SECTION III. ON THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. THE Missionaries, who are engaged in various parts of the world in preaching the Gospel to the heathen nations, though in many instances they have received eminent proofs of the Divine blessing in the success which has attended their exertions, are not the agents by whom the general conversion of the world will be accomplished. Those for whom this high honour is reserved are the ancient people of God, the Jews. Their conversion must precede that of the Gentiles. The casting away of them has been the reconciling of the world; and the receiving of them again into the Divine favour is destined to be as life from the dead to all the heathen nations. (Rom. xi. 15.) But the present Missionaries are, perhaps unconsciously, preparing the way for this consummation. By translating the Scriptures into all the heathen languages and dialects, they are, perhaps unconsciously, fulfilling the prediction of our Lord: This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Matth. xxiv. 14.) This preparatory work must be finished before the mighty change can take place. The Gospel must be preached among all nations to such an extent, that it may be to them a testimony or witness of the truth, whenever the time shall arrive for their attention to be effectually called to that testimony. In the same manner as the Apostle St Paul, at his first visit to Athens and Corinth-the eyes of Greece-found the Bible already translated into the language of Greece, already in that state that an immediate appeal could be made to it by the inhabitants of those cities, as a testimony or witness of the truths which he declared to them: so the future Apostle, for whom is reserved the conversion of China or Japan, must find the New Testament, the Gospel of the kingdom, already translated into the language of those countries. He must find it in such a state that his appeal to it may be instantly intelligible to the unlearned mass of their inhabitants. He must be able to challenge their attention to it as a witness of the truth, which he is commissioned to proclaim. This preparatory work, then, is now in progress: through the silent and unobtrusive labours of the Missionaries great advances are already made towards a translation of the Bible into all the languages of the world. The seed, from which the future harvest is destined to spring, has been already scattered far and wide both among polished nations and barbarian tribes. And present and future labours, perseveringly and zealously directed towards this end, will in due time accomplish the prediction: The Gospel must first be published among all nations. (Mark xiii. 10.) Let the reader, then, imagine this preparation complete-and then let him steadily contemplate the natural and inevitable results of the unsealing of the Old Testament. Let him first behold the Jews themselves converted by its means to their only Messiah, the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Then let him picture to himself these new converts, rising up simultaneously in the midst of the nations among whom they are scattered, as preachers of the faith which once they destroyed; with one hand pointing to the Apocalyptic visions of the sealed book, given to the beloved disciple eighteen centuries ago, and with the other to the unsealed copy, the visible and tangible evidence of the inspiration of the prophecy, the visible and tangible miracle, to which they challenge the scrutiny of their hearers, and on which they claim their submission to the Gospel of Christ. In the same manner as the evident fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testament, in the days of our Lord and His Apostles, was an irresistible argument to those who witnessed their accomplishment;-so the fulfilment, in a manner equally clear and unquestionable, of the visions of the Apocalypse, by the unsealing of the Book and its attendant circumstances, will be to all nations the plain and unanswerable demonstration of the truth of the Gospel, the one all-powerful appeal to the senses and the understanding, the heart and conscience of mankind. Again, therefore, the reflection presses itself upon us, that if this interpretation be correct, a train is laid for the conversion of the world, which may well lead us to exclaim in the words of the Apostle: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding out! (Rom. xi. 33.) WITH these reflections the Author will now submit his labours to the calm and serious consideration of the reader; not without hope that they will contribute, at least in some slight degree, to the more clear understanding of God's revealed word, and to the promotion of His kingdom and glory. We have before us, in the Old Testament itself, clear predic tions, that this Book would be sealed up, as a punishment of the apostasy of the Jews; and intimations at least, if not evident prophecies, of its future unsealing, when God shall again in mercy visit His ancient people. We have historical evidence that the Book was thus sealed up by that very power, which executed the threatened vengeance on Jerusalem, the Roman army. We have presumptive evidence that the Book was not again unsealed in the early ages of Christianity; and that it may, possibly, yet remain under the appointed guardianship of Rome. And that the Apocalypse is a prediction of the future unsealing of this Book appears, first, from the use of the symbol itself, so exactly harmonizing with the predictions of the Old Testament;-secondly, from the interpretations of this prophecy by the early Christians, to which this hypothesis is the only key;-and, lastly, from the present state of the Jews and of the Gentile world, of whose conversion this unsealed Book will be the pre-ordained and predicted instrument. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For, as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall MY WORD be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, |