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PROPHETIC STUDIES

OF THE

International Prophetic Conference,

(CHICAGO, NOVEMBER, 1886.)

CONTAINING CRITICAL AND SCHOLARLY ESSAYS, LETTERS, ETC., UPOH

THE NEAR COMING OF THE LORD.

ITS LITERAL AND PERSONAL CHARACTER.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANTICHRIST.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

THE JEWS AND THEIR FUTURE.

PREDICTED JUDGMENTS.

THE MILLENIUM.

AND KINDRED TOPICS AND EVENTS; TOGETHER WITH THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICA-

TION AS AN INCENTIVE TO EVANGELISTIC AND MISSION WORK,

AND PERSONAL CONSECRATION.

BY THE FOLLOWING EMINENT BIBLICAL STUDENTS:

W. R. Nicholson, D. D., Bishop R. E. C, Philadelphia. Prof. F. Godet, D. D., Neufchatel, Switzerland.

Maurice Baldwin, D. D„ Bishop of Huron, Ont.

Prof. D. C. Marquis, D. D., McCormick Theo. Sem.

Prof. W. G. Moorehead, U. P. Theo. Sem., Xenia.

Prof. E, F. Stroeter, Wesleyan College, Ma

Prof. J. T. Duffield. D, D., Princeton, N. J.

♦^of. Henry Lummis, Lawrence University.

•Prof. John Gustav Princell, Chicago.

Rev. Nathaniel West, D. D., Presb., St. Paul, Minn.

Rev. George Bishop, D. D., Duteh Ref. Orange, N. J.

Rev. E. P. Goodwin, D. D., Cong'l, Chicago.

Rev. A. J. Frost, D. D., Baptist, Sacramento, CaL

Rev. A. J. Gordon, D, D., Baptist, Boston.

Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D., Presb., Philadelphia.

Rev. P. S. Henson, D. D., Baptist. Chicago.

Rev. Henry M. Parsons, Presb., Toronto, Ont.

Rev. Jas. S. Kennedy, D. D„ Abingdon, Va.

Prof. Volch, D. D., Univ. of Dorpat, Russia.

Prof. Franz Delitzsch, D, D.t Univ. of Leipzig.

Prof. A. Koch, D. D., Oldenburg, Saxony.

Rev. A. R. Faussett, D. D., Canon of York, Eng.

Rev. Andrew A. Bonar, D. D., Glasgow, Scotland.

Rev. Archibald G. Brown, London, Eng.

Mr. D. L. Moody, Northfield, Mass.

Rev. F. L. Chapell, Baptist, Flemington, N. J.

Rev. W. J. Erdman, Cong'l, Boston, Mass.

Rev. Albert Erdman, Presb., Morristown, N. J.

Rev. J. D. Herr, D, D., Baptist, Milwaukee, Wis.

Rev. J. F. Kendall, D. D., Presb., Laporte, Ind.

Rev. J. M. Orrick, Editor "Messiah's Herald," Boston.

Rev. Geo. N. H. Peters, Evan. Luth. , Springfield, O.

Rev. Geo. C. Needham, Evangelist, Boston.

Mr, Wm. E. Blackstone, Methodist, Oak Park, III,

Rev. Wm. Dinwiddie, Alexandria, Va.

FLEMING H. REVELL,

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Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1886, by

FLEMING H. REVELL,
to the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

The essays which comprise this book are those which were delivered at the Second
American Bible and ProDhetic Conference; held in Farwell Hall, Chicago, Nov. 16 to
21, 1886. At the time of presentation they created a profound impression through-
out the country; The Inteb Ocean, with characteristic enterprise, publishing: them
verbatim from dav to day throughout the conference.

In the year 1878, the first general American Bible 'and Prophetic Conference was
held in New York City. The addresses delivered on our Lord's personal and pre-
millennial return to this earth were then eagerly heard by the hundreds of ministers,
and thousands of intelligent Christian people who were then and there assembled.
The New York Tribune published an extra of 50,000 copies, giving in full these
essays, which, afterwards, were edited carefully by Dr. Nathaniel West, and pub-
lished by F. H. Kevell, Chicago, in one large volume entitled "Pre- Millennial
Essavs." Such was the influence of the movement that for more than two
years following the Conference important and valuable discussions on prophetic themes
occupied the pages of not a few of our religious newspapers, journals, and magazines,
and a new impetus for Bible study was given to multitudes whose attention had so long
been turned away from the great and almost entirely neglected fields of divine
prophecy.

The following Resolutions passed by that Conference in its closing session express
in brief, the views of the large body of ministers who participated in or were present
to sympathize with the proceedings:

1. We affirm our belief in the supreme and absolute authority of the written
Word of God on all questions of doctrine and duty.

2. The prophetic words of the Old Testament Scriptures concerning the first com-
ing of our Lord Jesus Christ were literally fulfilled in His birth, life, death, resurrec-
tion, and ascension; and so the prophetic words of both the Old and the New Testa-
ments concerning His second coming will be literally fulfilled in His yislble bodily re-
turn to this earth in like manner as He went up into Heaven; and this glorious
Epiphany of the great God, our Savior Jesus Christ, is the blessed hope of the believer
and of the Church during this entire dispensation.

3. This second coming of the Lord Jesus is everywhere in the Scriptures represented
as imminent, and may occur at any moment; yet the precise day and hour thereof is
unknown to man, and only known to God.

4. The Scriptures nowhere teach that the whole world will be converted to God, and
that there will be a reign of universal righteousness and peace before the return of the
blessed Lord; but that only at and by His coming in power and glory will the prophe-
cies concerning the progress of evil and the development of Antichrist, the times of the
Gentiles, and the ingathering of Israel, the resurrection of the dead in Christ, and the
transfiguration of His living saints, receive their fulfilment, and the period of millen-
nial blessedness its inauguration.

5. The duty of the church during the absence of the Bridegroom is to watch and
pray, to work and wait, to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,
and thus hasten the coming of ttn> dav of God; and to His last promise, "Surely I come
quickly," to respond, in Joyous nope, "Even so; come Lord Jesus."

In addition the following resolution was passed not only unanimously by the confer-
ence, but by the vast audience voluntarily rising en masse to its feet — a magnificent
spectacle not soon to be forgotten:

"Resolved, That the doctrine of our Lord's pre-millenial advent, instead of paralyzing
evangelistic and missionary effort, is one of the mightiest incentives to earnestness In
preaching the Gospel to every creature, until He comes."

Those resolutions were reaffirmed at the Chicago conference, the whole congrega-
tion responding with evident enthusiasm and remarkable unanimity.

The Prophetic Conference committee of 1878 in response to many urgent appeals
decided to hold the second prophetic meeting at the date above mentioned. The com-
mittee issued a call for signatures to which their names, with those added to the orig-
inal number, were appended as follows:

J. H. Brookes, Editor of "The Truth," St. Louis.

A. J. Gordon, Pastor Clarendon Street Baptist Church, Boston.

Maurice Baldwin, Bishop of Huron, Canada.

W. E. Nicholson, Bishop of Bet'ormed Episcopal Church, Philadelphia,

H. M. Parsons, Pastor Knox Presbvterian Church, Toronto, Canada.

W. G. Moorhead, Professor U. P. College, Xenia, Ohio.

W. W. Clark, Pastor Dutch Keformea Churcft, S. I., New York.

"W. J. Erdman, Pastor Olivet Congregational Cnureh, Boston.

J. D. Heir, Pastor First Baptist Church, Milwaukee, Wis.

J, M. Orrock, Editor "Messiah's Herald," Boston.

Wm. Nasi, Editor "Der Christliche Apologete," Cincinnati.

J. F. Kendall, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Laporte, Ind.

E. P. Goodwin, Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago.

D. W. Whittle, Evangelist, (Chicago Avenue Church), Chicago.

A. J. Frost, Pastor Baptist Church, Sacramento, Cal.

James S. Kennedy, Pastor M. E. Church. Abingdon, Va.

Nathaniel West, Pastor Presbyterian Church, St. Paul, Minn.

S. H. Kellogg, Pastor Presbvterian Church, Toronto, Canada.

L. W. Munhall, Evangelist, (M. E. Church), Germantown, Pa.

Addison Banchard, (Congregational,) Superintendent A H. M. S., Kansas.

George C. Needhara, Evangelist, (Clarendon Street Baptist Church), Boston.

Committee.

The call with singular promptness was heartily indorsed by hundreds of pastors, the-
ological professors, evangelists, missionaries, and Y. M. C. A. secretaries. Many also
of post-millenial faith ratified the call, and were present at every session as interested
listeners.

From the large correspondence entailed in the essential preparatory work of the
prospective meeting devolved upon us we are persuaded that since the New York
Convention in 1878, the doctrine of our Lord's expected advent has gained ground
among spiritual believers of all churches, as the revival of no other truth in modern
times has done.

The conference gave no opportunity for modern prophets to ventilate their calcula-
tions or speculations; it was rather an occasion for students of prophecy to present the
weighty matters found in the Written Word concerning "last times" and "last things."
The brethren who were appointed to bring to the Conference the results of prayer-
ful and careful Bible study are neither idie star-gazers, eratio time-setters, nor theo-
logical adventurers.

We believe their names, their ecclesiastical standing, and their spirituality of heart, to
say nothing of their scholarship and their eloquence, will compel respect, disarm preju-
dice, dissolve doubts, and establish faith in "the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit
of prophecy." They submit their interpretations, convictions, ana conclusions to the
severest test of candid criticism. The enterprise shown by The Inteb Ocean is a
marvel of modern journalism. The half a dozon essays, of unusual length, de-
livered daily by the respective speakers appeared verbatim in the next morn-
ing's edition of the above named newspaper. This book is made up from
stereotype plates made from The Inteb Ocean reports, but in large part revised,
though hurriedly, by the respective authors. If, therefore, typographical errors should
be occasionally met with, the reader will kindly take the circumstances into considera-
tion. In order to meet the immediate demand for the book, the publisher, with extra-
ordinary rapidity, has sent it flying through the land in one week after the conference
closed its final session.

And as it carries within its pages the sublimest doctrines of salvation, in their or-
iginal development and glorious consummation, do we heartily bid it God-speed. It is,
indeed, our earnest prayer that through its silent agency our Lord Jesus Christ may be
abundantly glorified in the hearts aud lives of all who look to Him us Prophet, Priest,
and Kijg. Geokge C. Need ham.

Manchester- by- the- Sea, Mass., Nov. 29, 1886.

REV. GEORGE C. NEEDHAM,

SECRETARY AND ORGANIZER OK THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

CONTENTS.

Pago.
Preface. 1

The Return of the Lord, Personal and Literal 5

By tho Rev. E P. Goodwin, D. D., Chicago.

Christ's Second Coming PremiilenniaL 14

By Professor E T. Stroeter. D. D., Wesleyan University, Warrenton, Ma

The Holy Spirit in Relation to the Advent 20

Bv the Rev. F. L Chapell, Fiemington, N. J.

World Wide Evangelism, Our Lord's Second Comin? a Motive to. 27

By the Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D., Philadelphia.

Letter of Greeting. , 41

By Mr. D. L Moody.

Lette* 41

By the Rev. Archibald G. Brown, London, England.

Lettei. . 43

By the Rev. Andrew A Bonar, D. D., Glasgow, Scotland.

Objections to Christ's Premillennial Advent Considered. 42

By the Rev. J. M Orrock, Boston.

Christ's Predictions and Their Interpretation. 45

By Professor Henry Lummis, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wia.

Times of the Gentiles 49

By the Rev. Geo. S. Bishop, D. D., Orange, N. J.

Fullness of the Gentiles. 56

By the Rev. W. J. Erdman, Boston.

Modern Delusiona . . « 62

By the Rev. A. J. Gordon, D. D., Boston.

Practical Influence and Power of Christ's Second Coming. 72

By the Rev. J. 8. Kennedy, D. D., Abingdon, Va.

Judgments and Rewards 78

By the Rev. Henry M Parsons, D. D., Toronta

Eflchatology as Taught by Christ. 86

By Profeuor D. U Marquii, D. D., McOormloJc Seminary, Chicago.

Page.

Contending for the Faith. 90

By the Rev. Albert Erduian, Morristown, N. J.

Expository Letter. 94

By Canon A. R. Fancett, D. D., York, England.

The Antichrist 96

By Professor W. G. Moorehead, U. B., Theo. Seminary, Xenla, Ohio.

Predicted Judgments. 108

By the Rev. J. F. Kendall, D. D., Laporte, Ind.

The Priesthood of Christ 115

By tlie Rev. William Dinwiddie, D. D., Alexandria, Va.

Expository Letter. 119

By Professor F. Godet, D. D., Neutchatel, Switzerland.

Prophecy and Israel 122

By the Rev. Nathaniel West, D. D., St. Paul, Minn.

Expository Letter. 135

By Professor A Koch, D. IX, Bardewisch, Oldenberg, Saxony

Expository Letter. ... 136

By Professor Volck, D. D. ,. University of Dorpat, Russia.

Expository Letter. 137

By Professor Franz Dehtzsch, D. D., Leipzig. Germany.

Messiah's Kingly Glory 142

By the Rt Rev. W. R, Nicholson, D. D., Bishop R. E. 0., Philadelphia.

Importance of Prophetic Study. 152

By the Rev. J. D. Herr, D. D. , Milwaukee, Wis.

Covenants in Their Relation to the Kingdom 157

By the Rev. G. H. N. Peters, Springfield, Ohio.

Declaration of Principles 165

Condition of the Church and the World at Christ's Coming. 166

By the Rev. A J. Frost, D. D., Sacramento, CaL

The Apostolic Church PremillenniaL . 177

By Professor Jonn T. Duffleid, D. D., Princeton, N. J.

Prayer; Its Nature, Privilege, and Power. 183

By the Rev. P. a Henson, D. D., Chicago.

Sanctihcation. 186

By the Rev John F. Kendall, D. D., Laporte, Ind.

Mission Fields 194

By Mr. W. E. Blackstone, Oak Park, 111.

Waiting, Watching, Working. 205

By Professor John Gustav PrincelL

Stimulating Effect of fremillennial Truths in the WorK of Evangelization. . . 210

By the Rt Rev. Maurice Baldwin, D. D., Bishop of Huron.

Reasons for Holding the Prophetic Conference 215

By the Rev. George C. Needham. Secretary, Manchester, Mass.

Note. — Possibly a few typographical errors may be found in the following pages, as the
book has been issued with a promptitude seldom equaled. It is believed, however, that few
such inaccuracies will be found; but for these, and aUo for the capital sub-heads, the pub-
lisher, and not the authors, is responsible.

STUDIES

-OF-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

HELD IN CHICAGO NOVEMBER 16 TO 21, 1886.

FIRST DAT.

OPENING EXERCISES.

The Bible and Prophetic Conference, called
for the study of Bible prophecy, met for the
second session in its history at 10 o'clock on
Tuesday morning, Nov. 16, in Farwell HalL
There were present ministers of all denomi-
nations from all parts ot the United States
and Canada. Nearly all the city clergy were
present, and hundreds of earnest Christians
of every Bhade of belief from every church,
charitable Institution, and missionary society
in the city. The Rev. George C. Needham,
of Manchester-on-the-Sea, Mass., formerly
pastor of Moody's Church, Chicago, opened
the meeting. Mr. Neednam has been the
man of all others on whom the success of
this great gathering has depended, and it
was singularly appropriate that he be chosen
to open It.

The first hour waB devoted to religious and
devotional exercises. The first notes of
prayer and praise were the long meter dox-
ology. The Rev. Dr. Davis, city missionary
of the Presbyterian Church, led in a fervent
prayer. The conference then sang "Crown
Him Lord of AIL" The singing was led by
Mr. J, R Burke, with Mr. William B. Boomer
as organist Mr. Nichols sang an advent
hymn, and short addresses and prayer were
made by Dr. Parsons, Professor Moorehead,
and othera

At the conclusion of the devotional exer-
cises the first paper of the session was read
by the Bev. E. P. Goodwin, of Chicago.

THE REV. DR. GOODWIN.

THB BETUBN OF THE LORD.

In considering the subject which the com-
mittee have assigned to me, "The Return of
the Lord, Literal, Personal, Visible," I need
hardly say that I have no expectation of
presenting anything new or striking upon
It The ground has all been traversed, and
the teaching of the word of God thoroughly
and nobly set forth by many whose names
are as household words to most of the mem-
bers of this conference. But the truths of
the word will bear oft repeating; especially
these truths about the last thlnga And this
the more because in the minds of the many
of the Lord's people they seem to be of so
little significance. It is probably not to
much to say that the great majority of be-
lievers feel little or no interest in this whole
range of inquiries respecting the coming of
the Lord and the truths related thereto. Very
largely they deem them matters of specula-
tion, subjects only hinted at in the scriptures,
and as to which, so far as it concerns prac-
tical Christian life, it does not signify which
of two or three or more different opinions M

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

held. I have even known quits earnest and
faltbful Sunday School and Bible class
teachers to regret that the International
sermons Had anything to do with the

PBOPHBTTOAIi BOOKS

of the Eible. I sometimes wonderd if the
great adversary, hater of all truth as he is,
has not a special dislike for tne truth of the
word concerning the things to come. Yon
remember that when in the third year of
Cyrus, Daniel set himself to

search out and understand the visions
of the Lord, the angel said
to him that, he set out to bring him an an-
swer to his prayer, and to give him under-
standing of the visions of God, but was
hindered by the Prince of the Kingdom of
Persia, t e., tne angel of darknees charged
with oaring for that kingdom in tne inter-
ests of Satan, "one and twenty days." And
he was only able to overcome by the help of
Michael, the archangel (Dan. 10). Now, the
things which the angel of the Lord was sent
to reveal unto the prophet were the things
not merely relating to the return of tne
ehosen people from the Babylonish captiv-
ity, but concerning their final restoration to
God's favor, the overthrow of anti-Christ,
and the gloriouB resurrection of the just.
Such a foreshowing of the release from his
tyrannous ruleship, not only of the nation
he so long had tortured through tneir rejec-
tion of God, but of the whole race
as well, and with that release his
own utter and everlasting overthrow,
the great adversary did not want made.
And so he fought it desperately as tne record
shows. Not unlike that is his hostility in
our day, I sometimes think, to the under-
standing of these identicul truths about lost
things. Whoever discerns these will of ne-
oesaitj discern the

ONCOMINO TBIUMPH

of the Son of God, the sure defeat of the
prince of darkness, and will be inevitably
and mightily inspired for witnessing and
warfare. Henoa if believers can be kept
blinded as to the nearinJS end of aatan's reign,
or unconcerned about it, or better still, can
be prejudiced against the idea of such cer-
tain and speedy overthrow, there will be so
much clear gain to this active foe of God and
man.

Bo this as it may, there is profit in being
pat in remembrance of the most familiar
truths, and my hone is. if nothing more re-
suit, that this representation of the scripture
doctrine of the Lord's return will serve to set
the blessed hope more clearly Defore our
minds and above all make ufc sharers in a
larger measure in that consuming zeal for
Christ and for souls, with which it so grandly
Inspired and enerigised the early ohurcr

The question before us, I need hardly say,
is purely a question of scripture. Outside of
these sacred writings we know and can know
nothing whatever on the subject Specula-
tion, philosophy, the learning, the logic of
the schools has no part nor lot in this dis-
cussion. Do the Scriptures teach that our
Lord is to return literally, and in a personal,
human, visible form, and at a given time, or
do they teach that He is to come in

SOME OTHBB WAT,

Impersonally, invisibly, spiritually, and at no
particular time? Did He oome at the de-
struction of Jerusalem? Does He come at
the believer's death? Is His coming the same
thing as the spirits coming into the heart?
The whole subject, I repeat, is one to De set-
tled only by scripture testimony. Not what
ought these wiinesses to say? What would
it be rational for them to say? What would
harmonize best with science, with advanced
thought, with enlarged conceptions of God,
and improved conceptions of man? Nothing
of this, but simply what, fairly taken, as we
read and understand language elsewhere,
do these men, speaking as they are moved
by the Holy Ghost, say as to the manner of
the .Lord's return.

Some latter-day theorists upon this sub-
ject quite overlook this. They raise ob-
jections based upon what they conceive to
be certain impossibilities connected with the
appearing- of the Lord in a personal,
visible way, and, therefore, declare tne doc-
trine can not be taught. This is largely the
ground of objections urged by Dr. Bushnell,
Dr. Lyman Abbott, Dr. Warrens Parousia,
and others.

But all such reasonings and speculations
have no value whatever in determining
what the truth is. As well say the creation
of the world out ot nothing- is irrational
and inconceivable, and hence the first chap-
ter of Genesis is a. fiction. As well say it is
utterly irrational and inconceivable that a
human and divine soul could dwell together
in one person, and that person could be born
both of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin
Mary, and, therefore, deny the twofold
nature or the supernatural birth of Jesu*
Christ; or, again, it is irrational and con-
ceivable that bodies once turned to dust and
scattered perhaps to the ends of the earth
should be reconstructed and made to re-
invest the spirits that once dwelt therein,
and, therefore, scout the doctrine of the
resurrection. That is precisely the method
of reasoning by which some exoellent paople
get rid of the doctrine of an expiatory atone-
ment, and othera of the doctrine of miracles,
and others still of the imprecatory psalms,
and all sum- stone* as the deluge ana

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

DESTRUCTION OT SODOM,

and Jonah and the whale. There ia no sort
of trouble in having a Bible exactly accord-
ing to our mind, when we set up this
modern principle or canon of authority
which so many adopt, that only that
Is true which in its own pec phrase "finds
me," carries the assent of my inner con-
sciousness.

But that is not what settles questions ac-
cording to this book. This claims to be of
God, to voice His thoughts, to reveal his will.
And the men who made this book did not
write down what they thought or imagined
or presumed or reasoned out; not what
would accord with other men's tho ughts or
reasonings or speculations; not what would
seem wise or beneficent, but what God
thought and chose to say, and what He com-
manded them — the writers of the book — to
say. "Holy men of old spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost," And our atti-
tude before their testimony is simply that of
accepting and obeying what thev declare as
the truth of God We have no option whatever
and no right of speculation or debate as re-
■pects the things revealed We are as Jaw
students before the statutes of the State.
The only question for us is, what
do these authorities — these books of God's
revealed will teach? No matter whether we
can understand or explain, or harmonize
their teachings with our views of things or
not. They givo us what God says, and we
believe them because of that, and not be-
cause of our ability to explain or expound
them.

I may not carry the assent of all the mem-
bers of this conference in this affirmation.
I certainly do not carry that of a large num-
ber of Christian ministers and teachers with
respect to the inspiratisn and

AUTHOBITY OP SCBIPTUBB.

But this Is where I stand, and is, I humbly
conceive, the only ground upon which any
authoritiva utteranoe of the word of God
can be had. The chlsf difficulty In all dis-
cussions upon Scripture doctrines lies in my
judgment in this, that the authority of
Scripture is not made supreme. So long as
men insist upon squaring belief to the
canons of philosophy, or science, and de-
mand that everything shall approve itself
before the bar of their reason, bo long there
can be no certainty in the things of faith.
This one will hold tnis thing and another
that as to what the Scripture doctrine
Is of God's moral povernment, or
sin, or the atonement, or regeneration, or
resurrection, or retribution. There can be
no unity of faith until the standard of au-
thority Is fixed, and it is idle without that to
raise any such questions as this programme

involvea We might as well engage in seeing
who could blow the most brilliant soap-
bubbles. But once agree that human
speculation, opinion, and reasoning have no
more to do in t-etthng what we
shall receive and believe as students
of this divine word man they had in de-
termining what the people of old should re-
ceive and believe when Moses came out
from his closetings with Jehovah on the
cloud-wrapt mountain top, and declared the
message with which he was charged, and
then there is an end of controversy And
this, I repeat, is where I stand I assume the
absolute, infallible authority of this book as
the word of God And on that basis, be-
lieving that

ON THIS SUBJECT IN HAN».

as upon all others essential to the right un-
derstanding of the plan of God in redeem-
ing lost man, the Holy Spirit has given clear
and decisive testimony, I propose to ask
what saith the Scripture on the question of
the manner of the liord's return.

What the belief of the early church
was as to the teaching of Scripture I need
not stay to consider. It is sufficient to say,
without taking time for the citations that
could easily be made, that not a single au-
thority in church history pretends that for
250 years, at least, the early disciples held
or so much as knew of any other view than
that of the ljord's literal, personal, and visi-
ble return. It is aarreed on all hands that as
to this there is not among apostles, apostolio
fathers, or apologists down to Origen a single
dissentiner voice.

And it may almost be said that, taking the
church as a whole, this early belief has never
been loet nor modified. The faith-symbols
of every brancn of the Christian household
have most clearly and emphatically put
forward this doctrine. What need, then, of
arguing for it in such a conference as
this? Simply because in this day of
so-called advanced thought and of new
departures men tet to be teachers
of the Lord's people in pulpits and editorial
chairs, and some who are charged with
training those who are to expound this word
of God, have abandoned the faith of the
fathers. Or rather. I should say, they have,
as they claim, improved upon that faith by
taking out of it the hyper-literalintic ele-
ment and so making is accord with the fig-
urative and spiritualistic way of putting
truth, which, as they affirm, is a prime char-
acteristic of the Scripturea Hence such
views as those advocated ny Dr. Buahnell
and the editor of the Christian (fnion, and
Warren's "Parousia" and Whiton's book on
the resurrection. The pulpit or our day,

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

and not in any one aenomination, is leav-
ened with Buch rationalistic teachings. It
may even be doubted whether a majority of
our youn£> ministers ao not doubt as to any
actual fulfillment of the Scripture declar-
ations as to Christ's return. And a great
multitude of disciples, if they

DO NOT SHAKE SUCH DOUBTS,

are at least In a great maze as to what to
believe, it will ba ample reward for this
undertaking if it snail help anv student of
theologv to stand fast by the old historic
faith, and any perplexed child of God to
cling steadily to that ancient, blessed
hope of one day seeing the Lord face to face
and of being from the fiour of that beholding
forever with him and forever like him.

