropriating it to their own use. They were regarded by their countrymen as the very lowest class in vice, and no better than the heathen - who were without the circumference of the covenanted mercies - without God, and without hope in the world.

2. In the sight of God. This Pharisee and publican were equal - equally sinners and depraved in heart, and doubtless equally guilty, and certainly equally in need of His compassionate mercy and salvation.

3. In their own sight they were unlike.

The Pharisee, in his self-examination, found nothing but what was meritorious and deserving the approbation of God. The publican, taking a juster view of himself, saw nothing to approve; saw and felt himself a sinner in act and intent; saw nothing that he considered entitled him to God’s merciful regard; saw and felt himself a sinner above all men.

The one was a boastful, self-confident, self-justified, impenitent sinner; the other a self-convicted, self-condemned, but deeply penitent sinner.

Their several actions, as well as their words, indicate their real spiritual conditions.

They both went up into the temple, as the Jews, when in the vicinity, were wont to do at the hours of prayer (9 and 3 o’clock).

They both stood when they prayed, as the worshiper was not allowed to take any other position in prayer according to the temple rules.

Touching the proper posture in prayer, an old divine has, as quaintly as appropriately, said, “I will either stand as a servant before my Master, or kneel as a suppliant to my King; but I will not dare sit as my equal.”** The true feeling of the heart will indicate the posture of the body in prayer. The humble and contrite spirit, the broken heart that feels its helplessness, and in pleading for God’s favour, invariably assumes the kneeling or prostrate position.

Contrast their respective prayers.

The Pharisee, doubtless, with “lofty eyes,” complacent and self-satisfied mien, instead of imploring God’s pardon for his sins, or thanking Him for His many undeserved mercies, thanks Him that he is more righteous than all other men, and pronounces a eulogy upon himself in the ear of God and hearing of men. With ostentatious pride he recounts his own pre-eminent merits, his abstemious devotion - even more than the law required. The law only required one fast the whole year - on the day of atonement - but this man, like other Pharisees, fasted twice in the week (on Mondays and Thursdays). He boasted of his liberality: “I pay tithes of all I acquire,” not as our version, of all I possess. No Jew paid tithes

of all he possessed, but of all his income, not subtracting the expenses of his business. And he concludes not his prayer without expressing his supreme contempt for the publican.

By examining this prayer it will be found to lack every element of acceptable prayer. It was, therefore, not heard.

The publican, standing afar off, as though too vile to associate with others, and so self-abased that he lifted not up his eyes, but smote on his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. (See original.)

His was the outward manifestation of profound humility, and a penitential confession of conscious guilt, and a most earnest petition for God’s undeserved mercy - for mercy was his only plea, and this indicates that he felt deserving only of God’s judgment and righteous displeasure. This publican, although a great sinner, was a true penitent. Analyze his prayer, and it will be found to contain every element of genuine prayer which God has promised to answer.

Notice the result of these two prayers. The Pharisee asked for nothing and obtained nothing. He carried home what he brought, and doubtless died as he lived, a proud, censorious Pharisee, who trusted in his own righteousness for his salvation and despised others.

The publican left in the courts of God’s house all he brought - the open recordbook of his confessed guilt and his troubled heart - and went down to his house justified, having asked, and received all he had asked for.

Did he not know that he had obtained the mercy he so sincerely and earnestly sought? How can we doubt it with God’s word in our hand, which says: “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God?” ... Yes, he did know it, because he felt the sweetness of this heavenly peace. As he went up to the temple was not his soul harassed and burdened with conscious guilt? He certainly knew this, because he felt it. When the light of God’s countenance beamed into his soul, and a sweet and heavenly peace took possession of it, did he not know it for the same reason - because he felt it as every pardoned sinner to-day knows when his sins are forgiven, by the peaceful joy that takes possession of his inmost soul? And it is certain that if we love Him who begat us, we shall love all those begotten of Him; and therefore it is written: “Hereby we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” What is there we better know than whom we love? David knew when God heard and answered his prayer for mercy, and administered the grace of salvation to his soul.

The twofold design of this parable we can not fail to learn from both the introductory and concluding remarks of its author:

“And He spake this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. ... For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and every one that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

1. To point out religious Phariseeism and rebuke it.

2. The essential elements of prevailing prayer. The marks of Phariseeism in all lands and in all ages are: 1. Trusting in themselves that they are righteous. 2.

Despising all others inferior to them. 3. Ostentatious piety. 4. Self-praise; and, 5.

Boasting of one’s goodness. and 6. Ambitious for the chief seats in the synagogues.

This sin is not confined to any nation, race or age, and this parable is therefore as applicable to-day as it was when spoken by Christ. His disciples will do well to heed His admonition - “Beware of the leaven of Phariseeism.”

3. The parable teaches the essential elements of acceptable prayer, and offers the greatest encouragement for the greatest of sinners to pray. One has said of it: “How great is the encouragement which it offers to the truly penitent and believing to come to Jesus! What though, like the publican, they be regarded as the off-scouring of all things? Christ came to ‘save sinners.’ What though they feel their vileness, so as to cause them to smite upon their breast in anguish, and be afraid to lift up so much as their eyes to heaven? The deeper the consciousness of guilt, the more they feel the need of a Saviour, and the more precious becomes His salvation.

We can not be too humble, for ‘He resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.’”

We can not be too full in confessions, for “He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy.”

We can not be too penitential for our transgression, for it is “the broken and contrite heart” with which God is well pleased. We can not be too strong in our own faith, for “without faith it is impossible to please God.” We can not be too importunate in our supplication, for it is “they who seek Him earnestly that find Him.” Come, then, in humility, in godly sorrow, in true repentance, in simple faith, in earnest prayer, to the throne of grace, and, like the publican, we shall find acceptance with God, and go down to our house justified before Him. ***

CHAPTER 20 THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT “THEREFORE is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him, saying, Lord have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then

the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence; and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not; but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow-servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me; shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy follow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” - Matt. 18:23-35.

Bishop Porteus of this parable says: “It is one of the most interesting and affective that is to be found either in Scripture or in any of the most admired writers of antiquity.”

It was drawn forth by the question of Peter, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say unto thee, not seven times, but until seventy times seven.” And then He relates this parable as illustrative of the divine condition of pardon - prevailing prayer.

Peter’s attention to this subject had been arrested by the instructions just given

by Christ with reference to trespasses, and the course to be pursued when we had a matter of grievance with our brethren. The directions were altogether new and striking. Peter evidently wished for some specific rule. The Rabbinical law of forgiveness, with which he was doubtless familiar, said that “three offences are to be remitted, but not the fourth.” Peter, in his question, more than doubles this number as an extreme limit. Nor did the Saviour intend to fix a definite limit to the number of offences His disciples should forgive.

Seven, among the Jews, is the number of fullness, completeness, and seventy times seven then, indicating indefiniteness, unlimited forgiveness of wrongs, offences and injuries, is the heaven-born law, where the divine condition is manifested, which this parable was given to teach and illustrate.

A certain king is represented as making a settlement with his servants, or fiscal ministers, to whom the collection of his royal revenues was entrusted. One, a tributary prince, or treasurer, is brought unto him, who was found behind in his accounts ten thousand talents, and had misappropriated or squandered them, for he as found to be utterly bankrupt. Taking the talent at its lowest value, this amount was enormous even for a treasurer of the royal revenues to default in, not less than fifteen million dollars. It evinces the dignity of the treasurer, and the

great confidence the king had placed in his integrity, and the boldness of the peculation.

The defaulter offered no excuse, but frankly confessed his inability to pay.

The severe penalty for insolvency often used in the East, as is testified to by writers, sacred and profane, and even in Roman law, was that the wife and children, as well as the slaves, being considered the property of the father, were sold with him into slavery. This penalty the king pronounced upon this bold defaulter, and that the proceeds of the sale should be applied toward the payment of the debt.

The wretched servant, overwhelmed with the fearfulness of his punishment, now prostrates himself upon his face before his lord, and entreats him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.” It was not that the lord believed that it was possible for him to pay the debt that his heart was touched with sympathy and compassion for the miserable suppliant, and ordered his chains to be knocked off, and, instead of sending him to the auction mart to be sold into hopeless slavery, magnanimously restored him to his liberty and his family and children and goods, and forgave him the debt.

What a surprising change in the situation of this servant! and what a profound impression for good must it, and must not his lord have intended and expected it to, have made upon the moral character of his servant, to reclaim him from his dishonest practices, and teach him an enduring lesson of compassionate leniency and forgiveness toward his fellow-servants! But it did not. He was evidently the heartless slave of avarice and greed.

Going forth from the presence of his lord he met a fellow-servant who owed him a hundred pence - the trifling sum of fifteen dollars - and, instead of being softened by the mercy he had himself experienced, he seized him by the throat and demanded, “Pay me that thou owest.” The debtor prostrated himself before him as he had before his lord, and urged the self-same plea, “Have patience with me and I will pay thee all,” which he doubtless would have been able to have done; but this so recently pardoned bankrupt was untouched with pity or compassion, and ordered him cast into prison until he should pay the debt, thus depriving him of the slightest opportunity to do it. How cruel! How unfeeling! The abasement and plea that had found mercy for him found no mercy from him. Well has it been said: “Avarice is deaf and can not hear, blind and can not see, heartless and can not feel.

It has no bowels of mercy, no finely strung sympathies. It is relentless in its grasp, cruel in its aims; and the horse-leech cry of its insatiable appetite is, Give, give!”

To get gain, it will steal from the treasuries of kings, or grind the face of the poor; it will wrench open the clenched hand of penury for its uttermost farthing, and wring from the hand of the widowed mother the pittance which gives her children their daily bread. Of all such oppressions God declares “they have

swallowed down riches and shall vomit them up again; he shall suck the poison of asps; the viper’s tongue shall slay him.” This unmerciful conduct was at once reported to the king, and he straightway ordered him into his presence and thus rebuked and punished him: “O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me; shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant even as I had pity on thee?” “And his lord was wroth,” and well he might be, and, with a justice that is commended by everyone who has read the narrative, he revoked the forgiveness he had extended and the cancellation of the debt, and delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due him. “He richly merited his doom by his avarice, and brought it upon himself by his extortion.” Christ brings out and applies this parable.

“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye forgive not from your hearts every one his brother their trespasses.”

We have here illustrated the essential element of acceptable, prevailing prayer.

The forgiveness of all who trespass against us as we hope for the forgiveness of God. This is clearly stated in the form of prayer Christ gave His disciples: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If we do not from our hearts forgive others, we ask God in this prayer not to forgive us.

What a solemn prayer! But should we not use these words, we may know that to harbour in our breasts an unforgiving spirit God will not hear our prayers. May not this be the reason so few of our prayers are answered - prayers for the forgiveness of our own sins, prayers for our children, prayers for others? The reason why so many meetings, intended to be meetings for the revival of our church and the conversion of sinners, fail to accomplish anything for the glory of the Master or the salvation of men? One of the first meetings that should be held to secure a revival should be a confessing and forgiving meeting, so that church members could effectively pray for themselves and for sinners.

We can now review the lessons we have learned from these four parables, the essential elements of acceptable and prevailing prayer.

1. We must realize in our hearts the need of that for which we ask.

2. We should earnestly and importunately ask for it.

3. We should ask “in faith, nothing doubting.”

4. Satisfied that our request is in accord with God’s will and for His glory we should continue our Supplications “always and not faint.” Daniel fasted and prayed for three weeks before the answer came.

5. We must pray humbly, confessing our sins.

6. We must seek forgiveness in a forgiving spirit, freely forgiving all who have offended or injured us. *** PARABLES ILLUSTRATING GENERAL SUBJECTS ------THE WISDOM OF WORLDLY PROVIDENCE 1. THE UNJUST STEWARD THE FOLLY OF SPIRITUAL IMPROVIDENCE 2 THE RICH FARMER THE LAW OF BENEVOLENCE 3 THE GOOD SAMARITAN THE THREE EXTREMES: 1. IN LIFE. 2. IN DEATH. 3. BEYOND THE GRAVE. 4. THE RICE MAN AND LAZARUS 5. SUMMARY

CHAPTER 21 THE UNJUST STEWARD “AND He said also unto His disciples, There was a certain rich man which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship.

I can not dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” - Luke 16: 1-8.

Dr. Stephens, in his Explanation of the Parables, says: “Commentators, while they have done much to explain the parables, have also done much to obscure them. They have sometimes created more obstacles than they have removed, and, by their multifarious explanations and hypercritical emendations, have involved passages in perplexity which before were clear and simple.” With no little force do these remarks apply to the Parable of the Unjust Steward, which some of the ancient fathers looked upon as the most difficult and obscure of all, and

the learned Cajetan even declared “not only difficult but impossible to give its true meaning,” so as to be in harmony with the moral teachings of Christ in the other Sacred Scriptures.

Archbishop Trench says: “This parable, of which the difficulties are exceeding great, has been the subject of manifold, and those of the most opposite, interpretations.”

The difficulty of those expositors who, like Cajetan, stumble at this parable, arises from two evident misconceptions, which will appear to the reader who will follow me in a careful examination of the allegory.

It is strikingly oriental in its construction. An extensive land owner (lord) entrusts the rentals of his lands and dwellings to his steward, who receives the rents from the tenants in the produce of the lands - wine, oil, wheat - as is done to this day in oriental countries. Through the steward the contracts were made, and to him the rents were paid. The contracts or obligations were in the handwriting of the tenants and countersigned by the steward, and, in his accounts, were his bills receivable.

This steward had so long unjustly managed his business, and overdrawn his salary, and reports from so many had reached his lord’s ears, that he had decided to discharge him, and therefore called upon him to render an account of his stewardship. The steward was conscious that his books would not bear an examination, and that he would, as he deserved, be discharged in disgrace, so that it would be impossible for him to get an engagement as a steward with any other landlord, and, as a rational, forethoughted man, said to himself, What shall I do? I am unused to manual labour. I can not dig and so make a support. I have been reared and lived a gentleman in good society, and to beg I am ashamed. What shall I do? Disgrace was sure, and starvation stared him in the face. It only remained for him to add open fraud to dishonesty; and he adopts his plan, comforting himself that his course will at least secure him a home when ejected from his lord’s service.

He summons all the debtors to the estate for an examination of their accounts. To the first he said, “How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil.” This was about one thousand gallons of olive oil, which was a commercial article and valuable. He said, Take your bill, or contract, and rewrite it, inserting fifty. This can the better be understood when we remember the obligation was in the debtor’s own handwriting. To another he said, “How much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat.” This was somewhat more than fourteen hundred of our bushels, and also both easily marketable and valuable. And he said, Take back your contract and rewrite it eighty.

Although such like reductions are mentioned in only two cases, we are left to understand that similar reductions were made in the bills of all the debtors, graduating their indebtedness according to their ability to pay easily; and thus he

placed each one and all under obligation to himself, so that, when turned out of office, he would find a welcome and home with his master’s debtors, fondly hoping that, although they knew that he was unfaithful to his lord, they would not prove faithless to him.

Now here comes in the difficulty of Cajetan and those expositors who, with him, interpret the next sentence as spoken by our Lord Jesus instead of the lord of the steward.

It was by attributing the commendation of the unjust steward to our Lord rather than to the lord of the steward that the emperor Julian the Apostate made it the ground for vilifying the character of Christ; and, from his time down to the geological interpreters of the present age, it has been made the instrument of assailing the character of Christ, or of claiming a divine warrant for knavery and fraud. Such eminent scholars and commentators as Matthew Henry and Whitby favour the idea that the commendation proceeds from Jesus, and thus they aid, by their great influence, His enemies to heap obloquy on our Lord, and to discredit the Bible and Christianity.

On this supposition, then, our Lord, as infidels claim, indeed seems to commend the dishonest conduct of the steward, and advise His disciples to imitate, in some sense, his rascality, and seek to purchase homes in heaven [or positions of rulership in the coming Kingdom of Messiah] by the use of their unjust gains money unrighteously obtained. Such an interpretation no friend of Christ can, for one moment, countenance. We know there must be a grave mistaking of the statement of the narrative, and it evidently is attributing the commendation to our Lord rather than to the master of the steward. Our Received Version favours, doubtless gave rise to, this mistake. It reads, “the lord commended the unjust steward,” etc., which leaves it uncertain which lord did this, our Lord or that of the steward. But the Revised Version clears this uncertainty, rendering it thus, “and his lord” - i.e. the lord, or master, of the steward. Nor did the landlord who had been so egregiously defrauded praise the servant for his cunning rascality, but he simply commended him because he had acted wisely.

This removes the charge of infidels and the enemies of God’s word from Christ; and, if there is anything in this that can be charged as immoral, it fixes it upon the landlord who had been defrauded.

But the difficulty, in the second place, arises from the misinterpretation of the term phronimoos - rendered in our version “wisely” - which they take in the sense of correctly, commendably, but which should be rendered sagaciously, providently, forethoughtedly. In no other sense is it used in the Sacred Scriptures. In the sense of justly, correctly - never. In this sense, then, let us read it: “And his master commended the unjust steward because he had acted prudently,” not because he had acted fraudulently. He commended his ingenuity and consummate

forethoughtedness in providing friends and a support for the future - this and nothing more.

This expression will not appear so strange to a business man as to a strict moralist. How often is the business forethought of a speculator commended who secures, by deed and gifts, valuable real estate and bonds to his wife against impending bankruptcy - so that when the inevitable foreseen crash does come he has a sure home and support for himself and family, although his creditors suffer by his acting with such forethought or business prudence. It is not the very questionable morality that men commend, but the forethought, the sagacity, the wise providence, of the bankrupt.

Nor does Christ advise His disciples to make friends on earth or in heaven with their unjust gains, unrighteous mammon, as His enemies so urgently charge.

Wealth – riches - are here termed the mammon of unrighteousness. Riches in themselves have no moral character, are neither good nor evil, but in their tendency only.

“They are, so long as unused, passive and innocuous; it is riches in motion which give them a definite character; and here they are under two laws and under two directions - the law of selfishness and the law of love - the direction towards God and whatever tends to advance His glory, and the direction toward earth and whatever abets its lusts and pleasures.”

In what sense, then, can we make to ourselves friends of our wealth or earthly goods, of which we are but stewards, and what connected with the conduct of the unjust steward would our Lord have us imitate? In a word, what is the scope of this parable?

It certainly is not to teach us to waste property intrusted to us, or to defraud our employers, or to make our fellow men accomplices in our crimes. Certainly not to commend injustice in any sense.

We learn: 1. That we should exercise a sagacious forethought with reference to our soul’s future welfare and happiness, as this steward did to his earthly wealth.

2. That we can, as our Lord’s [faithful and obedient] stewards, so use our earthly goods in the support and extension of His cause - in sending the gospel to the heathen and the relief of human misery - not by a mere figure of speech, but by a glad and joyous reality, make to ourselves friends who, going before us to the saints’ [millennial* and] everlasting rest, will, more than others there, welcome us on our approach to their everlasting joys.[* See Heb. 4: 1, 6-11, R.V.] No better can we convey our understanding of this than by this fact:

One of our missionaries in China, some months since, reported that a native from the far interior came into his chapel and asked him if he was a Jesus-Christman, and, on being answered in the affirmative, he said, “Then I want to be baptized.” And, on being asked why, he said, “Because I believe on the Lord Jesus, who came into the world to save sinners. I love Him because He loved me, and has saved me from my sins, and His book tells me that all who believe and love Him should be baptized, and there is no one in my province to baptize me, and I have come to you.” Conversing with him, the missionary learned that the year before, when he came down the river with a boat-load of tea, tracts and copies of the New Testament had been distributed to the boatmen, as is the custom with our missionaries, and a copy of the New Testament, in Chinese, had fallen into his hands. This new book he had read during his long journey back and during the year, and its blessed “good news” had been fastened upon his heart, and the Holy Spirit had graciously enlightened his dark mind and taken the things of Christ and shown them unto him, and by its influences had enabled him to accept the Lord Jesus as his Saviour, and to rejoice in His love. Having drank of the waters of life, he had read the precious book to others, and been enabled by his own experience to lead his family and several of his idolatrous countrymen to drink and live. These he had brought with him, and the joyous company were baptized by the missionary, and he returned home rejoicing in the Lord with all his house.

Suppose these heathen friends should die years before that Christian brother or sister in America who gave the dollar that purchased that Testament, that had led these to Christ, are we not justified in believing that these friends will receive with joy that giver into everlasting habitations? I have often, with thrilling pleasure, contemplated with what shouts - I had almost written tears - of grateful welcome the hundreds of Burmese converts, waiting upon the shores, received the sainted spirit of Judson into their blessed abodes of rest, who, by arduous labours, selfsacrifices and cruel sufferings, had penetrated into the deep darkness of their idolatrous nation to bring them the bread of life.

Think, ye missionaries of the cross on heathen lands, of the thousands of Karens, converted by his labours, who received Carey into their Sweet Rest when he passed over the River, and read again these words of Christ: “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail [die] they may receive [welcome] you into everlasting [Gk. ‘aionian’] habitations.”* Ye missionaries of the cross, read this! Ye lovers of Christ, who sacrifice of your limited means to send the gospel to the destitute at home and the heathen abroad, read this! Ye toiling, self-sacrificing pastors, even more sacrificing than our foreign missionaries, read these words of Christ, and think of the reception that awaits you by the hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of those you have instructed and led to Christ, who may have passed before you to Paradise,** and be encouraged to preach on, notwithstanding all your discouragements and self-sacrificing

labours! Surely, one hour amid that throng will more than repay all the years of your toils and sacrifices, prayers and tears.[* NOTE. The last clause of verse 9 has been translated thus: “… they may receive you into AIONIAN (i.e., age-lasting) mansions.”** See Chapter 24.]

We can testify that the sweet glimpses we had the past year of “The Bright Beyond,” while our trembling footsteps lingered upon the banks of the River, a thousand times repaid us for the arduous labours, bitter opposition and persecutions of more than half a century in the service of the blessed Christ.

We can not intelligently read this parable and not be impressed with the fact that our future happiness will be materially enhanced by the proper use of our earthly goods, as well as our time and toil and influence, expended upon others.

From this parable Sunday-school superintendents and teachers will find encouragement to sacrifice ease, time and money in their sphere of labour.

Some months since we saw an intelligent, well-dressed stranger take the hand of the old superintendent* of our church, at the close of a morning service, and this was about what he said:* R. G. Craig.

“You do not recognize me, but I know you. Years ago I was a godless boy in this city. No one took any particular interest in me, or looked after my religious training. I was an habitual Sabbath-breaker, and seldom heard a sermon. You sought my acquaintance, invited me to attend your Sabbath-school, and interested me in it, and then to attend church. Moral principles and religious truths were in this way implanted, which, in after years, God blessed to my salvation. I feel, Brother C., that I owe all I am, under God, to you, as my Sunday-school superintendent, and to my teacher in your school.”

That man is to-day a prominent, wealthy business man in a Western city, and an active member in a Baptist church.

Should he pass over the River before his old superintendent and teacher, would he not with most grateful joy meet their approach, and welcome them to his everlasting Rest?

We also learn from this parable the conscious existence of disembodied saints, between their death and resurrection, denied by so many, and even by so eminent a name as Archbishop Whately. And another most pleasing doctrine, the recognition of our sainted friends in the Intermediate State, and that they will be present to receive and welcome our entrance into their heavenly mansions.

We also learn that we may so use our worldly mammon-money - as to enhance our [millennial and] eternal joy as well as that of others benefited by us here.

I close with the words of Dr. French:

“I can not doubt, however, that we have here a parable of Christian prudence Christ exhorting us to use the world and the world’s goods in a manner against itself and for God.” Whether I have done more to obscure than to explain this parable, I leave to my readers to judge. ***

CHAPTER 22 THE RICH MAN WHO WAS A FOOL “AND He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” - Luke 12:16-21.

This is a companion parable to the selfish sensualist and the poor beggar. It is so realistic and so strikingly befitting the circumstances in which Christ was placed as to command our admiration. In this respect it is unlike that of the rich man and the beggar, which is so suddenly injected into His discourse without the least connection with what precedes or follows as to raise suspicion that it is out of its place in the narrative.

Christ was constantly watched by the scribes and Pharisees and Herodians, or beset by detectives, employed by them to watch His acts, and by propounding questions and making requests, to find some ground for a charge against Him on which to put Him to death. “Laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him.” - Luke 11:54.

The reader will readily recall the questions of the Herodians concerning the tribute money, and the efforts of the scribes and Pharisees to influence Him to exercise civil jurisdiction in the case of the woman professedly taken in adultery - doubtless only a feint to entrap Him - and here in the midst of an address to His disciples, a man, doubtless a detective, breaks in with the request that He would only speak to his brother that he should divide the paternal inheritance with him, tempting Him to exercise judicial authority! Christ revealed this point by the question, “Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?” He used this circumstance to impress upon His hearers the sin of covetousness, “Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesses,” and then He sealed His admonition with this striking parable.

The principal points of it are: 1. The character of the man.

2. His prosperity, and its effects on him.

3. His trust in riches.

4. The uncertainty of the heirship of earthly possessions.

5. In what respects he was a fool.

6. His sudden and fearful death.

Let us then consider: 1. The character of the man.

He was a rich man, but this is not charged upon him as a folly or a crime. It is clearly inferable from the narrative that he came honestly by his wealth - that he did not make it by usurious practices, oppressing the needy and unfortunate, or in grinding the face of the poor, or by speculating and sharp trading at the expense of others; nor is there the least intimation that he was otherwise than a moral, upright and honourable man.

2. He was a saying farmer.

His accumulations were the products of his well cultivated fields, the fruits of an honest and diligent industry. His fields brought forth plentifully; they were therefore thoroughly cultivated, and his well directed efforts were crowned with the blessing of Him “Who maketh the earth bring forth abundantly, And the clouds to drop fatness.”

That His hearers should be impressed that the rich man’s wealth was honestly acquired, was necessary in order that Christ’s rebuke might rest upon the folly of trusting in great riches, rather than in the manner of their acquisition.

The man was an honest, saving farmer, accustomed to carefully husband closely his income.

3. The effect of prosperity upon him.

God’s abundant liberality towards him did not have the effect to either open his heart in gratitude towards God or his hands in liberality or charity towards the poor and needy around him. He was a cold-hearted, selfish miser.

4. Mark the effect of his great prosperity upon him. It but the more tempted him to trust in his riches - that in them he would find a guard from all the ills, and a shield against even death itself, thus lulling him into perfect self-security.

It only served to increase his propensity to hoard up, and fix his thoughts more intently upon his gains and how to secure them. He turned the matter over and

over in his own mind, and the only question was, what shall I do for want of room to store up my goods? Mark the expressive working of covetousness.

“He thought within himself,” did not consult or deliberate with others what might be done by a corporative act for the good of the community, or to relieve the unfortunate; did not once acknowledge to himself that he was, in any sense, God’s steward, and responsible to Him for the proper use of his great riches, the gift of God’s providence. “He thought within himself,” and his conclusion was soon reached, and according with the principle of pure, cold selfishness, “This will I do: I will pull down my barns and build larger, and there bestow my goods.”

The good old Father Ambrose thus beautifully comments on the rich man’s soliloquy: “No room! Thou hast barns - the bosoms of the needy, the houses of the widows, the mouths of the orphans.”

5. The uncertainty of the heirship of his mighty possessions is forcibly indicated by the emphatic question of his Maker: “Then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” He toiled to gather what others will scatter. He laboured to save and lay up in store what others will lay out in waste. As the Psalmist says, “He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.”

How often heirs, and even children, waste their inheritance in wrangling over its division, and become enemies and forever alienated, and thus their father’s hoarded wealth proves a curse to them. Hoarded gains are far oftener a curse than a blessing to those who heir them.

6. This rich, world-wise farmer was a fool. He was a fool 1. For thinking that ease and wealth and worldly pleasure would satisfy his soul.

2. To live and act for this transient, present life, without a thought for the unending future – pampering the present and bankrupting the [millennial and] eternal future. He was a fool 3. For believing that life had no other purpose than for self-gratification and sensual delights. He was a fool 4. For thinking that his riches were his own, and he was not accountable to God for their proper use or for their abuse. He was a fool 5. For supposing that his soul needed no preparation to meet its God. He was a fool 6. To hoard up his riches in barns and storehouses, not knowing who would scatter and waste them, rather than to have used them for beneficent purposes: “So is he who layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

The man who layeth up treasure for himself is the selfish man, who lives for himself alone - who hoards for himself - who, in everything, regards alone his own interests; he toils for and lays up treasure because wealth brings him honour and position in society, and multiplies friends and influence and pleasures. “The rich man,” says Solomon, “hath many friends [those who call themselves friends]. The rich man’s wealth is his strong city.” Such a man hoards riches for what they will do for him. “If born in poverty, his ambition is to rank among the rich. If born to fortune, he seeks to excel his ancestral wealth. If he sprang from ignominy, he wishes to throw a mantle of gold over his mother’s shame. If a scion of rank, he longs to quarter the arms of mammon on the heraldic shield of a noble lineage. If ignorant, wealth will atone for stupidity. If learned, wealth can ennoble knowledge - for the crown of the wise is their riches.”

What is it to be “rich toward God?” It is to be rich with respect to God. The child of Gould or Vanderbilt is rich with respect to his father, because heir of his mighty possessions.

A child of God is an heir of God and [“if so be that we suffer with Him” a] joint heir with His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: “For if children, then heirs: heirs of God.” (Rom. 8: 17.)[* That is, “joint-heirs” during the “age to come,” only for those whom the condition qualifies!]It is by faith in Christ alone as our sole Saviour and Redeemer that we become the children of God and heirs of an eternal inheritance: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:22) When a child of God accumulates wealth, he recognizes the fact that he is but the steward of God’s bounty, and that it is his duty to use it, as not abusing it, for God’s glory and the good of his fellow men, or he will be treated as an unprofitable servant.

7. It is only left for us to notice his sudden and fearful death.

Job graphically describes the suddenness of the death of the wicked: “Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out; And the spark of his fire shall not shine; And his lamp above him shall be put out. The steps of his strength shall be straitened And his own counsel shall cast him down: For he is cast into a net by his own feet.”

He not only describes the suddenness, but the terrors, of the death of the rich sinner, as though he were forecasting the end of the subject of this parable: “The rich man shall lie down, and he is not. Terrors take hold on him as waters.

A tempest stealeth him away in the night, And, as a storm, hurleth him out of his place; For God shall cast upon him and not spare.”

And lastly:

His sudden death.

So absorbed was he in the schemes of hoarding, so secure he felt against all adverse circumstances, such visions of years of ease and pleasures so entranced his senses, that he wholly forgot God, his soul’s great need and all concern for the future. As a thunderbolt out of a cloudless sky came the astonishing summons from heaven, “Thou fool, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?”

Oh, what an awful annunciation! It was the curfew bell of his soul, extinguishing in an instant every light of hope and joy, and leaving, to settle down over his soul, the unbroken darkness of blackness forever! What a fearful end of life! The last words he heard on earth from the lips of his Maker, “Thou fool!” And those words, without one redeeming memory, will reverberate in his ears, and echo and re-echo through his soul, forever and forevermore, constituting the undying worm that will gnaw and the stings that will unceasingly transpierce it, “THOU FOOL!” ***

CHAPTER 23 THE LAW OF BENEVOLENCE - THE GOOD SAMARITAN “AND Jesus answering, said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” - Luke 10:30-37.

It has been said that the law of benevolence never received a more beautiful illustration than by the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and that the tact with which it was introduced and the judicious selection of its circumstances are only equalled by the felicity of its similitude and the force of its appeal. It could be as truthfully added that no one of Christ’s parables has been more fancifully interpreted by the most learned and most sober or matter-of-fact commentators.

Let us briefly notice the circumstances that called it forth.

A certain lawyer, one of the detectives of the scribes and Pharisees, standing up to tempt Him, perhaps to expose the ignorance of Christ before the multitude, or to put Him in antagonism with the teachings of the Pharisees, asked Him this profound and most important question, which equally engaged the attention of all classes: “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal [Gk. ‘aionian’ = ‘age-lasting’ in this context] life?” Christ referred him to the law for His answer - What saith the law? He promptly answered: “And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.” - Luke 10:27-28.

Conscious of his own remissness in fulfilling the demands of the law - the last item, at least - and desiring to justify himself, he asked: “And who is my neighbour?” This also was a much mooted question among the scribes.

The Pharisees, who constantly made the law of God of none effect by their traditions, taught the people that none were to be considered their neighbours but those of their own nation and faith. Instead of answering this lawyer, who was a Pharisee, as most of his class were, directly, he relates the case of a man - a Jew, doubtless - who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, a town on the river Jordan, fifteen miles to the southwest, and fell among thieves, who, at that time, made that road dangerous to travel. The thieves not only robbed him of his money, but they “stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and left him half dead.”

While lying in this helpless condition a certain priest came that way, for many priests lived in Jericho, and this one may have been returning home from Jerusalem, having finished his course of service in the temple, and, seeing the wounded man, instead of practicing what he in a higher degree taught the people out of the law -”Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way and hide thyself from them;” “thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again;”- “he passed by on the other side.”

