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seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles." (Isa. lxvi. 18-19.) This is the manner in which the heathen are to be brought to fear and serve the God of Israel.

What we have referred to, however, is only the beginning of his great and good enterprise. The wonderful works of God, wrought before the nations, in the restoration of his people, and his terrible judgments upon the hostile armies, shall strike the peoples with amazement, and cause them to fear his great and dreadful name. Then also shall all eyes be turned upon Israel, on whose behalf these wonders and judgments have been wrought. The despised, exiled Jew shall, at length, have become popular. The word of the Lord, by the prophet Zechariah shall be verified" Thus saith the Lord of hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you." (Zech. viii. 20-23.)

"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the Holy Land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation." (Zech. ii. 10-13.)

So also in Jeremiah (xxxiii. 7-9):-"I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it."

What language could more distinctly affirm the truth of what this paper aims at disseminating?

Let it also be carefully noticed that, at the period referred to, Jerusalem shall not only be the seat of Divine government for the whole world, but also the source of spiritual life and light to all the peoples of earth, -the centre to which all nations shall gather to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. "At that time they shall call Jerusalem The throne of the Lord; and all nations shall be gathered together unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart." (Jer. iii. 17.) "The moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount Zion, and before his ancients gloriously." (Isa. xxiv. 23.) "And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a

feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." (Isa. xxv. 6, 7.)

In a former article we saw that, at the time when the Lord shall reign in Mount Zion, there shall have been an elevation of that mountain, so that "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the tops of the mountains, and exalted above the hills." The same oracle tells that, at that time," many peoples shall go, and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of ZION shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Isa. li. 2, 3.)

It is remarkable that from the same centre went forth the preaching of the Gospel, by the appointment of the Lord himself. "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." (Luke xxiv. 46, 47.)

Such is the order and means by which God has determined to accomplish the salvation of men, and establish and maintain the only true religion among all the peoples of the world. For this purpose he selected and called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and formed the nation of Israel. He chose them to be a peculiar treasure to himself above all peoples, that they might be unto him a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. (Ex. xix. 5, 6.) The selection of the few was for the benefit of the many. The nations of the world had become idolatrous. To preserve the knowledge of himself amid the idolatrous population of the world, Jehovah chose Israel to be a holy nation, the conservators of the revelation of his will, that they might be his witnesses (Isa. xliii. 10) to the surrounding nations. They failed-miserably and grievously failed. Instead of healing the corrupting mass, they themselves became corrupted. Hence their exile; hence the desolation of their land, their chief city, and temple. Yet the purpose of God, though deferred, is not abandoned. "He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock." Then shall they be named "The priests of the Lord;" men shall call them "The ministers of our God." "And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." (Isa. lxi. 6-11.)

Seeing that such is the purpose of God, all who love and honour his name may well respond to the call,

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Peace be within thy walls,

And prosperity within thy palaces !"

Though that peace is long delayed, Israel's God hath not forgotten his promises or altered his purposes concerning it. He has set watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem, which shall not hold their peace day nor night. These "watchers". are called "The Lord's remembrancers," and their commission is to "keep not silence, and give him no rest till he establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." (Isa. lxii. 6, 7.) Such are the good things which God has purposed concerning Israel, and the nations of the world through Israel. And what is this but the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, "In thee, and in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed ?" Already has this promise had a most remarkable fulfilment. There are few, we presume, however sceptical, who will deny the ameliorating effects of the Christian faith, and the beneficial influence of the Bible on society at large. Bad as the world is, how much worse would it have been but for the Bible and the teachings of the Christ and his apostles! Those, at least, who have found peace in believing, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, know the value of the Holy Scriptures. Well, let it be remembered that for such a boon we are indebted, through the mercy of God, to the people of Israel. Not only were that people intrusted with the oracles of God; but also of them, exclusively, were the prophets, those holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; of Israel were the twelve apostles of the Lord; and he, also, is the seed of David according to the flesh. How true it is that "salvation is of the Jews!"

The purpose of God, therefore, to make Israel the means of disseminating a knowledge of himself among all nations, so that "from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same his name shall be great among the Gentiles," is no new thing, but the successful accomplishment of a plan which has been in operation for many centuries.

"O city of the Lord! begin

The universal song;
And let the scatter'd villages
The cheerful notes prolong.
Let Kedar's wilderness afar
Lift up its lonely voice;

And let the tenants of the rock

With accents rude rejoice;

Till 'midst the streams of distant lands

The islands sound his praise;

And all combin'd, with one accord,
Jehovah's glories raise."

W. LAING.

WILL

"IS IT TRUE?"

ILL you allow me to make some observations on an article which appeared in September under the above title, bearing the signature of Henry D. H. Burnell? The writer has, I fully believe, struck the right note in inviting us to go back and look, so far as Scripture permits, to the beginning of God's counsels.