1. FirBt, then, the language of Scripture
gives as much reason for believing in the
literal, personal, visible s'econd coming of
the Lord as m such a first coming. If it
was intended by the Holy Spirit that there
should be a distinction made between these
comings, that one snould be taken literally
and the other figuratively, obviously there
would Have been a difference in the use of
the language setting them forth. But there
is nothing of the kind. The same person-
ality underlies the testimony in both cases.
"Occupy till l come." "If I will that he
tarry till I come, wnat is that to thee?"
"Juage nothing till the Lord come." "Ye do
Bhew the Lord's will till He come." "Wait-
ing for the coming of our;Lord Jesus Christ."
"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with Hi in in
glory." "And to wait for His Son from
heaven whom he raised from the dead,
even Jesus, who delivered us from the
wrath to come." These are repre-
sentative passages. And no one. it
is perfectly sate to say, reading them
without previous bias in favor of
preconceived opinions, would ever think of
their meaning anything else than the literal
return of the Lord. So everywhere in the
Word; the most superficial reader of the
Scriptures can not fail to have noted how
particularly the prophecies setfortn the facts
concerning the first coining of Christ, the
place and circumstances of His birth. His
mother. His name, His character, life, suffer-
ings, death, and resurrection. It is almost
like having his life history written, or one
might say photographed, in advance. But
the same kind of particularity precisely char-
acterizes the prophecies of His second com-
ing. Indeed, by so much as the incidents of
that coming are grander and more royal than
the former one, by so much are they set forth
in fuller statement, in more vivid and im-
posing imagery, and in profounder emphasis.

Whatever principle of interpretation we
apply to one part of His career, obviously we

MUST APPLY TO THE OTHER.

If we taue the first set of prophecies to be
literally fulfilled, and this we know to be the
fact, we must needs, upon the very ground
of such fulfillment, look for a like literalness
as to the fulfillment of wnat remain. It
is imoossiole to divide the testimonies
of the Sacreo Word concerning our
Lord at His resurrection, and say
of those preceding that these are
to be all taken as chev read, the foreshowings
of literal facts; but this other half from the
resurrection on, though given by the same
prophet, and side by side with the other
declarations, are to be taken symbolically,
figuratively, not as they read. Such a read-
ing of Scripture, as of any other book, is ab-
sur d. Take as an illustration the familiar
passage in Luke, i., 31—33, The word of the
angel to Mary; "And behold tnou Shalt con-
ceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son,
and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be
great, and shall be called the Son of the
Highest; and there shall given unto
Him the throne of His father David,
and he shall reign over the house of Jacob
forever; and of His kingdom there Bhall be
no end." No one auestions that there is
taught here a literal birth a literal name for
the child, and a literal greatness to be His
portion as the Son of th ■ rlTghest. By what
principle, then, can the exegetioal kuife be
run through this prophecy and stab the
literalness of the Beconu part, so that there
shall be no literal throne of David; no literal
reign; no literal bouse of Jacob; no literal
personal, visible manifestation of the Son of
the Highest in His glory? But ail attempts
to dissolve out of these Scriptures the
literalness of the Lord's return and
His Kingship as related thereto, and
to keep in the literalness of
His humiliation. His sufferings, are faced
with precisely such absurdity.

2. But agaiu. take the words which are es-
pecially used iu setting forth the Lord's re-
turn. There are three of this in the Greek,
apocalypsis, epiphanicia, and parousia.
The first signifies an unveiling, a disclosure,
a manirestation, and would suggest, naturally
to every Greek scholar when coupled with a
person, tne ide.i of some visible, external ap-
pearance. II Thes. i., 7 is a good example.
"When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed with
His mighty angels." Angels, we know, have
forms, and wnen they are "revealed" are
literal, visible personalties. And like their
revelation or disclosure, will be that of the
Lord Jesus. This is the natural meaning
and use of the word as applied to persona

Rev E. P. GOODWIN, D. D.,

PAbl'OR FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CHICAGO.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

• THE BECOND WOBD, EPIPHANIEIA,

is still more empnatic in its witness. It is a
word which is never used except of some ex-
ternal, visible and imposing manifestation.
It is used five times in connection
with our Jjord; once as to His first
advent, and four times as His second. And
in each instance it denotes His personal
manifestation. Titus it, 13, is a good ex-
ample: "Loosing for that blessed hope and
the glorious appearing of the Great God and
our Savior Jesus Christ;" or, as the revised
version gives it: "Looking for the blessed
hope and appearing of the glory of our
Great God ana Savior Jesus Christ." As
Professor Keilogg well says: "It would be
impossible to hud in New Testament Greek
any word which should more precisely and
and unambiguously denote the visible,
bodilv appearing of the Lord."

But the word oftenest used is parousia.
This occurs in twenty-four passages. In
two of tnese it is rendered "presence," and
in the reat "coming." The revisers have left
the translation unchanged, but in the mar-
gin or the twenty-two passages having the
word coming nave put the word presence.
Seventeen of these passages refer to the
coming of the Lord. The root idea of the
word, according to the lexicographers, is
to be there, as indicating the arrival
of one that has been absent. As, when
Paul says (L Cor. xvi., 17): "I am glad of the
coming of Stephana, and Fortunatus, and
Achaicus;" and II. Cor. vii. 6, ^'Nevertheless
God comforteu us by the coming of Titus."
Or as when He speaks of himself to the
Philippian Christians, i. 26. "That your re-
joicing may be more abundant in Christ
Jesus for me, by my coming to you again."
So when He speaks of His bodily presence
(parousia) being weak (IL Cor. x. 10) and
exhorts the Phiiippians to obey, not as in
Hip presence (parousia) only, but much more
in his absence (Phil. ii. 12). Precisely of a
piece with these are the passages respecting
thyj future coming or presence of Christ.
Matt. xxiv. 3. "What shall be the sign of the
coming and of the end of the age?" (I. Cor.
xv. 23, ) "But every man in his own order:
Christ the first — fruits. Atterward they that
are Christ's at His coming. " (I. Thes. ii. 19,)
"For what "is our nope, or joy, or crown of
rejoicing?" Are not even ye in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?"
These are merely representative texts.

IT IS SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE

to read out of these passages everything ob-
Jective,real, visible. Whoever can do that with
this word that in every instance denotes a
literal, special presence can make his Bible
mean anvthing he chooses, and there is an
end to all authority.

3. But let us advance the argu-
ment. I affirm, then, that the Lord's return
must be literal, personal, visible, because he
must needs return as a true and proper man.
That He was such when He was upon earth,
and as truly such subsequent, as prior to his
resurrection, admits of no doubt. It was as
the man Christ Jesus that he appeared to
Mary Magdalene, and the other women, to
Peter, to the disciples on the way to Emma-
us; to the eleven when Thomas' doubts were
removed; to the 500 in Galilee; to the little
company that saw Him ascend from the
slopes of Olivet into the clouds of heaven.
Up to that vanishing point we know past a
peradventure that our Lord was a true and
perfect man, and that He took with Him
into the heavens a true and literal, though
glorified, human body. What I say now is,
that of necessity He will return with that
same body, a body that can be seen
and touched, and personal fellowship
as true and real, and loving and
blessed be had with Him who
wears it, as in the days of his dwelling upon
the earth. This is exactly what, if there
had sprung up no men wiser than the men
who wrote these Scriptures, every one
would say was what the angels meant,
when after the ascension they said to the
wondering disciples, "Why stand ye gazing
up into heaven? This same Jesus which is
taken up from you into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye have seen Him
go into heaven. -'—(Acts i., 11. ) The point of
the angels' message is not so much the faot
of the return as the manner of it. This same
Jesus is to come as he departed, in the air,
in the clouds of heaven. The rationalizers
may refine as much as they please upon the
phrase, "in like manner." and seek to make
It agree with

THE SPBEAD OP CHRISTIANITY.

or the destruction of Jerusalem, or the mani-
festation of the spirit in the heart, but
there will still confront tbem this unques-
tionable fact, that in the minds of
those to whom the angels spoke
these words they had an altogether
different meaning. They went forth looking
for the return of the "same Jesus" whom
they had seen depart, and for His coming in
the clouds- And the best scholarship of all
the ages is agreed that this is what the lan-
guage signifies. SaysHackett: "Jhe expres-
sion, 'in like maner,' is never employed to
affirm merely the certainty of one event as
compared with another, it signifies 'in what
manner; i. e., visibly, and in the air." So
Bengel, De Vette, Meyer, Olshausen, Lange,
Alford, Jamison, Faussel, and Brown. ".To
make these angels mean what these spirit-
ualizinL' interpreters of this passage say they

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

meant, is to make their testimony a cruel
mockery to these longing' hearts they were
Bent to comfort. Nay, it is to make the Holy
Spirit, whose messengers and mouthpieces
they were, put off upon the early church a
virtual deception, and suffer them, un-
checked, to cherish ana rejoice in ana treat
it as the one peculiarly blessed hope by
which their hearts were unspeakably com-
forted and inspired. God does not comfort
and inspire Bis people in that way. These
angels meant exactly what they said.
And that "same Jesus," a true, personal, visi-
ble man, is to come as He .vent, in the
-Lair, and wtih power, and great glory.

But how do we know, it may be asked, that
He has aot laid aside His humanity, and so
will return in a spiritual way? I answer, in
the nature of things He can not lay aside His
human nature, but mu?t keep it forever.
There is mucti loose ana unscriptural think-
ing and speculation among Christian people
here. Jesus Christ, when He was born of
the virgin and entered this world as tiie in-
carnate Son of God, took uoon Him our
nature. He was not a make-believe man, a
god disguised in a human form, as some
have held from the earliest ages, but a lit-
eral and true man. He was as truly man as
tf He were not God ; as truly man as He was
truly God. So that as He was God of God,
very God of very God, He was man of man,
very man of very man. That is, He had a
true, rational, human soul and a true flesh-
aDd-blood body. And "it behooved Him" to
be made thus; "for as mucn as tlie children
are partakers of flesh and blood" — i. e.,

THE EACH HB CAME TO SAVE—

"He also Himself likewise took part of the
sama" He must needs become one with
those whom he would rescue, must in the
most literal sense be identifiea with
their nature. But having so wedded himself
to the seed of Abraham by being born of the
virgin, by that fact tie made himself thence-
forth forever a true and literal man. We
talk loosely and lightly about our bodies,
we seem to think they are the mere houses
In which for a time we dwell; or they are re-
latea to us as the casket to the jewel, or the
shell to the seed which it encloses. Not so
the scriptures. In their view man is a com-
plex being. The body is not the man, nor is
the soul the man, nor the soul ana the spirit.
He is made up of all these factors, and
neither of them can be left out, ana the true,
complete man remain. As in the divine idea
of the tabernacle, the shechinah glory and
the tent in which it dwelt were to be insep-
arable, so the divinely bestowed soul and the
humanly createa body, which constitutes a
man, were never to be aivorced. The law of
God concerns both factors; sin concerns

both; redemption concerns both. Their fu-
ture destinv for weal or woe is, according to
scripture, indissolubly linked.

When, therefore, Jesus the Christ was born,
He took our nature to keep it. The indis-
pensable condition of His becoming our re-
deemer was that He should become our kins-
man according to the flesh, and that He
should remain such forevermore. And
rightly speaking, philosophically speaking,
as well as scripturally, He could
no more lay aside His humanity
tnan we can lay aside ours. In the language
of the early time, the time of the great coun-
cils that shaped the faith of the church vir-
tually for all the centuries, Christ was on
His human side consubstantial with men,
and on the divine siae consubstantial with
God. Hence He was and continues to be
both God and mau in two aistinct natures
and one person forever, (uounclls of Chal-
cedon aud Constantinople, Hodge sys.
Theol. vol. 3, p. 651, also vol. 2, p. 388)

And so far

AS THE SCE1PTUEES TESTIFY

at all upon this point, they emphasize this
permanen cy or our LorO's humau nature.
Paul Bay in Acts xvii. 30, 31: "And the
times of men's ignorance God winked at,
but now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent; because He hath appointed a day in
which He will judge the world in righteous-
ness, Dy that man whom He hath oraained;
whereof He hath given assurauce unto all
men, in that He hath raised Him from the
dead." Up to the hour of the judgment,
then, we have the express witness of the
word that Jesus Christ retains His perfect hu-
manity. Tben it is affirmed of Him — Jesus,
the Christ — names both of them applied to
Him in relation to His human nature — that
He is "the same, yesterday, to-day, and f or-
ever. " (Heb. xliL 8). And among the last
testimonies of this book, speaking of the
fellowship with their Lord, which His re-
deemed and glorified people shall enjoy
after the judgment is passed, ana the new
heavens and new earth are come, and the
holy city descended out of heaven to earth,
it is saia. "Ana His servants shall serve Him,
ana they shall see His face, and shall reign
(with Him) for ever and ever." Such lan-
guage by any ordinary rules of interpreta-
tion would certainly seem aecisive as to the
unchangeable and everlasting humanity of
our Lord. But whether it demonstrates that
or not, it does make it certain that when the
Lord returns, He will return the same lit-
eral, visible divine man as when Ea left the
world.

4. is u t there is far stronger ground than the
necessity which attaches to the abiding hu-
manity of Christ for affirming such a literal.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

personal, visible return. The Scriptures set
the s«al of a divine certainty upon it, in the
doctrine of the resurrection. That the Lord
mow retains His proper humanity, and has a
literal, human body, localized and visible,
we Know from various scriptures As being
sucn a glorified man he was seen of Stephen
at His martyrdom; by Paul on his way to
Damascus, and by John as recorded in the
Apocalypse. That perfect humanity fur-
thermore he must keep in order

JO BE OUB rNTEBCESSOB.

For the vital thing about His filling that of-
fice, tnat which conditions all His success in
our behalf, lies in this, that He is a high
pries* sharing our nature, tempted in all
points like as we are, and therefore able, as
one touched with the feeling or our infirmi-
ties, to present our needs oefor© the Father
and to secure for us grace to help in time ot
need. But che Scripture doctrine of the
resurrection emphasizes this fact of Christ's
abiding humanity, and of His coming: again
in visible and glorious demonstration of the
fact Modern theorizings, some with Swed-
enborg and some with German rationalism
to lead .the way, have attacked the iiteral-
ness of the resurrection. A part teach that
the resurrection takes place at death; that
then we drop the material bodv, but tnat
our immaterial — or psychical — body, in
which the soul dwells, passes into an-
other state of existence. Others say
all this language about resurrec-
tion Is figurative, only an intense
form of expression to emphasize the wonder-
ful transformation the soul experiences when
it is set free from the bondage of its earthly
body. It rises up, breaits forth into a new
life, just as the soul does when the touch of
God first comes upon it to quicken it when
dead in its trespasses and sins. That is called
a resurrection, and what occurs at death,
or after death is only a more pronounced
form of the same experience.

But neither of these views is what the
scriptures teach concerning this great truth.
They set forth unequivocally and emphati-
cally the doctrine of a literal resurrection of
the body. No language could be more
clear and decisive than the language they
use. It is the bodies, not the souls, of mtn
that are to rise again. "They that are in the
graves snail hear his voice, and shall come
forth" (John 5, 28 29;. "He that raised up
Onrist from the dead shall also quicken your
mortal bodies by His spirit that dwelleth in
you" (Ron. 8, 11). "Who shall fashiou
the body of our humiliation, tr.at it
may be conformed to the body of his
"glory" (Phil 3, 21, Rev. Ver.). Then the
mighty argument of the great apostle
In that wonderful resurrection chapter, L

Corinthians, xv, of itself ends all debate.
The whole pith and force of it turns on the fact
that Paul is Bpeaking of the resurrection of
the body. The seed that is put into the
ground has a body, and that new growth
which is developed therefrom has a body,
and

EVERT SEED HAS ITS OWN BODY

— L e., a growth-form peculiar to itself and
given to it of God. There are also celestial
bodies and bodies terrestrial, and each with
its appropriate and divinely appointed glory.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is
sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual
body. "It" — the natural body — "is sown in
corruption;" "it"— the spiritual body— "is
raised in corruption;" "it" — the natural
body — "is sown in dishonor;" 'it"— the
spiritual body— "is raised in glory;" "it,' —
the natural body — "is sown in weakness;"
"it" — the spiritual body — "is raised in
power." The argument bangs absolutely
upon the literalness of a bodily resurrection.
It is this mortal that puts on immortality,
this corruption jthat puts on incorruption.
It U not some awakening of the soul as from
a sleep, nor some sudden development of it
into a larger activity, nor some mystical
dropping of its gross outer enswathement
and a passing into a freer

and higher state of existence.

What these Scriptures teach is that the same
body that is put into the ground is the body
that is to be raised. Just as truly and liter-
ally of our bodies, and more, aa
it was of the body or the Lord
Jesus Christ. He wos the first fruits, and the
harvest must needs be identical in kind with
tne first sbeaf. He was the first born from
the dead of God's great redeemed family, and
the rest of the household of faith must needs
be like him. And this they clearly cannot be
except by the literal resurrection of the body.
No matter as to the question involved, what
the difficulties may be, difficulties as to
bodies burned and their ashes scattered to
the lour wind", or as to bodies drowned and
devoured by the fishes of the sea, or as to
bodies buried, turned to dust, and their ele-
ments incorporated Into trees, animals, or
other human beings. Thesa are God's ques-
tions, not ours. With Him nothing is impos-
sible, and the resources of omnipotence are
as ample now as wuen they availed, however
unphilosoohioaily, or in contravention of
natural law, to create a universe out of
nothing, and make the original man out ot
th« dust of the earth. Or one thing
we may rest assured, whatever the
pledges of this Word, God

will make them good in every jot and tittle.
Our concern is not with the difficulties of the
Word, but with its teachings. And these

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

compel us to hold tbat tbese bodies are to be
resurrected, and that In the resurrection,
although transformed and

INEFFABLY GLOBUIED,

they will be just as identical with what they
now are as was the body ot our risen Lord
with tlie Dody laid in the tomb of Joseph.
They will be literal, vislDie, glorious, just
as His was, and because His was.

You have anticipated, no doubt, the force
of this as related to the subject under dis-
cussion. The doctrine of resurrection not
only makes our future bodily existence cer-
tain, but it conditions that future estate
upon the bodily existence and return of our
Lord, it is at "His coming" that the right-
eous dead are to be raised, and with believers
then living are to be caught ud to meet Him
in the air, and, as in the twinkling of an eye,
changed into His image. I need not stop to
cite the passages so familiar to all upon this
point. L Cor., xv.. 23-52; I. Thes. iv., 14-
17: Piiil. ill., 20-21. But you will notice this:
that the resurrection of the bodies of ttie
dead saints and the transformation of the
living saints is conditioned not only upon
the fact that our Lord actually rose from the
dead and that He is actually to return, but
that at His coming He shall possess still His
body, the identical body witn which He left
the tomb. For only so can the bodies of
our humiliation be conformed unto the body
of His glory. Only so can we see Him as He
is, and therefore be like Him. Only so can
we meet Him in the air. and in our trans-
formed and glorified bodies, the likeness of
His own, abide with Him forevermore. It
is, therefore, the clear necessity of the
Scripture teaching as to the resurrection tuat
our Lord's return sbould be literal, personal,
visible. And tnis is precisely what we know
it must be from other testimonies of the
word, For tliese require tnat He should come
"in the clouds of heaven;" that "men shaii
see Him." that "they that pierced Him shall
look upon Him," and that He shall "come as
the Redeemer to Zion," take the "throne of
David" and ''reign over the House ot Jacob
forever."— Matt 25:30; Rev. 1:7; Zech.
12:10; Is. 59:20; Luke 1:32.

Standing now on tne ground of this argu-
ment, there is

A SWIFT AND SHAEP ANSWER

furnished to all the variant theories as to the
Lord's return which do away with this llter-
alness. There is just one trouble with them
alL They are, some of them, very learned,
very pbiiosophical, very satisfying to men's
reason; but they lacis one thing — the au-
thority of God's word. Tbese Scriptures are
against them one and alL Take the view
e.g. that Beeks to identify tbe Lord's return
with the destruction of Jerusalem. These

Scriptures declare that at that time ' 'Shall
all the triDes of the earth mourn," that
"Men shall see tbe Son of Man coming in the
clouds of heaven witn power and great
glory," that then "He shall send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
Bball gather His elect from the four wind*,
from one end of heaven to the other." — Matt.
24:29-33. Not taking into account now
tbe manifest absurdity of making an idola-
trous Roman General the representative of
our Lord, and his heathen legions tbe type of
Loly angels, the facts do not agree with
these prophetic testimonies. For all the tribes
of the earth did not then mourn, nor was ttie
Son of man seen coming in the clouds of
heaven, nor were tne elect gathered from
the four winds. More than that, the gospel
was not preached in all tbe world, as a
witness, the voice of the archangel, was not
heard, nor the trump of God, nor were the
righteous dead raised, and living believers
caught up to meet the Lord in the air; all
which events are explicitly declared to be
the accompaniments of the coming of the
Lord. Only an exegesis which is bound to
make Scripture Harmonize with its prear-
ranged conclusions can possibly construe
these prophetic utterances as aimed at set-
ting forth the destruction of Jerusalem. The
same minimizing way of expounding Script-
ure does away entirely with the final judg-
ment, the new Jerusalem, and the glory of
the saints in their final estate.

Take, again, the view which identifies the
Lord's coming wifh the death of believers.
This, like the theory just considered, is with-
out Scripture warrant. Its favorite passage,
"I go to prepare a place for yoii, and if 1
go and prepare a place for you, 1 will come
again and receive you into myself," has
no reference to death. Our Lord nowhere
taugbt His disciples that He would come for
them at death, and nowhere else in Scripture
is the doctrine taught. The teacbing of the
word is, that when tbe believer dies, he

DEPABTS TO BE WITH CHBIST.

and his longing is to be absent from the
body and present with the Lord Hence,
Stephen, when the mob were stoning him to
death, saw the "heavens opened, and the
Son of man not come down to earth, but
standing at the right hand of God" And a
little later he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit," and passed into the presence of his
Lord, waiting to give him glad welcome in
tbe skies. It was a company of angels, not
the Lord, that came for Jjazarus when he
died; and perhaps they often come to con-
vey God's cbildren home in triumph when
their work is done. .But the Lord Himself is
never represented as coming with them,
nor bearing them away. Nor did His disci-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

pies so understand Him to teach. They very
clearly understood that He did not so come
at deatn. For when He made answer to Pe-
ter concerning: John — "If I will that he tarry
till I come, what is that to thee?" John adds,
very significantly. "Then went this saying
abroad among -the brethren, that that dis-
ciple should not die." So far were they from
supposing that our Lord meant death by His
coming that they imagined Him to mean tnat
the beloved disciple snould not die, but should
'*arry till the Lord returned, or be caught up
into heaven. Hence the tradition that pre-
vailed in the early Church that John did not
die, but, like Enoch and Elijah, was trans-
lated. The true Scripture idea is that death
is our great, cruel, relentless foe, and that
the mighty adversary of our souls, to the ut-
most of his power, seeks to invest it with
terrora Its coming has in itself nothing but
dread, and never ought to be in a be-
liever's mind made the same thing
as the coming of the Lord. He who
rides upon the pale horse, and who
goes forth to kill with the sword, and with
hunger and with deatn, and witn the beasts
of the earth, ia surely not to be confounded
with Him who rides upon the white horse,
wearing many crowns called Faithful and
True and followed by the armies of heaven!
fie tnat has redeemed ua

HAS INDEED CONQUERED DEATH,

and pledges us victory likewise. But we
must face the grim foe as He did. ana feel to
the last hour ail the pangs His malignity can
inflict. vVe may indeed see our Lord's face
beaming on ua in the struggle, and catch
even His words of cheer. But it will be as
with Stephen, with the Blessed One standing
not on earth, out at the right hand of God, and
waiting to receive us there. We have the
best of rights to say over the caskets of
God's chosen, "Blessed are the dead that die
in the Lord," and "where is thy sting, O
death, and where thy victory, O grave." Yet
this largely over the final release from long-
continued torture, and the faith-discerued
issues of the struggle which even the King
of Terrors can not shut out from the souL
But a day is coming when this mighty shout
of triumph shall burst from ten thousand
times ten thousand lips, because
when He for whose appearing

we watch, and toil, and pray shall come,
the sacred dust of all the ages shall catch
the trumpet's sound and recognize its Lord
and spring to meet Him, clothed in immortal
beauty like His own And then, ana not till
then, will there roll round the world as the
mighty pean or this uprisen host, "Death ia
ewallowed up in victory I"

That which identifies the Lord's coming with
the work of the Spirit in the hearts of be-
lievers, and in the hearta of men to convert
them to Christ. All quickened spiritual
experiences, all conversions, and all revivals
are a true coming of the Lord. And this
view, it is held, puts honor upon the Holy
Spirit, while that of the Lord's personal re-
turn does Him dishonor by belittling His
competency to save man. As Dr. Lyman
Abbott puts it: "Far better for Christian
work and Christian character is the univer-
sal presence (the Holy Spirit) than the local-
ized one; the invisible Christ than the visi-
ble one." "It would be difficult to conceive
anything more disastrous to the health-
ful and • moral activity of the Christian
church than a return of Christ to the earth to
reign in the flesh in Jerusalem." — Chris-
tian Union Sept. 2, 1886. And Bimilariy
Dr. BushnelL "There is nothing, I must
frankly say, that would be so nearly a dead
ioss of Christ to any disciple who knows Him
in the dear companionship of faith, as to
have Him come in visible ahow. Nothing
could be more inexpedient, or a profounder
affliction, than a locally descended, perma-
nently visible. Savior." (Christ and Hia Sal-
vation, pp. 334 336. )

THIS IS STRONG LANGUAGE.