Shortly a Levite came to the same place, and, moved by curiosity alone, he came and looked on him; but, unmoved by pity, or the requirements of the divine law, he passed by on the other side, leaving him to the mercy of the wild beasts. But a certain Samaritan, a traveller, and far from home, came where the poor unfortunate Jew lay weltering in his blood, and when he saw him he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and thus stanching the blood and allaying the pain of his wounds. Nor did his kindness and generosity stop here. He placed him on his own beast, and walked himself by his side to keep him from falling, and to guide the beast, and brought him to an inn, and there tarried over the night, and tenderly nursed him. On the morrow, when it became necessary for him to depart, he paid his score, and

advanced a sum (two pence) for the care of the wounded man until he should return - two denarii, equal to twenty-eight cents of our money, the price of the pay of a labourer for two days - and promising to pay on his return all expenses over and above this that might be incurred. Portraying this touching and realistic scene before the eyes of the lawyer, Christ asked him, “Which one of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” The lawyer promptly answered, “He who showed mercy on him.” Rightly answered, and thus this Pharisee enunciated and forever settled the great law of benevolence for all nations and for all times. Says a forcible writer, commenting on this parable: “It was not possible for our Lord to take stronger antagonistic elements whereby to illustrate the fusing power of neighbourly affection than the Jew and the Samaritan. There existed between the two people a natural hatred of the most implacable kind. The Samaritans had built on Mount Gerizim a temple in opposition to the one at Jerusalem. They had established a priesthood in rivalry of the Aaronic order. They rejected all of the sacred Scriptures but the five books of Moses. They paid no heed to the traditions of the elders, which the Jews so tenaciously held, and though, according to the glosses of the Pharisees, the Jews might buy of the Samaritans, they were not to borrow anything of them; were not to receive them into their houses; were not to accept from them any kindness, and were bound under an anathema not to eat or drink with them. Thus the woman of Sychar truly said to Jesus, as He sat at Jacob’s well, ‘the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans;’ and thus, also, when the enemies of our Lord wished to stigmatize Him with the most contemptuous epithet, they termed Him ‘a Samaritan who hath a devil.’”

When, therefore, Jesus selected, as the representative of that love which He would inculcate, the deeds of a despised Samaritan, and when He compelled Jewish lips to utter praises to the compassion and kindness of this “alien and stranger to the commonwealth of Israel,” He gave expression, in the most forcible form possible, to the broad, binding, universal nature of that second table of the law which He himself had summed up in the command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

In proof of our statement that no parable, unless it be that of the hidden leaven, had been more egregiously martyred - had been so fancifully misinterpreted, and that by the most learned and sober-minded, matter-of-fact expositors and commentators - than this simple, realistic of all the parables, they have made the word of God, the instruction intended to be imparted by this parable, of none effect by their traditions. From the days of Origen expositors, following his most vicious theory, to search for a mysterious sense under the plain text, they have quite generally interpreted this narrative with reference to the fall and recovery of man. So, following Origen, Luther and Melancthon treated it; so Dr. Gill, the Baptist commentator; so the great learned Jones, of Nayland; and

even so the sober-minded Trench, in his recent work on the parables. About this will represent their views: The “certain man represents Adam, the head representative of the race. The going down from Jerusalem to Jericho represents going out from Paradise into a world of thorns and briars. His ‘falling among thieves’ indicates the malignant powers of hell, who assail the sinner and rob him of his heavenly birthright. His being stripped of his garments represents his despoliation of his robe of original righteousness and innocence. His wounded state indicates the sad work of sin upon man, which makes him, ‘from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, to be full of wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, which have never been healed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.’ Then leaving him ‘half dead,’ exemplifying the fact that Adam did not die in body the day in which he sinned, but that having pronounced against him the sentence of death, he may in truth have been ‘declared half dead.’ By the priest and Levite is meant the patriarchal and Levitical dispensations, since the head of each family was a priest, and which of themselves could do nothing to recover the lost man, ‘for it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.’ But what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, was at length effected by Him whom the Jews called a Samaritan, even Jesus Christ. The journey He took was that of incarnation, by which He ‘travelled in the greatness of His strength,’ from heaven to earth, and, coming in the capacity of a Great Physician, He had oil and wine, the wine of His own purifying, cleansing blood, and the oil of His own anointing grace, which healeth all our infirmities. He is said to have set him on His own beast, because of man’s inability to move himself in the direction of his salvation. His being brought to an inn signifies his admission into the visible church. The ministry is the host. The Old and New Testaments are the ‘two pence,’ which this ‘host’ is to expound and administer as being the ‘steward of the manifold grace of God.’” Such substance is the ingenious but baneful and trifling interpretation of this parable by these great minds, which lead us away from the real and manifest intent of our Lord when He spake this parable, which unquestionably was the elucidation and enforcement of the second great command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” as the universal law of benevolence.

THE LESSONS OF THIS PARABLE 1. That benevolence is not to be circumscribed by national boundaries.

The Jews were commanded not to be familiar with idolatrous nations, lest they should affiliate with them in their idolatrous practices, and they were enjoined to maintain a perpetual enmity with Amalek and the seven idolatrous nations of Canaan, whom God had “cast out before them,” and had devoted to ruin; but prohibition did not warrant them, as they came to believe, to hate all mankind,

save their own nation, and confine all their intercourse and regard and love to their own kindred and people.

The Jews being in an especial manner the chosen people of God, they were required to shun and hate the wicked ways, and uproot the idolatries of the Canaanites, who were ever seeking to seduce them from the worship of the true God into their abominable wickedness, but they interpreted this that they should hate their persons also. While these injunctions were most explicit and rigorous, yet the laws which God enjoined upon them with respect to strangers within their gates, and travellers who might pass through their land, or who came to sojourn among them, were of the most lenient, protective character.

“Thou shalt not oppress the stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” But that old dispensation of exclusiveness had now served its purpose. The middle wall, or partition, was to be broken down. Christianity, under the new covenant, was not to be a race religion not for one nation or people only, but “for the whole world.”

It has been truly said:”Christianity knows no geographical boundaries, no treaty limits, no barriers of language, customs or climes. It recognizes no distinctions of sex or colour, of estate, of education; ‘it represents us all of one blood, the offspring of a common father, for to him is provided one common Redeemer, and before whom lies a common death, a common judgment, and a common eternity.’”

The parable teaches us: 2. That our benevolence must not be limited by our SYMPATHIES. That those of our own nation, kindred and faith have the first claims upon our benevolence, is a matter of our own consciousness, and is clearly recognized by Christ:”Ye shall be witnesses unto me [first] in Jerusalem and Judea, and [then in] Samaria, and [added to these] to the uttermost part of the earth.” “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached unto all nations, beginning at [home] Jerusalem.”

“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” - Gal. 6: 10.

This parable teaches us: 3. That we should not limit our benevolence by our PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS. Between the Samaritans and the Jews there was the most implacable hatred.

There was no social intercourse. The Jews cursed the Samaritans publicly in the synagogue - declared that he who received one into his house was laying up curses for his children; would no more eat of their food than they would eat swine’s flesh.

All this animosity was fully reciprocated by the Samaritan, who sought in every

way to vex and annoy the Jew. But all this weighed as nothing in the case before us, nor should it with us in the administration of our benevolence. It is enough for us to know that our fellow-beings are in want, or perishing for lack of our assistance. We should, if the children of light, be actuated by the sublime unselfishness of the gospel.

Christ, in His sermon on the mount, reinstated, in clearest light, God’s law, perverted by Talmudic traditions: “Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time [the scribes and Pharisees], Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good unto them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.” This sublime morality is not of earth earthy; it was never conceived by man, and it can never be practiced by one born of the earth only.

It is related of an Indian chief, whom David Brainard had taught to read, and to whom he gave a New Testament, after reading this passage, and walking the room for some time in deepest thought, he gave the Testament back to the missionary, shaking his head, saying, “This book was never made for Indian.” Nor was it made for a Jew, but for Christians only.

Christ adds the reason for the exercise of this unselfish God-like spirit, “That ye may be [may show yourselves to be] the children of your Father who is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

I repeat, this true spirit of love and Christ-like benevolence can be found only in the hearts of those “born of God.” It is only as we are imbued with the spirit and love of Christ that we can love like Christ.

What a great argument for missions is furnished by this parable, not indeed by a real precept, but by clear induction.

As the soul is of transcendently more value than the body, and the eternal of more importance than the temporal, how much weightier the obligations laid upon us to administer to the wants of the soul than of the body. Shall we imitate the part of the priest and Levite, and pass by on the other side, and leave our own countrymen to perish by the wayside without administering to their wants? Shall we refuse to act the part of a neighbour to perishing nations that are going down to death before our eyes, unblessed with gospel light and uninvited by the offers of salvation? I see not how he can be a true lover of his race who refuses to aid in the great missionary work of giving the gospel of man’s salvation to the millions of our race in heathen lands, lying not half dead, but wholly dead, in trespasses and sins for the want of those means of grace that we have in our power to give without being impoverished by the giving. I can not understand how one can have the spirit of Christ, and the heart of Christ, without possessing an active missionary spirit.

The heart of Christ was a missionary heart. The spirit of Christ was an intensely missionary spirit. To be a missionary to this lost world He impoverished Himself. “He who was rich for our sake became poor, that we, through His poverty, might become rich.” To be a missionary to us, who lay helpless and dying under the curse of God’s violated law, He sacrificed Himself gave Himself to death - even the death of the cross - that He might place thrones under our bodies and crowns upon our brows; and yet we refuse to give, even to a sacrifice, to send living preachers and spirit-speaking Bibles into all the corners of the earth, thus obeying the last command of our Redeemer: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Oh, how should the example and love of Christ constrain us!

While I can but condemn the fanciful interpretation of this parable I have noticed above, yet I am willing to accept it in one of its aspects as illustrative of the unspeakable love of the Lord Jesus for us as lost, miserable sinners.

If we admire the conduct of the Samaritan, infinitely more must we admire the love of Christ. He beheld us robbed of the image of God, wounded by sin, lying helpless in our fallen humanity; and when we were so dead in iniquity that we could not help ourselves, when the Patriarchal dispensation stalked by on the other side and deigned no help; when the Levitical dispensation came and looked on us through its shadowy ceremonies, and then, leaving us in our blood, passed by also on the other side; then Christ came, and, though we were His enemies, He pitied us, bound up, by the oil and wine of divine grace, our ghastly wounds; Himself bare our infirmities, took the whole charge of our cure, and healed us - not like the Samaritan, by giving money from His scrip, but blood from His heart, riven by the soldier’s spear; blood from His head, drawn out by His acanthine crown; blood from His hands and feet, started by the spikes of the accursed tree; and by this precious blood-shedding He obtained for us relief from our enemies, spiritual health here, and life eternal beyond the grave.

“Oh, for such love let rocks and hills Their lasting silence break!

And all harmonious human tongues Our Saviour’s praises speak.

Angels, assist our mighty joys – Strike all your harps of gold!

But when you reach your highest notes, His love can ne’er be told.” ***

CHAPTER 24 THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS (HISTORICAL) It is denied by some that this is a parable, since names are not given in parabolic instruction.

In “Middle Life” I have treated it as a historical statement; used it in refuting Spiritism.

“THERE was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs come and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in they life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you can not - neither can they pass to us that would come from hence. Then he said, I pray you therefore, father, that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, Father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” - Luke 16:19-31.

It is, in one respect, the most remarkable of all the parables. It draws the veil and gives us a clear view of the state of the just and the wicked dead, between death and resurrection.

It answers those ever-present questions, which we can not dismiss, and which are proper for us to know:1. Do the righteous and the wicked go to their eternal rewards when they leave their bodies here?

2. Are they in a state of consciousness?

3. Will they recognize those they knew here?

4. Can they communicate with each other?

5. Will the good and evil done here enhance their happiness or misery in the intermediate state?

6. Can disembodied souls return to earth and communicate with the living?

7. The nature of the punishment suffered by the wicked? etc.

It is urged that it is only a parable, an allegory - something only supposed.

The force of the parable is not broken by this, for, in this case, it teaches what may be. We can not conceive that Christ built a parable upon a falsehood. More than any other parable - if this indeed be one - this comes to us as a plain narration of past facts, and by some authors it is claimed as a plain statement of facts that had transpired. Be it parable or narrative, it is to us a divine revelation of what has and will transpire in the intermediate state in like circumstances.

It presents to our consideration six extremes:The two extremes of life, The two extremes of death, and The two extremes of existence beyond the grave.

Each of these are acts in the parabolic drama. The characters are a supremely selfish rich man, and an extremely poor man (an afflicted beggar), angels, the sainted Abraham. The scenes are laid on earth and in hades.

From a consideration and examination of these several acts and characters, let us learn the scope of this parable.

1. The two extremes of life - an extremely selfish rich man and an extremely afflicted poor man.

Nothing could better indicate the former’s great wealth and splendour than the statement that he was clothed in purple, a luxury that kings and the very rich alone could indulge in. “Robes of purple were very costly, because of the scarcity of the shell-fish (musex trunculus), from which the Tyrians obtained their celebrated purple dye, or from the rareness of the purpura, from which, according to Pliny, the Phoenicians extracted their rich varieties of purple.” (Dr Stevens.) The very rich and the favourites in the courts of kings and princes are often termed by Cicero and Livy purpurati. But only the very rich could afford to wear tunics, or undervests, of fine linen, which was of so soft a texture as to cost its weight in gold.

Nothing could better indicate the magnificence and costliness of his attire. One more circumstance is mentioned in proof of his extreme wealth - “He fared sumptuously every day.” He not only dressed royally, but fared sumptuously: not occasionally, but every day. His whole life was one round of extravagant luxury and sensuous pleasure, having all or more than heart could wish. His house was, no doubt, a palace, and furnished in a manner to correspond with his dress and his table. All that worldly men ever possessed or wished of gorgeous splendour and luxury he possessed. But his name is not given.

2. The other extreme of life.

There was an extremely poor man. He was not only a beggar, but he was extremely afflicted with a loathsome disease. His name was Lazarus, signifying, in Hebrew, a helpless person, or from a word signifying God is my helper. (The name

of the rich man is not even given.) This man was extremely friendless. He had no one to give him a home, or even a shelter or a crumb of bread.

Some one or ones were known though, perhaps (and to escape his further beggary), to bring and lay him at the rich man’s gate, where he begged, not to be taken into his house, or to the rich man’s table, but only for the crumbs, or pieces of meat, and broken bread, which fell from the rich man’s table - the refuse accustomed to be swept out to the dogs of the street (Matt 15: 27); moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.

Can we imagine a condition of life more wretched - without a house, or shelter from the heated summer or the extreme cold of winter, without food or clothing, degraded, wallowed with the dogs of the street, afflicted with a painful and disgusting disease, and, to crown all, without aid, or one to sympathise with him?

Can one imagine a condition more extremely wretched and degraded?

The next scene shows an advance.

THEIR RESPECTIVE DEATHS It came to pass that the beggar died. He doubtless starved to death. It is not intimated that the rich man even allowed him the food of the dogs, for which alone he begged. He was doubtless coffined in his filthy rags by the public scavengers, and buried into the potter’s field, and no one missed him, save, perhaps, the dogs at the rich man’s gate. But this was not all connected with his death. It may have been at the midnight hour, and his requiem the cold, bleak and stormy winds; but it was not dark to his eyes; nor was his pillow hard, although a bit of stone.

The Father sent a convoy of angels from His throne for His child, and they took his head upon their arms and sang their sweetest songs as his soul left its tenement [i.e., dwelling-house], and he was not merely accompanied, but carried, by the angels and laid in Abraham’s bosom.

How extremely glorious was the death of the child of God, and his reception among the nobility of heaven [in the underworld of ‘Hades’*]! But the rich man also died. Death is no respecter of persons. He blends the sceptre and the spade, and knocks with equal force and pace at the gates of the palace and the hovels of the poor. “He died” in his glorious palace in the midst of his officers, attendants and physicians, and was buried with every insignia of courtly pomp and splendour, borne and laid in a costly tomb. But was this all connected with the rich man’s death? If heavenly angels of light hover over the bed of the good man, receive and, amid light and songs carry their souls to the realm of rest, is it unreasonable to conclude that the dying hours of wicked men are made dreadful by the presence of angels of darkness sent to convey their departing souls into the darkness of [millennial** and] eternal death? The dying statements of hundreds of both good

and bad men warrant us in believing this.[* See Psa. 16: 10a. cf. Acts 2: 34, R.V. ** See Num. 16: 26. cf. 1 Cor. 5: 13, R.V.] The curtain that hides the world of disembodied souls from our view, and the future with its unchangeable conditions, is opened, and the rich man and Lazarus are again presented to our view. But how changed their conditions! We see in their case 3. “The two extremes of existence beyond the grave.” Where now is the rich man?

“In hades, being in torments; and he lifted up his eyes and sees Abraham a great way off, and Lazarus (en tois kloptois) in the folds of his mantle, and, crying out, he said, ‘Father Abraham, pity me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.’

But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that thou in thy life didst receive thy good things, and Lazarus in like manner his evil things; but now here he is comforted and thou art tormented.’”

THEIR CONDITION AFTER DEATH “And the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments; and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” Luke 16: 22-23.

They were both in hades, but the beggar highly honoured and comforted, and the rich man degraded and tormented.

To understand the true intent and scope of this parable we must understand what place is meant by hades. It is evident that it can not be heaven, or the rich man would not have been in torments; nor can it mean hell - the lake of fire, the place of final punishment - or Abraham would not have been there, or the beggar comforted. From this we learn that it is a place into which the spirits* of both good and wicked pass after death, and abide for a season at least.[* NOTE. The word ‘spirits’ here, must be distinguished from our animating (life-giving) “spirit,” which will return to God at the time of Death. Luke 23: 46. cf. Acts 7: 59; Luke 8: 55, etc. It must therefore be understood in the sense shown in Num. 14: 24: “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed be fully, him will I bring into the land.” Compare this with Christian behaviour described in 1 Cor. ch. 5 and the Apostle’s command: “Deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved - (i.e., given to realise what will be lost) in the day of the Lord Jesus.” See Heb. 12: 17. ] Let us now inquire for the classical meaning of the word itself, and the sense in which it is used in the Sacred Scriptures, and universally understood by the Jews.

Let us then ascertain the meaning and use of the term hades in the Old and New Testaments.

The translator and editor of the Emphatic Diaglott gives this extended note on Hell and Hades: “Hades occurs eleven times in the Greek Testament, and is improperly translated in the Common Version ten times by the word HELL. It is the word used in the Septuagint as a translation of the Hebrew word Sheol, denoting the abode or world of the dead, and means, literally, that which is in darkness, hidden, invisible, or obscure. As the word Hades did not come to the Hebrew from any classical source, or with any classical meanings, but through the Septuagint as a translation of their own word sheol, therefore, in order to properly define its meaning, recourse must be had to the various passages where it is found.

The Hebrew word sheol is translated by hades in the Septuagint sixty times out of sixty-three; and though sheol in many places - such as Gen. 35: 35, 42: 38; 1 Sam 2: 7; 1 Kings 2: 6; Job 14: 13, 17: 13-16 - may signify keber, the grave, as the common receptacle of the [bodies of the] dead, yet it has the more general meaning of death -a state of death, the dominion of death. To translate hades by the word hell, as it is done ten times out of eleven in the New Testament, is very improper, unless it has the Saxon meaning helan, to cover, attached to it. The primitive signification of Hell, only denoting what was secret, or concealed, perfectly corresponds with the Greek term hades, and its Hebrew equivalent sheol; but the theological definition given to it at the present day by no means expresses it.”

Dr Seiss, doubtless the ablest expounder of the Book of Revelation that has written in this country or this age, says on Hades in Revelation: “There is a word used sixty-five times in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament which our English translators in thirty-one instances render hell, in thirty-one instances grave, and in three instances the pit.

“That word is Sheol, uniformly rendered Hades in the Greek of the Old Testament, and wherever the New Testament quotes the passages in which it occurs. By common consent the Greek word hades is the exact equivalent of the Hebrew sheol. It occurs eleven times in the New Testament, and always in the same sense as the Old Testament SHEOL. “To all intents and purposes, therefore, sheol and hades denote one and the same thing. But sheol or hades is never used to denote the hell of final punishment. Neither is it used to denote the mere receptacle of the body after death - the grave. Nor yet is it ever used to denote the mere state of being dead as to the body, and still less to denote the ‘pit’ or ‘abyss,’ as such.

“A careful inventory of all the passages conclusively proves that sheol or hades is the name of a place in the unseen world, altogether distinct from the hell of final punishment, or the heaven of final glory. Its true and ONLY

MEANING is ‘the place of departed spirits’* - the receptacle of souls which have left the body. To this place all departed souls, good and bad went. In it there was a department for the good - called paradise by the Saviour on the cross - and another department for the bad. Thus, both the rich man and Lazarus went to hades when they died; for the word is ‘in hades he lifted up his eyes, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.’ Lazarus was then, too, in hades, as well as Abraham, and the only difference between them and Dives was, that the good were separated from the bad by an impassable gulf, and that Lazarus was comforted and Dives tormented.[* NOTE. Here the word “spirits” refers to angelic creatures. It is important to keep this fact in mind as both disembodied “souls” and angelic creatures are never synonymous. Jesus says we are to be “like angels” after resurrection: “Those accounted worthy to obtain to that age” (the millennium), “and the resurrection out of dead ones, neither marry, nor are given in marriage, for they can die no more (because being) like angels they are sons of the God, (and) of the resurrection sons being.” (Luke 20: 35, 36, Lit. Greek.)]

“So the dying Saviour told the penitent malefactor that they would yet that day be together in paradise; that is, in the more favourable part of Hades. There they were neither in heaven proper nor in Hell proper, but simply in hades. To this hades all departed souls went - the good with the good and the bad with the bad. There was comfort there for the pious, and privation and torment for the wicked; and they of the one part could not pass over to the other part, but still they could see and converse with each other, and none of them were yet in their final happiness or misery.”

That this is the proper meaning of hades, since it accords with all the other teachings of the word of God, and will readily occur to the thoughtful reader of the Sacred Scriptures.

Abraham and the patriarchs at their death went to sheol, which is the same with hades. Now, if hades means hell, the lake of fire and brimstone, from which there is no escape, then he and all the righteous dead of the Old Testament are today in the lake of fire! But Christ, while His body was in the sepulchre, went to hades and preached to the spirits in that place of safe-keeping: “My which also He (Christ) went and preached unto the spirits* in prison.” (1 Peter 3: 19.) But He was not left there: “Thou wilt not leave My soul in hades,” etc. (Acts 2: 27). Will any one say that Christ went into the lake of fire and brimstone - which is the second death - and preached to spirits there?[* Who were these “spirits”? We are not told.

Could this be a reference to those born from “the sons of God” taking “wives of all they chose” (i.e., fallen angels, leaving their first estate): the result being “the Nephilim” (or “Giants”) who were destroyed by the Flood? See Gen. 6: 2, 4.]

He said to the dying thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,” the pleasant abode of the saved in hades.

Paradise is then in hades, and not in heaven for, three days afterwards, when He had arisen out from the dead and Mary was about to embrace Him, He said, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.”

If Paradise is heaven, then heaven is in hades and hades is in heaven; and if hades is indeed hell, then heaven is in hell; and both heaven and hell are to be ultimately destroyed, for John saw both death and hades cast into the lake of fire heaven with all its angels and saints cast into hell!! and hell cast into hell!! (Rev 20: 14.) Hell destroying itself!!

This passage, and 2 Cor. 12: 2, 4, and Rev. 2: 7, are the ones confidently urged by some in support of the idea that paradise and heaven, the abode of God, are synonymous terms, and one and the same place.

Let us give these passages a moment’s attention.

“I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I can not tell; or whether out of the body, I can not tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. … How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for a man to utter.” - 2 Cor. 12: 2, 4.

Paul distinctly tells us that he had dad visions and revelations - more than one vision - and he describes two of them. The first was of his being caught up into the third heaven, the highest heaven, and the understood dwelling place of God. Of what he saw and heard he says nothing - does not even intimate that he heard anything in this vision. But not seeing the souls of the patriarchs, prophets and saints, was doubtless the reason a second vision, distinct from the first one, was given him; and this he says: “And I knew such a man,” etc., “how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” Here we know he saw the soul of Lazarus, and of the thief, and of Abraham, and of all the righteous dead, but he was not allowed to reveal what he heard. His statement is proof conclusive that paradise and heaven are two separate and distinct places. If one and the same, why was Paul twice caught up?

What is the necessity of two visions?

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” - Rev. 2:7.

This is a highly figurative passage, and its figures are founded upon a man’s condition in the first age. He was placed in an earthly paradise, especially prepared for him, in which was a tree of life, of which he was permitted to eat and live.

But all this he forfeited, and lost, and from this earthly paradise he was driven forth, and forbidden to eat of the tree of life, and left to die. Now this promise of Christ looks forward to the time when this entire earth, defaced and wicked by sin, shall be restored and made one glorious paradise indeed - the paradise of God, for He will dwell in it with His people, and in it will be the tree of life - Christ, the Redeemed - of which its glorious and glorified inhabitants may eat, by being made partakers of His life, and live forever. (See Rev. 20. & 21., where this promise is to be literally fulfilled upon this earth, after it shall have been renewed and become the beautiful abode of Christ and His bride - His redeemed people.) This passage, therefore, sustains instead of militates against my position.

The view of hades and intermediate state I have here presented, is supported by a consensus of all Greek writers, and of all the ancient Christian fathers, and the latest and best scholarship of this century. The English and American revisers agree in rejecting hell as the proper translation of hades, and in no instance have they translated paradiseos heaven.

The true meaning of hades, then, is the place of disembodied [human souls and angelic] spirits, the world of [both souls and] spirits, both good and bad. The ancient Hebrews and the Jews in Christ’s day and the Greeks so understood. That part of hades occupied by the righteous alone they called paradise, and far separated from this was the abode of the wicked.** Any one wishing to see this question more fully discussed, I refer him to The Bible Doctrine of the Middle Life, price seventy-five cents; and to The Intermediate State of the Dead, by Dr. Hovey, price one dollar: Baptist Book House, Memphis, Tenessee.

This is the most remarkable of all parables, as well as the most interesting. It is as a door opened into the “Just Beyond,� through which we may look and see the state of all disembodied [souls and angelic] spirits between death and the resurrection.

While in this parable we learn the condition and restful enjoyments of all saints in the period between death and the resurrection of their bodies, we can even find this knowledge supplemented by a revelation of the condition and employments of the saints during the entire period from the time of their resurrection and the translation of the living, watchful and worthy until the final judgment. This knowledge we must believe, although not enough to satisfy our curiosity, is certainly enough for our profit.

To attempt to force an insight into the secret things of God is as the sin of witchcraft and rebellion.

Let us now consider what we undoubtedly learn from this parable: 1. That there is an intermediate abode occupied by all disembodied souls between death and resurrection, and that this place is called by the Holy Spirit,

which inspired the writers of the New Testament, hades (and, as we have seen by the writers of the Old Testament, sheol), meaning neither hell nor heaven, but simply “the unseen,” “the world of departed spirits,” irrespective of character.

2. That in this abode the souls of the righteous are gathered to the good alone, in a delightful part of hades called paradise, and by the Jews known as “Abraham’s bosom,” while the souls of the wicked are gathered to their own place and company, far separated from the righteous in a state of great anguish.

3 That Paradise, although a state of happiness, is not heaven itself, nor is hades hell itself, or purgatory, in which souls are purified for their sins by the fires of punishment.

4. That Paradise is not heaven itself, because Lazarus is there, and Abraham; and if Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob and all the patriarchs, and David, with all the Old Testament saints, since all these were gathered together. But Christ told Nicodemus that up to the time He addressed him no man had ascended into heaven itself, and Peter told his hearers on the day of Pentecost [10 days after Christ’s ascension] that David had not then ascended into Heaven. We know that Abraham had descended into paradise; and, if Abraham, then David also, and all the saints of all ages past.

5. That hades is not purgatory, since no one can ever pass from it to the abode of the blest.

6. That hades is not hell, since it is ultimately to be cast into hell. Where hades is, in which paradise is located, as the first paradise or garden of the Lord was in Eden of old, we do not know, and God does not wish us to know, or He would have told us. We learn -[the lake of fire, which is the second death and eternal state of the wicked.)

7. That disembodied [souls and] spirits are ever in a conscious state. (a) From the place itself, paradise means a park, or garden, of delights. The paradise God made in Eden was a place upon the earth of surpassing loveliness and beauty. Why all this expenditure of resources to beautify and make enjoyable a place id its occupants are totally unconscious? The sombre precincts of the sepulchre would be as pleasant an abode for such as the glories of the third heaven.

The rich man was conscious of the torment he suffered. We can not predicate torment, suffering or unhappiness of an unconsciousness, which is but another word for nonentity - NOTHINGNESS! Lazarus was both honoured and “comforted,” and, therefore, must have possessed a conscious existence. It was the spirit* designated the “Rich Man,” that enjoyed and suffered, for the bodies of these persons were in their graves, and the bodies of the living, no more than the dead, can be said to enjoy or suffer. * It is our spirits here that enjoy pleasure and suffering pain, and not our material bodies. Matter, organized or unorganized, can

not suffer. Sentience alone can suffer and enjoy. How say some that Christ’s body alone suffered!

We Learn -8. In paradise all Christians, like Lazarus, will not only be honoured and comforted, but they will rest from all the toils, woes and anxieties of mortal life, although they will not be in a state of absolute satisfaction and fruition of enjoyment, but of rest - sweet rest of the soul. David is today in paradise, where Abraham and Lazarus are; but he is not perfectly happy - satisfied. He declared that he would not be satisfied until he awoke in the likeness of his Christly Lord; nor will any other saint. But this will only be at “the resurrection of the just.”

David then, is not in heaven; and paradise, therefore, is not heaven itself!

9. We learn -That paradise will not only be a place of such surpassing beauty and loveliness as to ravish the soul, and of sweetest rest from life’s distracting anxieties, toils, and woes, but also a place where our souls will enjoy the most delightful companionship and personal and spiritual associations that earth or heaven can afford. For 10. We shall carry with us all our affinities and memories into the future life.

Since our memories and affinities are essential parts of ourselves, we can not conceive of ourselves as existing dispossessed of them any more than without our personal consciousness. Therefore, where the word of God is silent upon this, we would know that if we enjoyed a conscious existence after death we would know that we shall carry our memories and affinities with us. All we have known and loved in this life we shall recognize and love in our disembodied life. We have only to refer to our text.

The rich man, from the far-off abode of the wicked, not only recognized the one resting in the bosom of Abraham as the hapless beggar that starved unpitied at his gate, but he instinctively knew Abraham. That Dives was in the full exercise of his memory, we learn from the answer of Abraham: “Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus his evil things. Here he is comforted and thou art in anguish.”

That the rich man was still possessed of his natural affinities, we learn from his intense anxiety for the personal welfare of his five brethren above that of all others.

In the full exercise of our memories and affinities, how unspeakably delightful must our associations - our social and spiritual enjoyments - be in paradise!

Lazarus was in intimate companionship with Abraham, the spiritual father and representative of the saints of all ages. If with Abraham, then with Adam and Abel and Seth and Enoch and Noah. From these he could learn circumstantially the history of the world’s creation, of the beauties of the first paradise of God, the particulars of the fall, of the ruin, of the closing scenes of the dread deluge. What

shall I say of the long communions with all that cloud of faithful witnesses referred to by the Paul in Hebrews 11, and what of the longer list, were it but made out, reaching “from the days of John the Baptist until now?” Would an age be sufficient to satisfy us with the companionship of Paul? What shall I say of the intimate associations with our own sainted relatives? What of the sweet communing with those tried and faithful ministers and brethren with whom we have laboured and won signal victories for Christ and His truth over sin and error here? What shall I say of our bliss enhanced by the fruitage of our labours that will follow, on and on, as the years of time roll by, until our redemption is fully accomplished by the coming of Christ, and our glorification with Him? In addition to all this, can we doubt for a moment that Christ, who walked at the cool eventide in the first paradise, and conversed with its sinless occupants, does not often visit and gladden the souls of his waiting saints in paradise now? So often is he with them, that Paul, referring to their condition, calls it “being present with the Lord.” (Psalm 139: 8).

Could not this be said of our first parents, while they abode in innocence, that they enjoyed the very presence of the Lord?

The wife speaks of her husband as at home with her, although he attends his regular business, at his office during business hours, and is only by her side, and immediately with his family, enlivening the hearth-stone, when the business of the day is over.

11. We learn that the good can not, if they would, administer to the comfort of the lost.

It is a fundamental article in the faith of Spiritualists that the good in the future state are constantly employed in ameliorating the condition of the bad those spirits who were wicked in life, and are therefore occupying a far lower plane of existence and enjoyment in the future life.

12. From this we learn that all that we can do for the spiritual good of others, we must do in this life; that with all our toils and prayers for others forever cease, both with respect to the living and the dead.13. We learn that the good souls can not pass out of paradise to succour the self-ruined souls in hades, much less do they pass out of paradise and hades to instruct* or comfort the living on this earth.

David recognized the fact that his child could not return to him in any capacity, and, therefore, we know that no good soul will return to instruct or comfort the living. [* Samuel the prophet of God, being a notable exception. - 1 Sam. 28:8-20.]

14. From this parable we also learn the conditions that govern the souls of wicked men in Hades.

That they are far separated from the righteous. Not only are the saints guarded from intrusion on the part of evil spirits (the devil and his angels) from without - so that they cannot enter to tempt and trouble, as they do the righteous here - but the spirits [and souls] of bad men are not allowed to enter the peaceful

rest of paradise, or to come near. Were they permitted to do so, the wicked there could disturb the repose and enjoyment of the friends of Jesus as they do here.

Blessed rest, indeed, where emphatically “the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.�

If the spirits in Hades cannot trouble the just, much less can the living on earth trouble them by bringing them down into sĂŠances at their pleasure.

15. We learn that the wicked in the world of despair do not wish the companionship of their wicked friends and relatives. We can not conceive that such companionship would in the least alleviate their sufferings, but we can conceive how such association would immeasurably intensify them, and especially if, as it doubtless was in the case of the rich man, their example and influence in this life had encouraged them in a course of sin and rejection of God and salvation.

16. We learn that if lost souls could return to this earth and communicate with the living they would do so, to induce them to believe the Bible, forsake sin and return to God and be saved.

17. If Dives could have returned to earth, and, through any conceivable way - in spirit form and by spirit voice, or by the voice of an earthly medium - have communicated with his brethren, would he not have done so? We are bound to answer this in the affirmative. But he had not returned, and did not return, and, therefore, it is conclusive that he could not do so. We learn 18. If Dives could not return to earth to communicate with the living, no disembodied spirit ever did or ever can do so. They are in prison, under guard. The gates of hades are locked upon them, as well as upon the righteous; neither can they depart thence until He who has the key of hades opens and brings them forth to glory or to shame. But then there is this difference between the righteous and the wicked: the former desire not to go forth to be again troubled and worn, tempted or distressed by the wicked without, and though the wicked would escape they can not.

