days. The most distinct form of this falling away or apostasy, is generally allowed by Protestants to be the Roman Catholic Church. Be this as it may, it is a fact that this religious body constituted, with little exception, the only form of Christianity which existed for nearly a thousand years previous to Luther's Reformation. And as matters, according to apostolic prediction, were to wax worse and worse until the coming of the Lord, the faith being hardly to be found on the earth, it could not be expected that the mass of professors in the sixteenth century, should be found standing fast in the faith of the Gospel. But the question arises, Has there not been a reformation from the religion of Rome? Did not Luther and Calvin deliver us from all the errors of popery? And are not Protestants now rejoicing in "the faith once delivered to the saints?" Without deciding on the extent of the Reformation, it may be interesting to notice the identity of the respective views of Roman Catholics and Protestants respecting the kingdom of God, the restoration of Israel, &c. Perhaps the most distinct illustration of this is to be found in the notes and comments to various passages in the versions of the Scriptures used by the two divisions of the professing religious world just referred to. The Roman Catholic English version of the Scriptures furnishes the following notes on the passages we have selected, and we have placed opposite to them annotations by Protestant Commentators, which will serve to indicate the source of the popular theories respecting the important truths we are considering. Dan. ii. 44: "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.” Ezek. xxi. 27: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him." ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLE. "I will shew it to be iniquity, &c., or, I will overturn it, viz., the crown of Juda for the manifold iniquities of the kings; but it shall not be utterly removed till Christ come, whose right it is; and who shall reign in the spiritual house of Jacob, that is in his church, for evermore." DR. JOHN BROWN'S SELF-INTERPRETING BIBLE. "Nor shall it ever attain its wonted lustre and dignity, or any of the family of David wear a sceptre till Christ take his spiritual kingdom in the gospel church, nay, in the millennium." Ps. lxix. 35: "For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah, that they may dwell there and have it in possession." DR. THOMAS SCOTT'S COMMENTARY ON "Zion seems to denote the church at large, the cities of Judah, the several divisions of the church throughout the world; evangelical blessings being predicted under allusions taken from the then existing state of things. God will preserve his church, and every sound part of it, and all true Christians; continuing to them, and entailing on their posterity the blessings of the new covenant. Yea, all that love God shall dwell for ever in Zion, in the church militant on earth, without being finally overcome by any enemy, and in the church triumphant in heaven." Ezek. xxxvi. 8-15: "But ye, O mountains of Israel I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded. . . . Yea, I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel, and they shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave thee of men, .. neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord God." The note in the Roman Catholic Bible on this passage is as follows, and shows that the last scattering of Judah by the Romans is viewed as a final end of the nation, and that therefore some other kind of fulfilment is necessary. The note is :-"This whole promise principally relates to the Church of Christ, and God's perpetual protection of her for as to the carnal Jews, they have been removed out of their land these sixteen hundred years." Here, then, we see that the doctrine commonly held by Protestants regarding the promises to Israel is precisely that held by Roman Catholics. Of course, it may be said that, notwithstanding this, the doctrine may be true. This is at once granted; but the fact remains that it is held by Protestants in very suspicious company, rendered all the more suspicious because of being the immediate source whence Protestants derived the doctrine at the Reformation. Hence the necessity for subjecting to the law and testimony all interpretations obtaining among contemporary professors. THE NATION OF ISRAEL AND "THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD." The necessity for adhering to the plain reading of the Scriptures is rendered more urgent by the fact that the future destiny of Israel is intimately connected with the Gospel of the kingdom of God as proclaimed by Jesus and the apostles. God, by the mouth of the angel, promised that Jesus should reign over the house of Jacob, and Jesus promised that in his kingdom his apostles should sit on thrones and judge the tribes of Israel. The