If these brethren are right, I am moat cer-
tainly wrong in this presentation. But to
the law and the testimony. Is this theory
of the coming of the spirit as identical with
the coming of Christ, what the Scriptures
teach as to the .Lord's return? Far from it.
They never confound the gift and indwell-
ing, or work of the spirit with the coming of
the Lord. The spirit is another comforter.
His office ia to glorify Chriat by taking the
thing8 of Christ and showing them to His
disciples. He is the representative of Christ,
taking his place in the world, and doing Hia
work. It ia true that through Him Jesus
Christ is spiritually with and in believers, ia
their life, has His image formed within
them. But all this not as personally
present with them in the same sense in
which he is personally at the right hand of
God, but in the same sense in which God the
Fatner is so present in their hearts. (John,
14: 23 and 17; 21-23). That is to say.
Christ is potentially in the hearta of his dis-
ciples, there.by His spirit to teach, guide, ad-
monish, comfort, help, purify, empower for
service. This 18 what the spirit was Bent
into the world for by our Lord atter the
ascension, while He remained at the right
nana of God clothed in his glorified human
body, and personally visible there as our
High Priest, our Intercessor.

And just here is where tnose who hold to
the theory of the coming of Christ In the

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

spirit seem to halt in their readings of the
Word. They recognize the office of Christ as
advocate, and the work of the spirit aB
dwelling in the hearts of believers and ac-
companying the preaching of the word and
making: it the power of God to save souls.
And they seem to forget that according to
the Scriptures all this looks

to something further on. They
seem never to ask whether

there was any ulterior purpose In the Lord's
going away beyond the gift of the Sririt
Whereas the testlmony'abounds, and that of
the plainest sort, that He went away in order
that He might come again. This is what
parable after parable is specifically aimed to
teach. This is what He says Himself when
rie gives the

PEOMI3E OF THE SPIRIT,

and this, be it noted, is the continual witness
of the Spirit when he has taken the Lord's
place in the church, and is teaching truth
anu managing everything according to His
own supreme wish and will. It is He that
testifies that when the times of restitution of
all shings shall come, Jesus Christ will come
to set up His throne and filJ the world with
His glory. It is He that testifies of that
coming day when the Lord shall descend
from Heaven with a shout, and the dead in
Christ shall rise, and the living samta shall
be caught up to meet him in the air, and to
comfort one another in this hope. It is He
that exhorts believers to be patient because
the coming of the Lord draw-
eth nigh; to live soberly, right-
eously, and godly In this present
world, looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the Great God
ana our Savior Jesus Christ. Surely, if this
doctrine of the literal personal visible return
were one that puts dishonor on the Spirit,
this is strange testimony for the Spirit to
bear concerning it! To keep it always in the
foreground, to emphasize and magnify it
as the one especial secret of realizing closest
fellowship with Him, highest allegiance to
the Lord Jesus, and fullest measures of the
peace and joy and power to love others that
he himself could imparti It this be dishon-
oring the Spirit, he has wonderfully made
the wrath of man to praise Him. No, brethren,
these aavocates of comings that leave out
the personal visible Lord, misread their
Bibles, and they misread the history of the
church as welL Tho witness of the spirit in
the word and in tho work agree. You oan
not unthread this doctrine out of this sacred
book and have a living word left. As well
unthread the nerves out of the body and
nave a living organism leftl And you oan
not unthread it out of the faith of the church
without driving the knife to the heart of

thousands of its godliest confessors.
Say what men may, one thing
stands well attested through all
the ages, that wherever this belief in the
soul's literal return has gotten possession of
men's hearts, it has invariably exalted the

AUTHOBITY OP THE WOBD OF OOP,

emphasized all the doctrines of grace, lifted
high the cross of Christ, exalted the person
and work of the Spirit, intensified prayer,
enlarged beneficence, separated believers
from the world and set them zealously at
work. i'or the salvation of men. 1 say it de-
liberately. I say it as the profound convic-
tion 01 my soul, no greater blessing could
come to the church of our day than a revival
of the ancient faith. It would lead God's
people oitener to their closets and keep them
longer there. It would make them more
reverent, more diligent, and more prayerful
students of God's word. It would lead them
to long more earnestly for the full indwell-
ing 01 the Spirit and for the life hid alto-
gether with Christ in God. It would open
their purses and pour forth treasures with
unstinted hand for every form of gospel
wors. it would send them forth to personal
service in comforting the saints and saving
the lost It would lay upon their hearts
the burden of the unevangelized millions of
the race, and give them «o rest till the
gospel should be preached to every kindred
and peoDle and longue under the whole
heaven. It would fasten their eyes on the
promise of the Lord's return, and oy day
and by night keep them toiling, praying
waiting with ever increasing earnestness
and longing till the flash of his glorious
coming shall burst athwart the sky. It
would hasten mightily that coming and thu*
the infringing of the kingdom whose glory
Is to fill the world I

PROFESSOR E. F. STROETER.

cueist's coming pke-mixlenniai*
The exercises of the afternoon session, be-
ginning at 3 o'clock, were conducted by Mr.
Benjamin Douglas, of Chicago. A large
audience was present. Local and visiting
divines and laymen occupied the platform.
The hymn, *'We're Saved by the Blood," was
sang, and the Rev. Dr. William Dinwiddie,
of Alexandria, Va., offered prayer. After the
einging of the hymn. "Thou Art Coming, 0,
My Savior," Professor E. F. Stroeter, of the
Wesleyan Institute, Warrenton, Mo., read the
following paper on the subject: "The Sec-
ond Coming of Christ Pre-Millennial"

The time has been in the history of the
church when the term "premillennial," in
conneotion with Christ's advent, was un-
known and unheard of. Primitive Chris-
tianity had no need of it Why? Simply

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

because in those early days post-inillennial-
ism was unknown and unheard of. Professed
believers in the personal, visible return of
the Son of Man from heaven were not then,
as now, divided on this aspect of that glo-
rious event. The general expectation was
that at and with the

BETUBN OF JESUS

from heaven nis MesBianic kingdom on the
eartn would be made manifest in great power
ana glory.

it has been reserved for a later age to deny
this significancy of Christ's second advent,
ana to draw before tne eyes of the hoping
church a very different picture. We are told
that the church is to all intents ana purposes
Christ's kingaom on earth; that all demon-
strations of the kingdom that will ever come
to Jew or Gentile on this side of the final
judgment, is to come through the church in
its present unglonfied and corruptaDle state.
By some happy combination of Human prog-
ress, spiritual power an>i favorable circum-
stances, the gospel of tbe kingdom will grad-
ually accomplish tne conversion of the world
to Christ, and tne subjection to Him ot all
powers and governments; the removal of
most, if not ali, the terrible evils under
which society groans, tbe abolition of wars
and iniquitous siatecraft, in short, a millen-
nium of peace, prosperity, and power for
the church. The visible, bodily appearance
and presence of the Son of Man is consid-
ered in no wise essential to the fulfillment of
the millennial prophecies. We are given to
understand that it is a disparagement of the
Holy Spirit to look for anything beyond the*
operations of His power in and through the
church. We are charged with judaistic and
carnal misconceptions of the Christ as

A WOBLDLY BULEB

Unbecoming pessimism in the face of the
marvellous progress of the church iD conquer-
ing the world, which is statistically demon-
strated— is laid at our door. Yes, we are ac-
cused even of cutting the very nerve and
motive power of missionary and evangelistic
effort by proclaiming the ultimate failure of
the gospel to convert the world en masse.

In the face of these and a host of other
charges it behooves us to give a reason for
the hope that is within us, to examine again
and again the Scriptural and reasonable
grounds for believing that there will be no
millennium before or without the visible
presence of the glorified Jesua In order to
do this intelligently let us consider:

1. The essential features of the predicted
millennium.

2. The true character of the church under
tbe dispensation of Comforter in the absence
of her bridegroom— Christ.

1. The millennium, what will it be? We

can not, for lack of time, dwell upon mora
than the most essential features of the
Scripture millennium.

1. Our first proposition 1b: There will be a
fundamental change in the condition of
physical nature; the curse being removed,
the eartn and all that dwell therein will
have

A GLOEIOUS SABBATH BEST.

The curse is a fact The subjection of the
oreature to vanity is another fact But the
Word declares it is subjected in hope, and
the creature itself shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. (Rom. viii. ,
20-21.) When? As soon as the children
attain the redemption; i. e., the resurrection
or their bodies (v. 23). Thi*, then, estab-
lishes the removal of the cune from na tore
at the resurrection of the saints, ana this is
coincident with the return of Christ from
heaven. These are wnat Peter calls the
times of reanimation (refreshing— -anapsyxis)
from the presence of the Lord (Acts
ilL, 20.)

When the Messiah first appeared among
tne chosen people he showed uhem
that the kingdom of God was indeed come
nigh, even among them. By what means?
By the works of power ha did on the mortal
bodies of sinful men in the flash. Moreover
he walked on the sea, commanded wind and
waves, tnus vindicating man's original God-
intended power over nature's forcea When
he showed the select disciples the kingdom
on the mount of transfiguration, the glory of
eternal life, radiated not through his own
mortal frame only, but his very garments, of
whatever animal or vegetable fiber thet
were woven, shone

WITH HEAVENLY 6PLENDOB

and whiteness. All nature responded to the
touch of the second man — the Lord from
Heaven. While this gospel of the kingdom
was preached to Israel these signs and won-
ders continued for a witness to those who
knew from the scriptures what was prophe-
cled of the day of the Son of Man.

Are all those millennial prophecies, that in
that day the wolf Bhall dwell with tne lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with
the kid (iia., 11, 6), that the earth
rejoice and blossom as a rose (isa. xxxv, 1)
that the Lord will lay no famine upon His,
people any moie (Ezek. xxxvi, 29), but that
the land shall becomi iiko the garden of
Ed|:n fib. v, 35)— shall all these and many
more receive nothing but that fragmentary,
mei\! introductory fulfillment? God forbia.
For all things must be fulfilled which were
written in the laws of Moaes and in tna
Prophets and in tne Psalms concerning Him
(Luse xxiv, 44).

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

The word of God knows no irreconcilable
discrepancy between nature and spirit.
Nature is indeed last to be reached by the
life-giving- spirit, out reached it will be. This
much is g-uaranteod by the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead. And the resurrection
of His first-born church at His return will
mark the beginning of a new era in all
cosmic life. New potencies and forces will
then be introduced on a large scale into
nature and be productive of a yet unknown
and to human wisdom unknowable and

INCALCULABLE NATURAL EXISTENCE.

Mere scientific deductions from the laws
goveruinsr nature at present are of no conse-
quence or trustworthiness. They are not
when the question is of nature's past
before sin entered, they are not when
it regards the body-life of Him who is the
first fruits of the resurrection, they can not
be for that time when the resurrection pow-
ers of the Sinless One and His glorified host
shall become dominant over the power of
corruption in the earth.

The great mystery of Godliness, "God
manifest in the flesh,'' is not to be reduced
or limited to the Christ life manifested by
the Spirit in the mortal believer. It is not
to be overlooked that the Son ot God entered
into this earth-life nor, only to comfort un-
happy humanity in life and in death by His
model life, but also to redeem that humanity
which He took upon Himselt. and that same
earth from which He took His physical na-
ture like unto us, from the curse and corrup-
tion by the power of His life out of death.
Is Jesus the God man, God manifest in the
flesh, then He is for the earth and for hu-
manity the principle of regeneration (palin-
genesis), not only morally and spiritually^
but also physically, socially, and politically.
Indissolubly has the Holy One implanted
Himself into our being. So surely as
the devil by introducing sin introduced
physical evil, so eurely will and must the
redemption of our spirits from the bondage
of sin be followed and made complete by the
redemption of our mortal body and of all
physical nature after it by

THE BLESSED RESURRECTION.

If, therefore, the millennial prophecies of
delivery for the groaning creature are to be
fulfilled, then Christ must first come and
raise all His saints to that incorruptible life
which is from thenceforth to be the dominant
force in all creation, and to usher in a new
era for all cosmic life.

Our second proposition is: (2) The mil-
lennium will be characterized by fundamen-
tal changes in matters of government and
politica Cast your eye over the pages of
human history! What a harrowing specta-

cle! what hecatombs of human life and
countless treasure sacrificed on the reeking
altar of human ambition! What has been
achieved i "Present agencies" have been at
work among the nations for nearly nineteen
centuries. Are the nations of the earth,
nay only those of Christendom,
happy and at peace? Not even
the most enthusiastic post-miliennarian
optimist, though he does not object to mortal
and corruptible rulers and law givers in his
millennium, is sufficiently optimistic to ac-
cept the present 6tate of governmental af-
fairs in the world as altogether glorious and
worthy of perpetuation for a thousand
years.

Here the question is: Has the earth ever
seen a perfect government? yes, once — and
onl3r once — in all the world's nistory there
was a perfect, holy, incorruptible and in-
fallible

KING AND LAWGIVER

who entered into covenant relations with
an earthly people. But the only people that
had the Lord Jehovah tor their political ruler
have rejected Him, His statutes, His ser-
vants, yea, His only Son, and are now become
the byword of the nations, and their holy
city, the city of the Great King (Matt v., 35)
is to this day trodden down by the Gentiles.
(Luke xxi., 24.) God, indeed, did undertake
the establishment of a perfectgovernment in
the earth. Mao, His chosen people, caused
the attempt to fail. Has God given
up the plan forever? No; his gifts
and calling, even to Israel, are
declared to be, by the apostle to the Gentiles,
without repentance. (Rom. xi., 29.) There
will be, yea, there must be once a perfect,
indestructible, righteous government in the
earth, something "new under the sun"
Israel must and is preserved to be chief
among the nations. (Jer. xxxi., 7.) Out of
Zion shall go forth the law and the word of
the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isa. ii., 3.)

Mundane history is to find its teleology,
and "God in History," his final theodicy in
that kingdom of life and peace in the earth,
where His will shall be done as it is in
Heaven. The as yet unceasing conflict be-
tween earthly human injustice and the eter-
nal righteousness must and will find their
solution and end. To expect the fulfillment
of the Scripture prophecies of a king-
dom of peace and righteousness

BY GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT

in the present dispensation by means of ex-
isting agencies is simply preposterous, and
makes sad havoc with plainly revealed
truth.

In the first place Jesus Himself has
declared of His first advent, that He
was come not to send peace

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

on earth but a sword (Matthew x., 34). To
the literal truth of this more than eighteen
centuries tilled with wars and rumors of
war, especially connected with the historical
development of Christianity, bear witness.

2. The relations Jesus maintained invari-
ably at His first advent to the hostile world
powers have been the exact reverse of those
foretold iu the millennial Messianic
prophecies.

3. The Holy Spirit, the agency pre-emi-
nently relied on for establishing righteous
government in the world by our opponents
is nowhere in the New Testament declared
to be the representative of the Messiah in
His royal prerogatives and powers before the
world. Not to prevent or make impossible
the hostile attitude of the world power, but
to give us strength by reason of houe to bear
and thus to overcome it, even as Christ did,
is tne Spirit's glorious commission.

4. The theory that the spirit of Christ
is eventually to control the existing govern-
ments of this world and to permeate
them with Christian principles of necessity
reauires two things, the logical outcome of
which must prove absolutely fatal for the
post-millennial theory in the eyes of
all spiritually minded Christians. In the
first place all the

LAWS AND STATUTES

of the nations must needs be brought at
some time or other into conformity with the
Spirit of Christ as expressed in the New Tes-
tament. Christian principles, to be of any
avail for governmental purposes with mortal
men, must be embodied in statutes and their
enforcement provided for. To be entirely
consistent, then, our post-millennial friends
will have to labor not only for an acknowl-
edgment in a general way of Almighty God
in our Constitution, but also of His Son,
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and of the
Holy Spirit, and, furthermore, to have all
our statutes made to agree in spirit at least
with that Magna Charta of the kingdom of
heaven, the Sermon on the Mount. Consid-
ering the face that several humanitarian, but
not one of the essentially Christian, princi-
ples have ever been adopted and
made statutory by any government on
tbe earth, it wiil be seen that our
friends have considerable work before them.
But not the laws only must be made to con-
form to the Spirit of Christ but also the law
givers and the executive officers. The most
perfect laws will not execute themselves,
and to secure their proper execution in right-
ousness the executive must needs be actuated
by the same spirit that pervades the law. Of
necessity then nobody but genuine paints,
men full of the Holy Ghost and of power,
must and should be secured for all the high

places of the earth. It behooves, then, the

TBUE CHUECH OF CHKIST

no longer to be satisfied with her low estate
but to mind, at last, this interpretation
of her "commission," the high things of this
world.

In all candor, where is the consistency
any longer in throwing stones at our Roman
Catholic neighbors, who are assiduously fol-
lowing: out this very principle? The church
above and in everything, the church wielding
all power and authority under heaven, the
church issuing and executing all Jaws for
humanity — the system is true throughout to
the post-millennial standard. Only Rome is
more Honestly logical in not affecting to de-
sire a mere spiritual supremacy and reign.
But Protestant post-mihenialism paves
the way no less effectually

for the manifestation of the

Antichrist as does Roman Catholic post mil-
lenmalism.

No, no, not to any body of mortal men,
in the flesh, however holy, however wise,
however spiritual is committed the estab-
lishment and maintenance of righteous judg-
ment and government in the earth. To Him
aloue, wno in the very first chapter of the
New Testament is genealogic Jly established
the son of David, belong s the government of
Israel and the ruling of the nations. (Is. lL,
6-8 ) He is the only legitimate King of the
Jews, according to the covenant God, af-
fi rmed to His father David with an oath.

Many commentators, of course, are very
ready to simply spiritualize away all that is
prophesied to the political Israel and to the
geographical Palestine of restitution and re-
habilitation under "His servaut David" (Ezek.
xxxiv. 23, ch. xxxvi. 24, ch. xxxvii. ) and to
appropriate quietly to the Gentile church all
there is predicted of

BLESSING TO ISBAEL.

They instruct us simply to substitute the
church whenever we read of Israel or the
prophets, a seeminsrly simple and plausible,
but fundamentally wrong, proceeding. The
words of the apostle to the Ephesians
and Colossians should forever guard
us against this presumption. Paul
emphatically declares that this mystery
(of the position and relation of the Gentile
church) "was in other ages not made known
unto the sous of men as it is now revealed
unto His holy apostles and prophets by the
Spirit," but that this from the beginning of
the world has been hid in God. (Compare
Eph. iii., 5, 6, 9, with Col. i., 26, 27
All this would be idle boasting of the apostle
if the matter were as plain and easy as some
commentators will have it; just read
"church" where it Is written "Israel" — that
is the whole mystery.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

The hope of Israel is twofold. The prom-
ised seed has indeed come In the flesh. The
church knows this by the Spirit But neither
the worla nor Israel have yet acknowledged
it But the kingdom of David, in the land of
promise, where is it? Without the equally
literal fulfillment of this aspect of Israel's
hope — to which Jesus himself and His disci-
ples likewise stand committed — Israel's
glory among the nations is lost forever. To
transfer David's kingdom to heaven is ao-
surd, for no man nor devil doubts or dis-
putes the reign of the Eternal Word in
heaven. The issue is His dominion in the
earth. The world will never believe that
Israel, despised Israel, did bear and brine
forth the Holy One as the promised seed,
until to the holiness of Abraham's son be
added a revelation of his covenanted power
as son of David manifest

TO AI*L THE WOBLD.

.Without a glorious Messianic kingdom, a re-
established, perfect, and imperishable the-
ocracy of incorruDtible priests and kings in
the redeemed land of promise, the name of
Israel will continue a reproach forever amoug
the nations.

3. Our third proposition is: The millen-
nium will be a period of great and general
salvation. Israel as a nation will accept her
once rejected Lord (Matt, xxiii., 39, Rom. ii.,
26); all nations will see the salvation of
God; the earth will be full of knowledge ot
God (Isa ii, 9], and holiness will be the gen-
eral characteristic of earthly life (Zech.
xiv., 20.

On this point our post-millennial oppo-
nents are inclined to grant us nearly all we
claim, only we must not expect the fulfill-
ment of any new agency, such as the ap-
pearing of the Son of Man from heaven
with His risen and translated saints. The
world, we are told, is to be converted and
filled witn the glory of God through the mis-
sionary agency of the unglorified church by
the po\ver of the Spirit. Are our opponents
altogether consistent when they disclaim
any radical, dispensational change to bring
on this millennium? Something new must,
even on their theory, step in to make men
at large more willing to love the truth than
they have been hitherto. For never yet,
while the spirit of truth has been abroad in
the world, and the church has faithfully
spread the gospel of glad tidings, has at any
time or in any place the truly regenerate
body of believers outnumbered,

OB EVEN EQUALEP,

the merely nominal, half- believing, or unbe-
lieving hearers. The world has loved and
still does loye darkness rather than light
Again, something new will have to be intro-
duced for the purpose of better preserving

churches in their spirituality and power.
Never yet, wherever churcheB have been
planted, have they been able to hold their
own against the inroads of worldliness, cor-
ruption, or formalism. The pathway of
Christianity through the Eastern and West-
ern worlds is marked with churches either
mummified in rigid formalism or more or less
secularized. It is a very pleasing fancy to
imagine our own churches proof against
these persistent forces of corruption — but,
alas, no more than a fancy! This must be
changed, however, and radically, or else the
progress of Christianity through the world
will be an endless round of flourishing and
decaying.

If "present agencies" alone are to enter
into the calculation, we would suggest the
propriety of counting in this universal and
unexceptive tendency to corruption in
everything in which unglorified humanity,
whatever the demonstration of God's spirit,
has any part.

We would also suggest that the agency of
the evil one, wiio has his work in the chil-
dren of disobedience, be not overlooked.
The power of the Holy Spirit to convert and
sanctify, however wonderful and mighty, is
absolutely limited to those that believe;
while the very same power of truth inevi-
tably tends to

HAEDENING OP HEAET

in those who disobey. There is no power
predicated of that spirit to break or crush or
remove the resistance of conscious, willful,
and persistent disobedience to the truth in
Jesus. Men are and must remain at liberty
to disobedience, to hate and to persecute the
trutn, under the gospel.

All Bible readers and believers will read-
ily acknowledge the wonderful hindering
and restraining influence of the Holy
Spirit over the powers of darkness. But
nowhere is this declared to gradually become
a converting power by which the attitude of
the Devil might be eventually changed to at
least peaceable submission. The Devil is
and must be atj lioerty, under the gospel, to
work out his purposes in his children. This
is essential tor the trial and test of our faith.
As soon expect the sun to dry up the ocean
as the power of gospel truth to remove or
neutralize the existing power of darkness in
the earth. The very intensity of gospel light
has caused the darkest combinations of or-
ganized wickedness and godlessness to ap-
pear in the very heart of Christendom. The
most fiendish cruelties and tortures, oppres-
sions and persecutions have been invented
and pracu.ced in the bosom and in the name
of Christianity. The most grievous and sick-
ening moral leprosy breaxs out in Christian-
ized society. The most diabolical

J HE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

OBGANIZATIONS OF ANABCHISM

and nihilism are known only among so-
called Cnristian nations and civilisa-
tions. Wnatever good results have been
accomplished in the world either by sani-
tary measures, by the industrial and politi-
cal elevation of the people, by the develop-
ment of religious and educational facilities —
almost every progress, every attainment of
any age has become ana still becomes a lever
of perdition. The Spirit from beneath takes
possession of everything, so that the enor-
mous progress of our age in civilization and
general culture does not indeed cause, but
accelerate disintegration and decay. This is
precisely what the predictions of Christ and
His inspired apostles lead us to expect from
the courbe of world development in this
present evil age. As it was in the dayB or
Noah and of Lot, so shall it be when tbe Son
of Man is revealed. (Luke xvii. , 26-30). Tbe
last times of this age shall be — not glorious —
but perilous times. (2 Tim. iiL,) Iniquity
and anti-Cbristian opposition will reach their
culmination in that Lawless One, the son of
perdition, who shall make war with the
saints and overcome them, whom all the
earth will worship, but whom the Lord shall
destroy by the brightness of His coming.
[2 Tfiess. ii.,8]

No, not the mortal, fallible, erring churcb,
whose knowing is in part and whose prophe-
sying is in part (1 Uor., xiii. , 9), called to nil
the earth with the knowledge of

THE GLOBY OF GOD.

