its length 7,500 miles, its breadth more than 5,000 miles; but the Asia of the New Testament was Asia Minor, with Ephesus as its capital. It is to this place that Paul refers, and his statement means that certain professing Christians from that region who had been in Rome had forsaken him and gone home. He names two of them, Phygellus and Hermogenes; and his appeal to Timothy is to be brave in contrast to the conduct of these pusillanimous persons.

"JAMES G."-Men lived so long in those days that the great facts of the world's early history would be familiar to them. Noah signifies rest. He was the son of Lamech, and father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; born B.C. 2948, died 1998, aged 950 years. He was the tenth from Adam through Seth, and was born 46 years after the death of Adam, and 14 after that of Seth. He was contemporary with Enos for 16 years, with Terah for 128 years, and with Abram for about 50 years. The Babylonians called him Xisusthrus, son of Oliartes; the Chinese, Yao or Fo-Hi; others Prometheus, Deucalion, Atlas, Theuth, Inachus, Osiris, Dagon, and so forth. Dagon (fish), the national god of the Philistines, had the face and hands of a man and the tail of a fish-an obvious symbol of Noah and the flood.

"A READER" may be sure that "the sure word of prophecy" will be fulfilled. Be not deceived by spiritualising preachers. Just take one historical instance out of a thousand. In Jer. li. 14, we read this: "The Lord of hosts hath sworn by Himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men as with caterpillars; and they shall lift up a shout against thee." These words were addressed to proud, imperial, "impregnable" Babylon, and the sceptics of that day made merry over the threat. You know how the city was taken. The first time Cyrus marched in procession out of his palace he made a display of his cavalry in the sight of the Babylonians. "There stood first before the gates 4,000 of the guards drawn up, four in front, 2,000 on each side of the gates; when the chariot of Cyrus advanced, 4,000 of the guards led the way before it, and 2,000 attended on each side of it. The staff officers about his person, to the number of about 300, followed. Then were led the horses maintained for Cyrus himself, with their bridles of gold; these were about 200. After these marched 2,000 spearmen; after these the first formed body of horse, 10,000 in number; after these another body of 10,000 Persian horse, led by Hystaspes; after these another body of 10,000, led by Datamas; after these another, led by Gadatas. After these marched the Medean horse; then the Armenian, then the Hyrcanian; then the Caducian, then the Sacian. And after the horse went the chariots, ranged four abreast, led by the Persian Artabates." XEN. Cyrop. 1. viii. c. 3.

"L. D."-We feel it a holy privilege to bear witness to the coming and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to teach the true doctrine concerning man's nature, Christ's redemption, the resurrection of His saints at His coming, and their simultaneous glorification then. All this and many other golden truths, in perfect and beautiful harmony therewith, we find in the Book which holy men, under Divine inspiration, have given to us. If you will search for yourself, without touching a commentary, and trying to forget your present opinions. you will find what we have found; and, of course, feel it a duty and a pleasure to

enrol yourself among the witnesses. We often find that persons who know little or nothing about our doctrines are the quickest to oppose them. We would commend to such persons-if they can appreciate its wisdom and courtesy-the admirable remark a clergyman in Liverpool made to us at the recent Conference in that great city. He said, "Sir, I do not quite understand your doctrines, and therefore, am not qualified to offer an opinion concerning them." Of a man who thinks and speaks in that way, there is more than hope; there is certainty that he will soon stand in the light. But, understand distinctly-and this remark is for all our readers-we do not wish any one to agree with us simply because we teach so and so; we want all men to ask, "What saith the Scripture?"

GEORGE A. BROWN, Auckland, from whom we are glad to hear, writes, among other things:-" You will like to hear about the prospect of the work in New Zealand. I never yet saw a greater harvest field. The people are anxious to hear the glorious truth of Conditional Immortality. It would do your heart good to see the crowds that come to hear. Wherever we go we Your labours have been blessed, dear brother. find the RAINBOW has spanned the theological heavens, and men have been blessed by its rays. May God long spare you to work, and enable you to keep up the sublime hues of the RAINBOW, that it may be seen as a signal of hope amidst the stormy elements of the theological world. I am glad to hear that efforts are being made to build a new chapel in the great city of London for one whose voice must be heard, and whose pen must be used, so long as God gives life in the grand Reformation work now going on. Give my Christian love to the Church worshipping at Maberly. I shall never forget the exceeding kindness of your dear flock.' "I. A. K."-Your difficulties are imaginary. We hardly think you 1. The spiritual body have been an attentive reader of the RAINBOW. is at the resurrection, not at the death. The "is" and the "have," on which you rest, are simply notes of certainty, very common in Scripture. Such a thing is-present to faith-because God has determined that it is so to be. 2. Christ died literally, or we are not redeemed. The breathing back His spirit, or breath, to the Father was an expression of 3. The passage is His faith that He would not be left in the grave. 4. The entirely misunderstood, but it cannot teach what you say. Paradise promised to the penitent robber has no existence yet, nor will it until the Kingdom of Christ is established on the earth, after His return. 5. The answer to the Sadducees teaches just the reverse of what you think. The patriarchs are dead, but God means to raise them, therefore they live to Him. On no other principle were the Sadducees answered. 7. Even if you are right respecting Moses and 8. Read the paper Elias, it proves nothing regarding other men. entitled "Regeneration and Resurrection," in this number. 9. The angel did not say anything to suggest that "evidently he had lived on the earth as a prophet, but was then alive in spirit form." What he did say was, "I am a fellow servant of thine and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book." 10. “ Spiritual Death in that case bodies at the moment of death" is a great delusion. is not death, and resurrection is not needed. We pray you get out of this network of error, and accept the true sayings of God.

