these incongruities, our brother exclaims, "But why the effort or the wish to allegorize this awfully sublime passage in Peter?" Just for the simple reason-the wish to make the scripture agree itself! Admirable system of expounding the word of life, that sets at odds the living oracles-that makes inspiration war with inspiration-placing Prophets and Apostles at irreconcileable contradiction! And such is the system for which our brother pleads. For I defy all the clergy on earth, reformed or unreformed, learned or rude, with all the ponderous volumes of dull divinity and expositions which have shed darkness on the messages of Heaven, to reconcile Peter and Isaiah, according to the popular theory of expounding prophecy.

I care nothing about a learned criticism on a single word: the ge or kosmos of the original weighs not a feather with me-it is the propositions. Peter agreed with Isaiah when penning his predictions; therefore, Isaiah must be the best commentator on Peter that is to be found this side of the invisible world. If the earth, the ge, the mountains, the rivers, had never been addressed in Holy Writ when the inhabitants of the earth were inteuded, there might have been some excuse for the confidence of our friend the reliance which he places on the Greek word ge. Now, brother, go into the sacred oracles and stick to your prin. ciples of interpretation; see what havoc you will make of the meaning of God's word-of common sense. Stick to the one literal construction by which you govern the "sublime passage" in Peter; keep in mind the reliance which you place on the word ge, the land. Try your criticism and knowledge of Greek gibberish on the following passages: "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth," the ge. The ge of John in the Apocalypse is the ge of Peter; therefore the beast rose out of the land, the soil, the literal earth!! Logical conclusionl Try your rule of interpretation with Jeremiah xxii, 29.—“O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord." The same unconquerable ge stands in bold relief before you in Jeremiah. What kind of conclusion must follow, according to your criticism on the ge in Peter? See Genesis vi. 11, 12, 13, &c. The earth [the ge] was also corrupt before God. And God looked upon the earth, [the ge, the land, the soil, according to our friend's criticism,] and behold it was corrupt." I might multiply passages beyond all bounds where the word ge is used relative to the living being on earth, and not the literal land, the soil. Learning is by no means a security against the most rude mistakes, which, coming from the learned, are mostly pardonable by a credulous world, although at times a perfect outrage on common sense.

Our friend who has so long and triumphantly occupied the field in the prophetic department, lest he should be exalted above

THE PROPHECIES.

341

measure, or claim the arena as a kind of fee simple, should, for his own good and the good of his readers, have some of his other inconsistencies brought to the light. Perhaps 1 have already adverted to the fact of his having obliterated sun, moon, and stars, in his exposition of the seventh vial, while the Book is entirely silent on the subject.

Suppose we admit his proposition-"sun, moon, and stars extinguished"*-not a ray of light illuminating our globe: anon, it is made the theatre of action-"voices, thunders, and an earthquake unparalleled before-the city falls into three pieces-every island disappears-from heaven falls a great hail." Of Babylon, "an angel announces her ruin complete. From heaven a voice commands, Come out of her, my people." Is this all to take place after sun, moon, and stars are blotted out? But this is in perfect keeping with the popular system of darkening the moral luminary of the world! After all our friend has written, I cannot see how he is to evangelize the world. Judgments and the propositions of the gospel are to bring this about according to his theory, and fail to do it according to his own showing; "yet men blaspheme God on account of the hail!!". -a convincing proof that even in the day of the last plague the Lord appears not in person: for can any one think that even his presence in this awful crisis fails to suppress this blasphemy and to subdue men to repentance!" No repentance under the last plague! Is there any expedient with our brother to bring men to repentance?

Our friend in disproving the personal return of Christ, has disproved his own theory of evangelizing the world! Because men blaspheme under the last vial, our friend argues that the Lord has not come in person; therefore, will not: and has thus disproved the personal coming of the Lord? Another logical conclusion! The Book gives no intimation of a coming under this vial, nor do the advocates of the system plead for it; but that Babylon comes into remembrance before God. Our learned brother should attend more closely to the scriptural history of these terrible things: a superficial view lays the foundation for erroneous conclusions. Plagues are the scourges of Heaven: when they prove ineffectual in bringing men to repentance, the work of vengeance follows. Plagues are the harbingers of the fatal blow that blots Babylon from the face of creation, except that which is to be read in the terrible fact-the smoke of her burning, which is to ascend for ever and ever. Here an unexpected witness presents itself in favor of our system: for how can the smoke of Babylon ascend up for ever and ever, if the earth, the ge, the land, is to be burned up? Here our brother will be compelled to go into qualifying the assertions of the

VOL. II.-N. S.

* See Millennial Harbinger, Vol. vi. No. 3.
29*

Apostle, and take assumed positions without proof, or shake hands with friends Skinner, Kidwell, and others, who would make us believe that for ever and ever does not mean everlasting! And I suppose the smoke of Babylon is to begin with the last day and end with it!!