Not the mortal, divided, scattered, broken
church, which partly from want or love,
partly through unavoidable imperfection,
partly throueh death and the grave na3
never been able, and never will be able this
side of her resurrection to demonstrate to
tbe world the wonderful reality of her one-
ness in and with Christ her head — shall bring
an adorine world to the Redeemer's feet.

But when He shall aopear, and all His
saints with Him, when the bridegroom has
Joined his bride, complete and perfect, not
having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without
blemish (Eph., v., 27), wnen tbat which is in
part shall be done away (I Cor., 13:10),
when there will be but one fold and one
shepherd ^John, x, 16), then, and not till
then, will our great high priest see the desire
of his soul: then will they be one in
Him and in the father; then will
the world believes that the Father had sent
the Son. (John xvii:21.)

IL Let us now yet briefly consider the
true character of the church in the present
dispensation of the Comforter in the absence
of her Bridegroom, Christ.

L The life of the believer Is hidden life,
life hidden with Cnrist in God [CoL ili, 2]

St, John declares of God's children: "The
world knoweth them not, because it knew
Him not" 1 John, in:2.). This hidden life of
the true disciple is so unspeakably precious
that any attempt at laying it open, before
those who know it not equals a leseora-
tion.

ALL ATTEMPTS

of the church to make her true inward being
manifest to the world must result in dismal
failure and caricature. Jesus himself could
not reveal himself to the world as He did to
His disciples. His resurrection life especially
was entirely unseen by any but be-
lieving eyes. It belonged to Hia
self-humiliation, to know himself to
be the Son of God and to be unknown and
unacknow ledged by the world. Thus, then
the more Cbristlike the Christian is in this
world, the more is painful holding still and
being impressed. his lot The natural man
proceeds to expression and full develop-
ment of his being. To this the spiritual man
may in this lite never attain. Self-mani-
festation is absolutely out of the question.
The formative process must continue until
tbe resurrection will bring the glorious pos-
sibility of free spiritual creation and of full
and adequate expression.

What spirit is this which makes the great
cburches of to-day restive and fretful under
this divinely imposed secretness of her true
character? The tendency and avowed pur-
pose is to be known and appreciated as a
calculable factor by an admiring world.
Numbers, wealth, culture, position and in-
fluence of adherents are statistically par-
aded before the world. Boastful calculations
of approaching victory over all opposing
evil forces are built upon this array of nu-
merals. Post-millenialism

CAN NOT THB1VB

without fostering this tendency to Belf-
willed demonstration, it takes its very life
from these numerical paradinga

2. The life of the church, like that of her
Lord, is life come out of death, it means
death to the world. The true Christian is
crucified unto the world and the world unto
him (Gal. vi., 14). Christ has become our
life and peace, not by some gradual and
peaceful process of assimilation, but by
brinsing about the rupture, by inexorably
pointing out the radical and irreconcilable
contrast between the natural world life in
us and the spiritual life of the kingdom of
God.

separation from, not alliance with and re-
liance on, the natural world forces is God's
purpose with Abraham's children. The gos-
pel of the kingdom is to be preached, not to
Improve the present condition of the world,
but to save men out from it; not

TriE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

to court its approval and admira-
tion, but to incur the hatred of the
world by showing up its death nature
and its inborn devilish tendencies.

Let us then be faithful to the church in
warning her to come out and be separate
from the worm, not by holding up before her
the delusive and false hope of gradually
overcoming the deadly enmity of the world.
But rather let us hold up before the church
her high calling after she has by faith over-
come this present evil world to sit with Him

IN HIS THRONE,

even as He also overcame and is set down
with His father in His throne (Rev. iii, 2). 3.
The greatest prerogative of the church in the
present age is service, suffering, and sacri-
fice with Him who came into the world not
to bej ministered unto but to minister (Matt,
v, 28), to* be made an offering and a sacri-
fice (Eph. v, 2), and to be made perfect
through sufferings (Eph. ii, 10). All our hope
of future glory is bound up with our present
suffering. (Rom. vii, 17; 2 Tim. ii, 12.) By
reason of this hope the Christian life natur-
ally becomes one of of self and world denial
and patient sufferance. We resist not
the present evil. But now let only
half of the millennial expectations be
fulfilled in the present dispensation to mortal
men and women. What a sorry church that
would be without world opposition, without
constant opportunities to test the real power
and consolation of the word in the face of
devilish enmity against her, a church of
weaklings, not of men strong in the faith
which overoometh the world. Surely that
church would have but meagre opportuni-
ties to be like the Master in this and in all
other respects.

When Peter, prompted by natural love and
enthusiasm, suggested to the Lord, "Be it
far from thee to suffer and be killed; this
shall not be unto thee," the Master sternly
reproached him, saying, "Get thee behind
me Satan, lor thou savorest not the things
that be of God, but those that be of men." —
Matt. XVI, 23.

WE ABE ASKED

at this present day, in all seriousness, to ex-
change our hope of future glory after present
suffering for one in which the very same
suggestion is held out as the prospective and
desirable future of the church in
this world. Past-millennialism holds out
to the reach of mortal believers the yet for-
bidden fruit of honor, glory . power, and en-
joyment in His unalonned state.

This ha3 been the tempter's tactics all
along the line. Adam anticipated at the
devil's suggestion what God actually meant
him to attain. The sin is not now, that the
church wants to exchange the condition of

servitude and suffering for that of mastery
and enjoyment at all, but that she wants to
tafce beforehand, to anticipate. What a pow-
erful struggle in the secondJAdam noc to ac-
cept joy, honor glory, and dominion, be-
cause He came to His own when He came
unto this world. Herein He has shown us
the only true exaltation. It is intrinsic-
ally carnal and Judaizing — a mixture of
flesh and spirit, of Christ life, and world
death — this millennium for and with an un-
glorified. corruptible church in the flesh.

No, our first and only object in this
world must ever be to become entirely
God's through obedience, sanetification,
maKing ourselves of no reputation and de-
nying ourselves all premature power, honor,
and Deauty.

Thus we know if so be that we suffer with
Him, that we shall also

BE GLORIFIED TOdETHEB.

(Rom. viii., 17.) For our light affliction,
whicti is but for a moment, worketh for us a
tar more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory, while we look not at the things which
are seen but at the things which are not
seen, for the things which are seen are tem-
poral, but the things which are
not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. iv..
17, 18.) Beloved, it doth not yet appear
what we shall be; but we know that, when
he shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we
shall see Him as He is. (1 John, iii., 2.)

The hymn, "Rejoice. Rejoice, Believers,"
was sung, and a collection taken, inasmuch,
as Mr. Needham explained, as the conference
is held under the auspices of no denomina-
tion, and must necessarily maintain it from
time to time during its session in this way.
A short recess was taken and the hymn.
"When Jesus comes to reward His servants"
sung. By a change of programme, in the
absense of the Rev. J. H. Brookes, of St.
Louis, the Rev. F. L Chappell, of Fleming-
ton, N. J., was introduced, and he read a
paper on "The Holy Spirit in Relation to Our
Lord's Return."

THE REV. F. L. CHAPELL

THE HOLT SPIBIT.

When our Lord ascended He left with His
disciples two pre-eminent promises. One
was the promise of the Spirit; the other was
the promise of His Own return. Both of
these promises were very vivid in the minds
of the apostles, and for both of the things
promised they earnestly looked and prayed.
A.nd in their minds both of these things were
harmonious, tending to the same end —
namely, the establishment of the kingdom
of Heaven upon earth. In the Old
Testament Scriptures and in the sermons
of the apostles these two things blend and

TtiE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

coalesce. The outpourings of the spirit run
into and join with the notable events of the
day of the Lord. Ergo, the prophecy of
Joel, quoted by Peter on the day of pente-
cost.as explanatory of the events of that day.
"And it shall be in the last days, saitn God,
I will pour forth of my spirit upon all flesh;
and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see vis-
ions, and your old men shall aream dreams;
yea, and on my servants, and on my hand-
maidens in those days will I pour forth of
my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I
will show wonders in the heaven above and
signs in the earth beneath; blood,
and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall
be turned into darkness and the moon into
blood before the day of the Lord come — that

GBEAT AND NOTABLE DAT.

And it shall be that whosoever shall cali on
the name of the Lord snail be saved." Or
asrain, the exhortation of Peter after the
healing of the lame man: "Repent ye, there-
fore, and turn again, that your sins maybe
blotted out, so that there may be seasons of
refreshing from the presence of the Lord;
ana that He may send the Christ, who hath
been appointed for you, even Jesus; whom
the heaven must receive until tne times of
restoration of all things, whereof God spake
by the mouth of His holy prophets which
have been since the world began."

The outpourings of the Spirit and the re-
turn of the Lord are bere represented to be
in one and the same category. There is no
break or change of agency. The work of
the Spirit continues, intensifies, and oub-
leaches till all miners, external as well as in-
ternal, material as well as spiritual, are
reached and restored or perfected. The
atonement of tbe Son is the basis on which
the spirit works. But the work itself is all
done by tne spirit That there was any sep-
aration, or rivalry, or change, or antagonism
of agency between tne Son and the Spirit
was not areamed of in apostolic times. But,
verv disastrously for the cause of truth,
these two agencies, which, in the minds of
propbets and apostles, were co-ordinate
and narmouious, have become, in the
minds of men of modern times, sep-
arate and antagonistic. Slowly and
stealthily, tnrough tne sublety of the God of
this world, during centuries of worldy con-
formity and ignorance of the Scriptures,
men nave been led to regard the Spirit as
their Savior and tbe Son as their judge,
until practically these two persons of the
trinity are esteemed so antagonistic that it
is supposed that tney can not co-exist on the
earth, but that when one appears the other
retirea I have seen it stated, in respectable
religious literature, as a sort of axiom to be

admitted on all hands tnat "we can not have
but one person of the trinity working on the
earth at the same time;'* that is, while the
Spirit works the Lord will not come, and
when tne Lord comes the Spirit will depart;
or, in other words, tbat when the Lord comes
tbe work of salvation is at an end. This waa
the doctrine that prevailed during the
middle ages, and in consequence tbe
comins: of the Lord was regarded as the
most dismal, dreadful, direful event imag-
inable; so that, whoever booed and looked
for salvation,

PKAYED THE LORD MIGHT NOT COME,

since, if He did come, all hope of salvation
would forever be at an end. Luther tells us
that, when a boy, he was so taught to regard
Christ that he trembled and turned pale
whenever the name of the Savior was men-
tioned. We of to-day can hardly under-
stand how utterly destructive and void of
all nope was the coming of the Lord during
the middle ages. It was under the spell of
this dark thought tnat that renowned and
sublime judgment hymn was written:

Dies, irae, dies ilia.
Solvit saeclum in favilla.
Teste David cum:Sibvlla,

which furnished the foundation of
nearly all Advent hymns until
within the last fifty years, thus
popularizing its underlying thought
There is, indeed, a mighty and solemn truth
presented in tbis hymn. But it is a one-sided
truth, or a half truth, which tells a lie when
exclusively presented. That last line of the
first stanza should put us on our guard,

"Teste David cum Sybilla."
■Whenever Sibylline oracles are mixed with
God's truth we should beware. And yet;
many good peop!e of our own day are still
dominated by tbis thought and ieeiiDg, so
that, if you ask them to pray for vtie Rpeedy
coming of the Lord, they reply that t;iey can
not so pray till their loved ones are saved.
And who can be blamed for hesitating to
pray "Come quickly," it the answer means
the end of salvation for the race of man;
such a prayer is at best, like an imprecatory
psalm, .but in these latter days, as the Bible
has been more read and studied,
it has appeared plain enough that
the coming of the Lord means salvation; as
the Scripture explicitly says: "He shall
appear the second time without urn unto
salvation." it has been seen that the chief
hopes of our race cluster around the coming
of the Lord, and that notbiug generally de-
cisive and victorious can obtain on earth
until Ho does come. So fresnly and grandly,
however, has this truth dawned upon some
minds, that a party has arisen with the feel-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Ing tnat the spirit has somehow failed to
save the world, and that the Son must come
to do a work for which the Spirit was in-
adequate. And, as the Scriptures are very
explicit in stating that there is coming, at
some time, and by some means, a period of
general Righteousness — a period usually
styled the Millennium — trie Cnristian world
is now divided into two parties —
post-millennialists and pre-millennialists,
the former of which holds that
the Spirit will bring the millennium, after
which Christ will come; while the latter
claim that

OHEIST WILL BBING THE MILLENNIUM

by His own coming; and as some may have
asserted by their mistaken zeal, or others
may have reierred from their own views
without the aid of the Spirit. Thus do op-
posite parties in the church of to-day seem to
make the Spirit and the Son rivals or antago-
nists in toe work of salvation. And the
post-miilennialist seems never to tire in tell-
in? the pre-millennialists how he dis-
honors the Holy Spirit. Yea, more among
pre-millennialists who are looking and
praying tor tne coming of the Lord, some
are so dominated with the thought of the
judical side of His work in that day, that, in
their view, the salvation, which He comes to
effect is only the perfection of those who
have previously believed. Tiiey see,
indeed, the risen and raptured saints
and a glorified earth as their
habitation. But that is all. No future sal-
vation for Israel or of the nations dawns on
their sight. The day of the Lord's coming
is, in their estimation, the day of haal doom
for the race of Adam, except for the elect,
who have previously believed With them
the loug suffering of the Lord in not com-
ing is salvation, but His actual coming is de-
struction, except for those who have previ-
ously believed. Most of premillennialists,
however, are impressed with the many and
glowing promises, which seem to pertain to
men in the flesh, under the reign of Messiah;
and, therefore, see a remnant brought
through the terrors of judgement, and a fut-
ure era of peace and righteousness for Israel
and the nations.

Now, we freely admit that it is a difficult
matter to harmonize all that the Script-
ures say concerning the mysterious,
sublime, and far-reaching events of
the day of the Lord. We freely
admit that there are texts of scripture bear-
ing on this theme, which seem to man's
hasty and narrow view somewhat contra-
dictory. But tnis is not the first time in the
history of Christian doctrine that such has
been tne case, e. g., the reconciliation of
God's sovereignty and man's free agency is

far more difficult than the narmomzing of
the work of the Son and the Spirit, or of the
judicial and the saving aspects of the Lord's
coming. Nothing is gained by ignoring one
class of scripture and confining the atten-
tion to another. JNothing is gained by separ-
ating the Spirit and tne Son, and assigning
salvation to one, and destruction to the
other. All the scriptures are consistent when
understood. And, while we do not expect to
solve all difficulties connected with this
theme, we are persuaded that a right under-
standing of the Spirit's relation to
our Lord's return will help in
removing some of the obscurities, and assist
In enabling the watchmen to see eye to eye.

THE SUBJECT IS GBEAXLT CLABIFIED,

as are so many difficulties of Scripture, by
considering Jesus Christ, the apostle and
high priest of our profession. He, in his
own blessed person, is the way, the truth,
and the life. If we wish for light on the wide
career of his cause in tne earth we have but
to look at his own personal career; and as
we look upon Him the potent and significant
fact that meets our gaze is, that He was what
He was, and is what He is, and will be what
He will be by reason of the Holy SDirit. He
was "conceived by the Holy Ghost" (Mat. i,
20) In order to become flesh He was "an-
nointed with the Holy Ghost" (Acts x, 38) in
order to follow his earthlv ministry. He
"cast out devils by the Spirit of God" (Mat xii,
28) in order to show his method of victory.
He "through the eternal spirit offered Him-
self without spot unto God," (Heb. ix., 14),
in order to mate His great atonement. He
was raised from the dead or "quicKened by
the Spirit" (1 Pet. iiL , 18), in order to be
fully manifested as the Son of God His in-
tercession is also by the spirit, for "the
Bnirit Himself maketh intercession for us"
(Rom. viii., 26). And His future coming is
to be no exception to the method of His
past career. For, as we have already seen,
prophets and apostles discern the grandest
outpourings of the Spirit as in the same
category with the coming of the Lord. He
is the high priest of our profession, and
surely the reappearing of the high priest
from the holy of holies to bless the people
was a part of His worK, performed in the
same manner, and by the same po-
tency as was the sacrifice and the
intercession. But if Christ's person and sac-
rifice and intercession is by the spirit, surely
His reappearing is by the same. Yea, His
whole atoning work was to secure the spirit
He went to heaven to secure the spirit for
earth. And as soon as He arrived there He
sent some measure or installment, as Pente-
cost witnessed, which the apostle recognised
as earnests or pledges of what should mora

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

fully come on the day of His return. Instead
of the spirit being: withdrawn at the coming
of the Lord, He will then be manifested as
never before. It is tnen that the earth shall
be baptized or flooded with the spirit Then
will occur the proper fulfillment of the prom-
ise of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and
fire, of which Pentecost was but a faint
earnest Then will be the restoration ot
all things, material as well as spiritual.
Whatever workings of the Spirit there have
been through through all the Christian cent-
uries are but little

INSTALLMENTS, OE EARNEST', OE PLEDGES

of what is coming at the Lord's return. To
use an illustration from every-day life: If a
man should go to some distant land to gain
a fortune for hi3 family, and while absent
should send home a few hundred dollars
from time to time for their immediate
necessities, and should prosper in his enter-
prise, so that at last he himself with all his
fortune should return, would we say that
when he arrived home his family would have
no more money since now they had his per-
sonal presence? No. indeed! But we should,
rather, say: Now they will have more than
ever, since he has come with all nis fortune.
Why, then, talk of the withdrawal of
the Spirit at the Lord's return? And
Wny say that earnest looking and praying
for the Lord's return dishonors the spirit?
If ever the enemy completely reversed the
truth, it is upon this point. And yet this
idea is so tirmlv imbedded in many minds
that it may be well to consider some of the
reasons why it so firmly holds its ground.
And one i3, doubtless, because Jesus said,
when upon earth: '"If I go not away the
comforter will not come;" from which say-
ing some may have inferred that the pres-
ence of Jesus here was a hindrance to the
coming of the SDirlt, and that, having gone
to heaven, and the Spirit come to earth, if He
should return to earth the Spirit would de-
part therefrom. But this does not
at all foliow. It was expedient and
necessary that Jesua should go away
to fteaven to finiRh the sacrificial
work, and so to obtain the fullness of the
Spirit for earth. We make too much of
Christ's saying on the cross, "It is finished,"
if we take it to mean that his whole priestly
office was finished. His suffering's were, in-
deed, finished. But his intercession was
only begun. He ever liveth to make inter-
cession. This intercession of Christ lu
heaven, though mysterious to us, is an in-
tegral part of His atonement. It was neces-
sary, therefore, that he should go away to
heaven to perform it. else earth would never
receive the fullness of the Spirit But by no
eort of means does it follow that when this

necessary work is done the Spirit will be
withdrawn. Just the opposite follows. The
Spirit will tnen be given as never before.
To refer to our homely illustration: The
man might say to his sorrowing
family, as he was about to depart for the for-
eign land, "it is expedient for you that I go
away:

IF i GO NOT AWAY,

the money will not come." But it does not
at all follow that when' ne returns all their
money departs, for he goes to secure the
muney. Christ eroes to heaven to secure the
Spirit, and when He returns He brings the
fullness of tbe Spirit. But, second, this idea
is fostered by the thought that the return of
the Lord has so much to do with judgment
and the destruction of enemies. The day of
the Lord is popularly called "The Day of
Judgment," and, therefore, many see in it
no salvation. But just here two things are
to be remembered. First, judgment
works salvation: and second, the Spirit
executes the judgment of the Son.
Do you not remember the fate
of Ananias and Sapphira, and the result of
it? They lied to the Holy Gbost and were
smitten by the same. Their judgment could
not have been any more summary and effect-
ive if the Lord Jesus had appeared there in
person. And the result of this judgment
was tnat "great fear came upon all the
church, and of the rest durst no man join
himself to them, and believers were the
more added to the Lord, multitudes both
of men and women." The very judgment
wrought salvation! Ou the other hand, the
apDearance of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus, was,
doubtless, something of the same sort as
that in which He wiil appear in the day of
His coming. Yet it did not in the least hin-
der, but rather made possible Saul's conver-
sion and endurement with the Holj Spirit.

Judgment is always a part of mercy. That
appearance of Jehovah, which overthrew
Pharaoh and his hosts, wrought great salva-
tion for Israel. So that the very first recorded
song of salvation is a song of judgment
''Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed
gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He
drowned in the sea." Did you ever know
any very extensive work of salvation that
was not, in some way, connected with judg-
ment? Are there not degrees of blindness
and infatuation that can only be broken by
some such manifestation of tbe Lord aa that
which came to Baul? Would anything
awaken this careless world to-day- like the
appearance of the Lord Jesus Himself?

If, tnen. it be asked, Why do we so uree
men to believe before the day of judgment
and during the day of grace, lest the deor of

'24

THE PKOPHETIC COJNFEKENCE.

hope be shut upon them? It may be re-
plied. First: Life is even now

EXCEEDINGLY PRECAEIOUS:

death Is even now knocking at every sinner's
door; and how much more will it be so when
the day of judgment begins to dawn! Well
might Balaam exclaim, as he saw this day
from afar, "Alas! who shall live when God
doeth this!" Eieht persons were, indeed,
brought through the flood to stock the re-
newed earth, but what were they in com-
parison to the multitudes that perished?
And even these were believers in some sense:
not walking with Goa as did Enoch, indeed,
bo that they could be caught up alive; but
still having some kind of faith and obe-
dience, so as to be brought through the
judgment as a remnant or seed. But surely
there is not much Pope that can
be held forth to sinners from such almost in-
finitesimal chances as these!

But it may be replied, second: There is a
blessing accorded to those who believe with-
out sierht that is not accorded to those who
believe with eisrht. As Christ said to Thomas,
"Because thou hast seen Me thou hast be-
lieved; blessed are they that have not seen
and yet have believed." It was not, I think,
without reason that Paul recorded himself
so low in the apostolic band. There is, doubt-
less, far more difference in the different
classes of the saved than we have generally
been wont to suppose. Tne Bride of Christ
may be one class, the wise virgins another
class, and the foolish virgins Btili another
class. Indeed, tnere are various weighty
xuestions connected with the Lord's coming,
which I do not feel prepared to dogma-
tize upon. But this much seems certain,
that the Holy Spirit is to work more power-
fully in connection with the second coining
of Christ than ever before. And that, al-
though the Lord is to appear personally on
the earth, the wort of salvation, including
judgment, is to be performed as it always
has been, by the Holy Spirit.

A tnird reason why this idea holds so
firmly in some minds may arise from the
truth regarding the removal of the hinder-
ing cause to the revelation of Antichrist
We are told that ''the mysterv of lawless-
ness doth already work, onlv He that now
hinderech will hinder till He be taken out of
the way, and then shall that wicked one be
revealed." This hindering cause to the reve-
lation of Antichrist is, doubtless, as some of
the best interpreters hold, the Holy Spirit as
He worKB in the world calling out the elect.
And it is consequently said that He will be

WITHDRAWN FB0M THE EABTH

witn the raptured saints at the parousia of
the Lord. And the further inference may
unconsciously be drawn that He returns no

more to His gracious work in the world, but
that thereafter the Lord alone visits the
earth witn His judgments. At all events that
solemn truth seems somehow to militate
aeainst the thouerht that the work of salva-
tion can continue on thH earth. But udou
this point two things may oe said. First,
There is a difference between the general or
restraining and the special or elective work
of the spirit. He puts His areneral restraint
upon even the unbelieving world while He
is calling out the elect. Now, He
may see fit to withdraw that general re-
straint in order that the wicked may show
out their true nature, and that Antichrist
and his hosts may be ripened for judgment.
But even this is for ultimate salvation. He
has not withdrawn from His great work in
the world, but only from the wicKed, that he
may the more fully and clearly condemn
them. Even this sort of withdrawal is but
temporary, for when the wicKed have
ripened and the man of sin has been re-
vealed, then the epiphany of the Lord
occurs, wnen the manifest working of the
Spirit returns with the manifest return of
the Lord. The action of the Spirit in this
removal is, then, only for a purpose, and
temporary, and does not at all interfere with
the fact that He is to work more mightily than
ever on the earth during the day of the Lord.
And thus, in every way in which we view
this subject, we find that there is no valid
ground for supposing that the Spirit ceases
His work in the world at the second appear-
ance of Christ. But rather, on the other
hand, we find that the chief, grand displays
of His power — the baptisms of the Holy
Ghost — are to be experienced duri ug the day
of the Lord, or the millenium, if you please
so to call that happy period. Tnere is, there-
fore, absolutely no groui.d tor the post-mil-
lennial objection that pre-millenuiaiism dis-
honors the Holy Spirit. Yea, rather, pre-mil-
lennialism assigns a far more extensive of-
fice and work to the Holy Spirit than does
post-millennialism. It looks not merely for
the conversion of the elect and the restrain-
ing of the wicked during the present
age; but also for the

EXTIRPATION OF EVIL

from the earth, and the reorganization of all
things both spiritual and material in the
age to come; all of which is done by the
Holy Spirit. When the work of our great
High-Priest is finished and He comes forth
aeain in the lisrht of His waiting people,
then the spirit will also exercise the fulness
of His office. Therefore with reason does
the Spirit as well as the Bride cry in this
present age, "Come." And He so cries, not
with the idea of resigning his office, but

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

rather that He may exercise it more fully
ami effectively.