Were this done more often, I cannot but think that many things, which now appear dark and mysterious, would have, to the student, a

flood of light thrown on them. There is one particular text to which he calls attention (1 John iii. 8) which, perhaps I may be allowed to say, proved to me years ago a golden thread, guiding me through many a labyrinth of mystery. It did so because it led me to look beyond the salvation of God's Church, to a higher purpose, to be carried out and fulfilled, in a measure at least, instrumentally through that salvation, and hence to perceive that though the salvation of the Church is, when viewed from one standpoint, an end of Christ's coming, yet, when viewed from another standpoint, it is only a means to some higher end. To take the verse as it stands, it is said "the devil sinneth from the beginning." I need not point out to your readers the fact that the expression" the beginning" is characteristic of St. John's writing. He opens his Gospel by pointing out to us that "in the beginning" Christ was-as the Word of God-by the side of, or with God, and was God; carrying us thus back in thought to ages antecedent, as I believe, to the works of creation. When we read that "the devil sinneth from the beginning" (without attempting what is probably beyond our power, to give an exact meaning to the expression), it teaches us that we may, and indeed must, throw back the period of the devil's commencing to sin to a time long antecedent to Adam's appearance.

This view of Satan's sin, and the fact that Adam came into creation after sin had long been an accomplished fact, is certainly corroborated— even if we could not say proved-by the opening words of the Bible narrative. God created in the beginning the heavens and the earth. How long ago we are not told. Then commences the period in which it pleased God to come forth and make in six days the earth and heavens as they are now-that is, as I understand it, to restore them. Now at the commencement of this period the description of things is, the earth was, that is, existed, without form, and void (I don't pause on the particular meaning of the words), covered with water, and spread over with a pall of darkness.

It seems to me impossible to escape the conclusion that this description is the description of a state in which God's judgment, for some cause or other, had been at work.

We may notice in passing, as strengthening this view, how in Scripture the earth is brought before us under three different aspects, denoting, first, apparently this very thing, judgment; and then restoration; and finally, perfection.

Here, in the opening verses of Genesis, we have a description of the earth without light, covered with waters, and consequently, as we understand, without life. In the end of the Bible we have the same earth in its future state, and perfected through fire, described as without death, without night, and as having no more sea. The absolute removal of the three things-sea, night, death-with which the earth at first was overwhelmed, thus stated, and so showing the complete contrast between the past and the future, cannot be an accidental coincidence.

And in the meantime, according to God's working as seen in the present time, we have what we may call figuratively, as well as literally, a twilight state,-light and darkness; death and life; sea and dry land; each having its own place; and the three-death, night, and sea-certainly not daring to overstep their bounds, or intrude on the province of

their opponents. This twilight state, thus giving hopes of a time when evil, once triumphant and now limited, will, in time, for ever pass away. Into this state man is introduced, and shortly after his introduction we find him brought into contact with Satan. Nothing in God's plan can be accidental. Was it not his purpose, then, that man should be brought into contact with Satan? And if this meeting was on the earth, in what I have called its twilight condition, shall we go far wrong if we say it is at least probable that the world had been brought into its condition of judgment through Satan's sin? And all the more if, as St. John more than intimates, man was to be employed instrumentally in effecting the destruction of Satan's works?

We thus reach these three stages: God's purpose to destroy the works of Satan; God permitting Satan to carry his sin to such a height as to cause judgment to pass upon the earth; God bringing man and Satan together on the earth, which had been thus judged on account of the sin of the latter.

I could wish to enlarge further on these subjects, but I find my paper has already reached a considerable length, and therefore, with your permission, I will defer the continuation of the matter for another month.

F. M. C.

THE "SPIRITS IN PRISON" NOT ADAMITES.

HE two schemes of McCausland and Warleigh agree in bringing us

Tinto contact with races of intelligent beings prior to and contem

porary with Adam. But while the races of the former are veritable men, differing from the Adamites only in the inferiority of their type, and still continuing to occupy the widest portions of the world, those of Mr. Warleigh are much farther removed from the standard of Eden's habitants, and strictly speaking find no modern representatives. From this it also follows that in Mr. McCausland's system the value comes out more prominently of the distinction maintained in Old Testament Scripture between the Adamites and the other races, as indicated by the three different Hebrew words in the early chapters of Genesis all rendered in English by the term "man ;"-not that Mr. Warleigh was unaware of the distinction, for he calls attention to it; but his theory fails to make the same use of the fact. And this leads us on to notice in the next place that the two writers are moreover at variance in respect of the mysterious characters introduced on that early scene as "the angels which kept not their first estate ;""the sons of God" in our authorised version; "the angels of God" in the Alexandrine Greek. Mr. Warleigh calls them "men," and he claims the authority of the apostle Peter for the use of this term. Mr. Warleigh's language, while treating of the spirits in prison, is, that "Peter expressly tells us they were spirits of men who lived in the days of Noah, during that period when the long-suffering of God was exhibited; which period was coeval with the time the ark was in building; and it was to these spirits of men that Jesus made this announcement."

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