By what means is Babylon to fall? If by light, as our brother affirms, from whence is this smoke to arise?! It is not our brother's least mistake when he intimates that the Man of Sin is to be destroyed "by his [the Lord's] word and by his judgments." Does our friend expect to convert the Son of Perdition or Man of Sin? Judgments, by his own showing, fail to bring men to repentance. It would take a volume of strictures to notice all our friend's wanderings relative to the fall of the Man of Sin, Babylon, &c. In sketching the future, he places three parties in the field-"the Lord's party, the harlot's party, and the infidel;" "which," says he, "is already of gigantic strength---a great and growing power; and while Popery reigns on the thrones of Europe and sects increase in Protestant countries, it will outgrow every other ism." Anon, he gives an increase of light; for "during the period of the seventh trumpet the earth shall be enlightened with knowledge, scientific, political, and religious"—"on it depends the fall of Babylon." Babylon is to fall by light; yet infidelity outgrowing every other ism! “We have now before us," says he, "the final doom of the ill-omened city," (Babylon.) "The Man of Sin lies weltering in his gore, and all earthly hierarchies are cast into the lake of fire. But this is done by the brightness of his coming." Strange logic! Christ's coming is to be spiritual, according to our friend's showing, yet it is to cast all earthly hierarchies into a lake of fire!!! A physical work performed by moral means!! A new thing under the sun! Christ cannot come spiritually but in his people; his people cannot be the agents in this terrible carnage; but infidelity may, according to our friend's reasoning; for "these are the men of blood." Our friend's premises and conclusions are perpetually at war-infidelity must be made the brightness of Christ's coming to shed the blood "without a parallel in the history of nations," or he must make the Lord's party the veritable agents in the dreadful carnage. Now, a spiritual presence of Christ can produce no such consequences-his people cannot shed the rivers of blood; yet our friend has the Man of Sin "weltering in his gore." "But this is to be done by the brightness of his coming"!! The following sentence is equally at war with our friend's premises: "The Beast and the False Prophet, the monarchies and hierarchies allied in corruption and tyranny, shall be allied in their fates. They shall be cast alive into the lake of fire." By whom? Will our brother say, 'By a spiritual presence of Christ?!?

MORALITY OF CHRISTIANS.

343

Charity might call for a veil to be cast over the following paragraph; but I set out to find fault. Where our friend has found scripture to support his positions I pretend not to say :

"The officers of the new government that shall succeed the present allied monarchies, aristocracies, and hierarchies, shall, by order of the new King, the rightful sovereign of the new heavens and the new earth, divide the riches of both the ecclesiastic and political chiefs of the kingdom of the Little Horn, and distribute them among the friends of the new order of things which shall succeed the tyrannies of the former systems."

Here our friend has taken a random drive, farther into the precincts of the literalists than any one expositor or speculator, dead or alive, that I have ever conversed with on earth! Surely he is ignorant of his own premises, or he is a most unqualified believer in the literal return of the Son of Man! Where, how, or when are these orders to be given? Can a spiritual presence issue orders? Where are they to be issued-in heaven or on earth? Are these riches to be the plunder of war, or is the harlot's party and the infidel party to exterminate each other, and leave the Lord's party in possession of their riches? Such a system of incongruities I have never seen as the Reformed Clergyman has proposed, conflicting with itself and the scriptures too. "The legs of the lame are not equal." I am tired of fault finding, and bid the Reformed Clergyman adieu.

A LAYMAN.

P. S.-Alas! has the doctrine of Christ's second advent fallen before such a heterogeneous system of expounding prophecy as we have been noticing! The Layman purposes giving the public a little volume on this important subject, free from absurdities, provided the Lord be willing, and the public sustain him, some time in the present year.

1

MORALITY OF CHRISTIANS-No. VIII.

THAT we may do justly to the reputation of our fellow-men and sustain a good conscience towards them, much will depend on our viewing their actions from the proper point and through the proper medium. Both of these we all feel are essential to taking a correct view of all external objects. There is one point from which every object appears to the best advantage, and from which its proper image and proportions are most correctly painted on the eye. A clear atmosphere, pure from all mists and vapors, free of all clouds and smoke, is also indispensable. The proper distance and position would avail

nothing without the perfect light of our world; as unavailing would be the clearest sky and the brightest sun, if we were too near or too distant from the object.

The reason why the same actions are viewed so differently by different persons, and by the same individual observer in the same person at different times, can be most satisfactorily explained on this principle and on no other: We stand in a different relation to him and his actions, or we contemplate him and them through a different medium. We have known some persons on whose intellectual and moral vision the possessives mine or my, and thine or thy, operated miraculously— more like an enchanter's rod than any thing earthly which our imagination can describe. It changed the value of all property, the beauty, excellence, and utility of every thing. It transmuted virtue into vice, or vice into virtue by the slightest touch; and made the same action at one time stand forth in robes of dazzling splendor, and at another retire from our view in the filthy rags of squalid poverty. A house became a castle; a field, a farm; a garden, a paradise; a goose, a swan, soon as the prefix my was placed before it. But substitute for it thy, or change my into thy, then a castle becomes a cottage; a farm, a field; a paradise, a garden; a swan, a goose. My children are angels, geniuses, poets, philosophers, heroes; thy children are demons, dunces, at least they are quite at mediocrity, or rather below it in every respect. My property is a hundred per cent. better than yours. My actions are pure, honorable, just, religious; but thy actions are impure, dishonorable, unjust, or irreligious; at least they are of a very doubtful character. I have known some of this class whose eyes seem put out by the dazzling brilliancy of this monosyllable my. They can reason logically in the third person; but never in the first, and seldom in the second. Whatever soundness of judgment or reason they have is always impersonal. The attachment of the first person to any thing intoxicates, bewilders, confounds them; and if thy be contrasted with my in comparison, then they are equally stultified in all their reasonings.

My friend Mr. Chapel, of Synagogue alley, Church street, London, is a paragon of this sort of excellence. Compared with all the living, himself being judge, he is a second Noah in the land—the only perfect man in his generation. The brightest names in his calendar are full of blots, and the saints of other times were sinners compared with himself. He is always right, though always changing; and if he ever concedes a single but or an exception, he is sure to make it the brightest excellence in his life. Such are the true Popes of their circle; for without the pretension of infallibility, they never err, nor can they err. They