19. We learn also that if Dives could have returned and communicated with his brethren, he would have told them that there is an endless hell - a state of indescribable misery and anguish like to being tormented in flames and have warned them if they lived on as he had lived, they would come to the same awful punishment. But spirits (?) controlled by mediums do not so testify, but that all are comfortably happy, and daily becoming more so. Therefore, we are justifiable in concluding that a leave of absence has never yet been granted to a disembodied spirit.

All communications that have been claimed as coming from the spirits of the dead, whether good or bad, are spurious.

20. Our conduct in this life will immeasurably enhance our joys or our wretchedness in the life to come. We also learn 21. The nature of the punishment suffered by the wicked in hades - the fires unquenchable, that will torment, will be those they have kindled here. The remorseful memories of his conduct in this life, not so much, perhaps, for what he had done - for it is not intimated that he was an outbreaking sinner - but of what he had neglected to do, were the scorpion stings that lacerated his soul as flames of real fire would torment the body. The anguish of remorse, begloomed by the total and everlasting eclipse of all hope, is all a deathless spirit can suffer. We learn 22. That our relationship to a pious ancestry, or Christian parents, will neither secure our salvation nor mitigate our wretchedness and anguish if lost, but will doubtless enhance.

Better a thousand times to have lived and died a heathen, and never to have heard a prayer or heard a sermon, than to have heard the gospel and rejected it, and to have been blessed with the instruction and prayers of Christian parents and have despised them.

Let the case of the rich man be a warning to the children of Christian parents.

He believed that he would be saved because he was the son of righteous Abraham. ***

PART 2: ESCHATOLOGICAL PARABLES 1 THE TEN VIRGINS 2 THE ENTRUSTED TALENTS 3 THE ENTRUSTED POUNDS 4 THE BLADE, THE EAR, AND THE FULL CORN 5 THE NET 6 THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS (A PROPHECY)

CHAPTER 25 REMARKS INTRODUCTORY THESE (see preceding page) will complete the Expositions of the Parables and Prophecies of Christ. I call them Eschatological, because they find their interpretations in events connected with the last times of this dispensation, and the second coming of Christ, which grand event will prepare the way for, and introduce, the millennium. These parables can be readily understood only by those who hold Scriptural views of Eschatology, or “the doctrine of the last things.�

All orthodox Christian writers, from the first century down, have held and taught, and all living orthodox writers do now hold and teach, that there is to be a second coming of Christ; but they are divided upon the manner and the time of it: 1. Whether it will be a bodily and visible or a spiritual coming; and

2. Whether it will be pre- or post-millennial - i.e. whether it will take place before or subsequent to the conversion of the whole world, or the millennial age.

Those holding the former view are known and called Pre-millennialists, or Literalists; those holding the latter, Post-millennialists, or Spiritualists.14 But the four parables to be explained unquestionably proceed upon the admitted fact that the coming of Christ will be a visible and instantaneous event; “For,” said Christ, “as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west, so the parousia [presence] of the Son of Man will be,” which means the bodily coming of Christ.

All these parables expressly teach that His coming will be sudden and at any moment, the day and the hour being unrevealed. As suddenly and unexpectedly as came the flood upon the world, Christ taught His coming will be: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they we re eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” -Matt. 24:37-44.

This teaching is emphatically opposed to the idea that the gradual conversion of the world is the coming of Christ, and the entire conversion of the world is His parousia - His presence - and the millennium. Has Christ been coming since John preached his first sermon - two thousand years?

The emphatic lesson of each of these four parables, also, is that only those servants will receive the chief honours and highest rewards who are ready, watchful and in earnest, prayerful expectancy of His coming: otherwise they will be left to live on and suffer the terrible ills and tribulations that await all who remain on the earth until the close of this dispensation, while the ready, faithful and watchful servants only will be taken away from the evils to come - “caught up,” without seeing death, to meet the coming Lord in the air:

14

[NOTE. Since this book was first published, another group of ‘Spiritualists’ have emerged known as A-millennialists. The “A” denotes “Anti” or “Against” all millennial teachings. This amazing feat of prophetical deception is being achieved today by the same spiritualizing method used by the ‘Spiritualists’ to undermine God’s unfulfilled prophecies, which can only be literally fulfilled during the coming “Age” - the six times mentioned: “thousand years” (Rev. 20:2-7).]

“Then we that 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.” - 1 Thess. 4:17.*[* NOTE. See also Luke 21:34-36 and Rev. 3:10, R.V. These texts (and their contexts) indicate a pre-tribulation rapture of reward by living saints, shown as conditional. Whereas the rapture mentioned by Mr. Graves (in 1 Thess.

4:17), appears to take place after the Great Tribulation, (for those who will be “left unto the presence of the Lord” i.e., left after others had previously been removed via rapture): and after “the resurrection out of dead ones” Phil. 3:11, Gk. See also Luke 14:14; 20:35; Heb. 11:35, etc. R.V. Both are selective; and both depend upon an undisclosed15 standard of ones personal righteousness, - “Except your righteousness shall exceed…” (Matt. 5:20; 7:21, R.V.).]

15

1. Kingdom Accountability: Generally used to refer to any teaching of grave accountability for Christians, such as literal chastisement at the judgment seat of Christ, conditional millennial entrance, and a thousand years in the outer darkness of the underworld. “Bible teachers as Robert Govett and David Panton belong to a rare group of Christians with extraordinary spiritual insight. However, we should keep in mind, when we read the writings of these men — which include the Vanguard Reprints — that they followed a so-called selective rapture and resurrection of Christians. It’s fully true that there will be a selection of believers before[i.e., at] the judgment seat of Christ, but this selection doesn’t occur already at the time of the rapture, simply because the judgment seat is the place to determine what is of the flesh and of the spirit, not the rapture.”-Introduction to the “Vanguard Reprints”

by Roel Velema. [Why not both, i.e., Scriptural baptism must play a part in this process unless to “strive lawfully” doesn’t apply here.

The Amplified Bible has 2Tim 2:5 this way: “And if anyone enters competitive games, he is not crowned unless he competes lawfully (fairly, according to the rules laid down).” To “MAKE THE CUT” then has to be at the Rapture of true Christians, i.e., Scripturally baptized believers, who by that act have sworn fealty to the returning King! ~ esn] 2. The RAPTURE is A REWARD: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” - (Luke 21:34-36) Worthiness of resurrection and rapture unto kingdom inheritance “is not a gift, but a prize to be won, in the strength of the Lord, by the fruits of faith, conduct and works after conversion” (G. H. Pember). - Now what the truth is can at once be determined by discovering exactly what rapture is. If rapture is of grace [only], it’s a gift; if it is a reward, it is of [a regenerate believer’s] works; and one word of our Lord [spoken to His chosen disciples] is decisive. He says:- “Watch ye” - he is actually addressing apostles - “and pray always that ye may be ACCOUNTED WORTHY to escape all these things that shall come to pass” (Luke 21:36): the escape (He says) is contingent on the worthiness: that is, the escape is not a gift of grace, but a reward conditional on watchfulness and prayer. It is most significant that in the great galaxy of faith in Hebrews Eleven, the sole hero of faith associated with reward is Enoch, the rapt; and his rapture is explicitly stated to be the fruit of his walk, not of his standing. “He was not found, for before his translation he hath had witness borne to him that he had been wellpleasing unto God”, who “is a REWARDER of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:5). Thus we learn why, as the exact date of the Advent is hidden, so the Scripture is totally silent on the degree of sanctity demanded for rapture: the date is concealed in order to produce perpetual watchfulness; the standard of worthiness is concealed in order to produce perpetual preparation. There is no mention of ‘successive raptures’ or multiple raptures in Scripture. There will be a selective rapture of watchful saints, who will be able to escape ‘all that is about to happen’ before the Great Tribulation commences; and another rapture of those ‘who are still alive, that are left till the coming of the Lord’ (1 Thess. 4:15), at its end, when Christ descends to establish His Millennial Kingdom, (verse 17). cf. Acts 1:11; Rev. 11:15; Micah 4:1-4; Isa. 35:1-2. Between these two raptures, the careless saints who are ‘left’ will have to endure ‘tribulation, the great one’, under Antichrist, who will persecute them and put them to death with the Jews: but there is no hint of any ‘successive raptures’ taking place during that dreadful era. Modern-day apostasy – (i.e., a denial of millennial truths and conditional promises of God.) - within God’s churches (Matt. 24:5), would indicate that these events will happen in the near future. Ripeness for rapture must occur before the Tribulation commences, not during the time of persecution and martyrdom. See, Luke 12:47; Gal. 6:7-8; Rev. 20:4.] So our sharpening crisis calls urgently on us to walk with God, as Enoch walked with God. For it is the Bride, not the Bridegroom, who contributes the trousseau of marriage readiness. “His wife hath made herself READY: and it was given unto her” from the inexhaustible reservoirs of grace on which she can draw - “that she should array herself” - her active application of that grace to her own heart and conduct - “in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts” - the holy behaviour, the sanctification and not the justification - “of the saints” (Rev. 19:8). “Therefore be YE also ready” (Matt. 24:44). Selections from the redeemed of all ages are in the Kingdom: all who are “ACCOUNTED WORTHY to attain to that age, and the resurrection from [among] the dead” (Luke xx. 35). From the patriarchs and prophets — as Elijah: from the Law — as Moses: from the Church — as Peter, John, and James, the only three disciples whom Jesus re-named. “To him that overcometh, to him will I give . . . a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written” (Rev. ii. 17). The Kingdom is the reward of the holy (Eph. v. 3-6), the sufferer (Matt. v. 10), the obedient (Matt. vii. 21), the martyr (Matt. x. 39). “Thou hast a few names in Sardis which did not defile their garments: and they

These four parables, as well as this last prophecy, of Christ proceed upon the assumed fact that the second coming of Christ will take place before the conversion of the world, or the millennium.

The reader must see that it is not until after His coming that He judges and utterly destroys these wicked nations from the face of the earth; and by reference to Revelations 19: 19-20 it will be seen that it is after His coming that he crushes the anti-Christian confederacies and wicked potencies of earth, and casts the beast and false prophet, who inspire and direct their rebellious assault, into the lake of fire. It is then, and not till then, by His righteous judgments, He rids the earth of the wicked, as the chaff is separated and driven away from the wheat, by the wind, on the summer threshing floor: “Whose fan is in His hand; and he shall thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff in unquenchable fire.”

If the world will be converted to Christ before the “end of the world” (of this age), not only the above four, but several of the principal, parables, as those of The Tares and of The Drag-net, will be made worse than meaningless - be made to flatly contradict all the Scriptures that have an admitted reference to the state of the world at His coming.

Notice, it was not until after the bridegroom had returned that the foolish virgins became aware of their un-preparedness to meet him. It was not until after the nobleman returned that he summoned before him his enemies and destroyed them. It was until the harvest, the very end of the dispensation [this evil age], that the tares grew rankly among the wheat, and not until then were they gathered out and burned - not converted. It was not until the same time shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy” (Rev. iii. 4): “he that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne” (Rev. iii. 21). Bare faith is accounted unto righteousness for eternal life: works after faith alone prove and produce the conquering holiness which enters the Kingdom. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: . . . they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years” (Rev. xx. 6). Yet the bed-rock beneath the Kingdom is the CROSS. “All that contributes to holiness contributes to readiness.” - D. M. Panton. May we all be asking ourselves the following questions. · “Am I harkening unto God’s calling in the fear of the Lord?”· “Is my life manifesting the fruit of the Spirit?”· “Am I redeeming the time?” If the fruit of the Spirit is not emerging from and increasing in our lives as believers, or if our spiritual growth becomes stunted, by what means and at what time will God honor His warrant to present us holy and blameless and beyond reproach in His sight?

Another has written, “Death works no magic upon character.” Sanctification—now, or when?—this appears to be the question before us. Oh, how serious is this question, beloved? - The word “rapture” is not a Biblical word. It derives from the appearance of the word rapio in the Latin Bible, but it is rendered as “caught up” in most translations of 1 Thess. 4.17. In current teachings the use of the term “rapture” is often focused upon living believers only. However, Paul associates resurrection of the dead in Christ with rapture in 1 Thess. 4.16,17: “the dead in Christ will first rise; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up [raptured] together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” - (As an aside, let us wonder: “What shall we say about Jesus’ statement in Mark 16.16?—’He who has believed, and has been baptized, shall be saved; but he who has not believed shall be condemned.’ “ Baptism is a work of righteousness [Matt. 3:13]. There is a difference between being a believer in Jesus and being His true disciple: see Mark 8.34-35; Luke 14.26-27. Discipleship exceeds redemption. Baptism, following upon faith, is God’s first requirement of discipleship (Acts. 2.36-38).

This truth often goes unmentioned in the preachings of evangelists. One of the two criminals dying alongside Jesus made this final request of Him: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” This scoundrel lacked baptism and was absent of any good works; yet Jesus nevertheless assured him: “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise [based upon your faith alone].” (Notice, however, that the Lord’s reply made no mention of His kingdom [Luke 23.42.) So, what does the future hold for the one who believes, but ignores baptism? This is an important, kingdom question.) - Being Glorified Together With Him by Charlie Dines.

that the drag-net was hauled to the shore and the bad fishes separated from the good.

To teach that the world will be converted before Christ’s coming, is to teach that the chaff and the tares are not to be burned, but will be converted into wheat; and that the bad fishes in the net will not be thrown away, but converted into good ones.

These parables and the whole eschatological teachings of our Sacred Scriptures can be interpreted consistently with themselves only upon the admitted fact that Christ’s coming is to be personal and visible, and before the conversion of the world and the millennial age.

Another fact must be admitted if we would understand these parables that remain to be considered: viz., that the second coming of Christ will be in two stages, and that there will be a short period or rest between them.

He will come into the air, unseen by mortal eye, to gather unto Himself, from the earth, all His faithful and true witnesses - His ready and watchful servants, His “overcomers” (see Rev. 3:4-5) - to be His bride, preparatory to the marriage and her enthronement with Him, to reign with Him over the nations.

Only those eminent saints who are ready and watching to receive Him will constitute His bride, and will be the Lamb’s wife. ***

CHAPTER 26 THE TEN VIRGINS PARABLE “THEN shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not. Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.” - Matt. 25:1-13.

This has been pronounced the most graphic and touchingly beautiful and impressive of all our Lord’s parables. No one, perhaps, has received more attention

from expositors and commentators from the days of Augustine and Luther down to the present. Dr. Seiss, who himself has devoted an entire book to its explanation, says of it: “Books and commentators for its explanation are not few. It seems to me, however, that it is not understood as it ought to be. It touches upon fields of doctrine, experience and hope, concerning which the popular mind needs more instruction than it receives.”

While it is true that the popular mind has not received the amount of instruction it needs, it is equally true that it has not received the character of instruction it needs, not only upon this parable, but upon its companions - i.e. those of The Talents, The Pounds, and The Judgment of the Nations. Commentators and expositors widely disagree among themselves in their interpretations, and the result is natural - the popular mind is left in a confused and inquiring attitude, looking earnestly for interpretations that will at least convey important truths and harmonize with the other teachings of God’s word.

It is the fixed conviction of the writer that to do this they must be interpreted dispensationally, and in strict connection with the time and events connected with the second coming of Christ to receive His bride, and her favoured companions, preparatory to her marriage and introduction into the beautiful habitation of the Bridegroom, which shall have been prepared for her everlasting and glorious abode, according to His promise.

This is the work I have undertaken in great weakness, and a felt disqualification to accomplish; but, in the language of another, “Should I even fail to establish the conclusions which the terms and implications of the parable appear to me to require, the cause of truth may nevertheless be the gainer by the reopening of the questions involved, and a resurvey of the field.”

This is the first of the last three and most remarkable parables which Jesus spake to His disciples as His feet pressed for the last time the brow of Mount Olivet, where for so many ages above all other places piety had felt itself nearer to heaven. As these were His last teachings, so their main scope had exclusive reference to the last events, in which, at the end of the ages, His [coming millennial] kingdom will find its long promised and glorious consummation.

This parable, unlike any other, is introduced by “then,” clearly implying that the kingdom of heaven is not now, and never has been, but is only at some future time, to be likened unto ten virgins, and that time is clearly designated - i.e. when the Son of Man cometh, then will the events that will take place in connection with His coming be like unto those related in this parable, which is built upon the ordinary circumstances and events connected with a wedding scene not uncommon among the Jews, and still not unfrequent in Oriental countries.

An eye-witness of a Hindoo marriage gives the following illustration of this custom: “The bride lived at Serampore, to which place the bridegroom was to come by water. After waiting two or three hours, at length, near midnight, it was announced in the very words of Scripture, ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.’ All the persons employed now lighted their lamps, and ran with them in their hands to fill up their stations in the procession. Some of them had lost their lights, and were unprepared, but it was then too late to seek them, and the cavalcade moved forward to the house of the bride, at which place the company entered a large and splendidly-illuminated area before the house, covered with an warning, where a great multitude of friends, dressed in their best apparel, were seated upon mats. The bridegroom was carried in the arms of a friend, and placed in a superb seat in the midst of the company, where he sat a short time, and then went into the house, the door of which was immediately shut and guarded by sepoys. I and others expostulated with the door-keepers, but in vain. Never was I so struck with our Lord’s beautiful parable as at this moment. ‘And the door was shut.’”

The principal features designed, I think, to convey specific instruction to His disciples, then and to the end of the age, are: 1. The Bridegroom.

2. His coming.

3. The time and the manner of it.

4. The bride.

5. Her virgin companions.

6. The guests of the marriage supper.

7. The class or classes of persons represented by these virgins - the five provident - the five unwise or improvident.

8. What is implied by the door being shut, and the expression, “I know you not?”

9. What constituted the punishment of their improvidence?

1. That the bridegroom represents Christ all interpreters are agreed. David, Solomon, Isaiah and John the Baptist, and the apostles, all refer to Him as the Bridegroom of His chaste and pure bride, to whom He is now betrothed, and for His marriage to her the day is fixed in the Councils of Eternity.

2. His “Coming;” about this, both as to the time and manner of it, there is a wide diversity of views.

(1). It can not be the destruction by war of some important city, as Jerusalem, Babylon or Rome, as many teach, since in no sense can their destruction be thought of as the joyous coming of the Bridegroom to receive His bride, preparatory to the marriage ceremony and the feasting.

His coming as a Bridegroom is spoken of as a coming event, long after these cities had been destroyed.

(2). Nor can it be interpreted of the descent of the Holy Spirit, or of a spiritual coming or presence of Christ, for in this sense He has ever been with His people.

(3). Nor can it be interpreted of that providential event to which all are subject death. Death is not a glorious, loving bridegroom, for whose coming the bride (Christians) wait, and hope, and pray for, in loving and impatient expectancy.

Death is, throughout the Sacred Scriptures, represented as the enemy of our race, from whose approach we shrink and recoil. Nor is the language consistent, applied to any one of these events – “Behold” (a joyous exclamation) “the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him!”

This “Coming of the Bridegroom” unquestionably refers to the second, personal, bodily, visible, coming of Christ to gather unto himself His elect, choice and eminently faithful saints, whom He will honour before His Father and the holy angels, the world and the universe, by making them His bride - “the Lamb’s wife.”

His first coming was in two stages. For thirty years He was present, yet unrecognized by the world, and even by His relatives and His own harbinger, John, while He was gathering and preparing a people for Him; but at His baptism He was bodily and gloriously manifested to Israel by the opening of the heavens, the voice of the Father, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, as the divine Son of God: so will His second coming be in two stages. He will come into the air unseen by the dwellers on the earth, and unrecognized by even His friends, where He will gather unto Himself, out of all nations, all His saints, those ready and waiting to receive Him, whom He will make His bride; and when this shall have been fully accomplished, He will make Himself manifest to His people and to the world as the all-glorious Son of God, coming on the clouds of heaven with all His holy angels, with power and great glory, when every eye shall see Him. The marriage will then take place, after which He will introduce His bride into her now prepared and glorious habitation - the re-Edenized earth, with its paradise restored.

The question which has so long perplexed commentators I will now consider, viz.: THE BRIDE OF CHRIST Who will constitute the bride?

1. None but real Christians, pure and chaste virgins, will constitute His bride, “the Lamb’s wife.” All interpreters are also agreed in this: 2. But not all Christians, nor even all virgins, will constitute His bride.

This must be so evident to all Bible readers, on a moment’s reflection, as to need no discussion here. We all know that the bride, among all virgins, in the eyes of the bridegroom, is the one most beautiful, and “the one altogether lovely.” As an apple tree among the common trees of the wood, so is His beloved among women “the virgins.” He loves them all, but He loves His betrothed one above all.

In all ages the Lord has had His choice and best beloved ones. They were and are of that class of faithful Christians typified by Abel, Enoch, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Jephthae, David, and that “great cloud of witnesses” for God in the ages before the coming of Christ alluded to by Paul: “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and of imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented: of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” - Heb. 11:32-40.

And the largest cloud of “faithful and true witnesses,” not spectators, but witnesses who testify what they know, have experienced, who have lived and laboured, and suffered for Christ since, and the faithful ones, though few, living and testifying now - these, and only these - will receive the highest honour when Christ comes; i.e. that of being the nearest to the person of Him to whose heart they have been the dearest here. All Christians are loved by Christ, and will he saved and rewarded according to what they have done and suffered for Him, but all will not constitute His bride - be enthroned and crowned and reign with Him. Not to all Christians can He say, Well done, good and faithful servants. etc.

When the King’s daughter, the betrothed bride of His Son, is brought unto the King’s palace, all glorious in her robes of beaten gold, these are her virgin attendants who follow to grace her presence: “And the King’s daughter is all glorious within [i.e. the palace]: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto Thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the King’s palace.” - Psalms 45:13-15.

Who are these virgin companions? They certainly represent Christians; but they are not the bride, and never will be, although next in honour to her. In the parable under consideration, the wise virgins, whom all admit represent Christians, chaste and pure, were not the bride, nor a part of her. The king’s

daughter was already within, and awaiting the coming of the bridegroom before they entered. They were the virgin attendants of the bride - the invited guests of the marriage; and in this were highly honoured and blessed: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” - Rev. 19:7-9.

If all Christians constitute the bride, why did not the angel say, “Blessed are those who are chosen to be the bride,” and not, Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb? None but Christians will enjoy the honour of being the guests of this supper.

John saw those who symbolized the class of Christians who will constitute the Lamb’s wife: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb.” - Rev. 14:1-5.

These represent the comparatively few “Choice ones” of the earth, the firstborn ones, the first fruits unto God and the Lamb; and these, and those like these alone, will be honoured with being made the Lamb’s wife.

Notice the peculiar characteristics of these Christians: 1. They had not while living on earth “defiled themselves with women” - i.e. committed spiritual fornication. God charged Israel with this heinous sin when His people united with the nations around them in their worship; for the religions of those nations were false - not of God, but forbidden of God. By mixing with them in their worships, they, by their acts, denied that God was the only true God, and His religion the only true religion. It is true, by uniting with those nations in their worship, they blunted the force of their open opposition and out-spoken hatred, and gained their good will for the time being; but they, nevertheless, committed spiritual fornication, an abomination in the sight of God; and for this they were severely punished, and have been, for long years, rejected of God

from being a nation, and are now enduring the time of “Jacob’s trouble,” to be purified from their idolatry by years of sufferings.

2. They were virgins. They had, while living here, kept themselves pure and chaste - intact from the sinful and demoralizing pleasures of this world. I can not believe that they found sweet pleasures in the ballroom, the opera and the theatre, which are peculiarly the “pleasures of sin,” and of the children of this world. They “kept their garments unspotted from the world.”

3. These, when here, “were the followers of the Lamb;” not professedly, nor in a general sense; not in a great many things; but these followed Christ whithersoever He went. Where He went in the paths of obedience, they followed Him. They obeyed, from the heart, all His commandments. As willing or wilfully disobedient Christians, they were without fault before God.** I can not believe that those Christian ministers or members who, while they profess to love Christ, refuse to do what He commands them, because of the opposition of their own flesh and blood - their own friends and family - or of the world, will ever constitute any part of the glorious bride of Christ. Those Christian ministers who refuse to obey the least of Christ’s requirements, and teach others so, certainly will not be made the greatest in Christ’s kingdom, but Christ says they shall be the least: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” - Matt. 5: 19. How many of our brethren, ministers whom we love, will far miss this highest honour, refusing or failing, through fear of losing the smiles and favours of men - errorists - to teach men all things, even those accounted the least - non-essentials - and to teach them to do them. These are solemn and eternal [age-lasting] verities.

These one hundred and forty-four thousand were certainly not “the representatives of all the saved,” as some teach, for all who have been saved did not possess these characteristics; nor will any one presume to say that all living Christians to-day possess these distinguishing marks of consecration to Christ, but they do represent all those Christians who will be honoured and rewarded by being made the bride of Christ.

In the day when Christ comes to elect from the earth and receive His bride unto Himself, then will His faithful ones be rewarded for all they have sacrificed and suffered for Him here.

John was shown a countless multitude of palm-bearers of all nations, who were Christians; but they were no part of the bride; nor were they honoured, or even blessed, with even an invitation to the marriage supper, and yet they were saved, but never attained higher positions of honour than that of servants:

“After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and w o r s hi p pe d G o d, S a y i n g , A m e n: B l e s s i ng , a n d g l o r y , a n d w i sd o m , a n d thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” - Rev. 7:9-17 .

Who, at the coming of Christ, will be represented by the wise virgins? Who by the foolish?

Were the latter finally saved?

What class of persons are the five virgins intended to represent? Christians undoubtedly, as the name indicates and implies. Virgin signifies persons morally chaste and pure, and is applied equally to both sexes in the Scriptures (see Rev. 14: 4), and is never applied to the unregenerate, or enemies of Christ. All expositors are agreed that these five virgins represent Christians.

But, as we have noticed, they were not, for some reason, chosen to be the bride, or any part of her, but they will attain to the next place of honour and blessedness; i.e. that of being the nearest to her person - “companions” and attendants, and called to go into the marriage supper. (Rev. 19:9) What class will the foolish virgins represent?

Though called “foolish,” they were as certainly virgins as the five wise ones.

The term virgin as certainly designates Christian as the terms “elect,” “saints,” and is never applied to the morally impure, or the unregenerate, any more than the term leaven is applied to something pure and holy.

These five unwise virgins were not enemies of Christ - hypocrites under the guise and profession of friends. All that is said of them implies that they represent

Christians as certainly as the wise ones. For -1. They are called “virgins” by Christ.

2. They went forth with lighted torches, as did the wise, to honour and welcome the coming bridegroom.

3. They waited as watchfully, and as earnestly desired the coming of the bridegroom, as did the wise virgins. Christ would not intimate that the unregenerate - His enemies - will be earnestly watching for and desiring His speedy coming, as did these five virgins. His enemies - all hypocrites and mere nominal Christians - will dread and recoil from the very announcement of His coming.

The foolish virgins also represent a class of Christians at the coming of Christ.

Arminians, with great avidity and confidence, bring forward this parable in support of their doctrine of the possibility of the final apostasy of Christians. They rightfully claim that these foolish virgins represent Christians, who, on account of the lack of something which they should have done, will at last be forever shut out of heaven, as these virgins were shut out of the marriage supper.

To break the force of this argument, the advocates of the salvation of all saints adopt the opposite and quite as untenable a position, viz.: that they were not intended to represent Christians, but sinners, hypocrites, Christians only in profession, whom the coming of Christ will reveal in their true characters.

Those adopting this interpretation claim that the “oil” symbolizes the saving grace of regeneration, and that these foolish virgins never had any “oil” even in their lamps, but wicks only, thus making them not merely unwise and improvident, but very idiots! for, if possessed of any sense, they would have known that their lamps would not have burned for a moment with only wicks, and would have served them no purpose had the procession actually been in sight the moment they went out!

But against this it can be conclusively urged that these were not only called virgins, which is a misleading term, unless, like the others, they represent Christians, and they voluntarily went forth to welcome and honour the coming bridegroom, but that they as earnestly desired and awaited his coming as did the wise virgins, which could not be said of hypocrites or unregenerate persons. The enemies of Christ do not desire, but with mortal fear dread, the hour of His coming, and will call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall on them to hide them from His face. It is, with conclusive force, further urged: 1. That these virgins did go forth with oil in their lamps, or the “cups” of their torches, and, for all ordinary, occasions, they had quite enough. Had it not been for the long, and to these virgins unexpected, “tarrying” of the bridegroom, the oil in their lamps would have been sufficient; for, even at midnight, when the cry was

heard, their lamps were still burning, but burning low so that they said unto their fellows, “Give us of your oil, for our lamps are going out.”

I give the literal translation from the Diaglott: “And the foolish said unto the prudent, Give us of your oil, for our lamps sbennuntai - are going out” - are being extinguished; so Bengal and Alford.

Even at that late hour they had not become extinguished. “The meaning is that their lamps had begun to be extinguished, but not yet gone.” (Greswell.)

I can not conceive how we can avoid the conclusion that these foolish virgins were intended to represent Christians, otherwise the parable is quite meaningless.

It was addressed to the disciples of Christ – Christians - it was intended for Christians, and Christians only, and has application only for those Christians living at the time of Christ’s coming to gather unto Himself His bride and her virgin companions.

Granting, as we must, that they represent a class of Christians, some of which will be taken in, and some left out, let us proceed to notice: In what respects the foolish resembled and differed from the wise.

1. They as voluntarily went forth to welcome his coming.

2. They equally provided themselves with torches, or lamps, to honour his coming.

3. They equally had oil in their lamps.

4. They were as watchful and as desirous of his coming as the wise.

5. They equally slumbered and slept with the wise. And 6. They awakened as promptly as did the wise, and when they awoke their lamps were still burning.

But they found they had not sufficient oil to go forward in the procession to the house.

Now, the only thing the wise had which the others did not have was a supply of oil in addition to what was in their lamps.

A literal translation of the passage will make this evident: “For the improvident took their lamps, but carried no oil with them* [i.e. besides what was in their lamps.] The prudent or provident, however, besides their own lamps, took oil in vessels.” (Diaglott.) This oil, then, can not represent saving grace or regeneration of heart, but a requisite faith in what was needful to be known touching the movements of the bridegroom, and especially that there would be a delay on his part, and probably a long one.[* See Acts 5:32, cf. Luke 11: 13, R.V.]The fact that the wise virgins had made themselves acquainted with this fact, or the probability of its occurrence, and thoughtfully provided for it by carrying oil in their

vessels, besides what their lamps contained, that they might refill their lamps, was what constituted them wise or prudent. It was because of the failure of the foolish virgins, through apathy or inexcusable negligence, to properly inform themselves touching the movements of the bridegroom - movements that might be known, that it was their duty to know, especially the fact that there might or would be a “tarrying,” and possibly a long one, against which it was their duty to provide. Were not this the case, how could they justly have been punished? It was simply for the lack of this provision that they lost their place in the procession, and failed to be admitted to the marriage supper. They were punished for willing and inexcusable ignorance of the movements of the bridegroom.

The urgent application of the foolish to the wise for a portion of their oil is but too natural; the refusal of the wise ones, but too significant to have been omitted.

Whatever the oil is intended to signify, it was something of which the wise had not too much, and something they could not upon that occasion part with.

Some able expositors hold that the foolish virgins did go forth at that late hour and obtain a supply of oil, else, say they, they would not have returned and applied for admission with those who were so provided; this is held on the supposition that a lighted torch was an essential qualification of a guest. Grant this; yet they were too late to be recognized or received in as guests, and given the places they had justly forfeited.

The door was shut, not of friendship certainly, or of love, but of a present blessing and enjoyment – i.e. participation as guests in the wedding supper.

“I know you not.” He does not say, as He will to another class upon another occasion, “I never knew you;” but I know you not as my bride. I do not recognize you as worthy, in the circumstances, to be the companions of my bride on this occasion. I do not recognize you as worthy to be blessed and honoured by being allowed to be guests at my wedding supper.

They were not treated as enemies; for they are friends, but improvident ones. He does not order them to be destroyed, but refuses to let them come in to the supper.

With the above understood symbolisms of the parable, their application to persons and events they will represent at the coming of Christ will not be difficult of understanding.

Christ is the Bridegroom, who is coming at the close of this dispensation to gather unto Himself in the air, or into paradise, all the very “choice ones” of His saints - the precious stones, His jewels; and to these will He accord the highest reward and honour i.e. that of being made His queen-bride - who, as His wife, will sit with Him on His throne, and jointly rule with Him over the nations. This most distinguished honour will all this pre-eminent class of His saints enjoy.

At this stage of His coming He will also gather a second class, or band - those saints worthy to enjoy the second honour, that of being the companions and followers of His bride, or the especially invited guests of His marriage supper.

This class I understand both the wise and foolish virgins represent. It will be incumbent upon them to be ready and waiting His coming, with lamps trimmed and burning, to welcome His approach, and, with rejoicing, go with Him into the palace and grace His marriage.

It will be incumbent upon all Christians who wish to be accepted of Him to be ready and waiting – “ready and watchful.”

It is said of the bride, the Lamb’s wife, that “she hath made herself ready.” As it is the privilege of all Christians, by lives of holy consecration and fidelity, to His service to attain the highest rewards and honours Christ has to bestow at His coming - even to be gathered among His “choice ones,” His “jewels,” and become His bride - so is it not only the privilege, but duty, of all Christians to be prepared and ready to honour and welcome His coming, and enter with Him into the marriage feast and sup with Him. For Christians to be prepared and ready for this glad event, certainly implies that they should make themselves acquainted with the instructions He has left them with respect to His movements, and the duties required of them in connection with this important event (Rev. 1:3), and that by diligent inquiry they should constantly look for the signs of His coming, which He has given them, indicative of His near approach.

While it may be true that we all may not be able to understand all the Scriptures bearing upon the coming of Christ, yet if, with prayerful diligence, we read and hear, we can not fail, with His promised blessing, to learn and understand enough so that we can readily recognize the cry, and have our lamps trimmed and burning, and well supplied with oil.