good news concerning this reign was preached to Israel during the personal ministry of Jesus, and Jesus said concerning it, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." In order then to the reception of the truth concerning the kingdom of God, it is absolutely necessary to under stand the promise made to the mother of Jesus by the angel concerning his reign over the house of Jacob, and also the promise of Jesus to his apostles as to their judging the tribes of Israel. Any uncertainty on these points implies ignorance of the kingdom of God as preached for salvation by Jesus and the apostles. This will farther appear, if we consider, that the apostles, while they preached the kingdom of God, had no notion of any other kingdom than that of Israel restored to their own land, under the new covenant, and the Messiah ruling over them and the subjugated nations. Hence, after they had preached the kingdom for several years, and even after they had enjoyed the special teaching of the Lord during the forty days that elapsed between his resurrection and ascension, their hope of this restoration of the kingdom to Israel was as strong as ever. They desired information on one point, however, but only one; and this they put to Jesus in the form of a direct question. This was solely as to the time. "Lord, wilt thou AT THIS TIME restore again the kingdom to Israel ?" If their hope had been without foundation, this was the time to correct it; but Jesus uttered not a word to obscure the brightness of their cherished hopes; but confined himself purely to the matter of time raised by the question of the apostles: "It is not for you to know the TIMES or the SEASONS." Verily then the kingdom they preached and the kingdom they hoped for was one and the same. If it were not so, the record would surely contain some allusion to the fact of their correction by their Divine Master; for it cannot be thought that he would employ a staff of preachers without seeing that they were duly qualified for the work before them. And it surely cannot be said that the apostles were qualified to preach a kingdom in which the nation of Israel was to have no existence. I pause to remark here, that this subject is stamped with peculiar importance to us from the fact that Jesus told his apostles, that "this Gospel of the kingdom should be preached in all the world for a witness. unto all nations." The mission of the Messiah in his 66 appearing the second time," to establish a kingdom upon the earth over Israel and the nations, is ignored by the great mass of Christendom, even as a matter of Bible revelation, much more as an important element of the glad tidings proclaimed by Jesus and his apostles in "the gospel of the kingdom." And it is the Gospel aspect of this great truth which constrains us the more to direct attention to it, that we may contribute our share in supplying the lack of enlightenment on so important a subject. HAS THE CHURCH, THEN, COME IN THE PLACE OF REJECTED ISRAEL? I must now leave to the consideration of the careful reader of these pages the Scripture testimony adduced to show that Israel and the Church always were and ever shall be two distinct bodies; the one, God's chosen nation, the other, God's elect individual saints. The former, the subjects of God's kingdom, the latter, the "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ," God's Anointed. The present attitude of these "heirs "is that of waiting for the appearing of him whose kingdom they expect to share. In this position they are subject to his authority. He is their Lord, and they owe him willing service. The apostle beautifully connects the present and future relations of the disciples to their Lord in these words to the Colossians (iii. 24): "Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ." May it be ours so to serve now that we shall receive the reward; remembering our Lord's latest utterance on this solemn yet cheering theme. "Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be." Edinburgh. J. CAMERON. Correspondence. IMPORTANT PROJECT. DEAR SIR,-I want to consult you, and, through you, your readers, if you will allow me, concerning a scheme which I have long wanted to carry into execution; namely, to print a Bible in which twenty or thirty of the original words shall be left untranslated, but printed in English letters, so as to enable the English reader to see for himself the way in which the inspiring Spirit uses various leading important words in Holy Scripture. For instance, instead of putting soul, life, persons, dead bodies, idols, &c. &c., I should invariably put nephesh, the term so variously rendered by these and other words, which is so sadly misleading to the English reader that in many places it is impossible for him to see what the mind of the Spirit is. I should treat the Greek of the New Testament as I propose to treat the Hebrew of the Old Testament. I have