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And now in Rev. iv., what is the first thing introduced to us, after the Lord and His glorious throne ? Is it not the Church? Earth's lost ones, but God's gathered out ones; now gathered up also into His own presence, and glorified with the Promiser seated on thrones wearing crowns. And in v. 9, 10, chanting the praises of Him who brought them there, and yet expecting more; for they say, "We shall reign on the earth." Pre-millennial this must be; post-resurrection it also must be; because only through resurrection, or its equivalent (and promised) change, could they have come there. For they were all mortal. But, "Because I live ye shall live also," has been verified to them, and now, Rev. iv. 4, is reached. Behold He, the Promiser, and they to whom the promise and for whom the prayer were made, have received the former, and the Father's full answer to the latter, and are with Him, alive for evermore. Oh, what an ecstatic moment ! How will it cause us to forget all the sorrows of the way through which it has been reached !

Mr. Starkey says: "The book of chapter v. has not been taken, and hence not one of its seals yet broken." True, brother; for when that is done, you and I must be there to see it, and to rejoice over its being done (if found worthy) (Luke xxi. 36). Why, it is the taking of the book, seen by the assembled and glorified Church, which gives rise to For she sings, "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; and then assigns the reason, "For Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation." Yes, His loved ones must be there, and share with Him His glory, when He opens the title-deeds and claims the inheritance.

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But where in any of his Epistles does Paul, or indeed any of the apostles, speak of the present gathering, Church, or body of Christ as being tribal in form, character, or manifestation? I know of no such passages, and Mr. Starkey's quotations, upon which he makes so much to depend, saying, "Only in the light of these New Testament Scriptures can we understand who are the tribes of the children of Israel in Rev. vii. 4" (the italics are mine) prove to me the very opposite, viz., that they who previously had a tribal character and position, lose it at once by receiving and putting on Christ. For "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 28). To my mind this passage is fatal to our brother's theory. But he quotes another passage which I think is equally so; it is Acts xv. 14-16. "How God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His Name; and, "After this" (more literally, these things) "I will return and build again the tabernacle of David." Mr. Starkey says after this age. True, it will be after this age, but is that the point referred to in the context? Surely not; but has more direct reference to God's work during the age than to the age itself, and tells us emphatically why He has visited the Gentiles; even to take out of them a people for His Name; not to the exclusion of the Jew individually, certainly; but the moment the Jew, as such, comes on to the foundation, Christ (as Mr. Starkey very truly, but inconsistently with his other arguments, says) he loses his former relationship and becomes a Christian.

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As the past was emphatically the Jewish age, notwithstanding a few

proselytes from the Gentiles, so is the present as emphatically the Gentile age, notwithstanding the few thousands of Jews connected with them. And, therefore, we read, "To take out of them" (the Gentiles) "a people for His Name." Now the people so taken out are also to be taken up before the fearful ordeal of judgment break upon the world. The beginning of these things they may, nay, they will see. This I am led to be sure of from our Lord's words, as in Luke xxi. 28, where He says, "When ye see all these things begin to come to pass." (What things, if not those just narrated by Him in verses 25-27 ?) "Then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh," and in immediate connection shows who shall be so delivered (See verse 86).

But to see the beginning, and the beginning only, of these terrible things will be the portion of those counted worthy to escape, who follow His counsel, and are found watching unto prayer in the midst of a worldly Church, and a distracted world, calmly and patiently looking for their blessed hope (Titus ii. 13). And how very near may this be? Do we not see these very words of Jesus: "Distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear?" Do we not see Paul's prophecy before our eyes (2 Tim. iii. 1-5; iv. 3-4) as to the present position and character of the Church? Do we not see her Laodicean state as depicted in Rev. iii. 14-17? Who will say in the face of these Scriptures and our present surroundings, "The Lord delayeth His coming." The escaping of the faithful will also be the rejection of all else for the time being.