Having now established this general rela-
tion of the Holy SDirit to the Lord's return
we pause to notice briefly what general action
of the Holy Spirit may be expected m
the day of the Lord draws near
Ana here again the career of the personal
Christ will be our guide. There were three
distinct epochs in the career of Jesus Christ,
each produced by a special action of the
Holy SDirit. 1. He was begotten or con-
stituted a eon of God by the Holy Ghost.
But in this capacity He was hidden. His
nation knew nothing of Him. He lived in
obscurity in Egypt and Nazareth for thirty
years. 2. He was anointea with power
by the Holy Ghost for His witnessing minis-
try. And in this capacity He filled the land
with His mighty works and wonderful wis-
dom, thus witnessing' to His divine sonship
for three years. 3. He was raised from the
dead and glorified as to His physical be-
ing by the spirit of holiness, and
was thus declared or manifested as
the son of God. In this capacity
He lived on earth for forty days, and then,
ascending, continued this His perfect be-
ing in the heavens. These three epochs
were distinct, although there was before
each of them some anticipation or foreshad-
owing of the next succeeding. Thus we find
that His Old Testament theophames fore-
tokened His incarnaticji. His visit to the
temple, at the age of 12, foretokened His
ministry. And His transfiguration on the
mount foretokened His risen or glorified
state. We notice, moreover, that the enemy
made special attempts to thwart Him at
each transition or as He entered upon each
successive epoch: .First, to kill Him as an
infant; second, to seduce Him in the wilder-
ness; and third, to overwhelm Him in
Gethsemane and the tomb. If, now, we
observe the career of the general, visible
body of the sons of God in the historic
world, we shall find these same three stages.
First,

ISRAEL WAS BEGOTTEN

or constituted by the Holy Ghost as God's
eon. .But in this capacity she was hidden.
The great world knew nothing; of her. She
lived in obscurity in Egypt and Palestine.
Second, the church was anointed with
power by the Holy Ghost to go into all the
world and to be a witness to all the nations.
And, though she has been far too recreant
to this her specific duty in past centuries,
she is now awakening to it, and the testi-
mony is being rapidly given to all the world.
The third 6tage is to be the resurrection and
rapture, or the glorification or manifestation
of the sons of God, together with the libera-

tion of tha groaning creation in the day of
the Lord.

If now we are approaching the close
of the second epoch and the beginning
of the third, what special action of the Spirit
may we expect in the present time? Mani-
festly the intensification of the work of the
second epoch; and some slight anticipation
ct the work of the third, together with some
earnest and cunning efforts of the enemy to
previa t the transition.

And sorely these are the very things that
we now Denoid. That the nineteenth cen-
tury has -\r\tnessed a marvelous intensifica-
tion of missionary zeal is among the tritest
of remarks. 7 his is such a generally recog-
nized sign of tht times, and will be so fully
and ably presented by others that I will not
stop to enlarge upoi\ it, but pass to inquire:
How about anticipations of the third special
worn of the Spirit, namely, the glorification
or perfection of our physical natures?
Perhaps some are ready to say
that surely nothing of this kind is
occurring. But not too fast. These thingi
are not trumpeted abroad. The transfigura-
tion was witnessed only by three, aad even
they were charged to tell no one until the
event, which it foretokened, had taken place.
But certain it is, that the power of the Spirit
over material things, and particularly over
our own bodies, is one of the thoughts that
the Holy Ghost is forcing upon the attention
of those who really know the Lord. The
quickening of mortal bodies, or "divine heal-
ing," as it is more popularly called, is one of
the most sienificant signs of the times to
every one who is sufficiently instructed in
the mysteries of the kingdom to recognize it
us an earnest of the resurrection life. But
this aside: certainly any one may notice that
the doctrine, at least, of the resurrection of
the dead and of the rapture of the living,
holds

A MUCH LARGER PLAGE

in the thought of the church than it did
fifty years ago. Many minds have been revo-
lutionized on this matter, so that the apos-
tolic sayings "We shall not all sleep;" "for
this cause many are weak ano sickly among
you and many sleep;" "we look for the
Savior who shall change the body of our
humiliation," etc., are coming1 to hold some-
thing of their proper place in the Christian
dialect of the day.

But perhaps the true situation is better
discerned by observing the tactics of the
enemy. Satan is wiser than men and more
on the alert to foresee wnat is coming. And
he is now seeking most earnestly and
adroitly to forestall with his lying wonders,
and so to hinder the work of the Spirit
in this regard. Why is it that we hear so

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

much in our day about theosophy and spir-
itualism and esoteric Buddhism and Chris-
tian science, lalsely so called? vVhy is it
that spiritualistic cures are wrought, that
alleged spirits are materialized, that corpo-
real bodies are levitated, and tnat astral
bodies are separated, except to forestall and
hinder the genuine work of tbe Holy Spirit
in this department? It is but a little while
since the reign of law— the impossibility of
anything supernatural in physics— was the
stronghold of unbelief. Why is the enemy
now changing his tactics? It is, I believe,
because the Holy Spirit is soon to work His
third work for the sons of God. Without
entering into any minute portrayal of
these various signs and-lyin? wonders of
Satan, it is enough to say that their central
thought is spiritual evolution as distin-
guished from the spiritual involution of the
Scriptures. To get the soul free from the
clogs of matter is the gospel that the devil
preaches. To bring the spirit more and more
into the realm of matter, until He shall con-
trol and glorify it, is the gospel that Christ
preaches. One is the gospel of death, the
other is the gospel of life— of glorified, or-
ganic life. One is in harmony with the
nresent order of decaying nature; the other
is the glad evangel of the supernatural im-
mortality, illustrated in the risen, glorified,
ascended Christ, who is soon to come again
to restore all things. The abolition of death,
the glorification of living numanity, and the
glorification of even the material earth, is
the grand hope set before us in the gospel.
The swallowing up of death in victory is the
goal to which we hasten.

ULTIMATE CHRISTIAN AMBITION

is not to die and go to heaven, but to live im-
mortal on the earth.

But against this glorious, revealed destiny
the enemy has so successfully set himself,
holding man's attention to the things that
are seen in the present age, that many pro-
fessed Christians do not know that they are
virtually heathen, Error has entwined itself
even in our songs of praise; e. g., we sing:

"This robe of flesh I'll drop and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air.
Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer."

How directly in antagonism is this to our
bodily rising and ascending Lord, or with the
cry of tne souls under the altar, "How long,
0 liordl" Sad it is, indeed, that penal naked-
ness, through the wages of sin, should be
mistaken for the everlasting prize of the
gospel I or again, how the heathen Adrian's
address to his soul, translated and versified
by an £i gl sli deist, has been incorporated
into Chiiaiian psalmody:

"Vital spark of heavenly flame 1
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame I

Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife.
And let me lauguish into life."

Pure heathenism, except that it accom-
plishes at one bound what the Buddhist re-
quires many transmigrations for.

But, thanks be to God, the Scriptures
stand uncontaminated. They not only
point out the grand goal, but they give us
fair and plain and repeated warnings of the
false doctrines and lying wonders that Satan
will interpose before the goal is reached. To
disentangle the sure word of prophecy from
all beguiling admixtures of error is
the duty of the hour. The watching prayer
of God's people is not to their souls or minds
to go from this dying scene of decaying na-
ture; but it is, rather, to the spirit of the
living God to come into it, and to restore and
perfect it. This third office of the Spirit is
fully indicated in the Scriptures, and tne
events of the day of the Lord will fully
verify what is there indicated. And while
we wait we cry, "Come, Holy Snirit," "Come,
Lord Jesus," fully assured that these cries
are wholly in harmony, and that when both
are answered the kingdom will have come,
and the will of God will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. "He which testifieth these
things saith: Surely I come quickly— Amen.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

The Rev. W. J. Erdman, of Boston, pro-
nounced the benediction, and the session ad-
journed until the evening.

THE REV. DR. LORIMER.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

The evening meeting drew out the largest
attendance of the sessions of the day. Great
general interest was shown in the exercises,
wnich were opened with the singing of the
hymns, "When He cometh, when He
cometh;" "Our Lord is now rejected;"
"Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious," and
two others. The hymns were sung with an
enthusiastic and inspiring ring. Prayer
was offered by the Rev. Dr. Frost, of Sacra-
mento.

The Rev. George C. Lorimer, D. D. , of Chi-
cago, delivered a very hearty and cordial
address of welcome to the members of the
conference, which it is to be regretted was
not taken in full "You are entitled," Dr.
Lorimer said, "to a hearty and warm
reception at our hands, apart from the
important object that brings you to-
gether. As the representatives of
the divinest thoughts, for there
is surely no thought diviner than that we
have in God's own word; as the disciples of
the 8UDliinest leader, for never man spoke as

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

did tha Christ; as the advocates of the purest
reforms, for there is no philanthropy like
that of the gospel of Jesus, our Redeemer;
and, as the believers in

THE PEECIOUS HOPE

of His coming, for hope grander is there not
beneath the stars than this, you deserve a
place in our hearts and the kindest office of
our hospitality. We extend to you a hearty
Christian welcome, and may the Lord's gra-
cious benedictions rest upon you while you
are in our citv.

"I bid you welcome in the name of all the
Christians of Chicago, and especially of the
pastors of tbis city." .

THE REV. DR. PIERSON.

PBEMTLLENNIAL MOTIVES TO EVANGELISM.

A hymn was sung and the Rev. Dr. A. T.
Piersou, of Philadelphia, interrupted often
by approving applause, delivered tne fol-
lowing brilliant and scholarly address on the
BUbject: "Our Lord's Second Coming, a
Motive to World-wide evangelism."

The tree is known by its fruit, but it is the
fruit which is naturally grown on the tree,
not that which is artificially tied to its
branches. So doctrine is known by practice,
but only by the practice which it naturally
begets. Truth does not become a lie because
it is perverted, otherwise grace would lose
its glory when men take advantage of it to
continue in sin.

We say this as a word preliminary. Tbe
question is, what is truth? That being accu-
rately answered, our next concern is to apply
the trutn in the best and most helpful wav.
But if what was meant to be a tonic and
stimulant is used as a sedative and narcotic,
ours is the guilt and responsibility of
the perversion. The same sun that softens
and mellows and melts, also hardens, en-
crusts, bakes. When, therefore, we Doldly
affirm that our Lord's second coming fur-
nishes the highest motive to world-wide
evangelism, we do not thereby affirm that in
every believer that grand truth brings forth
fruit which, either in quantity or quality,
adorns the doctrine; but only tnat in this
truth lies the possibility and potency of all
evangelism; that nere is the seed which,
planted in good soil, taking deep root, hav-
ing room to grow, unchoked by the thorns,
will develop the blade, the ear, the full-
grown corn in the ear; will find the perfec-
tion of its growth, its

FINAL BTPENESS IN BEPEODUCTION

— "seed for the sower as weK as bread for
the eater," In other words, the ble.-x.od hope

of our Lord's coming- when unhampered and
unhindered in its normal action makes every
true believer fruitful in the seed of propaga-
tion, fits and prompts him to sow the seed
and himself become the seed of the Kingdom,

1. Foremost among the peculiarities of
Scripture teaching touching our Lord's sec-
ond coming is its imminence.

Imminence is the combination of two con-
ditions, viz. : certainty and uncertainty. An
imminent event is one which is certain to
occur at some time, uncertain at what time.
Imminent is not synonymous with impend-
ing. It is not exact to say that what is im-
minent Is near at hand; it may or may not
be. It is therefore unfair to discredit the
imminence of our Lord's coming by saying
that it is a mistake into which even apostles
and early disciples were betrayed; that they
thought the Lord would come in their day,
and as He did not it was proven a misappre-
hension into which modern disciples have
the less reason to^ fall, since tbey have thia
warning before them. Such argument
frames into its structure a fallacy if
not a sopnistry. Primitive disciples believed
that Christ might come in their day; they
could not say that He would; thel^difference
may seem slight, but it saves them from the
charge of deception or delusion. Your
brother is in Europe, and may return at any
time, even by the next steamer; you ao not
say he will, ana so you are not mistaken if
he does not, Any man in this assembly may
die to-day; yet I do not affirm that anyone
will, and should all live to see the next day,
or the uext century aawn, no error has been
made in the above statement.

The New Testament uniformly teaches th-3

IMMINENCE OF OUB LOBD'S COMING.

It is an event wnich in this sense is ever at
hand. "Behold, tne Judge standeth as the
door." His hand may be on tne latch. But
when he will enter no man knoweth, not
even the angels in heaven. When He does,
it will be suddenly and without knocking.
His last word is "Watch and pray; for ye
know not when the time is."

How does this imminence of His coming
affect missionary zeal? How can it affect it
otherwise than to inspire, quicken, stimulate
evangelistic activity?

Our ascending Lord, just before His de-
parture, repeated the solemu words of His
last commission: "Go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature. "
"Beginning at Jerusalem, repentance and
remission of sins, to be preached in His name
among all nations," and His disciples to be
"witnesses" unto Him "to the uttermost
parts of the earth." The Son of man

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

going to a far country, committed unto His
servants and stewards this great trust, say-
ing, "Occupy till I come." Of the hour of
His return He gives no hint that they may be
always ready.

What would De the natural consequences?
Every faithful servant would hasten to
invest his talents in trading, that
at His coming He might receive His
own with usury. And such was the historic
fact. There are two immutable things in
the plain records of those early days. First,
the. cnurch was premillennial in doctrine,
and, second, the church was evangelistic in
practice. To the student of church history
both these racts are indisputable. The
church of the first century looked for our
Lord's coming as liable to occur at any time;
it was so really, vividly imminent that Thes-
■alonian disciples failed to give sufficient

EMPHASIS TO THE ANTICHEIST

and the apostacy that must precede it. Yet
never was the church — the whole church — so
permeated and penetrated by missionary en-
thusiasm. Even while the apostles were
still at Jerusalem, those humble disciples
"scattered abroad and went everywhere
preaching the word."

There is a living linn joining this
blessed hope and this spirit of evangel-
ism. They looked for their Lord and
King to return, and they knew not the hour.
TheKinsrhad entrusted them with the grand
commission, ind the King's business requires
haste. There was to be no tarrying eave for
that enduement from on High, which was
their equipment for their work. To the out-
most bounds of Judea, Samaria, Gaiilee,
they bore the message; then to Antioch, the
eye of the East. Cyprus, Asia Minor, Oreece,
Rome — then, while Peter went eastward
toward Babylon, to the elect dispersion,
Paul, burning with seraphic ardor and fervor,
swept like a flame across Palestine and Syria,
farther and farther into Europe till he
touched not only Italy, but, as some tnink,
Spain and Britain. Within the life-time of
one generation the gospel message was
borne to the outskirts of the Roman Empire,
and the heathen priests trembled lest the
fanes of their idols should be forsaken of
worshipers.

This heroic evangelism of the primitive
church was inspired by their love and loy-
alty to Him who was to them the coming
One. They were "looking for and hastening
unto the coming of the day of God." Their
ascended Lord was only veiled behind the
cloud that received Him out of their 8!{rht,
but still near them, with them alway, even
to the end of the age, and that end might be
very near. That cloud might at any time

DISCLOSE HIM ONCE MORE

to their expectant, enraptured eyes; and
that "same Jesus" who had so suddenly been
"taken up from them into heaven,"would with
equal suddenness "so come in like manner as
they had seen him go into heaven.- And
when He did come He would claim His own,
rewarding faithful stewards and judging tne
unfaithful. The question was thus ever
forced upon every disciple, "Are my
talents put to use, or put away in a
napkin like a buried treasure?" "A dispen-
sation of the gosDel is committed to me;"
am I dispensing that gospel?

Christ himself warns us of the danger in-
curred by those who say, 'My .Lord delayeth
His coming.' To lose sight of its imminence
tempts to self-indulgence and to controversy
on minor issues. Under the blessed impulse
of primitive piety, stimulated by this hope,
all self-denial was cheerfully endured, ana
all petty jealousies rebuked. The church,
'all at it and always at it,' worked as though
the time was short and the duty urgent.
To-day the hope is so obscured that the bulk
of professed disciples pusb our Lord's com-
ing into a very remote future; and the
church is leisurely workiug, if not
flippantly playing, at missions, as though
there were geologic cycles in wiiich
to witness to the worid.

2. Again, our Lord's second coming is a
motive to world-wide evangelism, because it
is inseparably associated with the glorious
compensation ior all service, suffering, and
sacrifice for His sake.

"Behold lcome quickly, and my reward Is
with me to give every man according as hig
work shall be." It is

NOT OUB DEATH, BUT HIS COMINO

that is linked with the wedding feast into
which the wise virgins enter with that joy
of the Lord of which faithful stewards Dar-
take; with that award of prize to those
who so "run as to obtain." It is when He
comes that martyrs "faithful unto death"
"receive the crown of life;" those who "love
His appearing." the "crown of righteous-
ness;" those who as shepherds fed the flock,
"the crown of glory;" those who win souls,
"the crown of reioicing." and those who
"keep the body under and bring it into sub-
jection," the "crown incorruptible.''

What incentive and inspiration to carry
the cross at ad risKs to the very summit of
Satan's citadel, and to every point in the
parapet, that tne humble follower of Jesus
is filling- up that wnich is benind of the
afflictions of Christ in his flesh for bis body's
sake, which is the church. He is looking for
the coming of the King, wheu he who has
fought a good fight shall exchange the
armor of the warrior for the crown of the

THE PEOPHETIO CONFERENCE.

victor. Death may usher him into Paradise,
but the resurrection of the just represents
the lull glory and complete reward of self-
denying1 service and sacrifice. It is then,
and not till then, that they that be "teachers
shall shine as the brightness of tne firma-
ment, and they that turn many to righteous-
ness as the stars forever and ever.''

Paul tells the Philippians of his renuncia-
tions and compensationa He counted his
gam as loss, and even refuse, to be trodden
underfoot; and it was all joy to him because
he looked forward, not indeed to death, but
to the exanastasis, that outr esurrection from
among the dead, rle could accept the fel-
lowship of Cnrist's sufferings in view of the
fellowship of His glory;

COULD DIE WITH HIM AS A MALEFACTOB

that He might rise with Him as a benefactor;
dying while others live, that he may live
when others are dead.

It is to be regretted that with even the ma-
jority of the disciples this whole revelation
of rewards is obscure. In fact, many are in
doubt wnether rewards can have any place
in an economy of grace since "to him that
worketn is the reward not reckoned of graoe
but of debt"

The sermon on the mount teaches us that
salvation and reward are not identical,
"exoept your righteousness exceed the
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye
shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of
neaven." The one condition of entrance is
a divine righteousness, imputed to us and
received by faith alone. But, having en-
tered, there, our place, our relative position
there, is determined by the measure of
fidelity with which we "do" and "teach"
the words of God. Christ taught the woman
at the well, that eternal life is the gift of
God to be had for the asking; but that chap-
ter also contains an additional revelation
touching rewards; *'he ttiat reapeth receiv-
eth wages and gatheretn fruit unto life
eternal.'' Wages for work differ from a gtf r
bestowed without reference to service ren-
dered. The sinner is saved by grace; the
saint is rewarded for work done.

So, in First Corinthians, Paul tells us that
a man may De "saved" and yet "suffer loss"
of his worlc being burned, and may both be
saved and "have a reward," his work abid-
ing. The Christian worKer, dying daily,
bearing in his body the marks of the Lord
Jesus, lifts up his eyes and sees redemption
drawing nigh. He follows his Lord in his
humiliation, remembering that "in the re-
generation, when the Son of Man shall sit
on the throne of His glory,

HE SHALL BIT WITH HIM."

This blessed hope of tne Lord's coming with

his reward is an hourly inspiration. He
watches prayerfully, toils wearily, waits pa-
tiently; the Lord is at hand; at any moment
"this same Jesus" may "so come in like
manner" as He was seen to "go into
Heaven." Then shall the wrongs of me
ages be righted, a ud the martyrs of Jesus
shall receive their long-deferred crown.

The whole tendency of such a hope is to
unfix the disciDle from the world and the
world from mm. Those who say, -,My Lord
delayeth uis coming," may be tempted to
self-indulgence, hoarded treasure, intoxi-
cating pleasure. But the steward wnose
Master may at any nour return to call him to
account can not bury his talent in houses
and lands, costly plate and shining gems,
stocks and stores; he feels that ha must in-
vest it — it must be currency — current from
hand to hand, increasing as it goes. And so
wherever he is laboring "the time is short;"
the "Judge standeth at the door," and when
He knocketh He must be ready to "open to
Him immediately;" his work always done
and ready for rigid scrutiny.

3. The practical effect of the blessed nope
of our Lord's coming is to make disciples
unselfish and spiritual; to relax the hold
upon worldly things and carnal lusts and
make all seem small and insignificant be-
side the magnitude of eternity. The con-
sistent believer in this truth can neither lay
up treasure upon earth nor lav out vast
plans for indolence and indulgence. While
preparing for a long life of luxurious ease
the midnight cry may be heard.

"THE END OF ALL THINGS" MAT BE "AT HAND,"

and he wants no treasures or pleasures, pur-
suits or possessions which His coming can
interrupt, or condemn, or bring to nought.
But if, step by step, human enterprise,
worldly civilization and ecclesiastical prog-
ress could bring on the latter day
glory, we should be Justified in
building as though everything were
to last at least a thousand years.
But if all these things are to be dissolved,
and may be speedily brought zo tne nery or-
deal; if only the graces of the spirit and the
fruits of walKing and working with God are
to endure, then let us expend our energy
upon imperishable things. And there is no
proof or fruit wliich demonstrates that this
doctrine is of God more tnan this undenia-
ble fruit of its real dominance in the soul,
making the believer unworldly, uncarnai,
unselfish.

Here is another vital link between this
hope and missions. No work demands for
its earnest doing, more unworldly and un-
selfish devotion than foreign missions. Much
so-called Christian work may be prosecuted
in the energy of the flesh; it promises

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

▲ BICH AND PROMPT BKTUBN

in temporal and financial prosperity. A
railway magnate may give money in large
sums to build kcuooIs and churches in new
settlements, along the lines, on commercial
principles; the church or school is a nucleus
for population; population means travel and
transportation; and, so, revenue to the rail-
way, increased value to stock, and ultimate
enrichment to stockholders.

The fact is significant tnat during the first
centuries the church was premillenial and
evangelistic, and since the Lord's coming
csased to be regarded as imminent, and was
projected into a remote future, the evangel-
ism of primitive days Pas never been re-
vived Few disciples flame with zeal for
foreign missions ; the bulk of church mem-
bers regard the work with comparative
indifference, and some even contend that "it
does not pay."

When we pierce to the core of the diffi-
culty we find it is simple selfishness. Beyond
any other form of Christian work, this is
carrying the gospel to those so far off, so
needy, so distant, and so destitute, that we
can expect no returns. They can not recom-
pense us; we must look for our recompense
"at the resurrection of the just," and no-
wnere this side of that. The most frantic
appeals for perishing souls along the
Congo, beneath the shadows of the Him-
malayas, or in the Korean valleys, awaxen
no response from hearts encrusted with sel-
fishness. Of course foreign missions do not
pay, if, by "pay" we mean a compensation
to avarice, appetite, or ambition, or any
form of temporal interest and self -emolu-
ment To evangelize a great city is apply-
ing salve to the festering ulcers upon the
body politic; it promotes the safety or our
homes, protects lite, liberty, property, helps
to assure our temporal peace and prosperty,
and to

PULL UP ANABCHT BI THE BOOTS.

To evangelize the great West likewise
"pays;" the returns will come, though it
may take a little longer to reap the harvest
Facilities of travel and Harvest do not more
surely bring to our doors the granary and
treasury of the continent than do
the normal growth and healthy de-
velopment of the remotest members
help the whole commonwealth, while
a thorn in the farthest extremities
infliotp such a pang on the whole body that
tne whole body stoops and bends, and brings
every other member into requisition to pluck
it out

In city missions and home evangelization
we may appeal to commercial enterprise and
selfish instincts. But when we are pleading

for South Sea cannibals, or African Hotten-
tots or tne half idiotic Cretins of the Alps, or
the despised opium-loving Chinaman, or the
stupid uEquimaux, or the exclusive Lama
worshippers of Thibet, we have no hold on
selfish souls. To give money for such a pur-
Dose is like putting it "into a bag with
holes," — you will never see it again and may
never see adequate results. It is doubtful
whether the Lord means that you shall. He
puts this work before us as tfte nearest in
spirit and motive to tnat which brought our
Bedeemer to this earth. The spirit of missions
is essentially unselfish; it is giving to tnose
from whom we can not "hope to receive;" it
is Didding to the fea3t those who "can not
bid us again." He who, either in prevailing
prayers, consecrated offerings, or personal
service, seeks to set up the banner of the
cross amid the millions of Brahmins and
Buddnists, Oonf ucianists and Mohammedans,
Parsees and papists, devil woshipers and
fetish-worshipers, must first of all "have
the mind of Christ" and

EMPTY HIMSELF OP HIMSELF;

he must consent to "humble himself and be
obedient unto death." Tne carnal must die
if the spiritual is to live; the mieer dies when
the missionary is born; he would "save oth-
ers, himself he can not save." It is utterly
vain to attempt to demonstrate to a selfish
disciple that it pays to give his money, his
children, himself to carry the gospel to the
superstitious .degraded, half-imbecile pagan.
After all the 500 pages of Dr. Thomas Laurie
have blazed with their tributes to what mis-
sions have done for science, for geography,
geology, meteorology, archaology, philology,
ethnography; for natural science and social
science, medical scienoe, and political
economy; for literature and culture, for
mechanic arts and fine arts, for history and
poetry, for commerce and common schools,
the selfish, carnal disciple can not see that
this is the most economical or practical way
to spend gold or life blood. To the human
view it is comparative if not absolute waste
though it may be heroic, for men and women
of seraphic natures to go and sacrifice them-
selves in sucn a fashion — daring climate, dis-
ease, privation, and even human brutes
to do their worst There may be a sweet
savor of spikenard amid the deadly rank
growths of paganism, but a fair and
costly flask of alabaster is broken. Henry
Martyn was a mistaken martyr. Wm. Carey
would better have stayed in England.
Adoniram Judson not only threw himself
away in Burma, but withdrew, from oiviliza-
tlon to a premature death, three of the
grandest women ever nurtured in refined
society. Think of Harriet Newell at 21 dying
on the Isle of France, and Mrs. Grant in

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Persia at 25; of Bishops Patteson and Han-
nington falling before

THE BLOWS OF BRUTAL ASSASSINS;

of Samuel J. Mills dying on mid-ocean in the
service of Africa, and Note broken like a reed
in the first year of acclimation; think of Levi
Parsons dying at Alexandria in two. years,
and Pliny Fisk, that splendid scholar, wast-
ing his rive languages in Syria, and following
Fisk in two years more; and Stoddard, the
young but brilliant astronomer, star-gaaing
in Persia,

To the average Christian the foreign mis-
sionary field is a vast sepulcher of buried
hopes and blighted lives. Over six nundred
missionary martyrs are buried in the soil of
India alone. Hundreds have died on the
coast of Africa in the very process of accli-
mation. In the South Seas scores of saintly
souls have yielded their bodies to be roasted
in cannibal ovens. "To what purpose is this
waste?"