Let us find encouragement in His promise, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy of this book,” which is the Apocalypse – Revelation - of Jesus Christ - a book which reveals the events that must transpire before, and in immediate connection with, His coming, which are the signs He has given of His coming, and reveals the events. We all can read and hear, and study all of it, if we can not fully understand all of it. We can obtain the blessing, and that day will not overtake us as a thief and find us unprepared.

But if, through sinful apathy and negligence like the foolish virgins, who will represent a countless multitude of Christians, we fail to inform ourselves so as to be found prepared to meet Him, we will be found standing at the shut door of the marriage supper, vainly knocking for admittance.

By this Christ did not teach that those of His servants who have not made themselves ready to receive Him will be finally rejected and lost. He will not close the door of salvation against them, but only the door of a present distinguished honour and blessing. Those who, through their negligence, refuse to improve the opportunities He gives them will lose the rewards He promises to the faithful and watchful. When He comes to receive His “elect ones” to Himself, the unfaithful and unwatchful will be “left” to suffer with “hypocrites and unbelievers” those terrible years of afflictions, trials and tribulations on this earth, which will close this present dispensation, called “the great tribulation,” such as never was suffered by men on earth from the beginning of time, and such as never will again be suffered.

This is the period when the seven judgment seals will be opened (see Rev. 6. onward), and the seven vials of God’s wrath will be poured out without mixture of mercy upon all those dwelling on the earth (see Rev. 5. - 20.); when men will gnaw their tongues for pain, and their hearts fail for fear of the things still to come; when men will wish to die, and will seek death, and it will flee from them. This state of things is well compared to “outer darkness, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Blessed, thrice blessed, will those Christians be who are accounted worthy to escape these things. Of this Christ warns His disciples: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye, therefore, and pray ye always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” - Luke 21:34-36.

Only those who do take heed to themselves - only the ready and watchful ones represented by the bride and the five wise virgins - will be accounted worthy to escape those things, and to stand before the Son of man.

These will “escape” by being “taken” away from the evils to come. It is to this that Christ alludes: “I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto Him, Where, Lord?

And He said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.” - Luke 18:34-37.

Paul tells us to whom these “ready” Christians will be taken:

“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.” - 1 Thess. 4: 17.*[* See ‘The Pre-tribulation Rapture’ in G. H. Lang’s “Firstfruits and Harvest“.]

But those Christians who are “left” because accounted unworthy to escape the chastening trials and sufferings of “the great tribulation,” will pass through them, and “learn obedience through suffering,” will finally come safely out, some receiving a few and others many stripes, and still others saved yet as by fire, with the loss of all honours and all rewards promised to the diligent and faithful.

These chastisements take place on this earth, and before this [evil] age closes.

The final state of all those represented by the five foolish virgins can be seen by reading Revelations (7: 9, to the end). While they became “servants in the temple of their God,” they never become the bride - never are honoured with thrones and crowns, as the faithful and, therefore, chosen or choice, ones are.

How sad to think the large proportion of Christians, through sinful negligence, will lose the highest honours, and only through the greatest tribulation will enter the kingdom! Will it not be as one hundred and forty-four thousand to a multitude that no man can number? Reader, in what company will you be?

“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

- Matt. 5: 19.

Are there not those who are now very large in their own eves, and in the estimation of the multitudes they seek to please, who will be very small and insignificant when Christ comes to reward His servants? Will not some Christians actually “be ashamed before Christ at His coming?” Ashamed of what?

“And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.” - 1 John 2: 28.

“Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” - Rev. 16:15.

keepeth his

Will all Christians be found ready and watching the coming of Christ? Paul clearly implies that only those Christians who love His appearing will receive crowns of righteousness - i.e. for doing as good and faithful servants. Do all Christians love His appearing? Would they, if they could, have their wish - have Him come to-day? Not one in a thousand of all who profess to be Christians would have Christ come to-day if their prayers could prevent His coming. Will such constitute any part of His bride? Have such the spirit and desire of His bride? Her prayer is, “Even so, come Lord Jesus; COME QUICKLY.” Will my readers turn and read, in this connection, Luke 12: 35-49?

From all this we learn that it is one thing to be barely saved, which every Christian will ultimately be, but quite another thing to be honoured with “the prize of our high calling” - i.e. to sit as a crowned king with Christ on His throne. (Rev. 3: 2.)

The second stage, or the concluding act of His coming, will be when He appears in His own glory, and the glory of His holy angels, with ten thousand of His saints (see Jude), with the “called ones,” the “chosen ones,” and the “faithful ones” (see Rev. 19:14), to take vengeance on His enemies and put His faithful saints in full possession of the redeemed earth, who, as His wife, will share with Him the joint regency of it, when His enemies will have been cut off out of it. (Ps. 37.) If the world will be converted [as Post-millennialists believe] before Christ comes, where will He find enemies to take vengeance upon?

Will the reader stop long enough to read Revelations 17. and 19., and decide if the world is to be converted before the coming of Christ?

TRIBULATIONS There are special periods of “tribulations” and “perilous times,” recognized in the Sacred Scriptures, which must transpire before the second coming of Christ and the close of this dispensation, and which the coming of Christ will conclude.

The whole period of Satan’s dominancy on this earth, from the day the curse was pronounced in Eden for man’s sin, until Satan is bound and cast into the abyss, and the tares (the wicked) and all anti-Christian organizations and powers are crushed and removed from the earth, to afflict and persecute the children of God no more, is, to all true and faithful Christians, one long period of tribulation: “These things I have spoken unto you, that ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” - John 16: 33.

“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God.” Acts 14:22.

“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus SHALL suffer persecution.” - 2 Tim. 3:12.

How very few professed Christians are faithful enough to suffer persecution!

How few ministers can brook the least persecution for the truth’s sake! Will such ever enter the [coming millennial] kingdom or wear a crown?

To no faithful Christian is there a surcease of afflictions and persecutions from the enemies of Christ until His second coming to rid the earth of His enemies. So

there can not be a millennium - a thousand years of peace, rest and glory - before He comes.

The first of these especially troublous times is, in the Old Testament, denominated the TIME OF JACOB’S TROUBLE This period commenced with the conquest and subjugation of the Jewish nation by the Romans, and will continue with more or less intensity until the commencement of the second.

Jeremiah foretold this period in these words: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble.”

Daniel thus: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there ever was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.” Dan. 12:1.

Christ predicts it in these words, which seem to include the whole time from the destruction of Jerusalem until the return of Christ to destroy His enemies, and to redeem Israel out of all his trouble: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should be no flesh saved: but for the elects’ sake those days shall be shortened.” - Matt. 24:21-22.

When Christ wept for the last time over Jerusalem, He pronounced the bitter and long-continued doom and desolation of that city and nation: “Your house is left unto you desolate, and ye shall see my face no more until the day ye shall say, Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord.”

That is, to deliver them; for after His coming all Israel, the ten lost tribes, will be gathered back out of all nations, and placed in their own land, never to be plucked up.

Bear it in mind, these three tribulation periods continue with increasing intensity until the very hour of His appearing; for it will be immediately after and concluding the time of Israel’s trouble that Christ comes: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall

see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” - Matt. 24: 29-31.

THE MANNER OF HIS COMING The angels told the disciples, on the Mount of Olives, the manner of His coming: “Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is, taken up from you into heaven shall come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” - Acts 1:11.

Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives bodily, visibly, and on the clouds of heaven; and in like manner, and not spiritually and invisibly, will He descend again. From these passages we see His coming, in its last act, will be a bodily and visible coming.

But there is, also, a tribulation period, which is for the Gentiles and for all those Christians who are not ready, faithful and watchful, and therefore not accounted worthy to be taken away with the “choice and faithful ones” who will constitute the bride, but are left to experience the terrible trials and afflictions of this period. This is called “THE GREAT TRIBULATION,” and is included in the time of Jacob’s trouble, and ends with it.

There will be multitudes of Christians, which no man can number, of all nations, who will be “left” in this “outer darkness,” as was the slothful servant, to pass through a part or the whole of this “great tribulation period;” and, while they never attain to the honour of being the bride, or a part of the bride, of Christ, never obtain “crowns” and “thrones,” will, nevertheless, be blessed in being either the companions and followers and attendants of the bride or the invited guests to the marriage supper, and even in being servants of the King, to wait and serve Him in His temple: “And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” - Rev. 19:9.

The time and length of this, the great tribulation.

It commences with the first stage of Christ’s coming, and after all the eminent and choice Christians have been “taken” - “caught up to meet the Lord in the air” and will continue until Christ appears with His bride.

Commentators are not agreed as to the length of this period. Some think it is indicated by the time that elapsed between the translation of Enoch and the flood (seven hundred and eighty-one years), which swept the wicked from the earth;

others, the number of days (taken for years) that intervene between the time Noah entered the ark and the opening of the windows of heaven and breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, which was seven days = seven years.

But we have no satisfying data by which to determine the exact length of this period; and we need not to know how long it will continue: “And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power.” - Acts 1:7. ***

CHAPTER 27 THE ENTRUSTED TALENTS “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and fa ithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other t a lents beside them. His lord sa id unto him, Well done, g ood and fa it hful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should hav e receiv ed mine ow n w it h usury.

Ta ke t herefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ” - Matt. 25:14-30.

The Saviour follows the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins with this of the Entrusted Talents, and evidently to teach other and important truths in connection with His coming and the end of this age. The great lesson which He emphasized in the former parable was the necessity of a watchful readiness to meet Him at His coming. He closed it with the injunction, “Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.” (Matt. 25: 13.)

The instructive features of the parable before us are:

1. The lord whose business or pleasure called him into a far country, to be gone a long time.

2. The division of his goods among his own servants, and the manner of it.

3. The slothful servant, and his punishment.

4. The principle on which the lord reckoned with his servants.

THE APPLICATION OF THE PARABLE This parable, in all its features, is eminently realistic. It was not uncommon for the Greeks and Romans to employ the better class of their slaves in trading with the means entrusted to them. Their slaves were principally prisoners of war who had been sold into slavery, and many of them were men of intelligence - of eminent ability as tradesmen and in the various professions. The most renowned fabulist of Greece was Aesop, a slave.* When upon the block to be sold he cried out, “If any man needs a master let him buy me.” When asked by the bidders, as was usual, what he could do, he answered, “Teach men.” And this was true; for his gift in teaching practical wisdom has never been excelled by an uninspired teacher.[* Romans 1: 1, literally translated from the Greek reads: “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called an apostle having been separated to {the} gospel of God.”] The lord in our parable about to travel to a far country to be absent a long time, instead of making a sale of all he possessed, called his own servants unto him, and divided his goods among them. To one he gave five talents ($6,000 of our currency), to another two talents ($2,500), and to another one ($1,200), and so on. Mark the just principle that governed him in this distribution - to each according to his ability. The one to whom he gave but one talent had ability to use, trade with this sum, and make a reasonable profit, but did not have business capacity to manage six thousand dollars, or even twenty-five hundred.

Napoleon said no general could handle ten thousand men more easily or effectively than General Berthier, but he could do nothing with twenty thousand.

The great gift of Napoleon was in understanding the capacity of his generals, and to entrust them with commands according to their several abilities.

These were, one and all, “his own servants.” He had a right to their faithful service - their best endeavours in using his means - so that upon his return he could have his own with a proper increase. This we see in the epithets applied to the servant who failed to profitably use the one talent entrusted to him, “slothful,” “unprofitable,” showing that the master required that all his servants should be diligent and profitable, not sluggards.

THE RETURN AND RECKONING Since the slothful servant is made the most prominent character in the parable, and since so many expositors misteach and destroy its whole scope and true intent, I will give him my first and special attention: 1. He was, like the rest, his master’s “own servant.” In this he differed not from his fellow servants. The lord only entrusted his goods to “his own servants.” He had no claims upon other than “his own servants.” If his other servants represent Christians, so must this servant also. He differed from his fellows in this: He formed a false conception of his lord’s real character, and, influenced by this, he fell into inexcusable slothfulness, and failed to work for him - use to any advantage the talent entrusted to him - and thereby justly incurred his master’s displeasure and punishment.

When his lord called him to account he brought forward the talent only, with this excuse for not having used it: “Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed.” - Matt. 25:24-26.

How groundless and absurd his excuse, will be seen by slightly paraphrasing his lord’s answer: “Grant that I am the hard, exacting, unreasonable master you think I am; so unreasonable and pitiless that you were ‘afraid’ that had you invested my money in trade and lost it, I would have punished you without mercy, and therefore you preferred to suffer my displeasure for its non-use than my greater anger for its loss - grant that your fears were well grounded - why did you not go and deposit my money with the exchangers; then there would have been no hazard about it, and when I came I could have demanded mine own with a proper interest, which is my just due?”

The mouth of the servant was stopped. He could frame no answer. There were in Palestine, then, as here, bankers, exchangers, who allowed interest on all sums deposited with them for any considerable length of time, and this the slothful servant well knew - and his conduct was therefore inexcusable in any light we may view it.

HIS SIN AND PUNISHMENT Since he was his lord’s own servant, as were the other servants, like them he represented Christians, but as a slothful servant he represented slothful ones.

He had not rashly squandered his lord’ money, but he had, wickedly – disobediently - refused to use it for his master’s benefit, and, therefore, deserved to

be sorely chastened with the rod of affliction, as Jonah was, that he might learn obedience through suffering, which, in his case, was spoken of as “outer darkness,” in contrast with the resplendent honours and joys rewarded to his faithful fellow servants. To suppose that the heavenly Father would utterly destroy “His own child” for slothfulness is not only contrary to His revealed paternal character, but to the manifold and explicit teachings of His word.

1. He was made ashamed before his fellow servants by the condemnation of his lord.

2. All that had been entrusted to him was taken from him and given to the one who had evinced the largest ability and faithfulness in using his master’s money.

3. He was denied the resplendent honours and joys awarded to the faithful ones, and suffered grievous chastisement, which is indicated by the phrases “outer darkness” and “gnashing of teeth.” (See Parable of the Virgins for the punishment of the improvident virgins.) No one can find the least fault with the demands or conduct of the lord toward this servant.

But the servant who had received five talents came and returned them with other five talents he gained by diligent use of them; and he received from his lord this commendation and reward: “Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things [exalt thee to a higher trust and honour]. Enter thou into the joy of thy lord [share in the festivities prepared to welcome his return].” It was the fidelity the lord commended, and not the large amount he had gained.

The one who received two talents came and returned them with two other talents beside them, which he had made by the faithful use of them; and the lord said unto him: “Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Here we see the amounts entrusted and gained by service were unequal, but the fidelity being equal the lord equally commended and rewarded them.

The servants represent all true Christians, including the unfaithful, for to no sinner can we properly apply the term which Paul applies to himself, a bond servant - i.e. slave of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures nowhere apply this term to the unregenerate. The unfaithful servant represents the large class of Christians in the churches of Christ who may be said to do nothing, or so little, and that with the feeling of this servant, that by the Master it is accounted as nothing.

But this parable being spoken to His apostles, we will not far misapply it by interpreting it mainly with reference to those endowed with the requisite gift to preach His gospel. Then this slothful and unprofitable servant peculiarly represents that class who are “disobedient to the heavenly calling,” refusing to use

the gifts entrusted to them in the Master’s service, regarding it as too hard a service, and requiring too much of them; and they hide their talents in the earth, in farms, merchandise, or other secular professions, to laying up earthly gains.

That the Saviour intended the lord in this parable to represent Himself no expositor has doubted. He left to go into a far country when He left this world after his ascension. The servants to whom the lord entrusted his goods represent the apostles and His ministers and witnesses of all subsequent time. Jonah was well represented by this servant. He was called and qualified of God to go and preach to the city of Nineveh; but he regarded it as an unreasonable duty laid upon him, evincing the same spirit illustrated by this slothful servant who refused to use the talent for the Master’s benefit: and he sought to hide himself, with his talent, from God in the far-off land of Tarshish. But God hastened to reason with him; and he was cast into outer darkness, from which we hear his cries for relief: “Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell [Heb. ‘Sheol’] cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” - Jonah 2:1-10.

He was sorely chastened in the deep darkness, but God did not cast him off forever, for he was His servant, but gave him repentance, and taught him obedience through suffering.

Had not Jonah truly repented of his disobedience, and cried out unto the Lord, resolving to pay what he had vowed, can we believe that he would have been brought forth again to light?

During the late war a case was brought under my observation strikingly illustrated by this slothful servant: A young physician was brought down from the camp of Johnston’s army, then in Kentucky, to Nashville, suffering from a severe attack of typhoid fever, which was sweeping away so many soldiers. A friend came and entreated that I would allow him shelter and treatment, as the hospitals were so crowded, further urging that he was a Baptist, and of one of the best families of Mississippi.

Although every room and bed but one was then occupied by similar cases, I yielded to the solicitations of his friend, and took him in, calling on my own family physician to attend him, and divided time with him and the rest as a nurse. With every attention, day by day he grew worse and worse, and ere long became the only doubtful case, and before a week had passed the old doctor gave him up to die. I rested upon a couch in his room to give him prompt attention. It was between twelve and one o’clock one night that he called me to his bedside, not to ask for water to moisten his lips, but to ask me to tell him what I regarded as a call to the ministry. I gave him my views of it, and related what I regarded as my own call.

After a pause he said: “Shortly after my conversion and baptism I became similarly impressed, and, notwithstanding all my resistance and endeavours to throw off the impression, it grew upon me, and has continued to grow upon me; but I have felt that in my case it involved too great a sacrifice - that it is an unreasonable demand. I would have to give up my plans of life - plans to achieve eminence in my profession, and to secure a competency and even an ample fortune for myself and wife. To become a minister I would have to consent to be a poor man all the days of my life, and subject my wife and family to dependence and poverty. I have never felt that I could do it; and I have kept my convictions a secret in my own bosom - have not whispered them even to my wife - and now I am here, and about to die; for I realize that I am daily and hourly sinking.” And he asked me if I really thought his convictions, as he had stated them, were a call of God to preach the gospel. I answered him affirmatively, and told him I believed that God had brought him under my roof, and had laid him upon that bed of affliction, and brought him under the shadow of death, as he did Jonah, that he might decide this question in the light of eternity. He asked me to pray for him, which I did, and for God to give him grace to overcome all his temptations to disobedience. When I rose he grasped my hand, and said, as the tears burst from his eyes, “I have decided, if God will raise me up from this bed, I will give my life to Him; I will give up the world and preach.”

He soon became calm, and sank into a gentle slumber, and I returned to my couch. When the physician called at nine in the morning he pronounced the symptoms favourable. At night the improvement was marked. In three or four days the last trace of fever had disappeared.

I well remember the evening he sat in his chair, and examined with the doctor his pulse and tongue, and both agreed that he was convalescent, and they counted the days when it would be safe for him to start home. I had moved my couch below, leaving a bell within his reach should he need my services in the night. At midnight I heard the bell, and hastened to his bedside, and asked what he wished of me. “Tell me,” he said, “did I promise to preach if I recovered from this sickness?” I answered, “Yes, Brother - you did.” “Did I positively promise?” “Most

certainly and solemnly you did.” “Well, I can not - I will not. It is more than I am willing to do. The sacrifice is too great.”

I reasoned with him, and told him I believed he imperilled his life should he violate his vow unto the Lord, and tried to pray for him, but he closed the interview with, “I can not, I will not, preach.”

Before the sun set the next day the doctor reported an unfavourable symptom; the next morning a rise of fever, which, despite all efforts, steadily increased, and in less than one week from that dread night he died - died in great darkness of soul. His tongue had shrivelled, and turned black as a coal, and seemed drawn into his throat, choking him.

I have witnessed many a death, but never one like that! The old doctor said it was a fearfully strange case, and seemed to him like a judgment of God. Was he a Christian? I have never doubted it. The evidence he gave of regeneration, his religious life, his deep and lasting conviction that it was his duty to preach the gospel, all attested that he was a servant of God; but he was a disobedient servant. He hid his talent, refusing to use it, although convinced that it was a duty required of him, but an unreasonable one. He was sorely but justly punished, and his talent taken from him. Saved, yet as by fire! Saved, but without a reward!

Ministers endowed with five talents, who use them with becoming diligence, will be both approbated and raised from servants to rulers over many things. And ministers entrusted with fewer talents, if they evince equal diligence, will be equally rewarded with those who faithfully use larger trusts.

From this parable we learn these important lessons: 1. That the King imperatively demands work from every citizen of His kingdom.

2. That He entrusts to each one the means with which to work, and means according to his ability.

3. That the absence of the Lord will give ample time for each one to work, and to work effectually.

4. That the work done by each one will be valued and rewarded according to the principle illustrated in the reckoning made with these servants: viz., equal diligence in the use of unequal endowments equally rewarded.

5. From the case of the slothful servant, that the law of divine jurisprudence is that they who employ well what they have shall retain it all and receive more in addition, whereas they who do not rightly employ what they have will be deprived of that which they possess but do not use.

6. That our Master will pronounce the encomium “good and faithful” on many whom the world has regarded as comparative failures. The widow’s mite is more to Him than the large gifts of the wealthy, because it is the offering of a devoted spirit.

How blessed to serve a Master who is utterly superior to the vulgar worship of success and quantity!

How blessed, moreover, to serve One who is as generous as He is equitable!

For that any servant should be praised as both these were, is no less noteworthy than that one is as much praised as the other. In this respect, also, the parable is faithful to the spirit of God and of Christ as exhibited in the Bible. ***

CHAPTER 28 THE ENTRUSTED POUNDS “AND as they heard these things, He added and spake a parable, because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And be called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saving, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom lie had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.

Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.” - Luke 19:11-27.

This parable is only recorded by Luke, and is a companion of the last, that of The Talents, and probably was related in connection with that.

The veri-similitudes are so great, and meet in so many points, that some expositors* are of the opinion that this is Luke’s version of the Parable of the Talents recorded by Matthew, of which admission the enemies of inspiration are not slow to avail themselves. * “The man who can not perceive, or will not own, that these are two distinct cases, with different though co-equal lessons, is not fit to be an expositor of any writing, either sacred or profane.” - ARNOT. I can not for a moment entertain this opinion.

1. Because it gravely militates against the inspiration of the Scriptures, and 2. Because it was evidently given to illustrate another principle in the administration of rewards in the kingdom of Christ, and 3. To dispossess the minds of His disciples, and the multitudes, of the impression that the kingdom of God was about to appear. Luke tells us that it was given for this express purpose.

The Parable of the Talents was manifestly given to illustrate that, in the administration of the rewards in the kingdom of Christ, unequal endowments used with equal diligence will be equally rewarded.

In this parable, another equally important principle, viz.: that equal endowments used with unequal diligence will be unequally rewarded.

Both alike exhibit the grand cardinal distinction between the faithful and faithless; but in pointing out also the diversities that obtain among true disciples, they view the subject on opposite sides, each presenting that aspect of it which the other omits.

The Parable of the Talents teaches us that Christians differ from each other in the amount of gifts which they receive; and the Parable of the Pounds teaches us that they differ from each other in the diligence they display.

The third reason is stated by the evangelist: “And as they heard these things, He added and spake a parable, because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.” - Luke 14:11.

The disciples became fully occupied with the thought that upon Christ entering Jerusalem He would publicly proclaim Himself king and set up a temporal kingdom, and deliver them from the power of the Romans, and at this time fulfil the prophecies concerning their Messiah’s kingdom and reign. To disabuse their minds of this idea - i.e. that this millennial kingdom was immediately to appear was the prime reason for speaking this parable.

The representative characters or events in this allegory are:

1. The nobleman.

2. His journey and its cause.

3. His dividing of his goods among his servants.

4. The principle by which he was governed in settling with them.

5. The idle servant.

6. The conduct and punishment of his enemies.

This nobleman was doubtless the hereditary heir of this kingdom, and it was but the formal investiture of kingship he went to receive from the supreme head of the empire. This feature had a historical basis in the political condition of the Jews under the Roman power.

“Judea had been conquered by the Romans, under Pompey, 63 B. C., and though it was still governed in part by native princes, yet they ruled as deputies of Rome, and under its protectorate. Those, therefore, who, by hereditary succession or interest, thought they had any title to the government of the Jewish provinces, sought, of course, to confirm their claim by an appeal to the emperor or senate of the imperial city. Thus Herod the Great hastened to Rome to obtain the kingdom of Judea from Antony, which, having received, he was solemnly proclaimed king of the Jews. By the last will and testament of this monarch his son Archelaus was constituted ruler of Judea, Samaria and Idumea, yet could not enter upon his ethnarchship until his dignity was confirmed by Augustus. Accordingly he went to Rome, literally ‘into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom;’ but the Jews, knowing his purpose, sent thither fifty ambassadors to entreat Augustus that Archelaus might not be made their king, and were so far successful that, though Augustus confirmed him in his government as ethnarch, he would not invest him with the regal name and dignity. The allusion of our Lord, therefore, to this wellknown historical fact, gave deeper significance to the parable, and made the people more attentive to the truths which it was intended to convey.”

That it was not the kingship of a far distant country he sought, but of his native land, else the conduct of his citizens would have been incongruous.

This feature of the parable was based upon the conduct of the Jews towards Archelaus, as stated above.

The nobleman called his ten servants and delivered unto them ten pounds (two hundred dollars), from which two statements - i.e. the number of his servants (only ten) and the smallness of the amount (twenty dollars) entrusted to each - some expositors infer the poverty of the nobleman. His command was, “Occupy till I come” - trade, use, with intelligence, to the best of your discretion, until I return, which they knew could not be soon, for it was into a far country he was going, and upon an important mission to the imperial court, and both the time and the

business at court would require time, and, therefore, they knew they would have ample time to engage in business. Let it be noted that all those to whom he entrusted his goods were, as in The Talents, his own servants, not his enemies.

The years roll on, and after a long time, as Matthew expresses it, the lord returned, and commanded those servants to whom he had given the money that he might know how much each man had gained by trading. They promptly responded and each rendered his account, and it was found that some had increased their trusts more than others.

The first came and said, “Lord, with thy pounds, by trading, I have gained ten pounds”. And the lord said unto him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful with a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.” And the second servant came, saying, “Lord, with thy one pound I have traded, and made five pounds”. And the lord said unto him, “Well done, thou good servant; be thou over five cities.” These nine good and faithful servants, all expositors and reasoners agree, represent Christians of this age; and to each one Christ, represented by the hereditary nobleman, has entrusted a gift with which to serve Him. Touching the last servant there is a diversity of views. He, like the servant entrusted with the one talent, was an idle servant, and had done nothing with his pound. Bringing it back, he said, “Behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin” - sudarium, sweat-cloth - which, not working, he needed not use.

His judgment was like that of the slothful servant in the Parable of the Talents.

What we may learn from this parable: 1. That every child of God is created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and are His servants – douloi - slaves, bond servants - having been purchased with His own precious blood. Paul delighted to call himself a slave-bound servant of Jesus Christ.

2. That to teach one of His servants, He commits a trust - a pound - with which to serve Him; we may call this personal influence, which we can augment in proportion to our diligence in His service, and for this we are responsible, not for its safe keeping only, but for its diligent use.

3. That Christ our Lord has left this earth, and ascended into the court of heaven, to be formally invested with royal power and prerogatives over this entire earth as the reward of His redemptive work. God the Father has said, “Sit thou on my throne until I make thy foes thy footstool.” Christ has been formally invested with the supreme government and judgeship of this earth. He so declared this fact when He said, “All power in heaven and in earth;” “Go ye therefore into all the earth, and preach the gospel to every nation.”

4. We learn that He will return to this earth to reign over this kingdom He has received.

5. That His enemies will remain defiant and protesting on this earth until He does return, and then they will all be brought before Him and miserably slain, as saith the Scriptures: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter ’s vessel.

Be wise now therefore, O y e ki ng s: b e instru cted, y e j udg es of the ea rt h.

Serv e t he LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” - Ps. 2:1-9.

“ And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; ...” - Rev. 19:11-17.

6. And finally “The disproportion between fidelity in the use of a single pound of Hebrew money (twenty dollars) and the reward consequent thereon, of being made a ruler over five or ten cities, can not fail to arrest attention; and yet how beautifully does this apparent disproportion illustrate a marked feature of the divine economy, whereby God rewards not deeds, but motives; not results, but principles! So here the principles of faithful zeal to the humblest trust is requited by transferring that lowly labourer to a broader field of action, where this principle, so fully tested in small matters, has now scope for noble and efficient development. And a blessed thought it is, that we are not rewarded so much for the outward and visible ministrations of duty as for the inward and spiritual principles which guide our

souls, which principles indeed are not of our own getting, but are implanted in us by the Holy Ghost. Hence it follows that the humblest servant of God may attain to heights in glory and reaches of power far above what may be accorded to the more seemingly active and fruitful professor, because of the different principles which were the motive power in each.”

The theory that they will all be converted, and made His friends, and welcome Him back to reign over them, is delusive to the mind by this parable. ***

CHAPTER 29 THE BLADE, THE EAR, AND THE FULL CORN The Gradual Development of Christ’s Kingdom.

“And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.”--Mark 4:26-29.

That this parabolic, gem, so natural and so significant, should be recorded only by Mark is “one of the surprises of gospel history;” but it does not militate either its “genuineness or importance.”

Of this parable Dr. Bruce, of Scotland says: “The law of growth in the spiritual world, not being duly laid to heart, has, therefore, not been found here, and this parable consequently has been misinterpreted, or rather scarcely interpreted at all. Few of our Lord’s parables have been more unsatisfactorily expounded, as there are few in which a right exposition is more to be desired for the good of believers” ( Parabolic Teachings, p.

120.)

This expositor verifies the truth of his own assertion by interpreting this parable, at great length, as teaching the growth of grace in the souls of Christians; in other words, that sanctification is a gradual growth, and, in trying to conform it to the laws of growth in the natural world, he altogether misses, I think, what Christ intended and does manifestly teach by this parable, Indeed, Dr. Bruce frankly confesses that he has limited its application to the individual Christian’s experience rather than to the history of the kingdom of God at large, its real scope, and his apology is because he understands the former better than the latter. So disingenuous is his admission, and so applicable his reason to other commentators, that I quote him verbally here: “And here we shall confine ourselves to the experience of the individual, though sensible that the history of the kingdom of God at large is a far greater theme than that of any individual Christian, and ready to admit that it was probably the former which our Lord had chiefly in His thoughts when lie uttered the parable. Our apology for restricting our inquiry to the minor subject is, first, that we understand it better.”--Bruce, p.133 Let the reader mark this writer’s statement, which I accept as true, viz,: that “our Lord had the history of His kingdom at large chiefly in His thoughts when He uttered this parable.” Had he said wholly in His thoughts, it would have been nearer the exact truth for this is what He explicitly declared the parable was intended to illustrate, viz.: that the growth of His kingdom would be slow and by marked stages from its origin to its final and glorious consummation, like unto that of a seed of corn from its planting to its final development--the full corn in the ear. But, amazingly strange, although this is so clearly

stated by Christ as the true and only scope of the parable, commentators so generally, Dr. Bruce not excepted, ignore it, and even base their interpretations upon a single and confessedly mistranslated text of Scripture! (Luke 17:20.) Christ’s kingdom, composed, as it is, of His visible local churches, could not be in the hearts of those wicked and murderous Pharisees, either in its literal or spiritual, its physical or figurative, senses. It was among them or in their midst, although they did not discern the fact; and this is undoubtedly what Christ said. At another time He said, “But if I, by the finger of God, cast out devils, then has the kingdom of God come unto you.” I can recall no passage in the Sacred Scriptures where it is taught or intimated that Christ’s kingdom ever was or ever could be in the hearts of saints or sinners. Paul does, in one place, say that “the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit;” but this is manifestly an elliptical sentence for the fruits of the kingdom-its aim and the natural result of its rule. We all know that the apple is not the tree, nor the grape the vine, that produces it. The third Napoleon, in the fete given at his coronation, said, for the ear of the foreign diplomats, “The empire is peace.” certainly did not mean that the French government was either literally or figuratively peace, but that its aims would be to secure peace with all nations.

I regret to say that one of our own recent and valued commentators of the New Testament thus briefly explains the scope of this parable: “The kingdom of God in the soul and in the world, a life and a growth not dependent on human power, gradual, progressive and complete in its development.”--Dr. George Clark’s Notes, published by the American Baptist Publication Society.

A SUGGESTED INTERPRETATION. Analogous to the three noted stages in the growth of a seed of corn--viz.: 1. From the appearance of the blade to that of the stalk. 2. From the stalk to the appearance of the ear.

3. From the earing to the full corn in the ear--its complete and ripened development--is the growth of the kingdom of heaven.

These stages of growth would be the three marked periods in the growth of His kingdom on earth I. Its inceptive or organizing period.

II. Its development.

III. Its full and glorious consummation.

1. The Inceptive Period includes the time from the planting of the first church (the setting up of the kingdom) until the ascension of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spiriti.e. the period of the personal administration of it by Christ himself.

As in the case of the blade stage of the corn, the casual and unintelligent observer could not discern the real character of the plant, or distinguish it from the common grass of the field, and certainly not discover anything that bore the appearance of an ear of corn, so many casual readers and partisan interpreters profess to see nothing in the history of Christianity from the days of John the Baptist until Pentecost that indicates the existence of the kingdom of Christ; but, nevertheless, it was as certainly there, in its elementary form, as the undeveloped ear is in the corn blade. Christ himself expressly and repeatedly asserted its actual existence:

“THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS WERE UNTIL JOHN, SINCE WHICH TIME THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS PREACHED, AND ALL MEN [NOT PRESS INTO BUT] ASSAIL IT.”--LUKE 16:16.

This agrees with Matt. 11:12.

“AND WHEN HE WAS DEMANDED OF THE PHARISEES WHEN THE KINGDOM OF GOD SHOULD COME HE ANSWERED THEM AND SAID, THE KINGDOM OF GOD COMETH NOT WITH OBSERVATION ; NEITHER SHALL THEY SAY, LO HERE OR THERE, FOR LO, THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS IN THE MIDST OF YOU.” --LUKE 17:20-21. (SEE AMERICAN REVISION.) That is, it was there present among them.