an eye principally, though not exclusively, to those words which bear upon the old truth of the extinction of the wicked and of immortality through Christ alone; and as far as the words go which will be thus treated, the English readers, would have very little, if any, less advantage than the Hebrew and Greek scholar. There would be a glossary of the acknowledged meaning of these words, and every reader would have his English Bible from which he might see what its rendering is of a particular word in any of the many texts where it may occur. He would thus be prevented from being misled by those various mistranslations which were made in accordance with Platonic philosophy, rather than in accordance with plain revealed truth. In my judgment such a work is necessary for the English scholar. It is one which would involve great labour, but for the sake of the truth I would willingly undertake it without reward, if a sufficient number of subscribers could be got to bear the expenses and to save me from loss. The cost of a copy would of course depend upon the number of subscribers, but I should think it would not exceed ten shillings if a thousand persons were to subscribe for a copy. I shall be glad to receive hints addressed direct to me as below, and the names and addresses of subscribers; only correspondents will kindly excuse me if I do not answer their letters, for if I revise the Bible in the way proposed I shall require every moment of time which I can possibly save from other occupations. Believe me yours very truly in in the Lord, H. S. WARLEIGH. "THE TERTIARIAN RACE." DEAR MR. EDITOR,-Though Mr. Warleigh says that the idea of pre-adamite "Tertiarians" is not new; to me it is so, and I dare say to others. That being the case, whilst admitting several elements of probability in the views, questions will arise, the replies to which should harmonise with those views, for the Scripture cannot be broken. Supposing then that I have read Mr. Warleigh's statements aright, let me ask, Query 1. Is it in accord with all that we know concerning mankind, or the " genus homo," that a race of beings admitted to be "intelligent and moral" (p. 402), “rational" (p. 405), "capable of religious instruction" (p. 403), and of such a form of physical organisation as to be fitted to give a wife to a son of Adam, could have any other nomenclature than human creatures, of the genus homo ? Query 2. If the Tertiarians were, as is stated, capable of sin, i.e., "rebellion to God," "who had a fall and became apostates" (pp. 402, 403), and were susceptible of death (p. 401) previous to the creation of Adam-"in existence when Adam was made" (p. 396); is such a state of things compatible with the Scripture record that says, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin"-" By one offence death entered and reigned (Rom. v. 12, 17;) Adam being declared to be that transgressor? (ver. 14.) Query 3. May not the command "to subdue the earth "-alluded to in p. 402-be considered to have had prospective reference to "the generations of the Adam," rather than to the individual? (See Gen. v. 1, 2.) The command does not seem to have been repeated to Noah when he received the dominion. Is rael in their generations had a similar command. (Deut. viii. 1-5.) Query 4. How does the statement at p. 405, that the flood was "not universal with respect to the face of the globe," agree with Gen. vii. 19, 21-23, where it is recorded that "All the high hills under the whole heaven were covered;" and how could the Tertiarians have escaped so as to be the progenitors of the sons of Anak (Num. xiii.), Rainbow, p. 404, when it is added by Moses in Genesis that "All flesh died. Every man, all in whose nostrils was the breath of life?" 66 Query 5. Knowing what we do of the holy Being and attributes of God, is it consistent with that knowledge to suppose that he could have pronounced his creation very good," and have found his rest therein on the seventh day (Gen. i. 31. ii. 1, 2), when sinful beings were "in existence when Adam was made" (p. 396) on the sixth day? Mr. Warleigh is an esteemed servant of the Lord and a contributor of valuable truths to the Church of Christ; he is therefore entitled to all attention, and will absolve me from the slightest spirit of caprice in asking these questions. He, I am sure, as well as I, seek only for the elimination of truth. To turn now from Mr. Warleigh to geologists and their science. May not the "osteal remains found in the later times of the Tertiary period" be accounted for by contrasting the present condition of the earth under the curse, with its pristine paradisaic state of perfectness? May we not believe, consistently with the known exercise of righteous judgment, that judicial acts of the Creator have subjected creation to "the bondage of corruption" through the sin of man; that when man fell creation fell with him, and all was changed? |