Ah, my brother J vainly snail you seek an
answer if selfishness prompts the inquiry.
Enough for the true disciple that the Master
laid down His life a sacritica at 33, and
prayed for those who crucihed Him, and that
He, who thus died for sinners, left us "an ex-
ample of uncompensated love and sacrifice.
Enough that He said: l'(io ye into
all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature." We have our marching
orders, and if we fail in the unequal contest,
let us bear above us the inscription by Sim-
onides over the spartans who feel at Ther-
mopylae, "Go, stranger, and declare to the
Lacedaemonians that we died here in obedi-
ence to their divine laws."

Now here we find one more linK between
the hope of our Lord's coming and foreign
missions. There is no one thing that com-
pares with that blessed hope in its

BEFINING INFLUENCE ON Oil ABACTEB.

Its whole tendency is to make us unselfish, to
relax our grasp on carnal pleas ures and ma-
terial treasures, and to fashion u s "after the
power of an endless life" rather than "the law
of a' carnal commandment" It makes the
time seem short, it dwarfs the world into
insignificance and lifts the peaks of the world
to come into clearer view, into loftier alti-
tudes, in a nearer horizon.

It makes the present compensation for
sacrifice and service of less importance,
while it magnifies the approval of our com-
ing Lord In the seven epistles to the
churches which open the apocalypse, our
Lord uses His coming as a perpetual admoni-
tion and inspiration. The Ephesians could
well bear and have patience and not faint;
the Smyrnese oould endure the ten days of
tribulation; the Pergamoans could well hold
fast His name and not deny the faith; the

Thyatirans might well resist the seductions
of Jezebel; the Sardians keep up their watch,
and their garments white, the Philadel-
phians keep the word of His patience, and
the Laodiceans turn from luke-warmness to
ardent longing — for the Lord's coming was
always at hand, when all trials would cease
and only eternal things would seem of any
importance or value.

Mr. Moody says: ''When this truth of the
Lord's second coming really takes hold of a
man the world loses its grip on him. Gaa
stocks and water stocks and stocks in banks
and railroads are of very much less conse-
quence to him now. His heart is free when
he looks tor the blessed appearing and king-
dom of the Lord." Our brother hits the nail
on the head with the blow of his Saxon
hammer.

HEBE IS THE DEADLY »0E

of the cause of world-wide missions — the
world is too wide and selfishness is too nar-
row. The cares of this world, the deceit-
fulness of riches, the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of Ufa make
such unselfish work seem wasteful. Fields
planted near by with wheat and corn are
more attractive than fields sown far away
with gospel seed and yielding slow and
uncertain and slim barvesta Fine
mansions of marble on the stately avenues
of a metropolis are better property to live in
or rent to others than the mission churches
and schools and hospitals that are always in
straits for money to enlarge them or work-
men to man them. Self-indulgence prom-
ises richer satisfaction in present luxury than
self-denial for the tedious process of con-
verting the heathen.

4. Our Lord's [coming, when rightly con-
ceived, furnishes a grand motive to a world's
evangelization in suggesting a hope wbioh
Scripture authorizes and history fulfills. As
this is vital to our Bubject we give it ampler
discussion.

Our Lord's coming is marked in Scripture
teaching by its dispensational character. It
marks a transition; it closes one dispensa-
tion and opens another. To understand this
dispensational character is of primary im-
portance.

Premilleniallism is denounced as discour-
aging to evangelistic- effort, taking out of
evangelism all vitality and enthusiasm. It is
compelled

TO BEAB THE BBAND OF PESSIMISM.

We propose to show that it inspires instead
of strangling hope, but our first appeal must
be to the only final authority, the word of
God.

What, according to the teaohings ox onr
Lord himself, is the purpose of ihe present
dispensation?

;jU

iHE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Many Hold vaguely that it is a world's con-
version. According to their view, the gospel
is a small mustard seed, set in the soil of so-
ciety, ever rooting deeper and spreading
wider, taking up and assimilating to itself
the elements of society and incorporating
them with itself, upreaching and outreaching
until the earth is filled with the shadow of
it and its branches are like the
goodiy cedars; that like leaven, hidden in
three measures of meal — the world, the flesh,
and the devil — it is to pervade, penetrate,
permeate the whole lump, modifying the
evil with which it comes in contact, until it
transforms the world into the church, the
flesh into the spirit and the devil
is leavened out altogether, like the
gasses which escape or aro ex-
pelled from the fermenting dough.

The careful student of Scripture sees an-
other quite different teaching. He finds
dispensation succeeds dispensation in human
history, all marked by seven features essen-
tially the same. First, an advance in fullness
and clearness of revelation; then gradual
spiritual declension: then conformity to the
world ending with amalgamation with the
world; then a srigantic civilization, brilliant
but Godless; then parallel development of
evil and good; then an apostasy, and finally
a catastrophe.

This dispensation began on a higher plane
than any that precedes, but bears the same
general marks. It opened with the

FULLEST REVELATION OP OOP,

in the written word, the livinar word, and
the comine of the Holy Spirit. It
moved step by Btep downward and
backward; primitive piety declined;
the church courting and finally
wedding the world. The sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair,
and they took them wives of such as they
chose, and of this unnatural wedlock giants
were born; but they proved destroyers
rather than defenders of the faith. The suc-
cessive civilization of Egypt, Assyria, Persia,
Greece, and Eome trampled virtue in the
dust and deified vice with the crown of the
gods. Rome made torches of Christian mar-
tyrs, and Athens made priestesses ot Venus
out of unchaste women. Human wisdom
built altars "to the unknown god," culture
flowered into polytheism and pantheism, and
ripened into materialism and atheism. That
there has been a growth of good no one will
deny, and blessed harvests from the seed of
the kingdom, thirty, sixty, even a hundred-
fold; but there is a parallel development of
evil. The tares grow side by side with the
wheat, each ripening to the harvest

It behooves us not to lose our candor even
in the Heat of controversy. Who can doubt

the fact tha,t this high civilization of which
we boast is the amalgamation of church and
world? The world has become a little
churchly, adopting some Christian ideas and
sentiments, molding its moralities and phil-
anthropies into a semblance to the gospel
pattern; but while the world has grown a lit-
tle churcnly, the church has grown very
worldly, hopelessly worldly. The dialect of
Canaan is corrupted with the language of
Ashdod. Professing disciples do not even
profess self-deniaL The "strait gate" has
given place to

AN EASY AND ATTEACTIVE ENTRANCE,

and the narrow way is broadened into a
stately avenue, smoothly paved, and bor-
dered with fragrant flowers. Though there
be "'no royal road to learning," the church
has found a royal road to heaven.

Wo have spoken of the conformity of the
church to the ■« orld as hopeless. Satan has
for centuries stamped five institutions as es-
pecially his own — the card table, the horse
race, the dance, the stage, and the wine cup.
Professinsr Christians receive his coals in"
their bosoms and yet expect not to be
burned; they sit till midnight over progres-
sive euchre, enter their steeds on the race
course, whirl tbrough tbe intoxicating mazes
of the dance, tipule over the wine glass, and
not only go to the theater but introduce it
into church entertainments. Our church
life is honeycombed and undermined by
woridliness. There is little if any practical
separation. The bulK of professing Christians
it not wholly worldly are worldly holy; at
the door of this world's frivolities and gaye-
ties they shuffle off their Christian
character as easily as an orien-
tal guest his sandals, aud mingle
indiscriminately with those who bow at the
idol shrines of folly and fashion. There
seems to be a process of moral putrefaction,
or loss of godly savor, and petrifaction, or
loss of godly sensibility, which threatens
the very existence of any pure and primi-
tive type of piety. The garment spotted
with the flesh communicates the contagion
of a worldly leprosy, and those who are
warned to keep themselves unspotted from
the world are overspread with its unclean-
nesa

What is the result? Instead of presenting,
like Joseph inEeypt or Daniel in Babylon, a
perpetual contrast to our surroundings, the
only line of separation that remains is the
church roll. Instead of being spiritually

ISOLATED AND INSULATED

that we may be charged and filled with
the life of God and the power of God,
the witness of a separate sanctified
life and of the tongue of fire is erone.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Wnat is tne real character of cur present
civilization? We may as well face tne facts.
It is gigantic in invention, discovery, enter-
prise, achievement; but it Is gigantically
worldly; sometimes and somewheres mon-
strously God-denying and God-defying.
This "Christian civilization" has produced
slants in these days, men of renown, but
they often use their intellect, knowledge,
and fame only to break down, as with the
iron nail of Talus, all Christian faith. Phi-
losophy now blooms into a refined and poetic
pantheism or a gross, blank materialism or
a subtle rationalism or an absurd agnosti-
cism. Science constructs its systems of evo-
lution and leaves out a personal Ood; spon-
taneous generation becomes the only
creator, natural law the cnly determining
power, and natural selection the only
Providence. Such men as Strauss
and Renan, Hegei and Comte, Goethe
and Kant, Mill and Spencer, Darwin and
Huxley, Matthew Arnold and Theodore
Parker are specimens of men who owe their
education, refinement, accomplishment, to
the very Christianity they attack. The cubs
first nurse the dam and then turn and strike
tneir fangs into her breast. Civilization
itself is turned into the stronghold of unbelief ;
its imaginations ahd inventions are high
towers that exalt themselves against the
knowledge of God and the thougnts of our
great thinkers have not been brought into
captivity to the obedience of Chiist

We nave the ripest form of worldly civil-
ization, Dut the

BIPENESS BOEDEE8 ON BOTTENNESS;

while men boast of the fabric its founda-
tions are falling into decay, and that awiul
anarchy which is the last result of atheism
even now threatens to dissolve society itself.
Government is rendered neipless by the de-
structive forces which science has put into
the hands of the ignorant and lawless. The
ballot and the bullet alike become weak in
competition with dynamite, and war be-
comes impossible until men are ready for
mutual extermination,

'I here are not wanting those who openly
affirm that the millennium is a present fact —
tnis is the millennium 1 In these days of pop-
ular education and rapid locomotion "many
run to and fro in the earth and knowledge is
increased. In the marvelous triumphs of
electricity in telegraph and telepnone, the
lightning is literally comintr from the East
and smiling unto the West; in the grauu
achievements of artificial irrigation, agri-
culture, and horticulture, the wilderness
and solitary place are already glad, and the
desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. In
the Atlantic cable and Kindred transoceanic
lines, and the giant sLeamsUips thai move

round the world with such incredible speed,
there has come to be no more sea. In the
peace societies and courts of arbitration the
nations learn war no more.

In the wide dissemination of the Scriptures
in nearly three hundred dialects and the dis-
persion of missionaries in ali the lands, the
earth is already full of tne knowledge of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea. In the
practical sympathy and unity of all evangel-
ical believers our Lord's prayer is fulfilled,

THAT THEY ALL, MAY BE ONE.

In the civilization and enlightenment of the
rude ana barbarous tribes, the cow and the
bear feed; the carnivorous become the gram-
inivorous; the lion eats straw like the ox;
the wolfiRh rapacity and leopard-like feroc-
ity of savage natures is transformed by civil-
ization into lamb-like gentleness. Nay, the
prophetic lfinguaore finds a still more start-
ling fulfillment in the fancy of
some, for the English lion and the
Russian bear have both become Chris-
tian nations, and the little child, young-eat
born of the great nations, the American Re-
public, is leadinsr all the rest. Why look for
any other millennium when these and other
mark9 of fulfilled prophecy are furnished in
current nistory? Even the symbolic contest
of Michael and the dragon may be found in
the wars between England and China, whose
symbol is the red dragon, and wnich drew
about a third part of the human race after it.
And in that war the dragon prevailed not! t
In a way scarce less frivolous than this have
we known modern advocates of an existing
millennium to torture prophecy, warping the
testimony of the word to fit the crook of
their notions.

If the purpose of this last and highest
dispensation is to convert the world, devel-
oping a millennium by a process of assimi-
lation, this dispensation is so far a failure.
That the world has made progress we have
already admitted, but it is not progress to-
ward salvation. There have been seven
golden asres of history, those of the Ptolemys
in Egypt, Pericles in Athens, Augustus in
Rome, Lieo X. in Italy, lvj.n III. in Russia,
Loui-< XIV. in Prance, Elizabeth in England,
but they nave all been

AGES OF MOBAL PBOFLIGACY.

Our go. den age is far from unfolding even
the promise of a millennium. Beyond any
past age science, invention, intelligence and
education have reached a lofty level, but
human wisdom is a Greek arch, rising high
above the earth only to curve back to earth
again, instead of a gothic arch, whose high-
est reach points still upward. The material
conditions of the world may advance only to
develop materialism, magnifying things seen

'1HE PliOPHETiC CONFERENCE.

and temporal and obscuring the unseen and
eternal.

I fear we shall be compelled to reconstruct
our notions of the millenium and the process
by which it is to become a reality. The Word
of God does not represent it as a Human de-
velopment, the outcome and outgrowth of
civilized or even enlightened society. In the
interests both of truth and of evangelism
we need to emphasize the fact that the
millennium is not a culmination of human
progress along an inclined plane of gradual
ascent, but the era and epoch of a divine
force uplifting, renewing, and transforming
human society.

The dream of the image of world power is
divinely interpreted by Daniel as a vision of
what should be thereafter. There is no hint
of assimilation or incorporation of even the
best worldly elements into the king-
dom of God. Instead of this there is a
process of comminution— crushing, crumb-
ling, grinding, pulverizing — that the wind
may sweep all away

UJ£E CHAFF FBOM SUMMEB THBESHING

doors. The stone, cut out without human
hands, grows without human aid, refusing
to incorporate with itself clay and iron, or
even silver and gold, rejecting alike the best
and worst, most precious and most worth-
less. That stone is a millstone grinding all
alike to powder.

What is the teaching of all this but that
tne kingdom of God is essentially celestial in
its nature and elements? As the wheal does
not change the tares so that both are bound
in the same sheaves, or the good fisn the bad,
so that both are put in the same ves8els,8o the
stone does not cnange the elements of this
world, growing by assimilation and acces-
sion. This world has ever been only the foe
of God, neither worthy nor capable of such
transformation and incorporation; its end is
to be burned There will be gold in the city
of God, but not coarse opaque metal; it
will be transparent like burning crystal or
golden sheen of sunlight. The rapid growth
of the mustard-seed may mean for the king-
dom of God a worldly expansion not wholly
of God, attracting to the shadow and shelter
of its branches the very birds of the air
wnich catch away the newly sown seed of
the kingdom and hinder the harvest. The
leaven may represent a false and carnal
principle pervading the kingdom as a
fermenting element, increasing outward
bulK but introducing the forbidden thing.

As Scripture does not teach such a mil-
lenniuma<= many look for as the final evolution
of Human society so tne facts do not en-
courage sucii expectation. It is patent to the
careful ouseiver that so far little progress
has been made toward converting the world

and those who have cherished such a hope
and wrought for such a result, confess that
the prospect disheartens. After nearly nine-
teen centuries of Christian history only

ABOUT ONE-FOUETH OF THE BACE

is even nominally Christian; and three-
fourths of these ignorant of the Bible itself
and swayed by superstition and priestcraft
are but one remove from paganism; the
small remaining traction, nominally Protest-
ant, includes less than tnirty million church
members. At this rate of progress, it would
take a cycle of centuries to convert the world
to evdn a nominal Christianity.

Without being conscious of morbid des-
pondeucy or pessimism, we cannot but think
the present condition of both the world and
the church calculated to dishearten of
any Christian worker who looks tor a mil-
lennium upon scientific principles of devel-
opment, by a process of evolution with nat-
ural selection and survival of the fittest Op-
timists triumphantly array facts and figures
to prove the progress of Christianity; but if
"facts and figures do not lie" they are some-
times arranged and arrayed in decepuvd
forms and combinations. The immense
"numerical progress of Christianity is like
a soap bubble, brilliant bat illusive. For ex-
ample, Seaman's "Progress of Nations" gave
the total number of Christians, in 1880, as
317,152,099; and in 1886 this number is
swelled to 350,000.000, or one-fourth the
population of the globe.

What intelligent man can be misled by
such a marshalling of figures: "Of this vast
host at least 175,000,000 are under papal
sway, and millions of them do not Know the
Bible from the prayer-book,;andare virtually
heathens. Eighty millions more are adher-
ents of Greek and oriental churohes, having
a form of truth and godliness, but denying
the power thereof, to both oriental Catholics
and oriental Armenians and Nestorians,evan-
gelicai Protestant Christendom sends mis-
sionaries as to Mahommedans and pagans.

ONE HUNDBED MILLIONS

of "Protestants" remain, but not all are true
disciples wno are identified with Protestant
governments, communities or even churcnes.
Within the ranks even of the Protestant min-
istry we find included attitudinarians, lati-
tudinarians and platitudinarians. or
or ritualists, broad-churchmen and
liberalists and retailers of insipid common-
places; among church members formalists
wno substitute rites and ceremonies and
sacraments for renewing grace, and nominal
protessors who enter the church at a given
age as tney would the army, and with no
more thought of spiritual qualifications.
Nay, as Bishop foster says, the so-called
Protestants are "divided into five hundred

1HE PliOPHJsTIC CONFERENCE.

sects, and this number of their strength in-
cludes also all the thieves, ex-convicts, the
debased, bosottea, the speckled ana streaked
in Christendom." We may add, it includes
not only scientific sceptics, but materialists,
pantheists, and atheists; the blatant blas-
phemer who goes about lecturing against
the Bible, and with his putty-pipe and poD-
gun of cheap satire and borrowed humor,
"drawing on his imagination for his
facts and on his memory for his
wit," mast be ranted with the Prot-
testants, Decause our scientific analysis and
classfication ao not provide a separate
species tor the man who in pointing out the
mistakes of Moses principally reveals his
own. And when we come down to the rock
basis of solid tacts, we find less than thirty
millions of church members who can with
any fairness be counted as disciples.

It was such insight into the reality of
things tnat constrained such men as Thomas
Chalmers to confess tnat his previous con-
ceptions of the progress of Christianity and
the teachings of Scripture had Peen erron-
eous, that led him to examine the whole
question anew and to write to Mr. Bridges,
in 1836, "I am far more confident than I
was wont to be

THEBS TS TO BE A COMING OF C.HBIST,

whicP \b to precede the millennium;"
and in 1847 to write to Dr. Horatius
Bonar, "I approximate much nearer
to your prophetical views than I diet in my
younger days." Hear again Bishop Foster,
speaking on "The Outlook of the World
for Humanity," "There are some who too
fondly anticipate a millenium. Is our faith
supported by existiner facts that indicate
such a result? I believe tnat we have drifted
«o much into enthusiasm tnat we forget the
facta There is a lack of information on the
progress of Christianity. The tacts are mis-
stated daily in pulpits all over the country.
Ministers hesitate to present the worst side
for fear of causing discouragement. They
create hopes that are never to be realised.
We are not at the dawn of tne millenium.
Compared with the work to be done the
past is nothing. Our children's children for
ten generations to come must labor harder
than we are doing to accomplish the con-
version of the world"

We are told that tares and wheat grow to-
gether and rlrien side by side till harvest
time; and this is what we see to-day. How-
ever faithfully we sow the seeds of the
Kingdom, Satan's agents outstrip us in sow-
ing tares; disciples are so closely united that
only infallible wisdom can discriminate.
The parallel development of evil aud good
will go on until He comes who will seuurate

them for the fire and the garner. Every
cast of the gospel net encloses but a few
fish out of the world-sea. and even these em-
brace botn the evil and the good, and so

IT WILL BE UNTIL THE END.

Has Christianity — has Protestantism then
been a failure, and shall we give up the task
as hopeless of evangelizing the world? By
no means. Failure is a comparative term.
If God meant to accomplish the conversion
of the world in this present age, bo far there
is disastrous failure. But if tares and wheat
are to grow side by siae, and side by side
ripen till the harvest: if the gospel net, ca at
into tne wide world-sea is not to inclose all
the sea, but only the select number, and
even those inclosed include both bad and
good, "sword-fish" and "toad-fish," "man-
sharks" and "devil-fish," as well as the de-
licious cod, the blood-tinged Balmon, and the
angel-tiflh, then far from failure, there has
Deen and is exactly what the Lord himself
purposed and prophesied as the outcome of
thisdispensation.

To see this truth taught in the word and
wrought out in the acts of the Holy Ghost
and the facta of history from Christ's ascen-
sion until now, is to kindle in the despond-
ent breast of a weary workman a new celes-
tial fire of contagious courage and enthusi-
asm. The handwriting on the wail of this
world's palaces of riot and revelry, selfish
luxury and profane sensuality may be a
sentence of aoom, "numbered," "weighed,"
"wanting," "divided:" but it is the hand-
writing of God What if we benold,

Right forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne;

Yet that scaffold sways the future.
And behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God amid the shadows.
Keeping watch aDove His own,

WE ABE NOT DISMAYED

by the double development, the parallel pro-
gress of good and evil all along the age.
With a holy hopefulness, not as attempting
to achieve impossiDilities. but as working
with God In faith toward a result as sure as
His existence, we go to preach the gospel
everywhere — to sow the seed of the Word
and become ourselves the seed of the king-
dom in the whole world field. We see God
going before a little Gideon's band, opening
doora everywhere and giving access to all
nations in His own time and way. We see
converts gathered in all lands, but is only an
exanastasis, an out-resurrection from
among the dead; the great mass still lie in
the profound sleep of spiritual death.
But it is God's work gathering
into the body of His bride
the elect witnesses from all nations.
The number grows larger, but it is still the

THE P1I0PHETIC COHERENCE.

fbW that find the strait gate and narrow way.
"Iniquity abounds," and "tPe love of many
waxes cold;" but that abounding iniquity in
the world and coldness in the church only
draw tfte few holy ones into closer fellowship
with each other and closer walk witn God.
Nay, we are not disheartened in our evan-
gelism by apostasy in the church itself. If
the "progressive orthodoxy" of a "new the-
ology" insinuates its subtle serpent coils into
theological seminaries: if the "supremacy of
the ethical conscience'' supplants the su-
premacy of the cross of Christ in the faith of
many a believer; if the speculation on "pro-
bation after death" embolden men in sin.
Harden them in impenitence and cut the
nerve and sinew of foreign mis-
sions with those who believe ana
teach it; if millions of believers are by
mighty *idal waves of errors swept away
from ail

MOOEINGS OF DOCTBINE AND DUTY,

ana the ancient land-mark which the fatners
set up are all removed, we are not surprised
or disheartened. Prophecy is only finding: its
Champollion in History; and the obscure
hieroglyphus on it monuments have an in-
terpreter. We are persuaded only the more
firmly that God rules, and is surely working
out His plan. In time to come we expect to
see the evil come to its awful ripeness — the
full corn in the ear; sin more abundant, fla-
grant, insolent, triumphant, presumptuous,
blasphemous. But this is only the devil com-
ing down, "havinsr great wrath because he
knoweth tbat ne hath but a short time." Ana
as surely shall we see Enochs and Elijahs
walking closer with God as those who await
translation!