“BUT IF I CAST OUT DEVILS BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEN IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD COME UNTO YOU.”--MATT. 12:28.

It was an actual existence. Publicans and harlots entered into it by baptism. The scribes and Pharisees assailed it. Christ informed Nicodemus that except a man were born of the spirit he could not see it, and, unless born of water (baptized) in addition to the spiritual birth, he could not enter it, which implies its existence.

During this, the Organizing Period, the kingdom was under the direct personal administration of its King and Founder. He was building, setting up and establishing it. Its laws were both enacted and executed by Him in person. This period was represented by the cutting of the stone out of the mountain without hands-i. e. human or angelic agency.

2. The Second Period in the progress of Christ’s kingdom embraces all the time from His ascension until His return--the Regeneration. (Matt. 19:28.) This period is analogous to the earing time of the corn blade or stalk, and, in Daniel’s prophecy, is the time between the cutting out of the stone from the mountain and its smiting the great image. (Dan. 2:44.)

During the blade, or stalk, period of the corn, as I have said, there was nothing, to the inexperienced eye, that looked like an ear of corn; yet, during this period, after the form of an ear and the green, imperfect and scattered grains of corn appeared, no one questioned that it was indeed corn; so, in this age, few can be found to deny that the kingdom, in one of its phases, is in existence. The kernels of corn are fast multiplying in the ear; and the signs of its fullness and maturity are manifold and evident to every Scripturally intelligent observer.

3. The Third Period in the progressive growth of the kingdom, represented by the first appearance of the green ear on the stalk, and the scattering kernels of unripe corn upon it, to the FULL CORN IN THE EAR, represents all the time in the history of the kingdom from the return of Christ--when commences the Regeneration--until the close of the Millennial Age.

(1 At the commencement of this Third Period Christ will return with all His now

glorified saints, gathered from their graves and caught up and out of the living populations of earth.

(2 Then will take place, in their presence, the judgment of nations, as nations, and the avenging of their blood upon those that dwell upon the earth- those “goat nations” that oppressed and persecuted them.

(3 Then Antichrist himself will be destroyed, and all Antichristian organizations, civil and religious (and at this time the whole world, with its kings and rulers, will be under his control, and in open rebellion to Christ), will be crushed into dust by Christ as King of His saints, as the symbolic stone cut out of the mountain, and their very dust driven from the earth like the chaff by the wind of a summer’s threshing floor.

Thus and then will the prophecies of Daniel 2:44, and David (Ps. 2.), and John (Rev. 20.), be fulfilled when the stone-kingdom will smite the image and break it in pieces. But this is not all of it. It was to become a great mountain and fill the whole earth.

Then will Christ, as the antitype of David, by His almighty power, subdue all His enemies, overcome and bind and cast out Satan, the strong man armed; will spoil his goods (Luke 11:21-23) and take possession of all the kingdoms of this earth.

“The Regeneration” will be the constituting of all these kingdoms into His one now universal kingdom, over which, with His saints as joint heirs, He will reign on this earth for one thousand years in undisputed sway, as King of kings and Lord of lords, “and all men shall see and fear His glory from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.”

This Millennial Period, during which the “full corn in the ear” will appear in its ripened state--its full glory--I call

The Consummation of the Kingdom.

I refer to the following Scriptures in support of these positions, which I trust the reader will carefully read: Dan. 2:34-45; 7:26-28; Luke 22:29-31; Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:2022; Rev. 19:11; 20:1-7, 10; 2Tim. 2:12.

CHAPTER 30 THE NET “AGAIN, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” - Matt. 13:47-50.

Although this is one of the three briefest of Christ’s parables, containing but four verses and eighty-four words, Christ clearly explained its scope to His disciples, as He did the Parable of the Tares, yet, like that, it has given rise to diverse interpretations to sustain a false church theory and called forth no little discussion.

The principal figures of this parable are: 1. The net.

2. The fishers.

3. The fishes.

4. The sea.

5. The separation of the fishes.

6. The great truths taught by it.

For a clearer understanding of this parable we must understand what these figures or symbols were designed by the great Teacher to represent. So much that is false has been put forth that I must be allowed a little space to remove the rubbish, that the reader can better understand its true teachings.

1. The net.

There are two principal views put forth as to what the net was intended to represent, which, I think, are equally unscriptural and absurd.

(a) The great majority of commentators and interpreters maintain that it represents “the church,” which means as near nothing as can be conceived of; since, as an entity, visible or invisible, it does not exist, save in the exuberant imaginations of a certain class of ecclesiologists. Whenever we meet with the phrase in the New Testament, not referring to a local organization, it is only a figurative expression, one being used for all - a collective noun. The word of God knows no such organization as “the church,” composed of many or all of the churches of Christ.

Those who use this phrase can not claim they mean Christ’s invisible spiritual church, for two good reasons: (1) It can not be shown that He has such a church. (2) None but true believers, saints, the really saved, could belong to such a body, if it existed, as the very name indicates; but in this “net” were many bad fishes, and doubtless more bad than good ones.

This interpretation of the net is evidently advanced in the interest of what is called the “universal visible church theory” - i.e. religious bodies like the Greek, Roman, Anglican and Protestant state organizations -which forcibly gathers all the population of the state, good and bad, infants and adults, into their world-wide folds, who will not enter voluntarily, and retain them in church fellowship, knowing them to be notoriously bad and worthless.

These commentators belong to such worldly organizations, and, as I have suggested, their interpretations of God’s word are influenced by their peculiar views of what they consider a church of Christ. In support of their practice of embracing the whole world in their churches, they say that all who should be saved should be gathered into “the church,” and appeal to Acts 2: 47, as mistranslated by King James’ translators, and to this parable, claiming that the net signifies “the church,” and to that of the tares, claiming also that the field is “the church,” in which the notoriously wicked are to be retained until the angels make the final separation at the end of the millennial dispensation - the final judgment.

But Christ, in His interpretation of the Parable of the Tares, tells us that the “field is the world,” and therefore it can not mean “the church” in that parable; and if the net signifies “the church” in this, then a figure can represent a figure, which is contrary to the laws of figurative language, and so this theory must be abandoned, and this parable is rescued from being construed to support an unscriptural and pernicious church theory and practice.

But the significations put forward by some Baptist commentators and writers are no less absurd. So anxious to avoid the rock of a world-embracing church theory, they perish in Charybdis.

E.g.: Dr. Williams * teaches us that by the net Christ meant “the Christian dispensation!!” and says it can not signify “the church,” because its members were

once fishes themselves! (See Commentary in loco.)* His Commentary on Matthew is published by the American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia.

We can by the same parity of reasoning say that the fishers could not represent the apostles in Christ’s day, and all the true ministers of Christ in all after ages, because they were once fishes themselves.

It is evident there should be some similarity between the things compared, or the design used, or the manner or results of their operation, to suggest the idea of a comparison or analogy. But what conceivable likeness in any respect there is between a fisherman’s net and the Christian dispensation, or between the world and a net, I have not an imagination sufficiently fanciful to suggest.

By the net, in this parable, I understand is meant the kingdom of Christ, composed, as it is, of all His true churches; not, primarily, because Christ says “the kingdom is like a net,” but because in some of the above-mentioned respects it is like a fisherman’s net, and, secondarily, because it is like nothing else mentioned in the parable. It is analogous in some respects to a net, or there is no analogy, no parable. But granting that fishes represent men, there is a striking analogy between the administration of the kingdom by the ministers and servants of Christ (which is composed of all His true churches), and the management and operation of a net by fishermen, those who use it, and in the final results of the operation, in separating the worthless from the good, as we learn from Christ himself.

There is even a closer likeness. A fisher’s net is an organism, a definitely constructed implement for a definite purpose, made of peculiar material - heavy twine with meshes of different sizes.

So is the kingdom of Christ a definite organization, set up “for a definite purpose,” and constituted of definite material - His true churches, Which were designed to be composed of true [regenerate] Christians.

But what conceivable likeness is there between a fisher’s net and the Christian dispensation, a period of time, or “the world,” the physical earth or the race of mankind?

2. Who do the fishers, the men who manage the net, represent?

Christ has answered this question for us: “And He saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matt. 4:19.

What His apostles were in their days all the true ministers of Christ are called to be - fishermen - “fishers of men.”

We can readily see the analogy between the operations of Christ’s ministers and expert fishermen. The latter, by all judicious means, endeavour to get all the good fishes possible into their nets. They certainly do not seek to gather in worthless

ones. They fish and secure good fishes, if servants, for the use of those who employ them.

So Christ makes it the duty of His ministers to disciple, by the preaching of the gospel, so as to gather as many believers as possible into His kingdom (which is constituted of His true churches), and this for His own glory.

But how can this rationally be said of the Christian dispensation, or of “the world?”

If the advocates of this theory claim that it gathers the race of mankind into eternity, and before the angels who separate the good from the bad, etc., I reply that it does so no more than any preceding one did, or the subsequent dispensation will do, and therefore the figure fails.

3. The fishes, we know, represent men. The good, which, in the final separation, are gathered into vessels, are those who savingly receive the gospel preached Christians. The bad are hypocrites.* [* They might be ‘hypocrites,’ but the question begging to be asked is: “Were they regenerate?” See for example 1 Cor. 5:9-13. cf. Numbers 16:26 and 1 Cor. 10:1-11, R.V.] 4. The sea undoubtedly represents the world - the masses of mankind to whom the gospel is to be preached, and upon whom the influences of the kingdom of heaven are brought to bear for their salvation.

5. The separation (gathering the good fishes into vessels and casting the worthless ones away), as Christ clearly teaches, points forward to the final judgment which will take place, not at the close of this, but of the millennial, age.

THE GREAT TRUTHS TAUGHT BY THIS PARABLE 1. From the peculiar kind of implement used - the net - we learn a lesson and a prophecy.

It was not a hook and line - hand-pole arrangement nor even a common dip net (diktuon), that could only be used in pools along the shore or cast over the side of a boat (John 21: 6), but a drag net (sagene), with which the whole Sea of Galilee could, by repeated efforts, be dragged over. Dr. Trench thus describes it: “It is called a draw net, and the particular kind is specified by the word in the original [sagene]. On the coast of Cornwall, England, where it is now used, it bears the same name - seine, or sean. It is sometimes half a mile in length.16 It is leaded below, that it may sweep the bottom of the sea, and supported by corks above; and, having been carried far out, so as to enclose a large space of sea, the ends are brought together, and it is drawn upon the beach with all that it contains.

16

This kind of net is now used all along the South Atlantic shore.

This all-embracing nature of the net must not be left out of sight, since it represents the wide reach and potent operation of the gospel [‘of the kingdom’].”

“Launch out into the deep” was the reproving command of Christ to His unsuccessful disciples, who had fished all night and caught nothing (John 5: 4); and the result of their obedience was, both boats were filled to sinking with the fishes taken at the one draught.

Is not this meagre success of the disciples - skimming along the shore of Lake Tiberias, dipping here and there into a few favourite places - typical of the comparative failure of our missionary policy in this age? Have we not spent our means, time and energies principally upon our own shores, that have been, not Christianized to be sure, but years ago thoroughly evangelized, and not launched out boldly into the deep to sweep, as with a far-reaching drag net, the unseined waters of the broad sea of our perishing humanity? It is the selfishness inherent in our churches that is the source and root of this sinful disobedience to the explicit command of Christ, “Go into all the world,” not to attempt to Christianize or educate, but to evangelize, the nations.

The Saviour, by this parable, evidently taught His disciples that during His absence they were to act like discreet and energetic men fishing, not with rod and line along the shore, but with a capacious drag net, sweeping every part of the lake or sea.

Most respectfully would I submit my long-settled convictions, confirmed by the careful study of this parable, in connection with that of the invitations to the great supper, and that of the sower, that we, the Christians of this age, are gravely mistaking the true purport of the great commission, and consequently the duty it imposes upon us. We are directing our foreign missionary enterprise, it seems to me, as though Christ’s command read, Go into some of the nations of the earth, and remain in those you do enter until you Christianize and educate, and so elevate, them morally and socially. Are we not concentrating and settling our foreign missionaries as residents in local habitations in a few favoured spots, to remain for fifteen or twenty or forty years, building for them permanent residences and costly church edifices and school buildings, and even high schools and colleges, for the secular education of the heathen, instead of devoting every dollar of our means raised for missions to the support of missionaries while they go forth, as did the apostles and the seventy under the eye of Christ, and as did the missionaries of the apostolic age, preaching from province to province, and from city to city? By this active itineracy, before the death of the last apostle less than a score of foreign missionaries preached the gospel for a witness to every known nation of the earth.

Must we not believe that they adopted the policy Christ intended them to pursue, and for us also in this age? We must believe it. Let us then study the map of the three missionary journeys of Paul, Christ’s first called and sent missionary to the

Gentiles.* Did he stop at any point and send back an appeal or an agent to collect thousands and tens of thousands of dollars from the poor churches to build schoolhouses, or even a meeting-house, in Ephesus, Corinth or the great city of Rome, the metropolis of the world?* Jonah was the first and only foreign missionary I read of in the Old Testament sent to the Gentiles, but nowhere can I find an intimation that he sent back to Judea for funds to build a synagogue or school-houses in the great city of Nineveh, his appointed field of labour.

Brethren, bear with me. I can nowhere find where Christ, our only Law-giver and Guide in this work, has made it our duty to build school-houses in order to educate the heathen, or to erect costly or un-costly church edifices in their great cities or towns for them to worship in. Nor do I anywhere read that Paul or Peter, in their life-time missionary work, ever built a church edifice, much less a schoolhouse, and supplied teachers to educate the heathen; and until I am better informed I must be excused for saying, Millions for the evangelization, but not a cent for the [the spiritual] education, of the heathen. It is my serious fear that if we continue this mistaken policy of expending tens and scores of thousands of dollars in building school-houses and high schools, and supporting teachers for them, to educate the heathen, we shall ere long break down our whole foreign missionary enterprise. The churches will recoil from the whole work as infinitely beyond their ability to accomplish.

The evangelical Christians of America can do what they are called upon to do-preach the gospel to (evangelize) every nation on earth, and do it in one generation - the next thirty or fifty years - if they will only adopt and rigidly pursue the missionary policy pursued by the apostles and missionaries of the first age of Christianity.

2. The second lesson, which is a prophecy, clearly taught by this parable, is that in the whole work of evangelizing the nations Christ did not contemplate or warrant us in entertaining the thought that His kingdom would be free from hypocrites and wicked men any more than a drag net, however skilfully cast and hauled to the shore, would be free of worthless and bad fishes. His ministers can not read the hearts of men, and it is the subtle policy of Satan, His great adversary, to corrupt and work detriment to His kingdom. Although he can not prevail against it so as to destroy it, he can persecute and wear down, but not wear out or exterminate, His saints.

This kingdom of heaven enclosed a Judas during the administration of Christ himself. During the first revivals under the administration of the apostles, it enclosed an Ananias and Sapphira, and Simon Magus.

The church at Jerusalem, in Paul’s life-time, swarmed with “false brethren,� and Judaizing teachers, whom Paul called emissaries of Satan, who, by their damnable heresies, perverted the gospel of Christ. The like of these have been in

the kingdom in every age of Christianity; and from this parable we learn that it will be so until Christ comes to thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner, and to burn up the chaff in unquenchable fire.

3. We also learn that there will not be a pure or converted citizenship in His kingdom even, much less a converted world, before Christ’s second coming and therefore the theory known as post-millennialism must be unscriptural and false.

4. We learn that there will be an ultimate and final separation of the righteous from the wicked, and this at the end of the millennial dispensation,* when the net will be hauled to the shore, which is in perfect harmony with the teachings of both the old and new covenants.[* And also at the end of this “evil age,” and therefore before the commencement of the ‘millennial dispensation’.]

“Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.” - Psalms 1:5.

“For evil-doers shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” - Psalms 37:9.

“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” - Daniel 12:2.

“Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matt. 3:12. (See Parable of the Tares.)

“And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” - Rev. 20:14-15.

5. That there will be no second probation for those who reject the gospel in this age.

The net was pulled to the shore but once, and there was only one separation of the good from the bad fishes. ***

CHAPTER 31 A SUMMARY OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE PARABLES BEFORE dismissing the cluster of parables I have noticed, it seems to me a brief summary of their teachings will be acceptable and profitable to my readers.

There is to my mind a striking theological connection and order between the parables I have explained, which, taken together, illustrate the doctrines bearing upon “THE RUIN and REDEMPTION of the RACE.” They may not have been spoken at the same time, or to the same audience, or in the order I have treated them, or the evangelists have recorded them.

They were given, we know, to make known to the apostles the great facts constituting the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which had not been heretofore revealed to patriarch or prophet: “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” - Eph. 3:4-5.

And first made known by these parables to the apostles: “How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery; as I wrote afore in few words.” - Eph. 3:3.

Some of these facts are: 1. That by Satan, the great adversary of God and enemy of man, sin was introduced into the world, and by sin death and the ruin of the race, and of the world. That the effects filled this world with wickedness, which state would continue until the end of the [present] age, when, and not before, there would be a final separation between the righteous and the wicked, and that the wicked would be punished; and, by implication, we learn from this that the field, which is the world, will then be restored to its primitive state.

These facts we learn from the Parable of the Wheat-field oversown with Tares, etc.

2. The parables of the finding of the treasure hidden in a field, and the purchase of that field, and the merchantman finding and purchasing the pearl with all he had - of the lost coin sought for and recovered - of the lost sheep sought after and restored to its fold - illustrate the compassionate love of Christ for a lost and ruined world, and the infinite price He was willing to pay for its redemption, “all that He had” - “Although He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we, through His poverty, might become rich.”

3. From the parable of the prodigal son restored to his father’s love and house and forfeited inheritance, from the invitations to the great supper being extended to all [upon repentance], by that of the sower over-sowing the whole “field,” and of the drag-net and the good shepherd, we learn that the religion of Christ is not a race religion, to be confined to the Jews only, but that the blessings of Christ’s redemptive work [during the “age” yet to come] are intended for all people, kindreds, tribes and nations - the Gentiles as well as the Jews - and this great and glorious fact Paul denominates “the mystery of Christ:” “Which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel.” - Eph. 3: 5, 6.

That the Jews, on account of their persistent and wicked rejection of Christ and His authority and saving work, would themselves be denied the blessings of His grace and honours of His kingdom in this age, and that it would be taken from them and given to the Gentiles, was also a great mystery, revealed for the first time in the Parables of the Wicked Husbandmen, the Great Supper, and the Wedding Feast.

The continued, subtle and successful opposition of Satan to the progress of Christ’s redemptive work, in every phase of it, is also forcibly illustrated in the parables I have thus far examined.

The ruin he brought upon the world by the introduction of sin we have already noticed.

That the gospel of man’s salvation - the doctrine of Christ, the bread of eternal life - introduced by Christ as the antidote of sin and its maladies, Satan would stealthily corrupt by the introduction of the leaven of deadly error, is taught us by the parable of the leaven which a woman hid in the meal until the whole was leavened.

That His kingdom, which He designed should be composed of saints - the saved only (Acts 2:47) - would be demoralized and suffer detriment by being filled with hypocrites, worldly and wicked men, who are the emissaries of Satan, we learn from the Parable of the Mustard Tree, into whose branches the “birds of the air” flocked to lodge, and of the Drag-net, which gathered the bad and worthless fishes as well as the good.

And we learn the saddening fact that, through the deceitful and baneful influence of Satan on the hearts of men, the saying influences of the gospel preached will be successfully resisted and aborted in the case of the vast majority of those who hear and profess to receive it: so that if the field, being the world, were all carefully oversown with the good seed of the gospel, as the sower sowed all parts of his field, but a fractional part of it would so receive it as to bring forth the saving fruits of it. So long as this powerful, malignant and subtle antagonism of Satan is allowed to be exerted upon the race, how can we expect, as the friends of Christ, to successfully oppose and counteract it, when his success was so signal during the personal ministry of Christ and His apostles?

In this connection, and in answer to this question, and to cheer the despondency of Christians, I submit the Parable of THE STRONG MAN ARMED. “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusteth, and divideth his spoils.” - Luke 11:21-23.

Satan is forcibly represented by a strong man, and a strong man armed. And Christ is the only one stronger than he.

Satan is in himself a powerful being - the prince of demons and powers of darkness - and he is armed with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness, and his influence over the hearts and persons of the wicked is almost irresistible.

That he is the possessor of this world, of all its kingdoms and their glory, he boldly asserted in the face of Christ on the mount of temptation, and Christ did not contradict him: “And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, shewed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto Him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.” - Luke 4:5-7.

And he will continue to possess and rule this world until the close of this dispensation, when he will be dethroned, bound and cast out of it, and his kingdoms and their glory possessed and ruled over by Christ and His saints, not by the preaching of the gospel, but by omnipotent external force, we find clearly revealed by Christ by His servant John: “ And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that w rought miracles before him, with which he deceived them tha t had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.” - Rev. 19: 11-21.

“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.”- Rev. 20:1-5.

The post-millennial theory - i.e. that all nations are to be Christainized and subdued to the reign of Christ by the preaching of the gospel before Christ’s second coming - is certainly unscriptural. ***

CHAPTER 32 CHRIST’S LAST GREAT PROPHECY – THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” - Matt.

25:31-46.

This is justly called “Our Lord’s Great Prophecy.” It is the greatest of all He uttered while on this earth. Of all His prophecies or teachings, none have been more largely written upon or more generally wrested and misinterpreted by commentators, and consequently misunderstood by the people, than this. The cause of this, manifestly, is the substitution of men for nations, and confounding this judgment with that of “The Great White Throne” recorded in Revelation 20. the final, although falsely called the general, judgment. They are certainly not the same events. There is scarcely a feature common to both. Let us carefully examine them: 1. They do not take place at the same time. They are more than one thousand years apart.

This judgment of the living nations will take place immediately upon the second coming of Christ before the millennial age. Christ says: “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” - Matt. 25:31.

The final judgment recorded in Revelation 20. will take place at the close of the thousand years of the reign of Christ on this earth with His saints, and it does not say that all His angels will then be with Him. Being more than a thousand years subsequent to His second advent, and the judgment of the then living nations, they can not be one and the same event.

2. This judgment is that of the nations as nations, not of individuals as individuals, then living on the earth at the coming of Christ, while the final judgment recorded in Revelation 20. will be a judgment of individuals.

3. While the first judgment is of the living only, the last or final one is of the dead only, who have been raised out of their graves to be judged. “And I saw the dead, small and great [i.e. all those amenable to a judgment for sin] standing before the throne.” Every one then and there judged had been raised from the dead for this purpose. “And the sea gave up the dead [i.e. bodies] which were in it; and death and hades gave up the dead [i.e. the spirits (or disembodied ‘souls’)] of all the dead which were in them;” i.e. death is here put for the graves which held the bodies of all the victims of death, and hades for the place that at this time will only hold the spirits of all the wicked dead, since it had already given up all the spirits [i.e., the disembodied souls] of the righteous dead at the second coming of Christ, and they - these dead ones - were judged each one according to their works. This, then, was exclusively a personal judgment for sin, and of the wicked only, for all

who were in their graves at this time were the ungodly and wicked only. This day is expressly characterized, not as the day of the judgment of “the quick [living] and dead,” but as “the day of God’s wrath,” “the great day of His wrath,” and “the day of the judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” (2 Peter 3:7.) All [with the exception of those whose names will be “found written in the book of life” (Rev. 21:15, R.V.)] who are judged at this time will be destroyed and “cast into the lake of fire.” (Rev. 20:15.)

Nations sin as nations, and not as individuals; therefore, as nations, are judged, and, as nations, are punished. There is no future hell for nations, and therefore they ever have been, are now, and will be, punished in time with national calamities, as war, famine, pestilence, wasting desolations and everlasting destruction - i.e. denationalization. God has never yet failed to judge the nations that have sinned against Him with a high and long-continued hand.

4. This judgment of the great white throne is not a judgment of the then living nations or living individuals, but of the dead only. “And I saw the dead, small and great [all those amenable to a judgment for sin], standing before the throne.” Every one then and there judged had been raised from the dead for this expressed purpose. “And the sea gave up the dead [bodies] that were in it, and death and hades gave up the dead which were in them [i.e. the graves yielded up the bodies of the dead in them, and hades - the place of departed spirits {and souls} - gave up the spirits of the dead that still remained in it], and they [these raised ones] were judged each one according to their works.” (Rev. 20:13.) This, then, will not be a national, but a personal, judgment for sin, and of the wicked* only.[* Keep in mind: The word “wicked” is used throughout the Scriptures to describe some of the regenerate!”I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then ye must needs go out of the world: but now I write unto you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one, not to eat. For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth? Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.” … “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not INHERIT the kingdom of God:” (1 Cor. 5:9-13, R.V.).

Compare 1 Cor. 10:5-6, 11 with Num. 16:26; Psa. 101:8; Prov. 2:22; 10:30, R.V. etc.]

5. There will be only one class present at the last judgment; while at the judgment of the nations there will be three classes, although only two will be judged: (1) The sheep nations; (2) the goat nations - and (3) those whom Christ will call “these my brethren.”

6. In the final judgment there will be no separation, while in that of the nations there will be. The sheep nations will be placed on the right hand, and the goat nations on the left.

7. In the judgment of the nations the verdicts will be radically different.

The one class will be blessed, the other cursed, while on the final judgment the same verdict of eternal punishment will be pronounced upon all. This last, then, can not be a general judgment of the righteous and the unrighteous - saints and sinners - but of the ungodly only. This judgment day is throughout the Bible spoken of as “the day of wrath;” “the great day of God’s wrath;” the day of the revelation of the judgment and perdition – destruction - of ungodly men to which the devil and his angels are in chains reserved unto the judgment of the great day.

(Jude 6.) Job says that all the wicked are reserved unto this day of destruction: “Do ye not know, that the wicked is reserved unto the day of destruction? They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.” Job 21:29-30.

I have said that none but wicked (ungodly) men will be judged at the judgment of “the great white throne” or final judgment, because none but the dead - those men raised up out of their graves - will then be judged, and that all the wicked from Adam until the close of the millennial age will, at this time, be in their graves. I scarce think any intelligent reader of God’s word, unless wedded to a false theory, will deny this. A few facts will make this evident: (l.) All the wicked from Adam to the second advent of Christ will be left in their graves at the first resurrection, which will be of the righteous dead only, for “the dead in Christ will rise first.” (2.) The wicked only will die during the millennial age. “The sinner, although a hundred years old, will die accursed.” (3.) At the close of the thousand years all the wicked then living, so soon as Satan is unchained and set at liberty, will join him in the predicted universal revolt against the government of Christ and His saints, and will come up on the face of the whole earth, to invest the holy city and the camp of the saints, to put Christ and His saints to death, and repossess themselves of the rule of the earth; but fire will come down from heaven and destroy them. All the wicked, then, that have ever lived on the earth will at this time be dead and in their graves, and all the righteous, from Abel, will be alive and on the earth. “The dead, small and great,” that will be raised to be judged will be the ungodly and wicked, while the judgment of nations, as I have said, will be of the then living only. They must, then, be two widely different judgments - if more need be said to demonstrate that the judgment of the living nations (Matt. 25.) and the judgment of the raised dead (Rev. 20.) are not records of one and the same general judgment.

8. The criteria of the judgments are not the same, but radically different.

The nations are judged by their treatment of those whom Christ will call “these my brethren.”

Those nations that have treated them kindly will be blessed with a continuance of existence, composing, as they will, the kingdoms over which Christ and His saints will reign in glory for one thousand years.

All those nations that have been unkind to Christ’s brethren will be cursed by an everlasting punishment as nations, as the cities of the plains were forever swept from the earth with fire and brimstone.

If it is urged that the sentence pronounced upon the goats can not be executed upon nations as such, but only upon individual sinners, I remark that nations can and do sin as nations, and they must be judged and punished as nations, and individuals are not held responsible for national sins, but for personal transgressions. There is no future hell for nations; they must be punished in time, and with temporal punishments, national calamities, desolating wars and wasting pestilences, and plagues and famines, and denationalization - i.e. by being swept from the earth as nations.

God’s dealing with the nations that persecuted, oppressed, carried into captivity and afflicted His ancient people Israel, is a striking type and explanation of this prophecy, and an illustration of the nature of the everlasting punishment here pronounced upon the goat nations.

Let us notice this for a moment. God declared with respect to His ancient people, “The nation that shall not serve thee shall perish; those nations shall be utterly wasted.” How much more those that persecuted and oppressed His people?

Look carefully over the history of those nations and point out one that has not - is not suffering to-day the identical punishment that will be pronounced upon the goat nations for their mistreatment of the brethren of Christ. Egypt, that sorely afflicted God’s people Israel, is experiencing the curse He pronounced upon her.

She has for ages been, and is to-day, a vile nation. Her pristine glory has departed never to return, and is wasting away as a nation, if it can even now be called a nation. Where are Moab and Edom, once so mighty and populous, and the thoroughfares of commerce and travel? Because Amalek drew out his sword to oppose Israel and denied him a passage on the highways through his borders, God made them a desolation, and declared that no living foot should from that time forth pass through them; and there has not!

Where is Babylon, the peerless empire of earth, that once so proudly lifted her head above the nations of earth? Without a crown or sceptre, and the gilded palaces of her kings sunk below the marshes that environ her - the debris of her departed glory sought only by the antiquarian for the museums of the curious.

Where is Assyria, that so often invaded and plundered God’s people? and where the pride of Chaldea’s excellency? Let these teach us how God judges and punishes the nations for their sins. Not one of these, once the most powerful and proud nations of earth, has an existence as a nation to-day. They are suffering everlasting

punishment. They will never again rise from their ruins to become nations on earth.

If the reader wishes to pursue, the history further, let him read Joel (chap. 3.), and then say if God will pour such dire and desolating calamities and wasting desolation upon the nations that have afflicted and mistreated His ancient people Israel, what will be the judgments with which He will desolate and destroy and utterly waste those nations who did for ages so mistreat “His brethren?”

The most pious heart, when their sufferings are recalled, can not but join in their cry from under the altar, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those that dwell upon the earth?” And with the greatest Christian poet: “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, Forget not; in Thy book record their groans Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the cruel Piedmentese, that rolled Mother and infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they to heaven.”

And Christ, the holy and the true, will judge those nations, and avenge the blood of His martyred brethren.

To sheep nations on His right hand He will say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared [prospectively] for you from the foundation of the world.”

These nations will be those referred to by John (in Rev. 21: 24) as the nations saved - saved from the desolations and calamities that destroyed the goat nations from the earth; that shall walk in the light of the New Jerusalem - the metropolis of the new earth; and their kings, the redeemed saints, who will reign with Christ for one thousand years over these saved nations on the earth, will bring the honour and the glory of these saved nations onto it.

What I have said above, taken in connection with Dr. Kendall’s able essay on “The Four Judgments” in the Appendix, will be a sufficient explanation of this great prophecy of Christ.

It must be evident, we think, to every candid student of God’s word, that this prophecy can not, without the most violent wresting, be made to teach otherwise than that the second coming of Christ will be pre-millennial.

Before closing, I will notice and remove the most plausible and conclusive prooftext brought by the advocates of post-millennialism in support of their theory. It is from the Common Version, and reads thus: “I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the quick [living] and the dead at His appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.” - 2 Tim. 4: 1.

All the aid and comfort post-millennialists can get out of this passage they get from the mistranslation of it. This will be seen when I place beside it that of the Revised Version, viz.: “I charge thee in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom; preach the word.”

The former translation teaches that the living and the dead will be judged at the appearing and coming of Christ, and, therefore, the judgment recorded by Matthew (chap. 25.) will be a general judgment - making Paul contradict Matthew, since he clearly teaches that only the living nations will be judged, and rewarded and punished as nations for their national acts, good or bad.

And now, if the ever-blessed God will bless these pages to the edification of my brethren who may read them in the most holy faith, and strengthen them in “the blessed hope” of the speedy coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, my prayer will be answered and my labours rewarded. ***

APPENDIX THE FOUR JUDGMENTS (By Rev. J. F. Kendall, D.D.) READ BEFORE THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE, HELD IN CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 16-20, 1886.

QUESTIONS concerning what theologians term the “final” or the “general” judgment often arise in, and often greatly perplex, the mind of the ordinary believer. It is the purpose of this study to answer these questions, and thereby give comfort to many a perplexed spirit.

VARIOUS VIEWS

1. Immediately after death the soul is placed at the bar of God and judged.

“Individuals are treated according to their desert, and this is done immediately

after death.” (Dr. Dick, Theology, p. 339.) “The soul, at death, goes immediately to its place of eternal happiness or misery, according to its moral character.” (Ms. Lects. of Dr. L. P. Hickok.) Hence 2. The sentence of God assigns the righteous to heaven, and they enter at once on an everlasting inheritance.

3. The same sentence assigns the wicked to everlasting fire.

4. At the resurrection, both the righteous and the wicked are brought from their respective abodes, when they are judged a second time, and are returned to the place whence they were brought, to remain forever. “The judgment passed upon each individual at the termination of his life will be solemnly ratified at the end of the world.” (Dr. Dick.) It thus appears, and this is the accepted orthodox view, that the final judgment is merely confirmatory of that which was passed at death, and not that there has been another chance. This is no scheme of an “Eternal Hope.”

A general judgment “seems necessary to the display of the justice of God - to such a manifestation of it as will vindicate His government from all the charges which impiety has brought against it.” (Dr. Dick, p. 38g.)

1. “Such a judgment will be a more glorious display of God’s majesty and dominion.”

2. “The end of judgment will be more fully answered by a public and general than only by a particular and private judgment.”

3. “It is very agreeable to reason that the irregularities which are so open and manifest in the world should, when the world comes to an end, be publicly rectified by the Supreme Governor.” (Edwards’ Works, Vol. iv., pp. 205, 206.)

“There will be such a revelation of the character of every man, to all around him, or to all who know him, as shall render the justice of the sentence of condemnation or acquittal apparent.” (Hodge, Theology, Vol. iii., p. 849,) “At the judgment of the last day, the destiny of the righteous and of the wicked shall be unalterably determined.” (Idem, p. 850) “The grand end of the judgment is therefore to stop every mouth, satisfy every conscience, and make every knee bow to God’s authority, either willingly in love, or necessarily in absolute conviction.” (Dr. Hickok.)