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The age is closed when the Church is gone. We next see her in Rev. iv. in the heavenlies. How Mr. Starkey sees the 144,000 of chap. vii. to have any part in the immediate glory of the Church I cannot conceive. He takes a preterist view of the chapter, and spiritualises or explains away the whole matter. This certainly is what he has done. Why do we require passages from Paul's epistles to throw light on the tribes of the children of Israel mentioned in Rev. vii. 4? If the Word is only allowed to mean what it says, and to say what it means, Israel is Israel, and the tribes the distinctive tribes thereof, and never should be mixed up with the present gathering of the body and Church of Christ. Our brother seems to feel a difficulty here, when he asks objectors, "Where? when? how? as to time, space, or place, could such a work of evangelisation take place among literal Jews as to convert 144,000, and especially twelve thousand of each tribe?" That unhappy word could is clearly indicative of difficulty, and the words "especially twelve thousand of each tribe" also present evident thoughts of difficulty. But why should perplexity arise? Is the definiteness of number not a sufficient guide to show us it cannot be the Church in symbol, but must be the literal Jew? Taken to mean what it says, viz., that God will literally seal 144,000 of the twelve tribes of Israel preparatory to judgment about to be displayed around them, and for their preservation therefrom. There appears no difficulty, and a reference to Num. xxiii. 19, Isaiah xlvi. 11, or our Lord's own word in Mark x. 27, will help to strengthen us on this point.

Our brother may object to my use of the word literal, and say it is not in the passage. I admit it, but these words are in verse 4, "of all the tribes of the children of Israel," and I challenge proof where such

language is once used as applicable to the present gathering or Church of Christ. I think these difficulties vanish at once if we allow Rev. vii. to stand as to time and place, where the author of the Word has put it. As one of the opening scenes of the coming age, a number of reasons, and, I think, incontrovertible ones, can be assigned in proof of this. First, the sealing in the forehead, taken as a literal fact, is seen in chap. ix. 4 to preserve certain persons from the judgments surrounding them, and which fall by special command upon those men who have not the seal of God in their foreheads. A different kind of sealing altogether, in my judgment, from the sealing of the Church in the present age, and one which ought never to be confounded with it. (See 2 Cor. i. 22, and Eph. i. 13.)

Again, our brother's ventured suggestion that the 144,000 of Rev. vii. 4 are not identical with the same number in Rev. xiv. 1, the former representing the bride on earth, militant, and incomplete; the latter, the bride triumphant, complete, and in heaven, with his added suggestion that the latter number may mean not thousand, but thousand thousands. The whole of these ventured suggestions I feel called upon to challenge as not being in harmony with the context, and to say I am sorry, for the truth's sake, they should have been ventured, feeling at the same time that our brother has done so with the best intention; but to alter the Word, or suggest an alteration without very sound reasons, is a very serious matter. I see the theory requires it, or something of the kind; but this only proves that the theory is wrong. Let the word be its own interpreter, and all is clear, plain, simple, and easily understood. The 144,000 are evidently the Jewish first fruit of the new age, which period is not entered upon till the removal of the Church, and, therefore, cannot be the Church or Body of Christ as Mr. Starkey thinks. The Psalmist even seems to have seen this prophetically (1. 3-6). First, the gathering of the Lord's saints to Himself, and then the age of judgment and righteousness. In the past age it was Jew and Gentile; but since the day of Pentecost it has been Jew, Gentile, and Church of God. The removal of the latter closes this Gentile age, and leaves again Jew and Gentile only, and the thread of Jewish history is united where it was broken, and by Him who broke it (Acts xv. 14-18; Rom. xi. 25-29). If our friend has still a difficulty as to the gathering out, so early, of so large a number of literal Israel to the Lord's side, I would remind him of the prophet who exclaimed, "I only am left;" but to whom the Lord replied, "I have 7,000 men you know nothing about," and, indeed, Paul's quotation of this in Rom. xi. seems almost to point to this very Scripture (Rev. vii. 4) when he speaks of an election of grace, especially verse 7. Out of the ten or twelve millions of Jews now existing, is it difficult to think of 144,000 being honest, God-serving, God-fearing persons, so far as they have attained to know, or been taught His will, not knowing or believing what we do, and therefore not of the Church, yet, like Cornelius, serving God according to their knowledge, and therefore at that time accepted and acknowledged of Him. The stiff, proud Jewish mind of Peter learned much that day he went down to the house of Cornelius (Acts x. 34, 35), where he exclaims, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of