Our evangelism is not robbed of its entnu-
siam because after nineteen centuries truth
and faith, purity and piety are still with the
minority. They always were, from Abel's
martyrdom till now. In the times of the
flood, of Babel, and of Sodom, of Elijah's
aespondency and Christ'B rejection, of tne
Dark Ages and the new dawn of the Reform-
ation, of the birth of modern missions and
the awful maturity of modern worldliness,
it ha» been the comparative few who have
entered into the secrete of God. There is not
to-aay a goaly pastor in all Christendom who
would thins of depending on the bulk of his
church membership for prevailing prayer,
divine passion for souls, Poly self-uenial, or
even consistent living. We must all
learn not to associate power with
mere numbers, or to think of UoU
as on the side of the heaviest battal-
ions, to tPose who would work or war with a
will, only while backed by the majority, a
candid survey of the facts in the worid and

in the church will cause a congestive chill
that kills all evangelism. But he who Is

WOEKING UPON A BIBLICAL BASIS

can bear to see the rose-colored cloua of po-
etic sentiment dissipated and the bala, bare
peaks of fact stand out unveiled. He is
God's servant. The plan of the campaign,
the map of the field of conflict, the weapons
of warfare, the strategy of the march ne
leaves with toe general-in-chief. Into the
very thickest of the figut, surrounded by the
smoke of battle, dimly seeing even his scat-
tered feliow soldiers, it is enough for him
that he is obeying marching orders, that the
white plume f f his leader still moves before
him, and the clarion peal echoes all along
the lines, "Go ye, disciple all nations!"

This is not a mere question of the inter-
pretation of doubtful Scripture .or of his-
toric facts, for undoubtedly both the word
of God and the witness of history may be
read through colored glasses or distorting
lenses. But the interpretation we adopt nas
a vital relation to the courage and confi-
dence and hopefulness of our evangelism.

What is more discouraging, disheartening
than hope not only deferred but defeatea.
In its actual religious state the world is no
nearer a Scriptural millennium tdan it was
hundreas of years ago. Civilization is not
Christianization, nor culture piety. None
more obstinately resist the direct appeals of
the gospel than the worldly religious moral-
ists in our congregation: they are the mod-
ern Pharisees, who crucify the Son of God
afresh, and the puoiicansand Harlots go into
the kingaom of God before them; and tne
gospel Pas often cast out the demon of
ignorant superstition only to find the house
reoccuuied with seven demons, all the ab-
surdities of scepticism ana rationalism pre-
ferred to faith.
The remeay against

DISCOUBAGEMENT AND DISPA1B

may be a reconstruction of our Pope itself. If
wo have been looking for a result which the
word of God does not warrant, if the Script-
ures do not represent the conversion of the
world as the end or the aim of the present
dispensation some of us have been working
on a wrong basis, trying to achieve impossi-
bilities, and of course we are discouraged

The soldier wno mistakes the object of a
campaign may see all the movements of the
army in a false light. If he thinks the whole
force of the foe is to be captured and con-
verted into loyal adherents, the capture of a
few leading strongholds is only the next
thing to an absolute Uefeat. But if he learns
that orOers from Headquarters so direct,
and tnat subordinate oihcera are
carrying out the plan of the fifreat
commander. seizing and nold-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

ing in all parts of the enemy's territory the
representative fortresses which command
the situation, waiting until the general in
ohief himself arrives on the held with re-en-
forcements, sounds his imperial clarion alone:
the whole line of battle, ana leads on all his
hosts to one overwhelming charge. What
before seemed next to absolute defeat is
now the preparation for final and complete
success.

We believe that the word of God will be
found on closer study to hold up before us
no hopes which are not even now steadily
moving on toward full truition. Nowhere
is the purpose of this dispensation repre-
sented as the conversion of the world, out
always the outgathering from the world of
a people for God. As Anthony Grant
Bententiously said in the Bampton lect-
ures of 1843, "The jrospel is not to
be in ail places at ail times, nor in
all places at any one time, but in some places
at all times and in all places at some time."
God purposes tnat everywhere the banner of
the cross shall be lifted as a witness to His
grace, and tnat the church with all its insti-
tutions be planted

AS A CONFIRMATORY WITNESS;

that aii who are of tae truth hearing, shall
follow the shepherd's voice and be gathered
into the fold. And then shall the end come.
A new dispensation inaugurated by the
king's personal coming shall gather all the
scattered sneep into one flock, and achieve
triumphs over sin and Satan, to which all
previous victories are as ripples to mountain
billows or grey dawn to olazing noon.

Our Lord's second coming1 is a center both
of convergence and divergence; all Scripture
converges in it, and all final success radiates
from it It is no small matter to have a
rational Scriptural hope, for hope is one of
the main factors in a joyful, serviceable life;
the blow whicn cuts off exDectation is crush-
ing. [The decreptitude of old age is shown
by this; "desire shall fail." and then it is that
strength also fails, and even the grasshopper
becomes a burden] Whatever quenches
aspiration and chills enthusiasm tends to kill
hope, and wnen expectant "desire fails,"
even the lightest load is an unsupDortable
"burden."

Many an earnest disciple who has begun
working in expectation of a world's conver-
sion has been constrained either to abandon
his wrong basis or his fruitless work

Let the believer once get this scriptural
conception as an intelligent conviction
rooted within him and he

ORGANIZES VICTORY OUT OP DEFEAT.

Hope that has lost her wings plumes her-
self for tireless flight. The dirge at the grave

of buried expectation changes to the song of
rejoicing at the #rent tomb from which ex-
pectation rises to a new and deathless life.
He sees tnat Satan has no advantage God's
eternal purpose marches on through the
centuries and marshals even Satan's forces
into line. Tne whole world with all Its op-
positions becomes but the scaffolding about
the church of God, to be used in its construc-
tion, and torn down and Purned up when the
capstone of God's building is laid.

The Apostle James in inspired words out-
lined at that first church council tne whole
plan of the divine architect and builder. —
(Acts xv. 15.)

"Simeon hath declared how God at the first
did visit the gentiles to take out of them a
people for His name. And to tnis agree the
words of the propPets, as it is written: 'After
this I will return and will build again the
tabernacle of Davio. which is fallen down,
and I will ouild again the ruins thereof, and
I will set it it up that the residue of men
might seek the Lord, and all the gentiles
upon whom My name is calleu, saith the
Lord, who doeth all these things.'" And
the apostle significantly adds, as though to
assure disheartened disciples that God's
plans steadily advance toward completion —
"known unto God are all His works from the
beginning of the world"

We are not entrusted with a world's con-
version, but with its evangelization. The
power of man, or of all men combined, can-
not convert one soul; that taises Omnipo-
tence, and to combine a million imiio-
tences,

WILL NOT MAKE ONE OMNIPOTENCE.

We are responsible, not for conversion, but
for contact "Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature." There
our commission begins and ends. With re-
sults we have nothing to do, and are inca-
pable of tracing or guaging them. We are to
now beside all waters, and much seed will be
borne by the receding flood to distant fields
whose harvests we shall never see or connect
with our sowing until hidden secrets are
revealed. It is enough for us that
God's pledge is given. "My word shall
not return to me void; it shall accom-
plish that wnich I please and prosper in the
thing wnereunto I sent it." It is no matter
of small moment to get God's point of view
and Iook at this world through His eyes.
From that high outlook all needless discour-
agement vanisiies like a cloud, and we
breathe the inspiration of a hope that shall
never be ashamed, and behold a prospect
bathed in the eternal sunlight of his prom-
ise. He has told us His pleasure, and the
mission whereto He sends forth His word:

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

first He gamers out from the nations His
own elect, then all Israel shall be saved, the
times of the Gentiles bein^ fulfilled; and
then shall come the true millenium when
'the earth shall be full of the knowledge of
the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

This promise and prophecy all history is
fulfilling. Watch the historic panorama un-
roll! see each new scene in vivid colors fill
out the shadowy outline pencilled by
prophecy. Ever since Pentecost gave the
tongues of fire God has been visiting nation
after nation to take out of them a people for
his name. At first the door of faith was
opened to the Jew, and the proselytes,

GATHERED FROM ALL NATIONS,

returned like the Eunuch of Etniopia, to
bear witness among the nations where they
dwelt. Then the door opened to the Samari-
tans, Syrians, people of Asia Minor and
Greece; then Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany,
and so on till, in our day, God successfully
flings wide the portals of India, Burmah,
Syria and Turkey. Siain, Japan, China,
Africa, Corea and the isles of the eea; yes
even the Papal strongholds. France and
Italy.

And now Thibet, the shrine and throne of
the Grand Lama, the capital of Buddhism,
is about to open her two-leaved gates. God
is doing just as He said in all these nations,
and in some on a grand scaie, taking out a
whole people for His name. Witness the
Hawaiian Isles, now a Christian nation; the
half million native converts in India, the
scores of self-supporting churches along the
Tigris and Euphrates, the Kho-Thah-Byu
Memorial Hall, rallying and radiating center
for twenty-five thousand Christian Karens;
new Japan, with its giant strides unparal-
leled even by Pentecostal days; the thou-
sana churches of Polynesia, McAU's hundred
gospel stations and thousands of converts in
atheistic France, Madagascar becoming to
Africa what England is to Europe,
and China gathering her con-
verts and turning them to evangelists.

Starting from Palestine over eighteen cen-
turies since, and moving westward, the flag
of the cross has been successively unfurled
in Jerusalem. Antioch, Rome, Alexandria,
Constantinople; been borne from shores of
Britain to a new world across the sea; then
across that new world to the Pacific and the
isles of the sea; then across the Pacific to
Japan and Corea, and the various lands from
the Chinese sea to the Arabian gulf and the
Golden Horn; and so completing the circuit
of the globe we have once more set up the
standard

IN THE PLACE OF THE CBOSS

Meanwhile, the girdle of missions is
widening into a zone, spreading- northward

toward the icebergs of Greenland and the
snow castles of Siberia, and southward to-
ward the cape of Good Hope and the Land of
Fire. We have only to push the lines of mis-
sionary effort, until every nation is reached
with the good tidings (and hopes shall reap
the ripe fruition of Scripture promise).
Then, when from gentile nations the last
disciples shall have been gathered and
incorporated as a member into the body of
Christ; when the ecclesia — the called-out
ones — shall be complete and the bride hath
made herself ready, the Bridegroom shall re-
turn to claim his own. The fuiness of the
gentiles being come in, the blindness of
Israel shall be removed; through unveiled
eyes, dimmed only with penitential tears,
"they shall look on Him whom they pierced"
and "wounded in the house of His friends,"
and "so all Israel shall be saved," and the
fallen and ruined tabernacle of David be
rebuilt. Then shall the residue of men and
all the gentiles see the salvation of God.

The second coming of our Lord is thus
vitally related to a world-wide evangelism,
for it supplies a motive power in an intelli-
gent and scriptural hope that knows no de-
feat or disappointment, but rejoices in the
visible and perpetual progress of fulfilled
prophecy and verified promise. The work-
man who was the more weary because he
looked for results that never were promised
and never will be realized, now reading with
clearer eyes the purpose of God as enfolded
in Bcripture and unfolded iu Providence,
lifts up his head; a new joy fills his soul;
out of failure courage is born. He sees tnat
he is sent fortn

NOT TO CONVERT ALL, BUT TO PBEACH

to all the gospel of witness, and rrom the
four winds of heaven to gather out
God's elect. Looking for no universal
triumph of the gospel until the com-
ing of the King, he is not disappointed.
Our evangelism will be both successful and"
hopeful, only so far as not misguided by
some impracticable scheme having no Script-
ural warrant, and aiming at impossible re-
sults. Right apprehension of our mission
and commission furnish us food and drink.
We go forth to work out the decreed, de-
clared plan of God to every land, in His
name to call His sheep into the folds, look-
ing for the chief Shepherd to appear aud
gather all into one flock. No failure can
bow us down, for no failure can come.
What the promise justifies, results realize.
Events evolve what God's eternal plan in-
volved; every crisis was foreseen and provided
for. "Known unto God are all His works
from the beginning of the world," and He ia
never taken by surprise. Even the receding

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

wave only prepares for the returning billow
that touches higher floodmark.
P. Ana so we reach onr last argument Our
Lord's coming furnishes a motive to world-
wide evalgelisin in emphasizing duty rather
than success, and our commission rather
than apparent results. "Go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel to every crea-
ture" is a precept, not a promise — our
marching orders, not an assurance of large
ingatherings. The kingdom of God cometh
not with observation, neither shall m m say
Lo here, Lo, there, as those who point to
sudden, startling marvels; great results
there have been, and greater there may be,
but they are not positively promised until
the King by them celebrates

AND SIGNALIZES HIS COMING.

Thus, while pre-millennialism is charged
with cutting the nerve and smew of foreign
missions, it supplies their perpetual incen-
tive and inspiration in teaching us that duty
is ours; results, God's.

But the faithful evangelist has a promise
far richer than any that looks to a wordly
standard of success. 4,Lo! I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world." All
through the working and waiting there is
a presence, and that presence is power. Re-
sults small in man's eyes are great to Him
who judges not not by quantity, but by
quality. Working with and under the Cap-
tain of our salvation, the sense of His pres-
ence, the consciousness of His leadership,
the assurance of His approval inspire, en-
courage, enrapture. We may see but a small
part of the world field actually sown with
the seed of the kingdom, and what is sown
may bear but little fruit The birds of the
air may catch away much seed even while
we sow; the promptness of its recep-
tion may often snow how shallow
is the soil, in which are no
deep conviction, strong affection, rooted
resolve; growth that is so rapid and promis-
ing may prove lacking in vitality and vigor —
a long stalk without ear or kernel — a Kind of
ecclesiastical uprigntness, but no send of
propagation to insure a fruitful evangelism.
But some good seed will fall on good
soil and yield thirty, sixty, an hundred-fold,
showing how God's power abides in the seed
and works in the soil. "Instead of the thorn
shall come up tht* fir tree, and instead of the
brier the myrtle tree, and this displacement
of noxious, offensive, hurthful growthB by
the fruits of God's own husbandry shall be
to the Lord for a name — for an everlasting
sign which, though all otners fail,

SHALL NOT BB OUT OFF."

6. Thus far our only arguments have been
theoretical and philosophical But we ought
not to leave such a theme without at least a

word as to the experimental and practical
proof found in the actual effect of the hope
of the Lord's coming upon saintly souls. Tne
tacts are Indisputable tnat from the days of
Paul down to those of Christlieb and Moody,
Newman Hall and Stanley Smith, the most
earnest and ardent evangelists and mission-
aries have acknowledged this truth as the
grand inspiration of their evangelism. The
charge that premillennialism "dishonors the
Third person of the Trinity and tends to cut
the nerve of all missionary and evangelistic
enterprises, is based either upon unreason-
ing prejudice, entire misapprehension of tne
truth, or total ignorance of the facts.

The mention of such names as Alford and
Graham and Craven and Christlieb and
Hai naek and Dehtzsch and Kellogg is enough
to show that scholarly exegetes and theolo-
gians are represented among the advocates
of this view; it is quite enough to name
Spurgeon, Newman Hail, Chalmers. Mackay,
Bonar, Bishops Ryle and Baldwin and Nich-
olson; Haslam, Muller, Guinness, Radstock,
Varley, Pentecost, Whittle, Needham, Moody,
Hammond, Munhall, Brooks Goodwin, Gor-
don, Moorhead, to show that tnis hope
neither interferes with soundness in the faith,
nor with power inpreachmg, nor with evan-
gelistic zeal.

But we nave better work to do

THAN TO DEFEND THE DOCTBINB

by the mention of distinguished names. A
truth can not become alia because it has not
won believers among rulers and Pharisees,
or has no adherents in Csesar's household.
The claims of the truth are quite independ-
ent of its following.

A deep conviction, a mighty persuasion
sweep* over us like a mighty tidal wave, be-
neath whose majestic moveraeut all lesser
issues are buried. If we discern the signs of
the times, the very redness of the evening
sky is a hint of the dawn of a new and fairer
day. In view of the present crisis of mis-
sions, we ought to forget all minor interests
and issues and hasten to bear the good tid-
ings to the earth's remotest bounda

At last, after nearly nineteen centuries
the world is open to the gospel. God has
flung wide the gates of India, broken down
th»» wall of China, unsealed the ports of
Japan; Africa is girdled and crossed, Turkey
and Burmah, Korea and Siam invite mission-
ary labor, and France and Italy and Mexico
welcome an open Bible and a pure gospel.
This has been a divine unlocking of closed
doors, with th« key* of commerce and com-
mon schools, printing press aud medical
science, arms and diplomacy; nay, even
famine and fever and massacre, like "the
great armies" of iocusts and caterpillars and

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

cankerworms. He haB used to force an en-
trance to Satan's strongholds. Wnat in-
spiration to zeal and'activity when the shin-
ing pillar moves before us, and the power
and presence of God assure a victory.

IT IS THE 8TORY OF JERICHO

repeated in modern nistory. The little mis-
sionary band have barely compassed the
heathen world, not seven times, but once,
bearing the ark and blowing tho trumpets,
and the walls have fallen flat wherever God's
little army stands, the wide world round,
every man needs only ascend up straisrht" be-
fore him through the breach and take the
city. Already the same Omnipotence that
has wrought preparation has wrought trans-
formation, and in every field, however un-
promising, we have fruits from gospel seed,
thirty, sixty, and even a hundred-fold. The
harvest is so much more plenteous where
the laborers are few that it seems as though
Christendom could afford to send half her
workmen from home fields to foreign for the
sake of reaping larger and even quicker re-
sults.

If we do not sow these wide and open fields
Satan will. In some quarters the house is
empty, swept and garnished, waiting an oc-
cupant; peoples disgusted with idols and
ignorance, fling away their superstitions and
are left without a religion. We must not
sleep: our sleepless foe will pre-occupy the
house and sow trees in the fallow field. Let
the church of Christ but be a pathetic and
neglect her opportunity and irreparable
damage will ensue. We are sending but one
out of fifty-six hundred church members to
carry the good tidings abroad, and $1 out
of perhaps $1,500 income to support those
workmen. The consecration of self and sub-
stance in the primitive church leaves ours
60 far behind that our apathy verges upon
apostacy.

This gospel of the kingdom must first be
preached in all the world for a witness unto
all nations; and then shall the end come.
There is a legitimate way of hastening to-
ward, and hastening that end; promptly oc-
cupy every open door ani amply sow every
open field. While we pray Thy kingdom
come, we may do much to answer the prayer.
The whole creation groaneth and travaileth

in pain together, waiting for an apathetic
church to do its duty. A thousand

MILLIONS OF HUMAN SOULS

will eo down to the grave without light or
life, faith or hope, within our generation;
one hundred thousand die daily, and thirty
millions of evangelical Christians stand idly
by and see this wholesale descent into
eternal darkness Unmoved Remember there
are three hundred Christians who have the
message of life to every one of that hundred
thousand that each day pass into the great
unknown. How far-reaching and potent
might be the evangelism of these millions of
Protestant believers if organized, econo-
mized, and vitalized by the spirit of God and
the spirit of missions I

Hrethren of this conference, over eighteen
hundred and fifty years have passed since
the rent tomb, and veil of flesh of Jesus of
Nazareth opened a path of life to every be-
lieving soul. Through those eierhteen hun-
dred and fifty yeays It is estimated that
eignteen times the present population of the
globe has gone down to the grave from the
various mission fields ignorant of the gospel
of Christ. Through these eighteen hundred
and fifty year.*. He who is of purer
eyes than to behold evil has been
hourly confronted by the woe and
want and wickedness of heathenism;
through all these years God has been pre-
paring his church to enter these now opened
doors, and He who was cut off without gen-
eration has been waiting to see of the travail
of his soul and be satisfied, waiting for his
bride to make herself ready and put on her
beautiful attire. During the last one hun-
dred years of modern missions, what a series
of providential interpo-itions and gracious
manifestations have set the seal of God's
sanction upon the missionary work! What
colossal obstacles have been removed, what
gigantic barriers have subsided, what
glorious successes have been granted, the
triple marxs of divine approval! And do we
yet hesitate? Let the shout of this confer-
ence arise as the sound of many waters,
rallyinsr the Lord's hosts to the onset, that
the last fortress ofSatan may be stormed and
the flag of the cross be everywhere unfurled I

Letters of greeting will be read to-day
from Mr. Moody, the Rev. Dr. Bonar, Bishop
Ryle, of England, and many others.

SECOND DAY.

OPENING EXERCISES.

LETTEBS OF EEGEET.

Notwithstanding most unfavorable weather
the attendance at the morning meeting ot
the second day's session of the conference
was encouragingly large. The Rev. George
C. Needham conducted opening religious
exercises, consistiug of the pinging ot several
hymns, and prayers by the Rev. Dr. F. W.
Baedeker, of Weston Super Mare, England,
and the Rev. Jacob Freshman, of the Hebrew
Christian Church, of New York. Letters of
greeting and blessing were then read from
Mr. Moody, the Rev. Dr. Bonar, of Glasgow,
Scotland, and the Rev. Dr. Archibald G.
Brown, of London, the Baptist preacher.
These letters were as follows:

Wheeling, W. Va., Nov. 5. — My Dear
Bi other: The pressure of work ana binding
engagements will prevent my attending the
conference. I feel for the purpose of the
conference the greatest sympathy. May it
result in a spiritual quickening in all the
churches.

The coming of the Lord is to me a most
precious truth and constant inspiration to
work.

There can be no better preparation for the
Lord than breaking the bread of life to the
perishing multitudes.

My prayer is that ttie conference may re-
fcult in sending every minister out to evan-
gelistic work this winter. Evangelists can
not do one tenth the work called for. Pastors
must assist each other. May the Spirit of
tne Lord for service come upon each one at-
tending the conference. Yours sincerely,
D. L Moody.

To Mr. George C. Needham, Secretary.

East London Tabernacle, Bubdett Road,
October, 1886. — Dear Brother* I am too
pressed with home work to be able to write
you a paper, however brief, on so important
a subject as prophetic teaching. With you I
deeply regret that dispensational truth is so
ignored. The general idea seems to be that
through the influences of Chr.stianity, school
boaras, etc., the world is going to gradually
"level up" into a paradise for Christ. I con-
fess I see nothing of this in the word. If I
riarhtly understand my Bible, this dispensa-

tion, like every other, is to end In judgment
Christendom is aDostate as well as the world,
and is hastening on to her doom. For many
years I have found the hope of our Lord's
return my brightest joy and my most power-
ful inspiration for unwearied service. I have
no expectation of the world getting better
prior to His return, but, on the contrary, ex-
pect evil to become yet more pronounced,
and this with "a form ot godliness," but des-
titute of uower. Conventional religiousness,
that Knows notPing of the life of Christ in the
soul, is too much mistaken for Christianity.
I expect that to abound at his appearing. It
is, however, a. cold, selfish, worldly thingr,
and will receive judarment at the hands of
the Lord. I am looking for Him and waiting:,
either to be caught up to meet him, or share
in the blessing of the first resurrection. With
much personal love, yours, in Christ,

Abchibald G. Bbown.

Glasgow, Oct. 20.— Dear Brother: I have
received your notice of the Bible and Pro-
phetic Conference, and read it with deep in-
terest. You ask me to sta.e to you wnat I
have found of benefit and blessing from the
cherished hope of the pre- millennial coming
ot the Lord, in reply let me say that it is
nearly fifty years (just before I began my
ministry) since I first felt its power; and
during all my ministry (now nearly forty-
eight years) 1 can not recollect of any occa-
sion on which I brought to a close the serv-
ices of a communion Sabbath without re-
minding my flock of what was implied in
"till He comes." As sure as we "sat aown"
at His tabie and "watched Him there" in His
agonizing suffering unto deatn, so also we
rose from the table looking to the crown and
the kingdom.

But more particularly, His "blessed hope"
has evidenced itself to be indeed a doctrine
according to godliness by such effects as
these:

1. It has cast a peculiar light on the pagei
of the Prophetic Word and on all the Word
all through.

2. It has cheered me often when circum-
stances and times were dark and threaten-
ing. 1 have been able to "lilt up my h<,ad"

THE PBOPaETJO CONEEIIENCE

when brethren were letting their "heads
hang down."

3. It has proved itself to be an awakening
doctrine. There are persons in my congre-
gation who were awakened by listening to
the warning: "Behold, 1 come as a thief."

4. It has also comforted very many
saints; and, more than that, it Has even led
timid and doubting believers to full assur-
ance, lor example, a worthy and intelli-
gent member of the church who could not
get quit of uncertaintv and fear was per-
suaded to study the subject of the premii-
lennial coming of the Lord He got deeuly
interested, and while thus engaged found
his eye so continuously resting on Christ
Himself that ere ever he was aware he was
basking in the light of the law without a
fear.

5. This farther let me sav, that as for my-
self, it has stimulated me very greatly to do
my utmost through the grace of God to
gather in souls at home and abroad, by home
mission work and foreign mission work.
Though I can not say with old Jerome that
"the Bound of the last trumpet is ever in my
ear," yet I can say that, from time to time,
I have been stirred up with new zeal and
earnestness in the work of the Lord, from
the consideration — "so much the more as ye
see the day approaching."

Believe me, my dear brother, your com-
nanion in tribulation and patience of Jesus
Christ. Andbew A. Bonab.

THE REV. J. M. OBROCK.

OBJECTIONS TO CHBIST'8 PREMILLENNIAIi AD-
VENT CONSIDEBED.

While there are many passages in the Holy
Scripture which refer to the kingdom of
Christ and His saints, there is but one in
which the millennium is distinctly named
and its coming foretold. But it should be
distinctly understood that the repetition of
a statement Dy God does not make it
stronger. If it can be shown that He has
spoken once, that statement is just as true
and may be as fully depended upon as if He
had spoken a score of times. The millennial
passage is the 20th chapter of Eevelation.
In loosing carefully at it you will find that
the millennium is bounded by four notable
events, two at the commencement and two
at the end. Those at the beginning are
bright and blessed, those at the end are dark
and dreadful. At the beginning we have
''the resurrection, the first," that
of the "blessed and holy" and
the binding of the devil and his
incarceration in the abyss for a thousand
years, commonly called the millennium. At
the end we have the resurrection of "the rest
of the dead," the unblessed and unholy — all
who had not part in the first resurrection —
and the loosinsr of the devil "for a little sea-
son." Now I want you to distinctly note the
two events which come together at the close
of the millennium. If you pause for a mo-
ment to think of what is involved in the
resurrection of the unjust you will agree
with me that

IT MUST BE A DBEADFUL EVENT.