The sum and substance of all reasons for a general judgment is, in some way, a vindication of God. “God would show Himself holy and righteous in all His functions of sovereignty.” (Dr. Hickok.)

The marked absence of Scripture quotations, or even reference, is worthy of note, in all these reasons for a general judgment.

That it may appear how unsatisfactory, to their own minds, are their supposed vindications of the divine dealings, I add one or two quotations from themselves: Dr. Hodge, Vol. iii., p. 849: “Every man will see himself as he appears in the sight of God. His memory will probably prove an indelible register of all his sinful acts, thoughts and feelings. His conscience will be so enlightened as to recognize the justice of the sentence which the righteous Judge shall pronounce upon him.”

These things being so, we may ask, What possible need of vindication can there be?

Dr. Dick: “Among the multitude of the condemned, however severe may be their punishment, and however impatiently they may bear it, there will not be one who will dare to accuse his Judge of injustice. In the mind of every man a consciousness of guilt will be deeply fixed; he will be compelled to blame himself alone and to justify the sentence which has rendered him forever miserable.” “The declaration of the Judge concerning those on His right hand that they are righteous, and concerning those on His left hand that they are wicked, will be sufficient to convince all in the immense assembly that the sentence pronounced upon each individual is just.”

Thus, while these writers maintain the necessity of a general judgment for the vindication of the divine character, they themselves proceed to show that no such vindication is necessary.

Dick: “The proceedings will take place in the sight of angels and men.”

“Countless millions will be assembled to hear their final doom. All nations shall be gathered before the Son of Man.” Edwards: “In the great and general judgment, all men shall together appear before the judgment seat to be judged;” “the whole world, both angels and men, being present to behold.”

Hodge: “The persons to be judged are men and angels.” “This judgment, therefore, is absolutely universal; it includes both small and great, and all the generations of men.”

Hickok: “All fallen angels are to be publicly judged;” “also, all the human family.”

On the disclosures of the judgment, opinions seriously differ. Thus Edwards: “The works of both righteous and wicked will be rehearsed.” “The evil works of the wicked shall then be brought forth to light.” But then he adds: “The good works of the saints will also be brought forth as evidences of their sincerity, and of their interest in the righteousness of Christ. As to their evil works, they will not be brought forth against them on that day; for the guilt of them will not lie upon them, they being clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.”

On the other hand, Hickok, as we think, well insists that “the sins of Christians will be brought to light in the judgment,” for various reasons; and, as if answering

this thought of Edwards, on the ground that “the grace of Christ in their final sanctification can not be fully exhibited without it.”

If there is to be such a general judgment, as is generally supposed, then there would seem to be no good reason to doubt that all the deeds, both good and evil, of all who have lived, both good and evil, must then be disclosed. The physical phenomena of a general judgment are a source of no little trouble. Dr. Hodge avoids it by utterly ignoring questions which will force themselves upon the reader of Scripture. Dr. Dick’s troubles appear in the following quotations: “The place where the judgment will be held is this world; and, as it is said that the saints shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, it should seem that the wicked should be left standing upon the earth.” “The saints being caught up into the clouds by the ministry of angels to meet the Lord in the air, and the wicked being left on the earth, the judgment will proceed.”

And Dr. Edwards: “They shall all be brought to appear before Christ, the godly being placed on the right hand, the wicked on the left.” “Besides the one standing on the right hand, and the other on the left, there seems to be this difference between them: that when the dead in Christ shall be raised, they will all be caught up in the air, where Christ shall be, and shall be there at His right hand during the judgment, nevermore to set their feet on this earth; whereas, the wicked shall be left standing on the earth, there to abide the judgment.”

According to this representation, the righteous have been judged before the judgment begins, for they have been assigned to the right hand, where they remain “during the judgment,” while, only the wicked really “abide the judgment.” Now, according to the Scriptures upon which these writers depend to prove their general judgment - viz., Matt. 25:31-46 - the assemblage of the universe is to be a promiscuous assemblage, whom, after they “shall be gathered,” the Son of Man “shall separate one from another;” whereas, they both agree that the separation takes place in the process of gathering. But certainly it does not. The result, according to their view, is a most singular physical phenomenon, viz.: the saints “on His right hand in the air,” the lost “on the left standing upon the earth.” It is no quibble which makes these suggestions. They deserve to be considered.

One other declaration of Dr. Hodge deserves a moment’s notice: “At the judgment of the last day,” he says, “the destiny of the righteous and of the wicked shall be unalterably determined.” By “destiny” he must mean “ultimate fate.”

Webster defines “determined” as “ended, concluded, decided, limited, fixed, settled, resolved, directed.” Which does Dr. Hodge mean? In truth, his proposition can in nowise be maintained. All orthodox theologians agree that for the believer “to die” is “to depart and be with Christ,” and for the unbeliever it is to “go away into everlasting punishment;” but the “destiny” may be fixed long before that, and, so far as we have experience or knowledge, is never fixed “at the judgment.” “He that

believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” but “he that believeth not is condemned already.” (John 3: 36, 18.) The “destiny” of every soul is “unalterably determined” on the moment of his final acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ as a Saviour.

What is the meaning of the term judgment? Webster answers: “Theologically, the final punishment of the wicked; the last sentence.” It should arrest our thought that, in Webster’s mind, only the “wicked” have place in judgment.

Cremer’s answer (in Theological Lexicon, under krisis): “Specially in judicial procedure, and primarily without particular regard to the character of the decision.” “Then of a definite accusation or prosecution, guilt of some sort being presupposed by the judicial procedure. This precise use of the term, as equal to judicial process, judgment directed against the guilty, and leading on to condemnation, is comparatively rare in profane Greek, whereas it is almost the only one in the New Testament.” And he cites (Matt. 5: 21, 22): “Whosoever shall kill, or is ‘angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment,’ and (Mark 3: 29) the blasphemer against the Holy Ghost ‘is in danger of eternal judgment.’” Further: “It is characteristic of judicial process, especially of the divine judgment to which krisis mostly relates, that it is directed against the guilty.” “1 John iv.17: Hemera, kriseos. In Mark 5: 15, 11: 22-24, 12: 36 (and others), krisis denotes the final judgment of the world, which is to bring destruction upon the guilty.” “In Rev. 14: 7, 16: 7, 19: 2, the word likewise denotes the judgment, the act of judging, which discerns and condemns the guilty.” And again, under krima, “the decision of a judge, judgment (Rev. 20: 4), the judgment concerning them is given in what follows. ... Elsewhere in the New Testament throughout, as in later Greek, the word always denotes a judgment unfavourable to those concerned - a punitive judgment, involving punishment, as a matter of course.” And he cites 2 Peter 2: 3, “whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not,” with Rom. 3: 8, “whose judgment is just,” and Rom. 5: 16, “for the judgment was by one to condemnation.”

“For the cognizance of the judge,” continued Cremer, “to say nothing of his judgment, implies a coming short.”

This is a very vital point in our discussion. If the New Testament usage of the term judgment implies guilt, and has but one natural sequence - condemnation then we effect at once a very large exclusion from the numbers of those for whom a final judgment is intended; no righteous can be there, and such a thing as a general judgment must be forever unknown. It is easy to show, by citation of numerous passages, that Cremer is right, both as the term is used in reference to man and God. 1. The use of “judge” when applied to man.

“Doth our law judge any man before it hear him?” (John 7: 51.) Pilate said: “Take Him yourselves and judge Him according to your law. The Jews said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death” (John 18: 31), as if that were the only possible sentence. (See Acts 13: 27-46, 23: 3-6, 24: 6-21.) Festus said to Paul: “Let them go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged. ... Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews I have done no wrong.” (Acts 25:9, 10; 26:6. See Rom. 14:3, 4, 10, 13, 22; James 4:11-12.)

“The men of Nineveh, the Queen of the South, shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it.” (Matt. 12:41, 42.) It is a remarkable fact that in all these cases (few only are cited) “judge” is used in the sense of condemn, and in some instances strikingly so.

2. The use of “judge” when applied to God. Luke 19:22: “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.”

Acts 7:7: “The nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, saith God.” Rom. 2:12, 16: “As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law ... in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.”

2 Thess. 2:12: “That they all might be judged who ... had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Hebrews 9:27, 28: “As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear ... unto salvation.” Manifestly “judgment” and “salvation” stand over against each other. The world was under judgment, and this meant condemnation, for in judgment they were “judged every man according to his works.” Justice is inexorable, and, since all have sinned, no one who comes into judgment can escape. Hence the divine mercy interposed, and, “as” judgment was the original doom, “so” - that is, “to meet this very exigency of their case;” to arrest judgment and offer salvation - “Christ was offered.”

“Those that look for Him” are, of course, believers, who, though “by nature children of wrath,” have been “quickened together with Christ,” “raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2: 5, 6), and that certainly is far above fear of death and judgment. For such there remaineth no “fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.” (Heb. 10:7). Not to quote a burdensome number of passages, the reader will find the term “judge” used in the sense of condemnation in John 3:17, 18, 5:22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 12:31, 47, 48, 16:8, 11 (see Greek and R. V.); also, numerously in the Apocalypse: Rev. 6:9, 10; 11:18; 16:5, 7; 18:8, 10, 20; 19:2, 11; 20:12, 13. James 2: 13: “For judgment is without mercy to him that showeth no mercy; mercy glorieth against judgment.” Very striking are the passages (Pet. 2:4, 9): “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and

delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment,” and “the Lord knoweth how ... to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished,” and (3:7) “the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” See also Jude 6, 15.

To sum up, under the term krisis, or judgment, it occurs forty-eight times in the New Testament. In forty-one instances it is translated “judgment,” three times “damnation.” In more than thirty places it may refer to what we term the last judgment; and, in every one of these cases, it does not appear that any but the guilty are involved in the judgment, and, in nearly every instance, it is evident that the righteous are positively excluded. In those instances in which other than the last judgment is spoken of, the judgment is still only that of the ungodly, and in no case can it be shown that the godly are brought into judgment. And if we look at the close-related word krima, which is also translated “judgment” and “damnation,” it is evident, in every instance in which it can be applied to the last judgment, that only the ungodly are included, and judgment is to condemnation.

These facts are very striking, and throw a flood of light upon the question of the judgment, which is a terror to so many of the Lord’s people.

But then the question arises, What is to be said of those texts which, upon their face, seem to teach that there is to be a general judgment at which all shall be gathered, such as: (Acts 17:31) “He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world;” (Matt. 25:32). “Before Him shall be gathered all nations;” and especially (2 Cor. 5: 10) “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ”? This first: When we find the true interpretation, these Scriptures with the others, there will be no contradiction.

What, then, are all the facts concerning the believer? For 2 Cor. 5:10 refers to him. It is said, then, “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.” The Greek for judgment-seat is bema, and occurs twelve times in the New Testament.

It is derived from baivo, “to go, walk, tread, step.” The first definition, both in the classical and New Testament lexicon, is a “step.” In this sense it is used but once: viz. (in Acts 7:5), “Gave him none inheritance in it, not even ‘a bema of a foot’”- a step of a foot, a foot breadth; or, Authorized Version, “not so much as to set his foot on.”

The secondary meaning is an elevated place ascended by steps. (a) A tribune, to speak or read from. In this sense (Acts 12:21), Herod “sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them.” (b) The tribunal of a magistrate or ruler.

In this sense it is used of Pilate, (Matt. 27:19) “when he sat down on the judgment-seat;” (John 19:13) Pilate “sat down on the judgment-seat:” of Gallio, (Acts 18:12) “the Jews made insurrection against Paul, and brought him to the judgment-seat.” (18: 16) “he drave them from the judgment-seat;” (18:17) they beat

Sosthenes “before the judgment-seat:” of Festus, (Acts 25:6) “the next day, sitting on the judgment-seat, commanded Paul to be brought;” (25:10) “I stand at Caesar’s judgment-seat;” (25:17) “sat on the judgment-seat.” The other instances of its use are in this connection: “We shall all stand” (Rom. 14:10); “we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10).

In ten of these twelve cases the Greek word is rendered in the Authorized Version “judgment-seat,” and the Revised Version agrees in every instance. In one case the word, both in the Authorized Version and the Revised Version, is rendered “throne,” while even here the Revised Version gives the marginal reading “judgment-seat.” In every instance Alford agrees with the Authorized Version.

It is worthy of note, in this connection, that in not one instance in which persons are represented as brought before the judgment-seat is any one of them found guilty, or condemned, by the one who occupies the bema. This, of itself, might suggest the more consistent rendering of Rotherham in nine of the twelve instances, “tribunal,” while, also, it should raise the question against himself, why he did not so render in the two cases which refer to Pilate.

Now, it is affirmed of the believer that he must appear before the bema of Jesus Christ. For what purpose? Paul has answered: “That everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

(2 Cor. 5:10). All this said concerning those who “know (verse 1) that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, eternal in the heavens” - i.e. believers, and believers only. What does it signify? Precisely what is set forth in 1 Cor. 3:12-15: “Every man’s work shall be tried.” “If any man’s work abide ... he shall receive a reward.” This is said only of the believing man, for only such a one is a “labourer together with God” (3:9); and of the one thus tested, it is affirmed that though his “work shall be burned,” “he himself shall be saved” (3:15).

All works of the believer are to be tried, that it be made manifest whether or not “they are wrought in God” (John 3:21). For this trial all are gathered before the bema - the ungodly [and unregenerate] are not there, but they are all believers.

Some will receive a great “reward” for efficient service and many good works; some a less reward; others less still; and some none at all, their works being done only in the energy of the flesh, being counted utterly worthless and cast into the fire; yet, by reason of a true, though it may be feeble, faith, they do not miss [eternal] salvation; and thus it is that “every man’s work shall he made manifest,” and its true value be determined. But of “judgment,” of which we have seen that it leads on to condemnation [and ultimately ‘the lake of fire’], into any such scene the believer shall not come. This is the very word of our divine Lord: “He that ... believeth ... hath everlasting life, and shall not Come into judgment,” where the word is the very same which Paul uses when he says, after death “judgment.”

It is not difficult to show by irresistible Scripture proof that no believer shall ever stand in other judgment than this. Because: 1. The general idea of the judgment supposes that the sins of the believer are to be brought there and judged. But this is certainly a mistake. For, though “all we like sheep have gone astray.” “the Lord hath laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6), and He “bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

When Christ thus bore our sins, He “condemned sin in the flesh.” (Rom. 8:3). He “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” (Heb. 9:26.) The believer’s sins have, therefore, been judged and condemned already.

“Thy sin was judged in His flesh.” For “He died unto sin once.” (Rom. 6:10.) “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:5.) Hence, so far as his sins [of ignorance]* are concerned, the believer looks back to his judgment, and not forward.[* See Heb. 10:26, 27, R.V.] 2. The oneness of Christ and the believer testifies to the same fact. Every believer can truly say, “I was crucified with Christ.” (Gal. 2:20.) I was “buried with Him by the baptism unto death” (Rom. 6:4); hence what Christ’s death expressed, it expressed for me. “If one died for all, then all died.” (2 Cor. 5:14) Under the old dispensation, the sins of the Jews were dealt with on the day of atonement. God dealt with the sin, and sins of all time, on Calvary. The awful judgment of God against sin there awoke, was there expressed, and there it smote; and, so far as His people are concerned, that was its final expression forever. The judgment is passed, the sentence executed.

3. Expose the believer to be judged according to his deeds, and you insure his condemnation. “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant,” prays the Psalmist (Ps. 143:2), “for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” No one with whom God enters into judgment can be saved, for justice is inexorable. And not only have all sinned, but they continue to sin, and, therefore, if sins were brought into judgment, one’s doom would be inevitable. “No one will be safe who is to have his eternal destiny determined by his own deeds.” (Albert Barnes, Commentary on Rev. 20: 12.)

There remains a further consideration of most serious and solemn moment, viz.: 4. To bring the believer into judgment would make the judge the accused. The judge is Christ. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son,” and “hath given Him authority to execute judgment also.” (John 5:22, 27.) “It is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.”

(Acts 10:42.) But Christ, the Judge, has stood for us. To bring the believer into judgment, therefore, would be to question the worth of what Christ has done to bring an accusation against Him. It would bring Him down from the place of judgment, strip from Him the ermine of the Judge, and place Him before the bar as a culprit. He died for us, for our sins. Did He make sufficient propitiation? Did His

work meet the demand? If so - if His offering was adequate to the purpose - then the believer is justified; and how can one be brought into judgment of whom the divine testimony already is - “there is therefore now no condemnation” (Rom. 8: 1); he is “justified from all things” (Acts 13:39)?

And, further, what greater insult could be offered to Jesus than to bring into judgment one for whom He has stood? To judge such would be but to judge Himself. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Shall God that justifieth? Who is He that condemneth? Is it Christ that died?” (Rom. 8:33, 34.)

The judgment must, therefore, deal with Him before it can reach them.

Consider, too, the incongruity of Christ judging His own bride. Many of them will have been saints in heaven for thousands of years, and how can such ever be put on trial? No; all believers will be gathered at the judgment-seat of Christ for one sole purpose, to receive the reward for their works, each “according as his work shall be.” (Rev. 22:12.) And a reward is not a gift. The believer has [already] received the latter; “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 6:23.) The former awaits him at the bema. And it should be noted for the comfort of every believer that the bema is not set to determine, or even consider, the question of [eternal] salvation. That is forever settled, when, as one “believeth,” so he “hath everlasting life.” (John 3:36). But it is set to determine the value of Christian service and the reward therefor. The judgment-seat of Christ is not for the judgment of the person, but of his works. There is to be determined the value of a “cup of cold water” given in the name of Christ. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints and do minister,” (Heb. 6:10.) “Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, he shall receive a reward.” (Eph. 6:8.) Oh, pity to him who, though “he himself shall be saved,” shall yet “suffer loss” (1 Cor. 3:15) at the judgment-seat of Christ, for such loss will be [millennial (Lk. 20:35) or, in the case of the unregenerate,] eternal! It is a solemn thought that what we lose here, in the matter of Christian service and good works, eternity can never make good.

The voice of him who is barely “saved, yet so as by fire,” will never sound so loud, his harp will never be strung so rapturously, nor his palm be waved so victoriously [by the overcomer (Rev. 3:21, cf. Rev. 2:10, 11, R.V.)] in [the coming kingdom or in] heaven, as will fall to the blessed lot of him who has “abundant entrance.”

Oh, joy to him on whose labour, when “the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is” (1 Cor. 3:13), there shall be no “smell of fire,” but all his work, either “gold, silver or precious stones,” shall abide the test, and whose “reward” shall be great. It is surely worth an effort to stand well at the judgment-seat of Christ.

The considerations above urged are opposed to the common idea of a general judgment. What then, shall we say to Matt. 25:31-33? “When the Son of

Man shall come in His glory. ... before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them from one another, and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.”

This passage is constantly quoted and relied on in proof of a general judgment, and is supposed to be parallel with Rev. 20:11-15: “And I saw a great white throne and Him that sat on it. ... And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; ... and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books. ...

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hades delivered up the dead which were in them,” etc. The sound of the two italicized phrases in the last two quotations will easily mislead one who is careless respecting details, when a careful consideration of them will show that these passages can not be parallel, and must, therefore, refer to entirely different events. The following facts stand in proof of the last statement: 1. The passage from Matthew contains not one word to indicate a resurrection; that from Revelation plainly declares a resurrection (20:13).

2. In Matthew the dealing is with “nations.” What nations? The answer is in Matt. 24:14: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all the nations.” Then, “When the Son of Man shall come, ... before Him shall be gathered all the nations” before specified. They come as nations. In Revelation the dealing is with individuals. “They were judged every man according to their works” (20:13). Coupled with this there follows the third fact, viz.: 3. Matthew evidently speaks of nations living when “the Son of Man” appears, as in Zech. 14:2. Revelation specially designates the nations of the “dead.”

4. In Matthew we find among the gathered “nations” two distinct classes, viz.: “the sheep” and “the goats;” and apart from them a third class, viz.: the “brethren” (25:40-45). The two former classes are separated on one sole ground, viz.: their treatment of the third class - the brethren. It were absurd to suppose that the sheep were rewarded for what they had done to themselves, or the goats punished for what they had done to the sheep, in the face of the distinct affirmation that the one class is rewarded and the other punished for their treatment of a class entirely distinct from either of themselves. Evidently, then, to constitute them either praiseworthy or blameworthy, they must have known them as the brethren of Christ.

In Revelation we find but one class - no separation, but all “judged out of those things which were written in the books” (20: 2), not “the book” - consigned to the lake of fire, and among them are many who never heard of Christ, and to whom the language in Matthew could not apply.

Now, certainly, it is most remarkable and unaccountable that, if the church, or believers, are to have a place in this stupendous scene, not one word is said

concerning them, and the doom of the lost alone appears as the result of the grand assize.

Our study of these passages reveals, therefore, the following facts, viz.: that there is to be a judgment of the living nations, and a judgment of the “great white throne,” and these are distinct and separate in time and place.

Where, then, will be the church while these judgments proceed? “With the Lord.” Their case is set forth in 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout; ... and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up ... to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” This is the first signal of Christ’s second coming. Hence these great events, which have so often been regarded with nothing less than terror by the Lord’s dear people, will not concern them in the least, save as spectators of what their Lord and Master does.

One other inquiry - partly curious - will prepare the way for the general conclusion.

When will the “judgment-seat of Christ” be set? We may not dogmatize, as we have scarcely more than hints upon which to base a conclusion. This much is sure: when the Lord comes with a shout, the dead saints will be raised; the living saints will “all be changed in a moment” (1 Cor. 15:51, 52); the corruptible will put on incorruption - the mortal, immortality. This, of course, marks the resurrection “sown in dishonour, raised in glory;” “sown in weakness, raised in power;” “sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body.” (1 Cor. 15:43, 44.) Now, in the Revelation (22: 12), we find Jesus saying, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” (1 Cor. 3:13, 14.) And in Luke 14: 13, 14, He says, “When thou makest a feast, call the poor. ... the blind, and thou shalt be blessed for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”

These passages may indicate that the time of the church’s “reward” is quickly to succeed their resurrection.

Bunyan: “Now when the saints that sleep shall be raised, thus incorruptible, powerful, glorious and spiritual, and also those that then shall be found alive, made like them; then forthwith, before the unjust are raised, the saints shall appear before the judgment-seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, there to give an account to their Lord, the Judge of all the things they have done, and to receive a reward for their good according to their labour.”

It is evident from all that has been said that the only judgment of the believer is that which attaches to his works, wherefore he receives greater or less reward, or may be none.

The final doom of the wicked is also according to his works. (Rom. 2:6; Gal. 6:7; 2 Pet. 2:12, 13. Rev. 2:23, 11:18, 20:12.) There is, however, a worldwide distinction in

the two classes of works. “Then said they unto Him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” (John 6:28, 29). Eject this special “work of God” from the lives of the ungodly, the “work of faith and labour of love” (1 Thess. 1:3), and there is left but a harvest of whirlwind from the sowing of the wind.

To set down our general conclusion in a word, the Scriptures teach that there are four judgments: 1. A judgment already passed of the sins of the Lord’s [redeemed] people. These have been judged – condemned and the sentence upon them executed in the person of our substitute on Calvary; therefore the believer “shall not come into judgment.”

(John 5:24.)

2. A coming tribunal of Christ, before which all believers must stand, for the testing of all their works and service. If any are present, other than saints, they can be only the angels of God. 3. A coming tribunal of Christ, when He sits upon “the throne of His glory.”

(Matt. 25:31). Before Him shall be gathered at that tribunal “all the nations” then living, for His final adjudication concerning their treatment of Him in the persons of His “brethren.”** They will be gathered as nations, representatively; they will he judged as nations for what they have done as nations; they will be punished as nations, with national calamities and ruin, and be destroyed as nations. J. R. G. 4. A coming judgment of the “Great White Throne.” This is the only proper judgment, in the sense of the Scripture, viz.: guilt being present and leading on to condemnation. There are present at this scene only “the rest of the dead.” (Rev. 20:5.)

Previously to this the [‘accounted worthy’ (Lk. 20:35)] saints have been gathered in the “out-resurrection,” that from among the dead (Phil. 3:11), to be “forever with the Lord;” and now the remaining dead [including those named in “another book” – “the book of life” (Rev. 20:12, R.V.)] are raised for judgment. This is the “day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7), into which the “unjust” have bee “reserved” - “to be punished” (2 Peter 2:9). Then shall the “Son of Man,” to whom all judgment is Committed, “execute judgment upon all ... that are ungodly.”

(Jude 15). Then, too, “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of His Son, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,” “shall He come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe ... in that day.” (2 Thess. 1:7-10.) The saints will be there, but neither as culprits nor accused. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their

Father” (Matt. 13:43), and this will be the “day of judgment” of many Scriptures.

Amen. ***

NOTE ON THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN Dr. Parsons, in his Development of Antichrist, says:

“The Parable of the Leaven represents the results which will be manifested in the kingdom of Christ during the age from the corruptions introduced by those within ‘the church.’ The meal will be leavened by heresies and perversions during all this dispensation.

“All the parables of Christ illustrating the mystery of the administration of His kingdom plainly betoken a mixed and corrupted state of things to the end of this dispensation, and the Spirit confirms this in the revelation of this great apostasy: “‘Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to he received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.’ - 1 Tim. 4:1-3.

“Also that times of great peril shall be in the last days; that formality and hypocrisy will abound; that all who adhere to godliness shall suffer persecution; and that evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

A FUNERAL DISCOURSE

By J. R. Graves “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” James 4:14.

WHAT means the gathering of this large and anxious concourse I see around me? The deep solemnity that pervades it? The gloom and sorrow pictured upon every countenance!

Truly this can be no ordinary occasion. The heart of a whole community has been touched, and its attention arrested by some unusual grief. Need I look for an answer?

These weeded habits and the bowed forms of these mourners, and this confined clay, shrouded for the tomb, tell but too plainly where the thunderbolt hath fallen that makes a hearthstone desolate, and turns the fountain of love into bitterness and grief.

Death, our common enemy, has entered this circle of relatives, and seized and bound his victim in his icy chains before their eyes, and is now hurrying him away to the dusty caverns of the grave.

“The funeral discourse of William D. Martin preached at the residence of Col. Matt.

Martin, Bedford County, Tenn.”

The relative, the brother, the student, and the soldier has fallen. William Davenport Martin, the pride and the promise of the family name, is no more. He ceases to be

numbered among the living. The death he so often, and so undauntedly, defied on the field of battle, ‘mid the shock of contending armies, he has met and, armed with the Christian’s hope, triumphantly vanquished, in the bosom and quietude of his uncle’s family — but he fell. Draw near and look into the coffin’s depth, upon those calm features, smiling even in death, and say that his warrior spirit expired not in the arms of victory! Say not that this is death. It was to him the conquest of an immortal life!

The highest glory of a soldier is to die on the field of battle, ‘mid the first shouts of victory: but such a departure has no charms for a Christian.

“From such a dying bed, Though o’er it float the stripes of white and red, And the bald eagle brings The clustered stars upon his widespread wings To sparkle in my sight, O, never let my spirit take her flight.”

He died as a man, as a soldier, as a Christian would wish to die, in peace with God and man.

Well may friends and relatives meet around these ashes, and mourn their mutual loss, while religion may approach and gather a fresh trophy — a new and bright star for her already flashing coronal.

We have met to improve this sudden and distressing providence and to perform the last rites of our religion for the dead. But these obsequies will not affect the departed.

Should your tears fall upon his coffin’s lid, he could see them not. Should you call to him through the silent night, he would not answer you. He has passed away from the walks and the reach of the living. Not e’en the trumpet’s blast, or the clarion’s swell, or the roll of the stirring drum, that beat to arms, can move that cold bosom now, that they once heaved and thrilled with almost invincible energy.

To the living alone, then, I address myself. To the young and the old, the relative and neighbour, these friends and fellow-soldiers, seated around his remains, let me say: Look upon them again; what you behold, you must, we must all, soon be — a mass of inanimate clay. Tis the lot of us all. Death, our common and implacable enemy, is in pursuit. We are all but the objects of his cruel mockery. When he defers to strike, he holds us, like criminals, cowering, trembling, and terrified at the stroke he threatens.

None so bold as to lay his hand upon his heart and say: “I fear him not.” He awaits us in various forms; his messenger may meet us in broad sunshine or in deep midnight. Never ready for him, he is ever waiting for us. No previous admonition is given to us, to set our houses in order, to examine the state of our hearts; but in a moment we are launched upon the wreck-covered river and hurried away from the sight forever. No bribe can stay the fatal stroke; no obstacle can interpose to parry the deadly blow — like the glittering of an assassin’s knife in the dark, the wound is inflicted, the deed is done.

What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!

With these remarks, I invite your attention for a few moments to the sentiments of the text: “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away!”

How startling, how humbling, this declaration! Yet how forcibly do we see it fulfilled here before our eyes! Who thought, the evening before his death, that at the rising of the morrow’s sun you would behold him a corpse? Did the uncle think for one moment that his hand would then close the eyes forever, that ever looked upon him with love and confidence? Did the deceased think it? You encouraged him with a prospect of recovery.

Alas, alas! We “know not what shall be on the morrow.” We who remain, though apparently with the prospect of a long life before us, know not how it shall be with us on the morrow. The bowl may be broken at life’s fountain — the windows of our friends be darkened for us, and the mourners bear our bodies to the grave.

The striking points in the text which we propose to notice for a few moments are: I. Life — its fleetness, object.

II. Death — its nature, origin, certainty.

I. “What is your [our] life?”

Philosophers as well as poets have sought for appropriate figures and comparisons by which to illustrate life.

“What is life?” said once a follower of a distinguished teacher of antiquity. He was pointed, for his answer, to the burning self-consuming taper. “What is life?” inquired the student to the stoic. The philosopher rose, and with a hasty step passed once around his narrow room, and disappeared through the door in an adjoining apartment.

Do you ask to-day: “What is life?” Opening this Word of life, I answer: 1. “Even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time.” How frail and unsubstantial is the morning vapour! Job, who is fruitful in illustrations, compares it: 2. To a weaver’s shuttle. How swift its passage through the opening web! And this is life.

3. As “swifter than a post.” How soon the fleet horses reach the destined goal! And this is our life.

4. As the eagle that hasteth to its prey. How like a thunderbolt he hurls himself from his lofty eyrie upon his victim! Yet this is life.

5. As a dream in the night, passed and gone before we are conscious of its existence — like our life!

6. As “a tale that is told.” With what interest we hang upon the lips of the tale-teller, knowing not at what sentence the tale will close. And this too is life; the more it increaseth, the more it decreaseth; the farther it goeth, the nearer it cometh to death.

7. Finally, he compares it to “the swift ships.” How soon our swift ships sweep the waters of even the wide ocean, and gain the appointed harbour! Thus the bark of life sweeps the waters of time.

Thus we see how they all labour for expressions, marking a period of the shortest duration, to denote, and vividly impress the mind with, the fleetness of life.

Yet with all these declarations, verified daily, in the most startling manner, before our eyes, we live on, and plan, and scheme, and lay up stores, and build our cloud-piercing hopes, as though our stay here was for ages, or this our only place of existence. Who

records his life as a swift ship, under full press of steam and sail, making the passage of a narrow strait, for a port almost in view? What should we be compelled to think of that fellow passenger who, when assured again and again that he could carry nothing from the ship with him when he landed, and that his passage would be but a few hours, at the longest, would endanger his life and expend all his resources in purchasing tons of beef and pork, 10,000 hats and 5,000 changes of raiment, etc., etc.? In a few hours the vessel reaches the port, and he is thrust ashore to find himself a beggar in a strange land.

Do you smile at his improvidence and recklessness of all the advice of the captain and passengers, when it might have availed him? How many of this assembly, of you, my hearers, are doing otherwise? Are you not all passengers upon swift ships, rushing across the narrow strait of time to eternity’s haven; and as you go, or rather are borne along, are you not adding acres still to your already hundreds? Servants to your already scores?

Rearing new and costly mansions in place of old and humbler dwellings, and thus spending all your time and expending all your treasures upon your own lusts? But what care are you taking for your souls? Are you securing, through the grace of God, mansions for them in the skies, which shall receive you when your earthly hand-built habitations are no longer of use, and your bodily tabernacles crumble into dust?

Oh, prisoners of hope! The strait of time is well-nigh passed. In a few moments the ship’s beam will strike hard upon eternity’s shore, and you thrown overboard upon its beach. Will you be found in that day to have laid up all your treasures in time, and be found a beggar, imploring for oil with which to enable you to see the ever increasing horrors that beset your pathway through eternity’s night, and the fierce storms of merited wrath, that must beat upon your houseless and unmansioned spirit? Remember to-day the proverb of the wise king: “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” (Proverbs 22:3).

II. But what is death?

In the Scriptures death is described in various ways and designated by various titles.

1. Death in our text is called a vanishing away — the removing from our sight.

2. David calls it “the way of all earth.” “I go,” said he to Solomon, “the way of all the earth.” It is a way that all must pass, to that “undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.”

“Not to thy eternal resting place Shalt thou retire alone. . . . . . . Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world; with kings, The powerful of the earth; the wise and good; Fair forms and aged seers of ages past; All in one mighty sepulchre.”

3. He is called the king of terrors. For at his approach the waters of life freeze back upon their fountainhead, and at his touch heart and flesh fail, and this clayey fabric dissolves into the dust from whence it came.

4. It is represented by the apostle as a serpent with a deadly sting. He steals gradually and stealthily upon his victim, and then in an instant strikes his mortal and immedicable wound.

5. The Revelator calls death “an enemy,” and the “last enemy.” Like an enemy, he seems to delight in injuring us, in disappointing all our hopes, and cutting off our brightest expectations. He has slain our fathers and mothers; he has cut off and removed relative and friend far from us; he has smitten our babes in the mothers’ arms, and hid our children in the dust. We are all mourners before his face to-day.