Him." The 144,000 sealed in chap. vii. 4 are evidently preserved by this sealing from surrounding judgments while exposed to them, as in chap. ix. 4, and are now seen in chap. xiv. 1 on the Mount Sion with the Lamb, and said in verse 3 to be redeemed from among men and from the earth, being the first fruit unto God and to the Lamb (more literally, a first fruit). If these are first fruits there must be after fruit, or harvest; and how beautifully in keeping is the latter half of chap. vii. from verse 9, the harvest being "a great multitude, which no man can number," coming out of the Great Tribulation, from whence the first fruit had also come, as indicated clearly by chap. ix. 4. Some writers affirm this great multitude to be the Church; others (with whom Mr. Starkey evidently agrees) affirm the 144,000 to be the Church. But I hold that neither separately nor combined, symbolically nor otherwise, have they any part or place in the distinctive glory of the Church, but hold a place and partake of a glory peculiarly their own; and passing now to chap. xiv., we find it in perfect accord, for while in verse 4 we have the 144,000 first fruits, in verses 14, 15, 16, we have a reaping and harvest. Yes, a glorious harvest, which I look upon as the detailed gathering of the great multitude of chap. vii., and gathered chiefly, if not exclusively, from the dead. (See chap. xiii. 7-15; xiv. 12, 13.) Proofs for the foregoing affirmation I think are ample, and could easily be given. T. J. HITCHCOCK. Glasgow.

THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD CONSIDERED AS AN
ARGUMENT FOR UNIVERSALISM.

TWO of our best known Scottish rivers-the Tweed and the Clydethough running in opposite directions, have the same fountain head; and the contrary doctrines of eternal suffering, and universalism, in its various shades, have a common origin, and their existence depends on the same source, viz., the figment of the inherent immortality of mankind. Take that away, and they both crumble to pieces.

Nature and Revelation are silent on what is termed the immortality of the soul; and the Scriptures, in the plainest language, declare that immortality or deathlessness of being is only to be obtained through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That, so far are the unsaved from being deathless, their ultimate destiny, after judgment, is to "perish," to be consumed like chaff in the quenchless flame.

Very reasonably the question here presents itself: If such be the case, how is it that the belief of the deathless nature of all men has got so incorporated with the Christian religion, as it manifestly is? The question is an interesting one; and a very clear and able answer to it is to be found in the Rev. Henry Constable's work, "The Nature and Duration of Future Punishment," now in its fifth edition. To it the interested inquirer is referred; and, in the meantime, we would simply state that shortly after the death of the apostles their teaching began to be sadly corrupted by the incorporation of heathen philosophy, and in

this way, by the end of the second century, the philosophy of Plato had become amalgamated with the doctrine of Christ.

The prevalence of the Platonic doctrine, thus introduced, is no doubt owing to the pleasing way in which it recommends itself to the pride of man; for is it not a grand thought to believe oneself to be inherently deathless as the eternal God Himself? Its success, at first, was no doubt also, in no small degree, due to the nursing it got in the Church of Rome, to which it has furnished profitable articles in the doctrines of purgatory and prayers for the dead.

From this heathen source sprang the awful dogma of eternal suffering as the punishment of all the unsaved. It first made its appearance, Mr. Constable informs us, about the close of the second century, in the writings of a nameless forger of the spurious works of Clement. It was advocated also by Athenagoras, Tatian, and Tertullian, its great and powerful champion.

The

Universalism was introduced by Origen, who died A.D. 253. preaching of the horrid doctrine of eternal evil, and eternal pain, doubtless went far to aid the genius of Origen in promulgating his fascinating doctrine; yet it soon was treated as a heresy, and the powerful influence of Augustine well-nigh extinguished it for 1,200 years and more. In modern times, however, it has had a revival, and never had so many adherents as at the present time. For, though Universalists, as a sect, are, in Britain, comparatively insignificant, yet the doctrine is widely spread, and its advocates are gaining strength and courage daily.

From first to last Universalism is a recoil from the idea of neverending woe. It is that doctrine, in combination with the idea of inherent immortality, which forms the stock argument of the Universal Restorationist. Very sparingly do these men draw their arguments from Scripture; and when they do, it is by explaining its terms in a secondary and metaphorical sense. They are, indeed, in the habit of treating with derision the quotation of what they term "strings of texts," and characterise the strict adherence to the grammatical and obvious sense of the words of the Bible, as "servile interpretation."

For the most part their arguments consist of moral reasonings and abstract considerations, founded on the character of God, &c; and one of these, on which they seem to place great reliance, is that with which we now propose to deal, viz. :—

THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD.

Universalists of every variety use this argument with the greatest confidence. All men being children of God, it is held to be incredible that He will either destroy or eternally punish any of the human race. "A father," it is said, "who is wise and good, cannot even be imagined as putting to death one of his own children: much more, therefore, ought such an act to be disbelieved regarding the Father of spirits."

This argument, however plausible and specious, considered by itself, is far from sound. It assumes that, because God is the Creator, He therefore, sustains the relation of a Father to all men, and that it would be crael in God to withdraw from man, for any reason, the life He has given.

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