THE

RAINBOW:

A Magazine of Christian Literature, with Special Reference to the Revealed Future of the Church and the World.

FEBRUARY, 1881.

THE GOSPEL OF RESURRECTION.*

"Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judæa, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: that Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles."-AcTs xxvi. 19-23.

OUR

UR obligation to the heroic men who fought the battle of faith for us, is very great. The Apostle of the Gentiles has laid the world under an immense debt of gratitude. Of course we owe all, in the first instance, to the grace of God which was the spring and motive of the fearless testimony which this man bore to his ascended Master; but we are not to forget the witness on that account; nay, rather should we pay a tribute of admiring thankfulness to the memory of the faithful servant, whilst we reverently worship his Lord. Men who spoke of Christ in the face of His enemies, and within sight of bonds, imprisonment and death, are not to be forgotten by Christians. In speaking for Him they spoke for us, for all time, and for eternity. The overwhelming sense of their responsibility to heaven and earth crushed out every thought of self. Insult, poverty, persecutions, dungeons, death-what were these to men whom the SON OF GOD had taken into His service? The transcendent honour shed light into the darkest prison and made the headsman's axe flash with the glories of an assured resurrection.

1. The best proof of our admiration of apostolic zeal is to defend and teach the doctrines of the Apostles. And this we should do with at least some appreciable degree of the courage and self

* A Sermon, by the Editor.

D

denial that animated them. It is an easy thing to call churches St. Paul, St. John, St. Luke, and so forth, but the dedication to those honoured names of our places of worship will prove as hollow a sham as the so-called canonization of saints by the Bishop of Rome, if the Divine teachings of these inspired ministers of the Saviour are obscured by the traditions of the dark ages, leavened with the corruptions of a false philosophy, or mingled with the theatrical tinsel of a pagan ritualism. Nor shall we be any nearer the direct line of testimony-which, of course, is the only "apostolic succession "-if we go to the other extreme and make our proud rationalism the final judge of what the Bible should have said. It is absurd to think that Divine truth is in any way connected with a man's clothes; but it is hardly less foolish, whilst it is decidedly more arrogant, to reject the supernatural in doctrine,— confirmed as it is by the miraculous in deed,-at the bidding of a puffed up fleshly mind" which impudently seats itself upon the throne and dares to dictate to God. True loyalty to the Father worships in spirit and in truth.

66

If we would be true to the holy Head of the Church, and bear testimony for Him in practical sympathy with His Apostles, we have simply to copy Paul's obedience to "the heavenly vision.” Defending himself from the malignant charges of his countrymen, and accounting for his conduct since the ever memorable journey to Damascus, he mentions the fact of his obedience to the Divine call: "Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." There is the key to this man's wonderful subsequent life. What more do you want? The secret of his extraordinary labours and endurance is comprised in these few words. The servant attends to the words of his master. The soldier obeys the command of his general. The will of Christ is henceforth the law of life to this Jew of Tarsus. The fierce persecutor, panting with rage against the followers of the Nazarene, is suddenly checked by a Hand he sees not, and a "Voice "-clear, impressive, searching, and yet wonderfully tender, as if its very majesty sprang from mercy-speaks to him. The will of the proud Pharisee is slain on the field of Damascus, the letters of the high priest, authorising persecution, are so much waste paper, and a new chapter in the history of the Church and the world begins: a chapter which, in its results, is not finished yet, but will stretch out its marvellous sequel until it mingles with the splendours of the new creation in which God will be all in all.

Can we bear the test under notice? Is immediate submission to Divine authority one of the facts of our history? Have we been obedient to the heavenly vision? We have all had it, not indeed in the miraculous splendour which made "the sun ashamed," when the Lord of glory came from behind the veil for a moment, but in thoughts, impressions, feelings from the Word, heard or read, which could have been produced only by the Holy Spirit; in the

starting and quivering of conscience, when the shame and guilt of sin came out in lurid light; or when memory recalled gracious privileges neglected, resolutions broken, time wasted, folly committed, and Christ forgotten. But more than this: whatever may be true in relation to the mental history of each of us, we are all interested in the fact which Paul named to Agrippa as the explanation of his conduct; for Paul is our Apostle. He was arrested, converted, enlightened, commissioned for us. He was divinely constituted the Apostle of the nations. The fierce Jewish zealot is transformed into the fervent messenger of salvation to the Gentiles. And we shall neither understand the man nor his message if we do not accept both from the glorified Saviour with that deep gratitude which finds its best and only convincing proof of reality in "obedience to the heavenly vision."

But there was a "Voice" as well as a vision. Have we not all heard it? It is so tender, It is so tender, "Come!" It is so loving, "Come unto Me!" It is so beneficent, "And I will give you rest!" And it will be so dreadful if redeeming grace and love are impiously rejected, when it concentrates its indignation in the awful word"Depart !"

2. The harmony of inspired teaching under different dispensations, is affirmed by the Apostle. Divine purposes announced in the earlier writings find expansion and development in the later; but contradiction between the testimony of Moses and the prophets, and that of Christ and the Apostles, there is not and cannot be. The reception of Jesus of Nazareth by Saul of Tarsus, as the Messiah promised to His nation by its prophets, was simply an act of religious consistency and of loyalty to the God of his fathers. The Jew who becomes a Christian, so far from being an apostate from Moses, actually adopts the counsel of the great lawgiver. "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God. in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him" (Deut. xviii. 15-19).

In many an eloquent passage in Paul's speeches and letters this harmony is exhibited, with a clearness of proof that nothing but perverse Jewish blindness can resist. One of the many remarkable sayings of our Lord, by which He made the guilt of the nation in rejecting Him without excuse, was this: "Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me" (John v. 46).