“Friend after friend departs; Who hath not lost a friend?”

Not satisfied with his slaughter, he lies in wait for us, as we go out and as we return. No place or condition is secure from his attack. Neither the babe at the breast, nor the child at its play, the bride at the altar, no more than the soldier in the smoke and shock of battle.

6. Death is a leveler of all distinctions. Life is a promoter of titles and honours; death lays them in the dust. The rich and the poor he lays, side by side, in the grave. “There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master,” saith the king of Israel. 17 “What art thou doing with those vile things?” saith the conqueror of the world to Diogenes, whom he saw sitting by the roadside busily employed in separating a pile of bones. “I have, O Alexander, here the bones of thy father Philip and his slave, and am endeavouring in vain to distinguish between them.” What a lesson — what a rebuke to the monarch’s pride! How humiliating is death! It despoils man of all his boasted wealth, and sends him out of the world poorer than when he entered it. He brought nothing but a naked body into it, and he is thrust out without even that!

7. The Bible alone teaches us the nature of death — that it is but a change in passing from one state into another. It is not the cessation of our existence, but the laying aside of one mode for another, upon a more expanded and (if blest) nobler form.

This earth is but a training spot for the spirit. Here the powers of the soul are matured, developed, and strengthened, for the boundless area of its course in eternity. In an earlier day in this country, you first erected your temporary shelters and rough log houses; and after years of patient toil and studious economy, you secured a competency and wealth to erect your splendid mansion. Was it painful or a fearful thing for you to remove from your old and decayed tenements into your new and magnificent dwellings?

Nor will it be to us, if in this life we are wise, and lay up our treasures, and build our hopes above the skies. Death to us will only be a pleasant change, as it was to our departed brother here, from a tabernacle of clay, to a house not made with hands, eternal and in the heavens.

8. The tearfulness and terror of death arises from the uncertainty of what that future state may be, added to a consciousness of sin. “The sting of death [its fear and pain] is sin,” says Paul, “and the strength of sin is the law,” i. e., conviction of sin. Now, when peace is made with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, the consciousness of sin is 17

See Job 3:18-19.

removed and the sting of death extracted, and the “end of that man is peace,” and often “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

The Christian’s triumph in death is of more value than a conquered world with all its cankering wealth and perishing honours. Balaam saw its glory and burst forth, with his hands closed upon the king’s gold, in language like this: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” Impious prayer! — and repeated by every sinner to this day. Neither he nor they wish to live the life of the righteous; for if they will, their last end would be like his. Pray to live right, and leave the end with God. 9. We pause one moment here and learn the origin of death — by man, on account of sin.

“Wherefore, as by man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death hath passed upon all, for all have sinned.”18 We know not what the condition of man might have been had he remained pure and sinless. He might have lived here until a patriarch of a thousand years, and afterwards translated to a brighter sphere, a lovelier and purer world, associated with those to whom his years would be but those of a child; and when a sire in this, transferred from thence to another still nearer the throne of God, until at last he might be ushered into the heaven of heavens — the kingdom of thrones. We can reasonably infer that there would have been no death.

Thus man laid the necessity upon God to introduce death, and his army of destroyers, and even to shorten to a point the period of his life, else the world He designed originally for a paradise would have been transformed into a very hell. Man also, by the same course, nourisheth sin and keeps it in the world, and speeds it on its flight of destruction.

By our sins we are constantly replenishing the quiver of death with arrows, which from his bowstring are thrown into the bosom of our children.

Having thus noticed life and death, we conclude with the inquiry.

10. What is the great object of our life? We answer: To prepare for a happy change in death.

We were placed in this world to make a decision. Two characters are placed before us with their respective claims for us to decide which to serve: One a Holy God, the other a wicked devil. Two worlds are opened before us, in which we are to receive our reward; one a world of delight and happiness, the other a world of misery and woe. By accepting the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is freely offered to us all, and yielding obedience to His government, an eternity of bliss is won and eternal ages of despair escaped. To decide between these is this brief period of probation granted, and to exert and leave a salutary influence over those who at present surround and may afterwards follow us.

A contrast between the closing hours of these two characters will be the only improvement we shall make of this discourse.

A Christian can look upon death with complaisance; it has no terrors, for his peace is made with God; it is but a change from happiness to glory. He stoops down and looks into the tomb, it brings no gloom upon the soul. Does the spirit die, or the blest affections of the soul go down into the dark and silent grave? Oh, no! “The narrow house, the pall, and breathless darkness,” and funeral train but proclaim the body’s dissolution. They but 18

See Romans 5:12.

celebrate the vanishing away of life’s vapour; man does not die. We bury not our friend today, but only the form; the clothing which, for a short season, he wore. That cold, impassive clay is not the friend, the brother, the cherished being. “He is not there, he has risen.”

Why then should the Christian fear to die? Why dread to lay down his frail body in its resting place, and his weary, aching head on the pillow of repose? Dost thou fear death, aged Christian? Oh, no! “Come the last hour in God’s own time, a glorious hope shall make it welcome. Come to the hour of release! and affliction shall make it welcome. Come the reunion with the loved and lost on earth! and the passionate yearnings of affections, and the strong aspirations of faith, shall bear me to their blessed land. Come, death; to this body; this burdened, temporal, frail and failing, dying body; and to the soul; come freedom, light and joy unceasing — come, immortal life!”

Such are the consolations of Christianity, which, when heart and flesh fail, and the springs of nature cease, like friendly visitors from the cross encircle the dying saint, and throw over him the everlasting arms of divine mercy. But the sinner, how sad, how lonely, will be the couch when his emaciated, strengthless form is stretched, unaccompanied by these dawnings of eternal day! Over his poor, unhappy, wasted clay, no starlight brightens, no cherub wings are hovering. In vain are the arms of friendship extended, or the bosom of love opened. The rays of earthly hope may gleam a moment in the horizon of his mind, but they are cold and cheerless. No vivifying influence passes over his feverish brain; no holy gust of ecstatic joy sublimates the mind. Oh, it is hard dying when these comforts are wanting — when the past, the present, and the future, bring in the dreadful sentence that all is lost — when no uplifted arm makes strong the soul, nor points with unerring truth the bright way up to the mansions of felicity.

But to the Christian, how soft the bed of death; what easy, pleasant dying, when the sweet assurances of God come home to his soul in language that cannot be misunderstood! When his soul, feeling after the promises, finds itself suddenly clinging to the Rock of Ages. It is then that he looks upon the fallen pillars in which he once gloried, with a smile, and beholds unmoved the crumbling tabernacle falling down in ruins, while his new-fledged spirit breaks from its prison and its bonds, and soars away to dip his pinions in the font of light.

“Sure the last end Of the good man is peace!

How calm his exit!

Night dews fall not more gently to the ground Nor weary, worn-out winds expire so soft.”

And such was the death of William Davenport Martin. =============

James Robinson Graves and the Victory of Faith

By Dolton W. Robertson ΙΙ; The Ancient Baptist Journal; Vol. II Issue IV Pg 91-131.

Few things struck fear into the hearts of nineteenth-century people like the dread of an epidemic. Cholera, smallpox and dysentery caused thousands of disease-induced deaths and contributed to the oft’ tragic lives of Americans in the

1800’s. West Tennesseans were particularly devastated by yellow fever in 1873 when 2000 Memphis residents died. This sickness caused fevers, chills, hemorrhaging, severe pains, and sometimes a jaundicing of the skin. This is why it was referred to as “yellow fever.”19 The horrors of the disease came in the frightful form of “black vomit,” which was due to the blood and stomach acids. It is believed that the disease came from the Caribbean or West Africa via New Orleans and brought inland by mosquitoes, borne by river travelers up the Mississippi River.

The only hope for the retreat of yellow fever once it began to spread was winter’s frost.

In 1878, West Tennessee experienced “a mild winter, a short spring and a torrid summer.”20 This provided favorable circumstances for the mass generation of the specie of mosquito credited for spreading this disease. When the Memphis newspapers reported that an epidemic was on the rise, checkpoints were established but too few, too late. These Memphis citizens still had the 1873 tragedy in mind and 25,000 people fled the city within two weeks of hearing of the first death. “The fever raged in Memphis until midOctober, infecting over 17,000 and killing over 5,150. Over 90 percent of the whites who remained, contracted the yellow fever and roughly 70 percent of these died.”21 The venerable J. R. Graves was laboring in Memphis in those days and the yellow fever was only one of his great concerns. This devastating epidemic followed the financial panic of 1873-74. Hard times were had by most in the south following the war and these crises only added to their great sorrow. S. H. Ford offered this comment on Graves’ burden during that period of struggle from 1868 to 1878: Graves rose like a giant from amid the ruins. The storm fearfully appalling, had passed over him, but he stood like an oak, riven but not uprooted. He had a mission and a message—a life work to do, and he met the crisis and faced the front with a faith that did not shrink nor waver on the brink or in the waves, of the deepest earthly woe. A short time after his bereavement he preached in Memphis a discourse to the recently—and they were oh, so many—bereaved, full of consolation, on the “victory of faith.” It was equal to any effort of his life. 22

“Equal to any effort of his life!” That is a grand appraisal when considering a man like J. R. Graves! One can only imagine the holy lift facilitated by the grace of God in that hour as Graves preached on “the victory of faith” to such grief-stricken souls. The opportunity and privilege to be so used of God can only be experienced by those who have traversed the dark 19

Christopher Caplinger, “Yellow Fever Epidemics”: retrieved September 10th, 2010, from <http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=Y002>.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 S. H. Ford, The Christian Repository, June 1900.

valley of the shadow of death. Flippant, flimsy living never deepens the soul.

Pleasure and ease-driven agendas never increase one’s capacity to contain wisdom and dispense mercy.

“The Victory of Faith” is a good description for the life of J. R. Graves. He knew both, and demonstrated each because of the other. As we consider the life and ministry of J. R. Graves, five components of his God-given victory emerge:

His Self-Reliant, Hardscrabble Education.

J. R. Graves was born in Chester, Vermont in 1820. His father died when he was three, leaving him to be reared with the resources of a struggling widow.

After his conversion at fifteen years of age, he was baptized into the Baptist church of North Springfield, Vermont. He began to teach school at the age of eighteen, studying at night to stay ahead of his pupils during the day. This labor began for him at the little academy in Kingsville, near Ashtabula, Ohio.

The rigorous schedule weakened his health, so he removed to Jessamine County, Kentucky, and took charge of the Clear Creek Academy. Graves’ sonin-law, O.L. Hailey, and William Cathcart will help us see how the effort and sacrifice of Graves’ early years would eventually shape him as a preacher and literary pugilist: The school was begun in a small house, but the attendance grew so rapidly and so large that they had to fit up a tobacco barn in order to accommodate the throngs of pupils who waited upon his teaching. 23

For four years he gave six hours to the school room, and eight to study, going over a college course without a teacher, mastering a modern language yearly, making the Bible the man of his counsel and Paul his instructor in theology. These years of hard study and self-reliant investigation gave the peculiar character which belongs to his preaching and reasoning.24 One has to wonder how it is that recent generations of young preachers, offered every opportunity imaginable for growth and education from easy-toattend Bible colleges, to books galore and internet information ad infinitum, are so often obviously ill-equipped to preach the Word of God. It may be that no amount of pampering and preparation will make up for a lack of conviction, pathos and work ethic, and while formal education for preachers of the gospel may (or may not) be a good opportunity, it is most certainly not a proof-positive remedy for ignorance, lethargy and compromise.

Graves, though destined for Baptist lore, began his ministry with rare humility. While living in Kentucky and attending the Mount Freedom Baptist Church, he came under the important influence of the faithful pastor there, Ryland Thompson Dillard. In order to understand Graves’ sensitivity to the 23 24

O.L. Hailcy, J.R. Graves: Life, Times and Teachings, (Nashville, TN: 1929), 17.

William Cathcart, D.D., The Baptist Encyclopedia, vol. 1, (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881), 466-468.

importance of New Testament (Baptist) principles, it might help us to consider the spiritual background of his pastor, R. T. Dillard. Dillard, who fought in the War of 1812, was reared and confirmed an Episcopalian. Being convinced of the necessity of the new birth, Dillard was converted and joined the Baptist church at Bryants, Kentucky, being baptized by the faithful Ambrose Dudley.

Cathcart said of Dillard, “He wrote for the Baptist periodicals, and preached frequently to the destitute, especially among the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. During his ministry he baptized over 4,000 people, and married 873 couples.”25 The ministry of J. R. Graves, which literally prevented the eventual apostasy of thousands of Baptist churches, was structured and established under the oversight of a little-known, Kentucky preacher named Ryland Thompson Dillard.

As a young man, Graves never thought much of his own ability to preach, especially as a pastor. This opinion was not held; however, by those who heard and knew him. Ford said: There were those in the church who had the insight to discern his abilities. He was called on to lead the Sunday morning service in the absence of one of the monthly visits of the pastor. He preached—although he did not know it. The church licensed him to preach really without having his consent; and soon after called for his ordination.26 After his sojourn in Kentucky, and the very important time under the leadership of Ryland T. Dillard, Graves returned to Ohio. He spent “months” there studying for the ministry; a time that Graves said was “the happiest of his life.”27 While living there in Ashtabula, caring for his family and preparing for his future, an incident arose that provided opportunity for God to reveal his Hand of Providence—to demonstrate the usefulness of this young man.

A brazen young infidel was holding forth in one of the few church buildings in the community, humiliating and disturbing the faith of the beleaguered saints in the town. Graves’ brother-inlaw, Professor W. P. Marks, took him to hear this “brilliant infidel” and introduced them. Hoping to seize the young Baptist preacher as a promising new skeptic, the infidel made the mistake of asking Graves to open the meeting in prayer.

When Graves began to pray, it is said that he “clothed his prayers with the truth as with a garment.”28 The prayer had such an effect that the people of the community asked for young Graves to preach. The appointment was made, and “for two hours there poured forth from that young man a stream of eloquence, wisdom, and truth and fiery denunciation such as they had never heard and such as had never been spoken before. The whole town was aroused. Infidelity was overthrown, the champion unhorsed and put into

25

Ibid., 334.

Ford, 1899 iss.

27 Hailey, 19.

28 Ibid., 20. [Emphasis added].

26

retreat. The Baptists were cheered and strengthened, the church confirmed and the field cleared for their progress.”29 These were the beginnings of ministry life for one of the most important men to preach in a Baptist pulpit of the nineteenth century. One could wonder with great apprehension what might have become of our precious Baptist churches in America had there been no J. R. Graves. It is sad that he is so little known today. Independent Baptists repeatedly exalt men who had no heart for the church for which Jesus died—the church that God purchased with His own blood.

They will fawn over the exaggerated memories of pedo-Baptists, ecumenical evangelists and dangerous heretics (D. L. Moody, Billy Sunday, Charles G. Finney). James Robinson Graves is often marginalized by today’s preachers and historians as though he were some wild-eyed cook— an overlooked rabble-rouser. Such is not the case. Consider these opinions from his peers: Extreme as the views of Dr. Graves have been regarded by some, there is no question but that they have powerfully contributed to the correction of a false liberalism that was current in many quarters many years ago. 30 Dr. E. T. Winkler.

He is a preacher who insists strongly upon water—that is, baptism and baptism properly administered—yet he places the blood of Christ above water.

In play of fancy, in power of illustration, in earnestness of denunciation, in force of logic, in clearness of presentation, in naturalness of delivery, in boldness of thought, and at times tenderness of spirit, he hardly has a peer.31 Dr. Samuel Boykin.

There is one man who had done more than any fifty men now living to enable the Baptists of America to know their own history and their principles and to make the world know them, and that man is the brother to my right... 32 Honorable Joseph E. Brown Governor of Georgia.

There was something in Dr. J. R. Graves grander than ever shown out in his writings. He was a hero in the defense of the Baptist faith, but he was a greater hero than that—he could take a young and trembling brother by the hand and help him up.

Dr. John H. Bovet.

This is the man that was made by God in simple settings, built up in the quiet moments of private study and forged in the hot furnace of controversy from the very earliest days of his ministry. The question with J. R. Graves is not “do we agree with his every position and practice,” but rather, why do so many discard him over his stringent admonitions with which some might 29

Ibid., 21.

Ibid., 13.

31 Ibid., 14.

32 Ibid.

30

disagree, while receiving with open arms, men whose errors are both glaring and eternally consequential?

His Tireless Labour and Almost Peerless Force as a Preacher.

The mere listing of Graves’ body of work would indicate a lifetime of relentless toil. Consider what he accomplished, while enduring the War Between the States, the loss of loved-ones, repeated financial reversal and personal sickness. He was the editor of The Tennessee Baptist and The Baptist.

Cathcart said of The Tennessee Baptist, when Graves took over as its editor, “it had a circulation of only a thousand, and before the breaking out of the war it had attained the largest circulation of any Baptist paper in the world, and it is doubtful if any paper ever exerted a wider denominational influence.”33 At the same time he edited a monthly, a quarterly, an annual and all the books published by the Southwestern Publishing House. In addition to this he wrote and published many books and booklets, some of which are The Desire of All Nations, The Watchman’s Reply, The Trilemma, The First Baptist Church in America,34 The Great Iron Wheel, Old Landmarkism What is it? and The Work of Christ Consummated in Seven Dispensations.

Concerned about the rural preacher and his lack of educational opportunities, Graves originated “The Ministers’ Institute.” He gave this series of lectures at associational meetings across the South. To date, I can find no published record of the material of those meetings, but they must have been special. He raised money to endow the theological chair at Union University, established the Mary Sharpe College in Winchester, Tennessee, and started the Southwestern Publishing House in Nashville, in 1848. All this in addition to pasturing, traveling extensively and rearing a family in the harsh conditions of life in the South of the 1800’s.

Graves was not just a man with a “mighty pen,” but was known most as a great preacher. Cathcart described him as “a great preacher, following the usual lines of thought. He is pre-eminently doctrinal, yet Christ crucified is the soul of every sermon. He is lengthy, yet he holds the attention of his audience to the very last. “35 Washington Bryan Crumpton, 28 years the Corresponding Secretary of the Baptist Mission Board of Alabama, relays an exciting story about hearing Graves preach in Mobile at the Southern Baptist Convention: It was in Mobile, in my native State, in 1873. I had been a country pastor for two years, was thirty-one years of age. In these days, we had a few papers, the Alabama Baptist was not yet. The churches never dreamed of sending a pastor to the conventions, and not many of the 33

Cathcart, 467.

An excellent book which verifies the fact that John Clarke was the first Baptist pastor in America and not Roger Williams, the Newport church the first and not the church in Providence.

35 Cathcart, 467.

34

pastors thought about going. It was easy for me to step aboard a steamboat and float to Mobile. Doctor Boyce was the President, M. B. Wharton was Secretary, and Doctor Tiberius Gracus Jones preached the sermon. Only two things made a lasting impression on my mind.

One was the sermon J. R. Graves preached to a great audience at the Broad Street Baptist Church. The growling of the Landmark Baptists about his being put off in a small church I distinctly remember. I was among the complainers, but I have long come to realize that it couldn ’t be helped. That was before the days of auditoriums and before the days of great conventions, as we now have (1920). The church housed ample room for all the delegates and a good audience besides. Graves never preached that he did not “stir up the animals.” Of course he couldn’t be sent to a church of another denomination for fear he would flay them alive; besides, two or three hours was longer than the fashionable churches could stand. 36

Graves was known as a strict or “strenuous Baptist.”37 This compulsion was evidently with him from the very start, for S. H. Ford said, “The first sermon preached by appointment by J. R. Graves, was at Mount Freedom, Jessamine County, Kentucky. His text was `Adam where art thou?” It was mainly on the indecision and the cowardice of those who have no fixed religious principles, or are too fearful to maintain what they believe.”38 One reads this with the impression that God was raising up a man to do battle with the shaken reeds who filled the seminaries and pulpits of the day.

Ford said of Graves that “there was no still life in him. He had no idea of resting like the lark in the soft dawn of morning, where the sounds and sights of earth would be unheard. His tendency was to explore the tangled lives of men; to know their hearts’ errors and to bring, with all the force and all the intensity that was in him, God’s truth, in direct contact and conflict with it all.”39 This trait made Graves both a feared adversary and a powerfully, lucid preacher. While he was hated in life and misrepresented thereafter, his faithfulness to “God’s truth” brought amazing results wherever he preached. He was, contrary to the dismissive opinions of compromisers then and now, a revivalist, evangelist and exhorter as a preacher. His distaste for doubt and his intensity in matters of doctrine drew much needed attention to the specifics in doctrine that were fast becoming irrelevant to Baptists as the nineteenth century came to a close.

More than anything else, Graves was a preacher of truth. According to his son-in-law, O. L. Hailey, “It was in his spoken addresses and especially in

36

Washington Bryan Crumpton, A Book of Memories; 1842 - 1920 (Montgomery, AL: Baptist Mission Board, 1921), 163-164.

[Emphasis added].

37 Ibid., 165.

38 Ford, November 1899.

39 Ibid.

his sermons that Dr. Graves was at his best and his power most felt.”40 Graves was said to always speak in earnest with his entire body, soul and mind thrown into the preaching. He preached “brim full” of his subject and was totally possessed thereby. There was quite possibly no man more qualified to comment on preaching in Graves’ day than John Broadus. In 1874, after Graves preached to the theological students at the Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina, Broadus said, “Graves has what many of us lack, that which has marked all distinguished orators. It is called personal magnetism. The old rhetoricians called it ACTION. It is the intense concentration and mastery of all one’s power in an extempore delivery.”41 The great Texas Baptist, J. B. Gambrell, wrote an article in the Texas Baptist Standard many years ago reflecting on a message preached by J. R. Graves at the East Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky, during the Southern Baptist Convention in May of 1857. Gambrell called it “the greatest sermon I ever heard.”42 S. H. Ford was the pastor there at that time and the message was preached on a Sunday morning. Basil Manley, Sr. preached at the Walnut Street Baptist Church in the same city. Crowds pressed to overflowing at the East Baptist Church, eager to hear the famous controversialist hold forth.

Many who were present that morning were familiar with the writings of Graves but they had never heard him in person. Among those in the service were such notables as J. Ρ. Boyce, John A. Broadus, Pharcellus Church of The New York Chronicle and Justin A. Smith of the Chicago Standard.43 Hailey describes the scene: His text was “The veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” After describing “the holiest of all,” the mercy seat, the high priest’s yearly entry, the veil, etc. he directed the thought to the ascent of Calvary, seen from the Temple and watched by the priests —the darkened sky, the rending rocks, the earthquake causing the Temple and veil to tremble—and then the sudden rending of the spacious veil. It was brief, graphic and touching. He went on to show that the riven veil was a visible, ocular declaration that all priestly forms and all ceremonial impediments or inventions—sacrifices and purifications—were swept away by the death of Christ. The mercy seat was laid bare. Not a church, not a saint or angel, person or preacher, priest or ordinance—absolutely no one and nothing intervened between the contrite soul and the throne of grace—the blood-sprinkled mercy seat.

40

Hailey, 58.

Ibid., 59.

42 Ibid., 59.

43 Ibid., 60.

41

Its effect was thrilling, lasting. One listener said, “The only time in my recollection that my hair seemed to actually rise on my head was when hearing that discourse. It was positively powerful.” 44 Graves preached the way he did and stood with the rigidity with which he stood, not because of some carnal, sectarian bias; but rather, in constant opposition to sacramental salvation. He viewed the doctrines of Rome, whether found therein or in her nefarious ecclesiastical offspring, to be damnable. This would explain his fervent pugilism in the face of error. He closed his message in Louisville by lifting up the all and only sufficient Lamb of God: O, thou blessed mercy seat, hidden through the ages by the cloud of sin, the veil of wrath, the way to the holy place is opened, the glory that crowns thee may be approached, and thy blessing obtained. I hear the voice of the eternal issuing from the mysterious recesses, saying “Come unto me—not to angel or saint, priest or preacher or church or ordinance—come unto me and be ye saved all ye ends of the earth, and, Ο Lamb of God, I come, I come.” 45

The next day, S. H. Ford hosted numerous notable men for a meal among which were Basil Manley, Sr., Jeremiah Bell Jeter, R. B. C. Howell, Pharcelius Church, William Crowell of the Western Watchman, J. L. Burrows and Dr. Graves himself. The sermon was mentioned aloud during the special dinner, about which one at the table stated, “It is said to have been the greatest sermon ever preached in this city.”46 Another event which demonstrates the superiority of Graves as a preacher took place in Waco, Texas, in 1883 at the Southern Baptist Convention held there. The convention drew a large crowd, so much so that the First Baptist Church could not hold the throngs that sought entrance. J. R. Graves was in bed sick in his hotel much of the time. On one afternoon, with overflowing crowds attempting to enter the building, it was announced that Graves would be preaching across the street at the Methodist church! R. K. Maiden said, `A complete stampede ensued.”47 People moved with no regard for the sidewalks, taking to the streets, some literally running, filling the building rapidly. Dr. Graves came in from his sick-bed and took a text from Romans, preaching on “justification by faith” for almost two hours! Maiden said, “The like of that sermon we have never heard.

For awhile the style was deliberate and didactic. Gradually he took fire. There was majestic logic, fervid eloquence, spiritual unction and pathos that was sublime and overwhelming. The congregation was swayed like ripening wheat before the wind. All over the house the people wept. Hot tears chased each other down the wrinkled and bronzed faces of old men.”48

44

Ibid., 60.

Ibid.

46 Ibid., 61.

47 Ibid., 62.

48 Ibid.

45

Allow Graves’ son-in-law to complete our picture of his preaching and work-ethic: There was a degree of mental and physical energy in Dr. Graves that was possessed by few men. A prominent minister says, “I heard him preach three and one-half hours before the General Association at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1860, to a great congregation whose undivided attention he held till the last.”

The same untiring endurance and application marked his daily habits.

He would read, prepare notes and prepare matter for whatever book he had on hand from early morning until noon. Then, after lunch, go t o his office and attend to editorial business and return in the evening to write and revise his editorials or his book manuscripts on into the small hours of the night and sometimes until almost morning. From this constant labour he would go to meet a list of appointments to preach or lecture, even in distant states, and speak for hours at a time to enthusiastic audiences, traveling many miles from one appointment to another, and then return to his desk to write night and day. 49

Certainly, we could fill a book discussing the preaching stature of this giant Baptist. Let these few anecdotes suffice in establishing the fact that before Graves was a “disturber of the religious peace,” he was a preacher of the gospel and it was his passion for the latter that necessitated the former.

His Zeal for Heaven-Inspired Principles and the Corresponding Denunciation of an Ungodly Charity.

Graves may be best known for his role in calling Baptists’ attention back to the “Old Landmarks.” He was disturbed that the distinguishing principles of Baptists seemed to be held in lighter regard by men of his day than by those whose ancient testimony was brightened by the “gloomy light of martyrs’ fires.” He states this most clearly in his great work entitled The Work of Christ Consummated in Seven Dispensations: It should be borne in mind that since the ordinances set forth in most forceful symbolism, all the saving truths of the gospel, so long as they are duly administered, the faith of the church will be preserved in its purity, but that a corruption of the saving doctrines follow immediately upon a perversion of the ordinances. Let these be perverted in their design, and the more extensive the missionary operations of the churches, the greater the injury resulting to both Christianity and the world. The first and most important work of the churches is to guard the purity of the ordinances, that a pure faith and pure practice may be conserved. This fact should rebuke those Baptists who are now carrying fagots to the feet of the faithful few who are witnessing for a pure faith and a pure practice, while they at the same time encourage missions! 50 49

Hailey, 32.

J. R. Graves, The Work of Christ Consummated in Seven Dispensations, (Memphis, TN: Baptist Book House, 1883), 292-293.

50

In an unusual but interesting view of when the Laodicean church period may have commenced, Graves adds: The Laodicean Church state embraces a period extending from the Philadelphia state until the Second Advent. There are good and sufficient reasons to place its commencement about A. D. 1776, when the church in Europe and America ceased to suffer from the civil rulers the vigorous persecutions that had followed it onward from the days of John the Baptist. From this period the churches multiplied, and, their substance no longer distrained for “fines and penalties,” they commenced to rapidly increase in “this world’s goods”—on account of their great numbers and wealth they began to be esteemed respectable, and treated with consideration, by those who had persecuted and shed their blood. In turn the witnesses of Christ began to weaken in the boldness and faithfulness of their testimony against the heresies and Antichristian position the sects occupied towards the kingdom of Christ, and in this way, with a thief-like stealthiness, a false liberalism stole in upon the churches which had fruited into full affiliation with manifest heresies in their manifest forms, a fellowship with the teachers of those heresies by public association with them. [This “full affiliation” with heresies is called “Fundamentalism” 51 today!] 52

Let not this amazing insight be lost upon us! While living in the midst of the very declension that he is denouncing, Graves had the wisdom to identify this seemingly innocent camaraderie with Protestant denominations and other religious sects as “a false liberalism,” an ungoldly charity that would lead the churches into the tepidity of end-times apostasy. In the dedication to Graves’ landmark publication, Old Landmarkism, What Is It?, he said, “This little work is dedicated and its dissemination throughout the denomination committed to every Baptist brother and sister, and especially my brethren in the ministry and of the press in America, who love those principles for which our Baptist fathers for eighteen centuries suffered cruel mockings, bloody stripes, imprisonment and martyrdoms; and are willing to be their successors as the `witnesses of the truth’ in this Laodicean Age of universal lukewarmness and indifferentism with respect to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and especially the characteristic principles and policy which distinguished Baptists in the purest ages of the churches of Christ, by the author” (Memphis, January 1, 1880).53 I add this quote to demonstrate that Graves was driven by a love for principle and people, not sectarian bigotry. He loved the church of Jesus Christ as it was originally established and believed that it

51

See also: “James Crumpton: Defining the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement” by James Beller http://www.21tnt.com/archive_for_articles/crumpton.htm; The Expiration of Fundamentalism- http://www.21tnt.com for a succinct history [of what I like to call “Funny-Mentalism”-esn] and Principles Demand More Than Fundamentalism by Beller.

52 Ibid., 386. [Emphasis added].

53 J. R. Graves, Old Landmarkism, What Is It?, (Texarkana, AR/TX: Baptist Sunday School Committee, 1928 reprint of the 1880 original).

should remain in that form and function throughout the ages.54 He was right in his convictions!

The profound conviction that the church which Jesus started should march on unaltered in faith and form was the impulse and essence of the watershed event in the life of J. R. Graves which took place at the convention held at Cotton Grove, Tennessee, June 24, 1851. Graves took charge of The Tennessee Baptist in 1846 and began immediately to address the issues of “alien immersions, and the propriety of Baptists recognizing, by any act, ecclesiastical or ministerial, Pedobaptist societies of preachers as churches and ministers of Christ.”55 This “agitation,” as Graves called it, led many Baptists to gather at Cotton Grove and to pass five important resolutions, now referred to as the “Cotton Grove Resolutions.” These resolutions were presented as queries: 1st. Can Baptists, consistently with their principles or the Scriptures, recognize those societies not organized according to the pattern of the Jerusalem Church, but possessing different governments, different officers, a different class of members, different ordinances, doctrines and practices, as the churches of Christ?

2nd. Ought they to be called gospel churches, or churches in a regular sense?

3rd. Can we consistently recognize the ministers of such irregular and unscriptural bodies as gospel ministers?

4th. Is it not virtually recognizing them as official ministers to invite them into our pulpits, or by any other act that would or could be construed into such a recognition?

5th. Can we consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity, who not only have not the doctrine of Christ, and walk n ot according to his commandments, but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them? 56

These principles have been overwhelmingly accepted by Baptists throughout the ages, though currently unknown, ignored and even openly derided.57 Robert Ashcraft said that “in July of the same year, the questions were addressed to a mass meeting called in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Big Hatchie Association at Bolivar, Tennessee. The resolutions in support of Dr. Graves’ position were unanimously adopted by the association.”58 54

See the article by James Alter, “The Bible: The Baptists’ Sole Authority Throughout the Ages” on pp. 1-66 in this issue of the Ancient Baptist Journal.

55 Graves, xi.

56 Ibid., xi-xii.

57 As has been repeatedly demonstrated in the Ancient Baptist Journal, independent Baptists have been trained and influenced by interdenominational, Protestant Fundamentalism for nearly a hundred years now. It is no wonder that we have lost our way when fundamental doctrines like baptism, church order, and the Lord’s Supper are left to the unscriptural whims of barely Baptist pastors.

We desperately need a return to sound, New Testament principles if the torrent of apostasy is to be abated a whit.

58 Robert Ashcraft, Landmarkism Revisited, (Mabelvale, AR: Ashcraft Publications, 2003), 105-106. [Emphasis added].

In the second edition to Old Landmarkism, Grave provides two historic examples of Baptists that held firmly to New Testament principles in matters of church order. These men represented large, influential groups of Baptists, proof positive that these convictions were not the partisan fancy of Graves but; rather, the clear teachings of Jesus Christ, the Lawgiver of the New Testament and the perpetual marching orders believed and practiced by Baptists through the ages. One of those men was the Georgia Baptist giant, Jesse Mercer (the other William Kiffin). In 1811, Mercer wrote the circular letter for the Georgia Association in which he wrote his reasons for “regarding the administration of Baptism by Pedobaptists, though in the proper mode, as invalid.”59 Invalid!

Here is documentation that Jesse Mercer and his generation of Georgia Baptists (and others) would not have accepted the baptism of many of the leading fundamentalists! Here is documentation that while some Baptists were following the progressives of their day (1800’s) and joining with Protestants in union work (“city-wide campaigns”), most other Baptists were rejecting the errors of alien immersion, open communion and pulpit affiliation with Protestants. As a matter of fact, Graves reported in 1880, “I do not believe that there is one association in the whole South that would today endorse an alien immersion as scriptural or valid.”60 Maybe those who brand Graves as a radical-fringe extremist are simply addled by the intoxicating Kool-Aid of Laodicean compromise!

Not only did the Cotton Grove Resolutions prove to strengthen Baptists across America, but Graves’ resistance to Methodism and Campbellism did as well. When Graves became the editorial successor to R. B. C. Howell at the Baptist in Nashville in 1846, Nashville was then the “center and stronghold of Methodism in the South.”61 The Methodists had a large publishing operation in the city in which “every Methodist preacher had a pecuniary as well as denominational interest.”62 The Methodists outnumbered the Baptists in Nashville five to one, making Methodist doctrine an issue with which to contend if Baptist distinctives were to be adequately promulgated. The Methodist champion, J. B. McFerrin, “a hater of all that distinguishes Baptists, turned his fury on the young editor, just as he had his esteemed predecessor.”63 Ford describes the intensity of the battle in those days: Then there was in the state the notorious “Parson Brownlow,” of whom we need say little—a desperado in politics and religion, who was known to preach at a great camp meeting with a revolver before him on the stand. This turbulent man, was the heart-foe of Baptists and their principles and attacked them constantly in his political Knox ville Whig.

59

Graves, 262.

Ibid., xv.

61 Ford, November 1899, 612.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid.

60

Then through Tennessee and Mississippi were two traveling lecturers and disputers, whose main work was to attack and misrepresent Baptists. One of them named Chapman, and Irishman, was the bitterest and most unscrupulous man we have ever met with in ministerial garb.

These were the men Graves, the newly elected editor, had to meet, in defense of principles which he intensely loved, and had to meet almost alone. 64

This struggle with Methodism was no small matter.

McFerrin, the Methodist defender, became a key focus Graves’ answers to the charges of McFerrin are found in Iron Wheel. The significance of the battle is seen in the issue of the Baptist, in which R. B. C. Howell said:

The aforementioned of Graves’ writings. the book, The Great December 12, 1839

The baptismal controversy is again becoming exceedingly rife. All the Pedo-Baptist papers in the country are in the midst of warm discussions on the subject. Well, we are glad of it. Truth is not likely to suffer by investigation. We say to all concerned—go ahead. We shall probably come in for our share, by and by. The sprinklers are getting very much afraid lest their ritualism should fall into contempt. They may be assured this result will occur. 65

Graves answered the call! “He wrote, lectured, preached all over Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, portions of Georgia and Kentucky, in attack and defense to thousands. He debated the champion of Methodism and turned the tide, we may say, in a way and to an extent that no one in those states had previously done.”66 His opposition to Campbellism and Spiritism was as extensive and effective, making J. R. Graves one of two or three of the most important and influential Baptist men of the nineteenth century. He gave his life in opposition to the damnable heresies of sacramental religion.

His Wide Influence, Unique Sensitivity and Warmth as a Family Man, Friend and Foe. Cathcart said, “With all the strong blows he has inflicted upon error, he is one of the kindest living men.”67 Few preachers have the capacity of soul to wage war against the enemies of the cross with a biblical fervency without becoming embittered by the fight. Graves maintained the traits of a Christian gentleman all of his days.

As harsh as the battle was between Graves and the Methodists, he still retained his charity in all things. He said, “I feel no unkindness against a Methodist because he is a Methodist. If he gives evidence that he loves Christ I love him (not that he is unsaved out of a Baptist church) and he is dear to me 64

Ibid., 613. [Emphasis added].

Ibid., 615.

66 Ibid.

67 Cathcart, 467.

65

in proportion as I see the image of my Savior reflected in his temper and life.”68 In the darkest hours of Graves’ grief it was said that he spoke not one word of doubt or complaint. He lived with complete submission to God’s holy will. He was said to be as tender as a woman while standing as solid as a rock.

Following the devastation of the War Between the States, Graves said, “ If any look to me to foster and fan the fell spirit of hate and revenge that rankles in the breasts and burns upon the tongues of some of our brethren, they will be disappointed. It is easy to hate our enemies and to speak evil and bitter things of those who have injured us, but it is not the spirit of the meek Jesus; it is not an evidence of a renewed and sanctified heart.”69 The degree of influence had by a man like Graves, with such strenuous views, can only be explained by his mitigating kindness of heart. Especially after the rigors of war, it is said that his spirit “matured, chastened, humbled, conciliatory, but stedfast as the compass ever pointing to the pole star— stedfast to Christ and His teachings.”70 During the yellow fever ordeal in Memphis, Graves prayed at the funeral of a highly esteemed Presbyterian preacher known as Dr. Davis. Graves “wept like a child and prayed like a saint.”71 Today’s reactionary, hyper-sensitive ecumenicists will almost categorically marginalize J. R. Graves. To read their writings you would almost think that Graves was a disrespected, little-known wacko. An irrelevant egotist. The truth of the matter is, “His influence in the Mississippi Valley was greater than that of any contemporary. His views and teachings were accepted as the Baptist interpretation of New Testament Christianity.”72 Also, “...Graves was the acknowledged champion of the churches throughout the Southwest and his influence and power were felt throughout the whole country.”73

His Life-Long Resistance To Slander, Disappointment and Trials of the Severest Sort.

The Personal Conflicts.

As an ardent defender of the faith, Graves spent a lifetime enduring the rebuff of senseless slander. As is so often the case, the fight would frequently seep beyond the parameters of principled disagreement and into the cherished quarters of the personal. At times, even Baptist brethren would rise up in ridicule, resenting the indictment of Graves’ positions.

68

Ford, November 1899, 674.

Ford, March 1900, 167.

70 Ibid., 168.

71 Ford, May 1900, 288.

72 Hailey, 105.

73 Ford, March 1900, 162.

69

One of the earlier conflicts which arose was over an article published in The Tennessee Baptist. A libel suit was filed against the paper and Graves, its editor in 1852. The article was written by another Baptist pastor while Graves was away preaching a protracted meeting in Bowling Green, Kentucky. While he knew nothing of the article until sometime afterward, Graves was found guilty of the charges and fined $7,500 (a handsome sum in 1852)! Through some interference by other men, a compromise was made and he was required to pay the sum of $1,700.

Another skirmish that developed into a painful, far-reaching event for Southern Baptists was the result of Graves’ relentless censure of compromising, loose-viewed Baptists. His most polarizing view was his opposition of pulpit affiliation with “alien ministers.” He was alarmed by the cheap, “ungodly charity” of his day that endorsed by association, the errors of Rome and her many daughters (Protestantism). He opposed the recognition of “baptisms” administered by institutions that were not scriptural churches. S. H. Ford said, “He indulged in fierce, personal attacks on those who stood prominent, and who invited bitter foes of Baptist principles into their pulpits.”74 The secretary of the Southern Baptist Publication Society in Charleston, South Carolina was one Mr. Tustin. He was very liberal in his views and made that clear, so, Graves took him to task in The Tennessee Baptist. As a result, Tustin had to resign. While Graves’ actions may appear hateful or extreme— causing a man to lose his job—consider the fact that this “Baptist” leader moved north and became an Episcopalian!

During this period, Graves fell out of favor with R. B. C. Howell when Howell returned to his old pastorate in Nashville. Howell resumed his post with the determination to stay the increasing rise of “Landmarkism.” He began to invite men who were the pronounced enemies of Graves and his principles to preach in the pulpit of the First Church. “Graves’ demurred, coldness, antagonism, serious difficulties followed.”75 Plans were made to bring Graves before the church on charges of slander. Graves and about twenty others decided to enter a demurrer76. In this objection the minority (Graves’ group) declared themselves the church and referred to the majority as “Howell’s Society.” This caused a massive tumult among the papers where friends of Graves denied charges and Methodists delighted in the presumed demise of the celebrated pugilist.

74

Ibid., 163.

Ibid.

76 A plea in law that, even if the opponent’s facts are as they say, they still do not support his or her case (law)[WordWeb.info]. In any church vote the minority may enter a minority report, and if waranted withdraw to form a new body. Too many are afraid to follow this scriptural precedent which our Lord, the apostles and Paul were forced to do. “And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.”Mark 6:10-11. See also: Dane’s Dirge - www.wvi.com/~moses/Danes Dirge.htm -esn.

75

The friends of J. R. Graves disapproved of the minority group’s refusal to see the trial through to the end. Eventually, the minority group was organized into a church with the full approval of the association and the general associates to which both churches belonged. This church was originally the Second Baptist Church and became the storied Central Baptist Church of Nashville. Eventually, peace prevailed in the convention and most of the men involved restored fellowship. One notable Baltimore Baptist, Richard Fuller, who received the stinging rebuke of Graves for improper affiliation, admitted his error and declared that Graves was right to criticize him. He became the next President of the Southern Baptist Convention, due to Howell’s declination of a thinly-won election. Difficult conflicts between good men of this nature remind us that “Great men are not always wise...”.77

The War Between The States.

Civilian life in the South during the War Between the States, and after, was laden with a variety of difficulties. Anyone trying to minister during that time would have to deal with the harsh inevitabilities that came with it. J. R. Graves lost everything as a result of the Yankee victory at Fort Donelson and their corresponding march on Nashville. The story of his narrow escape with his family is exciting and heartbreaking.

Graves’ success was at its zenith in 1860. He had combined the efforts of The Tennessee Baptist, the publication society, and the pastorate of the Second Baptist Church when the threat of war began to ripple through the South. He lived on the north side of the Cumberland River on Marks Street, but was preaching on the Lord’s Day across the river in another Nashville church, when the news of war reached him. The noise of battle was in the air.

Sounds of cannons and the boom of distant conflict was heard from the meeting house that morning. Graves tried to keep the congregation engaged in the text when a man entered the building and proceeded down the center aisle, approaching the pulpit. He relayed a message in Graves’ ear while the congregation sat in fervid silence. Graves said, “Fort Donelson has fallen and the Yankees are advancing on Nashville.”78 He was able to say no more for chaos ensued and the building was emptied almost instantly.

Graves gathered his family, placed them in his carriage and called upon his horse, Billy, to take them home as fast as possible! Once there, they rummaged hurriedly through their trunks, storing what they could not take with them. Graves grabbed his field glasses and ascended the tower of his home in order to check the pike toward Gallatin. For as far as he could see in either direction, the pike was crammed with people, animals and wagons, striving to reach the suspension bridge in desperate departure from Nashville.

He took what he could along with his family, leaving his mother and sister 77 78

Job 32:9 Hailey, 78.

with the house, and reached the long procession of refugees. They sat for hours waiting for entrance into the traffic crossing the river. Darkness came.

Rain came. Eventually, they crossed the river and braved the arduous journey to Huntsville, Alabama, through darkness, rain and oft’ impassable roads.

Their every resource was put to the test until they finally reached Huntsville where the wife and children were placed on a train for the home of Graves’ father-in-law within a hundred miles of the Gulf of Mexico.79 This was a time of considerable loss for Graves. He said: I packed up, as was necessary, obedient to orders, and hastened to cross the river before the bridge should be destroyed. Reaching the city side in safety, with a hearty thanksgiving to God, I turned to take a last look of a pleasant home, and without visiting my office, bade farewell forever, as I then supposed, to all I possessed on earth, the hard labors of a fourth of a century... Five years have passed, years of painful solicitude, hardships, privation and labor, years that have stamped age deep on heart and form, and almost effaced the treasures of memory, and I returned to look upon the sad wreck of property and business. Scarce anything was left of the entire stock of books and type of the publishing house. What had not been carried off was destroyed... 80 As you might expect, Graves continued to work and serve throughout the dark days of war, Yankee occupation and reconstruction era chaos. Though he lived in virtual exile, he was able to assist the ministry of Mississippi pastor, J. F. Cook. Ford tells us that “with little or no facilities to get news, in the calm quiet of the farm of his wife’s father, Dr. Snyder, Graves thought out and wrote his greatest work, The Seven Dispensations, with other works which he rewrote and afterwards published.”81

The Difficulties in Memphis.

1866 found J. R. Graves starting again in the river city of Memphis, Tennessee. With much promise and unabated vigor, he launched into his characteristically herculean tasks of writing, publishing and preaching. This effort seemed to be typical of Baptists and their “recuperative energy” all over the South. He travelled the breadth of Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, preaching, teaching and lecturing, holding forth as always, those principles set forth by the Lord and Lawgiver of the New Testament church, Jesus Christ. Graves was moved by an enormous mixture of charity and conviction. In a time when sound leadership was absolutely vital, Graves ministered with the kind of spirit that moved him to say, “There is a great work to be done, error has not been asleep or idle in the past five years, but has gathered strength immensely. The enemies of our churches and of Christianity were never so strong or so bold. Catholicism, Roman and

79

Ibid., 79.

Ford, March 1900, 167.

81 Ibid., 169.

80

Episcopal, the old and the new, are coming in upon our land like a flood; and shall we not, in the spirit of our Lord, `lift up a banner against it?”82 “Lift up a banner” he did. The previous quote was taken from the first issue of The Baptist, which was the resurrection of The Tennessee Baptist, the paper destroyed by the war. 1866-67 were years of zealous labor for Graves who partook in very successful revivals and evangelistic meetings, while succumbing to frequent physical breakdowns. Nonetheless, subscriptions rolled in from all over the country, including the north. The work progressed well as would be expected but more tragedy awaited the embattled minister.

Few things cast us down like failure. This is especially true with the man of God, for failure seems to indicate a deficiency in our faith (though seldom so). Failure, when arriving in the wake of zealous efforts and fervent prayers can confuse and disorient the servant of God like nothing else. One of the rare failures in the ministry of J. R. Graves was the Southwestern Baptist Publication Society, an organization started in order to combat the Methodist “book concern” which littered the South with anti-Baptist propaganda. It is said that Graves gave all that was in him to see this society succeed, clinging to it “until it crumbled like a withered leaf”83 At least four factors contributed to the demise of the society. (1) A big building was purchased at a very high price. (2) An extensive inventory of books from old plates were purchased along with large editions published, while Graves travelled much, neglecting the paper. The circulation declined and new publications were ignored. (3) Graves engaged in a successful debate against the Methodist, Jacob Ditzler. The attempt to publish the transcripts was costly and translated into a loss for the society. (4) An unnamed business manager and investor evidently “purposed the wreck of the concern [society] for his own personal profit.”84 The loss amounted to over $100,000!

S. H. Ford said, “To J. R. Graves, who had set his heart upon it, and to establish [that to] which he had devoted his great powers with unresting force and activities, it was a mortification coming down like a dark cloud and permanently settling on his life-path. But he made no pause: and uttered no note of despair. He had undertaken it, with sincere desire to advance the cause of truth, and as he said, ‘with a consciousness of having done right, and done my best, I shall foot my way and do the right.’”85 The heart-breaking failure of the publication society was followed by the dreadful seasons of yellow fever, and the aforementioned financial panic of 1872-73. These events made it seem as if Graves was descending, step by step, into the abyss of darkest despair. The most difficult trial of his life would overtake him during these days of unimaginable crisis.

82

Ibid., 168.

Ford, April 1900, 229.

84 Ibid., 230.

85 Ibid., 231. [Emphasis added].

83

J. R. Graves was extremely close to his mother from childhood. She lived with his family for most his adult life. In 1868, a deceptively mild stroke of the fever came to Memphis. Though little attention was given to it, the mother of Graves was struck down, along with the influential pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Hailey, Graves’ son-in-law described the trying times: Sorrow was deepening upon his home. His finances were troubling him.

His family was large. His dear mother, his guide and advisor, whom he loved with a devotion seldom met with, had just been laid in the grave.

He lived in the very midst of the infected district, and to leave the city was out of the question. 86

Following the funeral services for the Presbyterian preacher, Ford was met in the aisle by the wife of Graves. She was weeping. Mrs. Graves declared her fear and conviction that she herself would soon contract the fever. Ford told her to “trust in Him who has ever loved us—trust it all to Him and look up!”87 On Monday, Ford visited the “almost deserted home” of Graves, only to find his two daughters with the fever and his wife showing signs of its effect.

Another day passed. The pall of death hung over the home as the servants cared for the little girls, both under three years of age, and Mrs. Graves continuing to show signs of abandonment to the deadly disease. Ford sought permission to send the children to the homes of believers who could care for them. Graves pleaded with his wife to consent to their removal. The scene is heart-wrenching: The fever was making rapid inroads upon her system. I saw she could not recover [said Ford]. She could not bear the thought of giving up her babe. But the tender pleadings of her husband prevailed. “Can I give Ella one kiss,” she asked, “before I part with her in this life forever?”

“Oh, yes,” I replied, “it will not affect her.”

And so I brought the weeping little child to her bedside. She kissed it again and again—and prayed such a prayer as mothers leaving loved ones behind them only can. The day was cold and a drizzling rain was falling. I wrapped the dear little thing in a shawl and bore her in a carriage, to a waiting, loving friend and sister for whom the little one was afterward named.

“God bless you, my dear one,” said Dr. Graves as we departed—”my child—”and breaking down he threw his arms around me and her and said, “Lord, I give into thy kind care!” 88

Yet another day passed and Mr. Ford returned to his afflicted brother’s home to find Graves and the physician at the bedside of his dying wife. Graves 86

Hailey, 102.

Ford, May 1900, 288-289.

88 Ibid.

87

was expectedly emotional... “She is going—Oh, my soul!”89 For hours they waited, mourning, though resigned to the will of God with a divine peace.

Graves and his passing wife conversed. She assured him of her abiding trust in the Lord. She asked to see her children and prayed for them when convinced of their safety. Ford said, “She lifted her eyes in silent prayer for them and then gave me her blessing—in broken accents whose influence I feel to this day.”90 And then a scene was witnessed—aye by the angels—at that desolate mansion, which cannot be described. The dying saint said, with her hand in his, “Mr. Graves, I have loved you—you have never known how much I have loved you.” 91

After a few expressions were exchanged between them, she said, “I have loved you dearly but I can give you and my children up, without a murmur—it is the Lord’s will.”92 Shortly thereafter she expired, after squeezing the hand of S. H. Ford. Graves, after a time of silence, entered his little office and wrote, “Father, you have another daughter in heaven. J. R. Graves.”93 These words were telegraphed to his beloved Father-in-law.

Ford said, “Through all this, there was not one word of complaint or of doubt, but of firm faith in the will and workings of the blessed Lord, and complete submission to His holy will.”94 This provides an accurate picture of the depth of our subject’s faith.

The Combined Effect of Them All. It has been said that “the best of men are men at best,” and this is always true, though not always seen. It is often helpful to look around at “the other little ships” tossed about in the same storm that we are passing through. It can give consolation to know that great men faced their beasts, had their failures, and plunged into their own dungeons of despair. Graves, though far from resembling today’s emasculated, flip-flop generation, groaned beneath his own burdens and “pressed on.”

Sometimes you have to read between the lines if you are to understand history’s giants. I had the opportunity to do that recently at the James P. Boyce Centennial Library and Archives, at Southern Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. I held some original manuscripts, letters that Dr. Graves wrote to James P. Boyce and to John Broadus. You can almost feel the grief as you read them. On the letterhead from the office of The Baptist, dated December 26, 1879, Graves wrote to Boyce, “Your notice was sent me from the office... but found me without the sum in bank with which to honor it. The two 89

Ibid., 289.

Ibid., 290.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid.

90

seasons of epidemic have exhausted my surplus dollars and compelled me to borrow hundreds to go this with my large family and many expenses...”95 The letter records Graves’ commitment to honor his debt by paying the interest on the matter in question. The weight of his burdens are palpable as the letter is read.

One of the most inspirational things I have ever read was found in one of Graves’ letters to John Broadus, written in January of 1891. The seventy year old Graves wrote: Dear Bro, I thank God most fervently for putting it into your heart to write me the letter that reached me last night. I cannot tell you the comfort and encouragement it gave me with all the labors & cares of the Seminary crowding down upon you. What am I that you should be mindful of me and one so humble that you should minister unto me...

The fact is impressing itself upon me... daily that my race is run & my work nearly done & that for a long pilgrimage of 56 years on the King’s highway I have entered Beulah land and you may say to the young “Great Hearts” whom you are training to be guides and guards of future pilgrims that it is a pleasant land whose skies are cloudless and most delightful... your kind words and wishes greatly encourage me to press on to the finish...96

Oh, how many brethren need to be encouraged to “press on to the finish!” May God help us to be encouraged and to be encouraging! Graves entered the golden years of a life well spent with the fruit of his labor and the spoils of battle before him. As an editor, he was a success. “The Western Recorder, The Journal and Messenger, The Examiner, The Religious Herald, The Biblical Recorder, The Baptist Courier and The Christian Index had one after another admitted the correctness of his contentions and had practically ceased their oppositions. The Methodists and the Campbellites had almost abandoned their attacks.”97 His influence across the South was unrivaled. His work was engaged in without ceasing. He wrote books and tracts, edited The Baptist and travelled extensively preaching the gospel. “No house could accommodate the crowds where the announcement had preceded his coming.

People used any conveyance at their command to reach the place, even going fifty or sixty miles to hear him. Many went afoot for ten to twenty miles.”98 Traveling home from a dedication service for a nearby church, in sweltering heat he was caught in a rainstorm and drenched. The next Sunday, while preaching, he was overcome with paralysis and would have fallen had some of the men not caught him. Before he lost consciousness, as they carried 95

Letter from J.R. Graves to James P. Boyce, December 26, 1879, (Manuscript retrieved from the James P. Boyce Centennial Library, Southern Seminary, Louisville, KY).

96 Letter from J.R. Graves to John Broadus, January, 1891, (Manuscript retrieved from the James P. Boyce Centennial Library, Southern Seminary, Louisville, KY).

97 Hailey, 105.

98 Ibid., 106.

him out, he said, “Tell them to sing, ‘My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness’.” He did not die as had been expected, but “the giant was wounded.” He continued to preach for several years from a chair.99 Eventually, a second stroke befell Mr. Graves from which he never recovered and as his son-in-law said, the sword fell from his nerveless hand.”100 Among his last words were, “O, Willie Boy (his son), what a change, what a change!”101 I cannot say Beneath the pressure of life’s cares today, I joy in these; But I can say That I had rather walk this rugged way If Him it please.

I cannot feel That all is well, when dark’ning clouds conceal The shining sun; But then I know God lives and loves, and say, since it is so, Thy will be done.

I cannot speak In happy tones, the tear drops on my cheek Show I am sad; But I can speak Of grace to suffer with submission meek, Until made glad.

I do not see Why God should e’en permit some things to be When He is love; But I can see, Though often dimly through the mystery; His hand above.

I do not look Upon the present, nor in nature’s book, To read my fate; But I do look For promised blessing in God’s Holy Book, And I can wait.

J. R. Graves Memphis, Tennessee April 10, 1892.102

What are we to take from J. R. Graves and his “Victory of Faith?” What lessons can we learn from his amazing example of faithfulness and fortitude?

99

Ibid.

Ibid., 107.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid., 107-108.

100

1). If Christ founded the New Testament church and made His plans for it clear, then obedience is possible and integrity is necessary. As J. R. Graves himself told us, “Christian baptism is not the celebration of a religious rite by modes indifferent; but a specific act to be administered by a specific body, to persons professing specific qualifications, for the profession of specific truths.”103 It is the height of spiritual neglect to allow Christ’s clearest teachings to be altered for any reason. To leave off adherence to any of these components of scriptural baptism and church order is to compromise fundamental truth and move toward apostasy. Graves continued, “When one of these properties is wanting, the transaction is null and void since, unless the ordinances are observed as Christ commanded, they are not kept, but perverted, and bring upon the parties not the commendation, but condemnation of the Master.”

Why is this so hard for independent Baptists to accept? Does it hinder their ability to add unbaptized believers to their membership? Why would they want to do this? Maybe they view any immersion as sufficient. Really? It would be difficult if they were forced to “rebaptize” those who had observed immersion by unqualified, unscriptural institutions. It all boils down to growth with most of the brethren these days. Telling a “Bible church” or Church of God couple that they would have to be baptized according to biblical guidelines, identifying with New Testament doctrine, would send them out the door in a huff in many cases (although, I am often surprised at what God will do when we honor His Word and way). Most Baptists in 2010 care more about gaining a family than they do honoring the scriptural parameters of New Testament faith and practice.

The weak response to this is often, “They are good people! They are as godly as you are!” To which I might reply, “Then they should have no problem complying with the clear teachings of Jesus Christ concerning the church for which He died!” When the blatant errors of Protestant, fundamentalist superstars is challenged, you always hear, “He was a great man!” Yes, maybe, and the Bible tells us that “great men are not always wise,” and “Let God be true and every man a liar.”

The association of Dr. Clarence Sexton, the avowed Baptist and his “Distinctively Baptist” Crown College with the Presbyterian, Ian Paisley is a matter of public record. The explanation Dr. Sexton offers for associating in official capacity with a Free Presbyterian is that “Paisley has done a lot for Fundamentalism.” Clearly, by his own admission, he relegates the importance of baptism to a secondary matter. The official Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster doctrinal statement concerning baptism, taken from their website is: Baptism—The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, under Christ the Great King and Head of the Church, Realizing that bitter controversy raging around the mode and proper subjects of the ordinance of Christian baptism has divided the Body of Christ when that Body should have been united in Christian love and Holy Ghost power to stem the 103

J. R. Graves, Christian Baptism: The Profession of the Faith (Baptist Sunday School Committee; Texarkana, AR/TX: 1928 reprint of 1881 original), 3.

onslaughts and hell-inspired assaults of modernism, hereby affirms that each member of the Free Presbyterian Church shall have liberty to decide for himself which course to adopt on these controverted issues, each member giving due honor in love to the views held by differing brethren, but none espousing the error of baptismal regeneration.

The Free Presbyterian Church recognizes the Westminster Confession which says: Question 165: What is Baptism?

Answer: Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein Christ has ordained the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, to be a sign and seal of ingrafting into himself, of remission of sins by his blood, and regeneration by his Spirit; of adoption, and resurrection unto everlasting life; and whereby the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible church, and enter into an open and professed engagement to be wholly and only the Lord ’s.

Question 166: Unto whom is Baptism to be administered?

Answer: Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, and so strangers from the covenant of promise, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him, but infants descending from parents, either both, or but one of them, professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, are in that respect within the covenant, and to be baptized. 104

Το countenance these false teachings and practices, openly or implicitly, simply because they are endorsed by “a great and godly man” is to exalt the creature above the Creator. It is not unreasonable or uncharitable for Baptists to firmly believe and consistently defend their principles. It is our duty to do so.

The life and ministry of J. R. Graves shows us that faithfulness is worth the effort, it is worth the price paid to maintain it. If there is to remain any ecclesiastical integrity at all in these last days, then independent Baptists will have to have the way of the Lord concerning these matters expounded unto them more perfectly. They will have to know and believe their own profession and then be willing to stand.

2). Doctrinal comprehensiveness, sound logic and zealous proclamation are things that should characterize every man’s preaching. This author has been preaching for thirty years as of September 23, 2010. In these three decades, my heroes have been preachers and my obsession has been preaching. I marvel at the hypersensitivity of the average preacher. Challenge him to drink deeply from the inexhaustible wells of Scripture and deliver his discoveries accordingly, exhort him to preach GOD’S TRUTH and he is incensed! Where have the doctrinally sound, scripturally significant preachers gone?

J. R. Graves was known for preaching thoroughly doctrinal messages for two hours plus and people listened with delight! He studied for hours daily, 104

See, “The Westminster Confession of Faith” in Creeds of Christendom, by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D.

developing his mind and expanding the doctrinal reservoir from which he drew truth for his powerful preaching. I know—people won’t listen to that these days, and the reason they won’t is that somewhere down the line preachers stopped preaching the Bible! The increasing worldliness of modern Christians, coupled with the lack of resolve among men of God to “...be instant in season, out of season...” has led to the materialistic mess in the pews and the insipid garbage that so often flows from the pulpits! Independent Baptists are not exempt from failure here.

A little insight into the problem can be found in the earlier Washington Bryan Crumpton quote, “Of course he [Graves] couldn’t be sent to a church of another denomination for fear he would flay them alive; besides, two or three hours was longer than the fashionable churches could stand.”105 Maybe our desire to be fashionable has ruined our preaching. Add to this quote the wisdom of J. R. Graves in noticing a decline in Baptists as they strove to increase their respectability by associating with Protestants, and you have the recipe for compromise and apostasy. It is the evangelical version of Marshall Fields’ motto, “Give the lady what she wants.” To summarize the problem: (1) We must win the world which requires mass results and large movements, (2) Therefore, the people must be “reached” and “won,” (3) Therefore, the preaching must be appealing to the masses so they will respond. Since “the time has come when men will not endure sound doctrine,” we must entertain them with middle-of-the-road, Fundamentalist messages that cover everything, touch nothing, and make little to no offensive, scriptural divisions.

Thus, Presbyterians, Methodists, Charismatics and Evangelicals of every stripe can enjoy our services long enough for us to “sneak up on them.” The problem is, we never sneak up on them any more. Once we get their income, we do not dare offend them with the truth.

It would help us to understand that we are nowhere commanded to win the world or build the church. Our mission is, (1) Preach and teach the gospel, (2) Baptize those who believe it, (3) Teach them to observe those things that Jesus commanded (the apostles’ doctrine). This we can do with faithfulness in any age, under any conditions.

Let every independent Baptist preacher labor to prepare biblical sermons and preach them with passion and without pride, with faithfulness and without foolishness, with accuracy and without agenda, with boldness and without belligerence. How could it possibly hurt our people or our churches, if both are genuine, if we were to strengthen our commitment to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to them each time we enter the pulpit?

3). Α lifetime of ministry, when viewed as a whole, will appear much different than circumstances, failures and heartaches allow at the present. If there is anything that a few decades of ministry effort will reveal, it is that very little can be done 105

[Emphasis added].

in a year, while huge, gratifying achievements can be accomplished in ten years. If we preachers would refresh our vision for biblical preaching, prepare our own field of labor for the work and then give ourselves unswervingly to it for ten years, we would be shocked at what God would do.

J. R. Graves faced one heartache, failure and disappointment after another for many years. He endured daily difficulties, personal attacks, national crises, family loss and abject failure, while writing, preaching and publishing his way to influencing Baptists all over the nation. This he did for love of truth, defending it for its own sake, not in order to make a mark or “be somebody.” I fear that too many of today’s young men of God are succumbing to the pressures of our culture—becoming “entangled with the affairs of this life.” They very often approach ministry with arrogant expectations (desiring to be “treated well” by their churches for instance, obsessing over what they are called or whether or not their birthday is recognized), weak resolve (their hopes rising and falling with each week’s attendance and offerings) and unfortunate distractions (like uncommitted wives who have to be pampered and coddled to keep them “in” rather than honored and esteemed for their faithful service and self-sacrifice). The result is men of God who spend the lion’s share of their energy fighting depression and keeping the marbles on the table instead of killing giants, reaping harvests and edifying the body of Christ. The ministry that God gives us becomes a profession instead of a calling.

Brethren, take heart! We have the Saviour! He has given us a clear and unchanging commission! Let us revive our hopes and reinvigorate our vision for the work that He has given to us and go at it, rain or shine, success or failure, for another ten years and see what God will do! Sow sound preaching and biblical ministry and you will most assuredly reap in kind. Do what you can and should do, do it well, do it with all your heart and trust God. Pour it all out for Him. God has never used a man greatly that dabbled, meandered and complained his way through ministry. Care for your wife and family and communicate your burden to them so they will be willing go with you all the way!

May we all take these three admonitions to (1) Stand for God’s truth as He delivered it, (2) Preach it substantively and passionately, and (3) Labor with a God-enhanced vision for great things and run our race. God will use us!

End Notes.

James Robinson Graves (1820-1893) http://www.utc.edu/Academic/TennesseeWriters/authors/graves.james.html

Biography Graves was born in Vermont and moved with his family to Northern Ohio where he was the principal of a school for two years, before, in 1941, he moved to Nicholasville, Kentucky, to take over a school there. While at the school he learned four languages, began to study the Bible, and in 1844 was ordained as a minister.

In 1845 he moved to Nashville, where he pastored for a year before he was made assistant editor of The Baptist and opened a bookstore.

In 1848 he became editor of the paper, which at one time had a circulation of 12,0000, a post he held until 1889.

Graves was a founder of the Landmark movement, which stipulates that only believers may be baptized, and that only a recognized representative of a Baptist church has the authority to baptize. When Graves became unable to convince the Southern Baptist Convention to adopt his beliefs, he became a fierce critic of the organization.

While preaching a sermon in 1884, Graves suffered a stroke that forced him to walk with a cane, until a fall resigned him to a wheelchair until his death in 1893.

Bibliography Non-Fiction  Old Landmarkism: What Is It? (1881)  The Watchman’s Reply (1853)  Campbell and Campbellism Exposed: A Series of Replies (to A. Campbell’s Articles in the Millennial Harbinger) (1854)  The Great Iron Wheel: or, Republicanism Backwards and Christianity Reversed (1855)  Trials and Sufferings for Religious Liberty in New England: The Oldest Baptist Church in America not the Providence Church (editor, 1857)  The Southern Psalmist (with J. M. Pendleton, 1859)  The Tri-Lemma, or, Death by Three Horns (1860)  The Bible Doctrine of the Middle Life: As Opposed to Swendenborgianism and Spiritism (1873)  The Graves-Ditzler, or, Great Carrollton Debate (with J. Ditzler, 1876)  Intercommunion Inconsistent, Unscriptural, and Productive of Evil (1881)  The Relation of Baptism to Salvation (1881)  Denominational Sermons (1881)  What Is It To Eat and Drink Unworthily? (1881)  The Work of Christ in the Covenant of Redemption: Developed in Seven Dispensations (1883)  The New Great Iron Wheel: An Examination of the New M.E. Church South (1884)  The Dispensational Expositions of the Parables and Prophecies of Christ (1887)  The Little Seraph, in Seven Character Notes: For Churches and Sunday Schools (editor, 1890)  John’s Baptism: Was It From Moses or Christ? Jewish or Christian? Objections to Its Christian Character Answered (1891)  Landmarkism, Liberalism and the Invisible Church (contributor, 1899)  Satan Dethroned and Other Sermons (1929)  Miscellaneous Reel (contributor, 1958) Sources and Links  Graves bio - Long bio - Landmark movement - Tennessee Authors

The Shayne Moses Project Last updated: Friday, April 07, 2017