Think how vast must be the multitude
brought from the dead at the close of the
millennium, when it includes all the ungodly
who have died from the first hour of time
down to the last moment. Dr. John Gill, a
learned Baptist commentator of the last
century, held that the hosts of the ungodly
thus brought on the earth again by the Sec-
onal resurrection will constitute the army of

Satan, metaphorically denominated In verse
8 "God and Magog." They were his subjects
previous to death; they are his subjects in
the resurrection. They served him in the flesh
and were deceived by him there; they will be
gathered unto their master again after they
nave arisen, see him for the first time face
to face, and be utrain deceived Thaio ib no
intimation that any saints will be deceived
by him after the first resurrection. He can
not reach iheru during the millennium, for
he is imprisoned, nor at the end, for they
are encamped ana in "the beloved city"
(v. 9). He only has access to his own sub-
jects.

As to the state of things in the millennium
itself the passage assures us that the sub-
jects of the first resurrection live ana
reign with Christ, are priests unto God,
and will never "be hurt of the
second death," which is 'ie doom
or all the finally impenitent. This for
them is the sabbatismos — "the keeping of a
Sabbath" — which Paul affirms "remaineth
for the people of God" (Heb. iv. 9). There
was no higher dignity of old among men
than that of kingship and priesthood; and by
these figures we are taught the great dignity
to which these "blessed and holy" ones will
be raised, as well as their intimate commun-
ion and sacred fellowship with their glorious
head, if Satan is bound ana imprisoned
when the millennium begins you will reaaily
see that the condition of things then will be
in striking contrast to what we have now.
At present the devil is very punctual at re-
ligious rneetin°r& Jesus said, when the word
of the kingdom is preached "then cometh
the devil and taketh away the word out of
their hearts, lest they should believe and be
saved;" but then his church-tjoing will be
ended Now Christians are exhorted to "be
sober and vigilant, for the devil, as a roaring
Hon, walketh about seeking whom he may
devour;" out then his peregrinations will De
stopped. AH agree that when the millen-
nium comes it will be a golden age;
but whether to be enjoyed under
the moonlight of Christianity, or under
the sunlight of the glorious appearing and
personal reign of our Lord Jesus Christ is
the question at issue. All premlllennialists
take the latter view; and the diversity of
opinion which, exists among them is largely
owing to what is read between the lines of
the famous millennial text of Revelation.
There are passages in the Old Testament
which speak of blessings to Israel — whether
conditional and forfeited, or otherwise — and
these are brought over into the millennial
age. Some bring more than others, and just
to the extent that is done is the difference.
But as to the fact that the millennium lies be-
tween two resurrections, ana is ushered in
by the personal appearing of our Lord Jesus
Christ, we are a unit To the views which
are beiievea by us as a body there are

TWO CLASSES OF OBJECTIONS

made, those that pertain to hermenutics —
especially the interpretation of texts bear-
ing on the resurrection, the judg-
ment, and the state of things during
the millennium — and those that

are of a somewhat ropular character. Of
the first class I do not intend to speak. In
some of the other aadresses reference will
doubtless be made to them. I shall dwell
especially on the popular objections. Ana
Jirst, it is|said that premillennialism leads to
time-setting, and, by consequence of failure,
to discouragement and infidelity. As Dr.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Gardner Soring puts it: "It ir calculated to
produce mischievous and fanatical impres-
sions upon the minds of men in relation to
the period of Christ's second coming. " — The
Glory of Christ, vol. I., p. 145. To this we
reply: Time is an essential element of all
biblical truths. Tnere are prophetic periods
mentioned in the Word which have refer-
ence to Christ;, His Cros* and crown and
church. It is our privilege to prayerfully
study these passages, but not to suppose that
we are thereby to be made prophets. Post-
millennialists as well as pre-millennialists
have erred in calculations of definite time.
The passing of a few years does not affect
(rreat historical events which are marked out
on ti'e pnges of sacred prophecy. To illus-
trate: Suppose a person stands by the side
of a inarble monument in the midst of a
group of of hers. He has in his mind a mat-
ter in which they are materially interested,
and in his effort *

TO BEING BEOEE THEM HIS IDEAS

he takes a piece of chalk and on the stone
before him makes figures and marks of
different Kinds, iue months come and go,
the winds blow and the rain falls, the frosts
and snows of winter come and pass away.
You stand tne following summer by the side
of that monument, but do you find that It is
destroyed? No. The chalk-marks are gone,
but the marble shaft rears its head just as m
did before. So the passing of 1843 without
bringing the Lord was as the chalk-mark;
the passing of 1S66 without bringinsr the
millennium, as some post-millenarians ex-
pected, did not affect great historical facts.
The passing of a year does not throw us
back in the image of empires (Dan. li. ); into
the head of gold — Babylonia; nor lnio the
breast and arms of silver — Medo-
Persia; nor into the nelly and
thighs of brass — Grecia; nor into
the legs of iron — imperial Home; but we still
stand, as we have stooa for more than thir-
teen hundred years, in Rome divided, await-
ing the action of the m*stic stone by which
all world-powers will be overthrown and
destroyed ana the kingdom of our God estab-
lished. There are some who hold that the
Loru may come to-day; perhaps more that
He will come soon; but ali of us are agreed
that when He does come it will be before the
millennium. The position we endeavor to
occupy is that of waiting, watching, and
working in the blessed hope of the second
coming of our Lord.

A second objection is that pre-millennial-
ism leads to undue excitement and lanati-
«ism. When proof is demanded we are at
once referred to

THE GREAT ADVENTI8T MOVEMENT

of forty or fifty years ago. Of those times
we are toid that ascension robes were made
and used, and you could read nil, about them
in the newspapers and magazines. Now, 1
have been connected with this movement
since 1843. 1 saw some excitement then,
but I never knew of a case of ascension
robes being made or used. I am perhaps as
conversant as anybody with the leaders in
that movement. I have questioned them
closely on the matter, and they tell me they
never knew of a single case like tne one In
question, though they had investigated with
great care. It would not be wonderful if
such a case had occurred. But the reports of
these ca^es have aiway.-> come second-handed,
ana we have no hesitancy in pronouncing
them falsehoods. The cry of fanaticism was
made by the priests of the church in the

days of the Reformation. The early move-
ment of Wesley and Whitefield was attended
with great excitement. I do not sympa-
thize with fanaticism, but I believe that
people of ardent temperament are apt to get
excited oyer other things than religion. If
it must be, I should rather be tied to a man
that has fits occasionally tnan to a dead
man. In the words of the late eloquent Br.
John Gumming, of England, a staunch
Scotch preraillenialist: "Mine be the rolling
waves of the ocean rather than the putrii'y-
ing Dead Sea. Mine be the roaring cataract
rather than the stagnant* marsh. Mine be
all the excitement of living truth rather
than the quiescene of pestilential error. 'A
living dog is better than a dead lion.' "

A third objection is, that premillenniaiism
is burdened with materialism, seventh-day
Sabbath keeping, ana other errors from
which we had better stand aloof. Very
likely. ' But many a good thing has been
burdened by a bad one. The college of the
apostles was burdened by a Judas, and the
early church haci dissensions. The reforma-
tion of the sixteenth century was almost
wreckea on the rock of fanaticism. Premil-
lenniaiism is not responsible for the vaga-
ries that are charged upon it. This year the
Congregational Union of England and Wales
elected as its Chairman the Rev. Edward
White, who is well known as a believer in
"conditional immortality" — as the ma-
terialistic doctrine of the extinction
of the being of the wicked
is called on the other side of the sea — though
it is really a misnomer, as all evangelical
Christiana hold to conditional immortality in
the Biblical sense of the term. Others be-
sides premillennialists have materialism
among them; yet so persistently have many
holding to the Lord's speedy coming pressed
their views of the state of the dead
and destiny of the winked as
to give the impression that

the leaders in the revival of second advent
truth in this country were materialists, and
so are premillennialists genera. ly; and yet
this is an error. I hold in my hand a copy
of the oldest prophetic journal in America,
now known as Messiah's Herald, on the first
page of which has stooa for many years the
announcement: "It is especially devoced to
the advocacy of the speedy, personal premil-
iennial adveni. of Christ, the gloritieaiion of
the church at that epoch, the dissolution of
the heavens and earth by fire, their renewal
as the everlasting inheritance of the ra-
deemed, and the establishment of

the kingdom of god,

rejecting, as it has from the commencement
of its existence, the doctrine Of the uncon-
scious state of the dead and the extinction
of the being of the wicked." Evangelical
adventists are not materialists; nor are pre-
millennialists in the various evangelical de-
nominations to be thus reckoned.

KJourth objection is that premillenniaiism
has the weight of numbers and scholarship
against it. This is an old objection to God's
truth. They said of Christ, "Whence hath
this man letters?" and of some of the apos-
tles that they were •'unlearned and ignorant
men." It was Drought up at the time of the
Reformation, and Luther said, "The multi-
tude is always on the side of error." The
time was when the objection had more
weight than now. Those were the times
wnen r.he people haa to read the Scripture, if
at ali, in a foreigu tongue.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

"But Wicliff, l>v the grace of God,
In hand the Bible took.

And into English language turned
That ever-blessed book."
Ana since then translation has followed
translation, until in the Revised "Version we
have the latest results of scholarship. Since
the days of the "pious and profoundly learned
Joseph Mede" (as his biographer calls him),
who died in 1638, there have been
manv scholars who have committed
themselves to the doctrine ot the pre-
millennial coming of our Lord. But we do not
deem great erudition necessary to an under-
standing of either the last things or first
things connected with our Redeemer and His
work. If a man has good common sense, a
fair English education, and is taught of the
SDirit in the Word, he wilt know more of the
mind of the Lord than college professors and
doctors of divinity who are not humble
enough to bow and

TAKE GOD AT HIS WORD

Indeed, in reading some criticisms one is
ready to question whether the writers really
believe anything'; for they seem more like
men sinking in sand than standing upon a
rock. The objection about scholarship has
little weight.

A Mfth objection is that premillenuialism
requires the re-introduction of bloody saori-
fices after the second coming: or Christ, of-
fered bv the restored Israelites. As Dr. John
C. Rankin expresses it: "For these favored
ones the old sacrificial system and the former
modes of worship which neither the fathers
nor the apostles were able to bear, will be
restored in part at least, if noc in whole."

There are many premiilennialists, however,
who do not hold to the restoration of these
bloody sacrifices during the millennium.
This is one of the things that is read into the
millennial text of Rev. 20. The Rev. George
N. H. Peters, A. M., in his "Theocratic King-
dom of our Lord Jesus," argues ably against
it, and shows that the principal text sup-
posed to teach it, Ezekiel, chapters 40-48,
docs not sustain it. "The key to it, "ne
*ays, "is not found in chapter xlii. ,
7-11, where the establishment of the
theocratic rule is conditioned by, 'Now
let them put away their whoredom,
and the carcasses of their kings, and 1 will
dwell in the midst of them forever if they be
ashamed of all that they have done,' etc. It
is expressly asserted that this prediction is
given that" they may be 'ashamed of their
iniquities,' m order that what is promised
may be verified. The simple question is this:
Did the Jewish nation, after the prophecy
was given,

BEPHNT OF ITS SINFULNESS

and manifest by its Rhame that it was worthy
of such a reconstruction of its government?
Let the facts as given in nistory witness, and
we are forced to the conclusion that the
reason whv no such theocratic restoration
* * * was effected was owing simply to
the lack of a national repentance commen-
surate to the bringing it into operation.
After carefully regarding the prophecies and
reading the reasoning assigned in its behalf,
we are forced to the conclusion that it is no-
where taught in the Bible, and that, there-
lore, no such apparent contradiction as is
alleered can be legitimately forced upon our
system."

This is the position which I was led to take
many years ago, and is in harmony with the
general rule of God's dealing with the na-
tions as expressed through Jeremiah (xviii.
7-10): "At what instant I shall speak con-

cerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom,
to pluck up and to pull down, and to de-
stroy it: if that nation concerning- whom I
have pronounced turn from their evil, I will
repent of the evil that I thought to do unto
them. (Illustrated in the case of Nineveh.)
And at what instant I Bhali speak concerning
a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to
build and to plant it (as in the case of the
Jewish nation), if it do evil in My sight, that
it obey not My voice, then I will repent ot
the good wherewith 1 said I would benefit
them." Under this divine arrangement, and
in harmony with the covenant made with
Israel at Sinai, many things promised wen-
not realized but have been forfeited.

A sixth objection is that premillenniaiisin
destroys the missionary spirit. A sufficient
replv to this can easily be drawn from his-
torical facts in the history of the church.
Turning to I. Thesa i. 9, 10 we read:
"Ye turned to God from idols to serve the
living and the true God, and to wait
for His Son from heaven, even Jesus whom
He raised from the dead." This was the
position of the church in the first century.
Justin Martyr, in his "First Apology for the
Christians," addressed to Antoninus Pius,
the Roman Emperor, says: "Xbu see all sorts
of men big with the hopes of His second
coming in glory, who was crucified in Judea,
after which crucifixion you immediately be-
came masters of their whole country." He
calls it "the general expectation of His sec-
cond coming; a truth your own eyes bear
witness to." (Second century.) St. Cyprian,
on the Lord's Prayer, speaks of Christ as the
one "whom we day by day desire to oome,
whose advent we crave to be quickly mani-
fested to us." (Third century.) Thus it
will be seen that during "the three first and
purest ages," as Bishop Newton calls them,
when Christians "went everywhere preach-
iner the word," the church was looking, not
for the conversion of the whole world, but
for her Lord, Her premiliennial faith and
hope was far from making her inactive; in->
deed, it had the very opposite effect
In the dark ages there was but little mission-
ary work done. The witnesses prophesied in
sackcloth. In the great reformation of the
sixteenth century the reformers, though not
strictly speaking premiilennialists, were not
loosing for the world's conversion before
the Lord should come. John Knox, of Scot-
land, cried out: "There is no final rest to
the whole body till the head return to Judg-
ment. (Sermon on Isaiah, 26.) Calvin said:
"There is no reason

WHY ANT PERSON SHOULD EXPECT

the conversion of the world; for at
length (when it will be too late and will
yieFd them no advantage) they shall look on
Him whom thev have pierced." (Institutes,
Book 3, chapter 9. ) Luther, the great Ger-
man, said in his comments on John x. 16:
"Some in explaining this passage,
•Other sheep " I have,' say that
before the latter days the whole world shall
become Christians. This is a falsehood
forged bv Satan that he might darken sound
doctrine, that we might not rightfully under-
stand it. Beware, therefore, of this delu-
sion." So the work of the reformers in the
diffusion of truth was not done under the in-
fluence of the oresent post-millennial hope.
Notwithstanding these facts it may be said
that the theory must paralyze the mission-
ary spirit; for if more are to be converted
and saved after Cnnst comes than before — if
the Jews and lai ue lutonan.s of the gentile

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

nations are to then be speedily brought in—
why should we soecially concern ourselves
about them now? To this we reply:
"Be it enacted," is enough "for
a loyalist; and if the King of Kings
ha" said, "Be it enacted: 'Go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creat-
ure,'" it is enough forHis loyal embassadors.
Moreover, those who expect the offers of
salvation to be extended to Jew and gentile
after the Lord comes, hold that before H<*
can come His mystical body must be com-
pleted, the number of His elect made up, the
bride make herself ready; and by hastening
forward this elective work, more speedily
will be brought in the reign of righteous-
ness. The thought, too, of rewards in that
day (Dan. xii. 3), and of the superior dig-
nity of those saved here and now urges them
onward in the mission work. There are,
however, many premillenniaiists who do not
look for this extension of the offers of mercy
after tne Lord comes. They consider New
Testament teacning to be explicit on this
point, for example, Luk>; xiii. 24-29, Rom.
li. 6-16, II. Cor. v. 20-21, with vi. 1-2, II.
Theas. i. 6-10. II. Pet. iii. To them this
world is like a sinking ship; it is destined to
go down in universal judgment at the end
of this age, and all who are saved must be
saved now. Such can not well do otherwise
than work wit>h a will to save souls. If the
sun is near setting we feel that wa must
work the harder before the darkness come5!.
A. seventh objection is that the Scriptures
teach the conversion of the world to Christ
by the gospel; whereas by premillennialism
"the gospel dispensation." as Dr. Rankin
Bays, "is belittled into a practical failure."
'When asked for these Scriptures there are a
few texts which, like "ready change," are
forthcoming1. Ps i. ii 8, for example: "Ask
of me. and I will give thee the heathen for
thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of
the earth for thy possession." But why not
quote the next verse to show what shall be
jlone with them? "Thou shall break them
with a rod of iron; thou shalt dasn them in
pieces like a potter's vessel." Surely ruling
with a rod of "iron can not mean governing
with the scepter of love, nor dashing them
in pieces like earthenware denote the care-
ful preservation of them, which must be the
case if they are all to be converted and
saved by the process. But do we not read in
Isa. xlv. 23: "I have sworn by myself, the
word has gone out of my mouth in right-
eousness, and shall not return, that unto me
every knee shall bow,

EVERT TONGUE SHALL SWEAR?"

We do; but the New Testament application
of the text is neither to prove universal
salvation for all time, as some affirm; nor
universal salvation for a thousand years, as
others, but a judgment to come. Paul says
in Rom. xiv. 10-12: "We sball all stand
before the judgment seat of Christ; for it is
written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee
shall Dow to JVle, and every tongue shall con-
fess to God. So then every one of us shall
give an account of bimself to God'' The truth
tautrht is, that however much the claims of
the Lord Jesus may now be deuied the day
is coming wiien ali shall be brought to con-
fess, whether willingly or otherwise, that He
is King of kings and Lord of lords, though
the confession of some then will no more
eave them than it did the demons at His tirst
advent, when they exclaimed, "We know
Thee, who Thou art, the Holv One of God"
(Mark i. 23. 24).

But time fails me and I must close. I can
only add that mv conviction is. the lack of
grace in the heart is the more common diffi-
culty in the way of the reception of the
doctrine of the speedy, personal, pre-
millenmal coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The apostle affirms that "the grace oj
Ood wnich bringeth salvation to ail men
hath appeared, teaching us," not only "to
live soberly, righteously and godly in this
present world," but also to be "looking for
that blessed hope and the irlorious appear-
ing of our great God and Saviour Jesus
Christ" (Titus ii. 11-14). In proportion
then to our yielding to be taught by divine
grace will be our interest in the prayer of
the seer of Patmos, "Come. Lord Jesus;
come quickly." Do you hesitate to join in It
because should He come now He would find
the world so unprepared £o meet Him and so
many must perish? Think [again, that if He
delays to come how many will die In
their sins! and that whenever Ho
does come He will find the world as it was
in the days of Noah and of Lot — the multi-
tudes in the broad road (Matt. xxiv. 37-39).
Moreover, when we thus pray we petition
the Lord to hasten forward the work that
must be done oefore His return — to speedily
"take out of the nations a people for His
name." And then our world's history will
end, as it begun, with Paradise. Earth's
Creator will be its Regenerator (Rev. xxi.
1-5). The divine hand will sponge out the
stain whicn sin made six thousand years ago.
And when tne redeemed "out of every na-
tion, kindred, tongue, and people" — trom
the ranks of infancy and of riper years — shall
find their everlasting nome in tke deathless
land and sorrowless clime of the kingdom of
God, it will b 5 seen that, thousrh all men are
not saved, nor the whole world converte I by
the gospel, yet is not God's work in this and
past ages "belittled into a practical failure?"
The millennium comes, but the Lord of the
millennium comes first; and His own coming
will effectually answer every objection that
has heen raised against it.

PROFESSOR HENRY LUMMIS.

CHRIST'S PREDICTIONS.

The Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, pre-
sided at the afternoon session, whicn was
largely attended. After a hymn had been
sung and a prayer off ered by Dr. Gordon, Pro
fessor Henry Luramis, of Appleton, Wis.,
read the following paper on the subject,
"Christ's Predictions and Their Interpre-
tation."

Have we an open Bible? No one doubts
that there is entire freedom to study the
word.

But is this open Bible, after all, largely a
sealed book? Is it so full of mysticism that
it needs a mystical seer to reveal its true
meaning? Was it written in such ambiguous
style tnat it may be fairly understood, as
were many of the ancient oracies, in either
of two antagonistic sense-*?

The Bible needs no seer to unfold its
thought. Its utterances are not parallel to
those oi Delphi or Dodona.

There are unquestionable difficulties .In
our sacred book. Some cases occur that the
lignt enjoyed in the present life may never
satisfactorily enable us to explain. The key
has been lost, possibly never to be recovered.
It may be that the name of a bird, of a
reptile, of a plant, can never be identified
with the thing. Perhaps tbe loss of a pre-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

noun or of a negative of two letters makes
a harmony of parallel passages impossible.

But how little of ttie holy volume is affected
by a dropped word by an animal or a plant
not Identified, it Is like the map of some bay
or gulf. The trend of the shore Is definite,
though here and there there may be a minute
cape unmarked, an estuary at the mouth of
a small stream unnoted.

My theme directs attention to one line of
thought It is as&ed, sometimes seriously,
are not the prophecies difficult to under-
stand? A dogmatic yes is no uncommon an-
swer. "Even the predictions of Jesus are to
be understood only after they have been ful-
filled" is the explicit affirmation of high au-
thorities.

If this affirmation be true, it is also true
that the Bible is largely a sealed book. The
New Testament, which contains, as we have
held, so clear a bringing to light of life and
immortality in the trospel, gives, after all,
only light enough to make the darkness vis-
ible.

I do not admit the affirmation. I insist that
the New Testament statements conform to
the laws of language as truly as do
those of Xenophon. And the pre-
dictions of Jesus are as easy to
be understood, even before their fulfilment,
as are the utterances of Peter in his sermon
on the day of Pentecost, or the words of
Paul when he addressed the Athenians on
Mars Hill.

The Savior's language in the sermon on the
Mount is

NO SIMPLES, NO MOBE NATUBAL,

no more comprehensible than the language
employed in his prohecies.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall In-
herit the earth," is as easily understood oy
the masses as "Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil."

Christ's "I will come again and receive
you to myself," addressed to the anxious
disciples, is no more mystical than the decla-
ration, "Now ye are clean through the word
which I have spoken unto you."

Some one may ask the meaning of mystical
as here used. It is not taken as the opposite
of literal Figurative is the proper opposite
of literal

Evidently Christ's prophetic and likewise
His didactic utterances, as quoted above,
contain some figurative words. "Inherit,"
in the prophecy, is certainly figurative.
So is "clean," in the text, Now ye are
clean. Mystical, as employed above,
signifies, having a secret or hidden meaning.
1 give an illustration.

An eminent interpreter in explaining the
first chapter of Exodus writes thus: "By
Pharaoh's daughter, I suppose the church to

be intended, which is gathered from among
the gentiles. She pities the infant; that is,
the church finds Mosas — the law — lying in
the pool, cast out and exposed by his own
people, in an ark of bulrushes daubed over
with pitch, L e„ deformed and obscured by
the carnal and absurd glasses of the Jews,
who are ignorant of its spiritual sense, and
while it (the law) continues with them is as a
helpless and destitute infant, but as soon as
it enters the doors of the Christian Church it
becomes vigorous, and thus Moses — the law —
grows up."

It seems astounding that such interpreta-
tion ever prevailed in the church.

It has been well said of such exegesis: "A
passage may be obliged to say anything or
nothing, according to the fancy, the peculiar
creed, or the caprice of the interpreter."

Our task is to maintain that none of
Christ's predictions can be fairly treated like
the above; that on the other hand they are
just as easily apprehended by the common
sense of the common people as are His teach-
ings in respect to duty.

At the last supper of the Savior with His
disciples He said: "All ye will be offended
because of me this night" Peter promptly
replies: "Although all shall oe offended, yet
will not L" Jesus says to him: "Verily, I
say unto thee, that thou this day, in this
nierht, before the cock crow thrice wilt deny
me thrice." But Peter declared: "If I must
die with Thee, I will not deny Thee. " We
have the fulfillment of this prediction re-
corded.

In the detail of Peters trial and fall many •
things are mentioned that are not contained
in the prediction. That a maid should ques-
tion him, that she should affirm; "thou wasc
with Jesus of Nazareth." That another
should declare: "This is one of them." That
Peter should utter profane words, do not
belong to what had been foretold. But the
three denials, the crowing of the cock twice,
prior to the last denial, its occurence in the
night of the very day on which the prophecy
was made, these definite things did occur,
they occured in the order foretold, the word
used in the prediction exactly signifies the
thing that takes place in the full til men t of
the prediction The statement of the Savionr
requires the adoption of no mystical sense
to harmonise His words with the facta A
child of jtwelve, with ordinary intelligence
would understand the prediction as Christ
declared it and understand it just as well as
he would the Evangelist's statement which
gives the history of the f ullhlment

No special pleading can make a case, here,
of prophecy not understood until its fallfii-
ment And one case like this
overthrows the statement so often

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

fc7

made that a prediction can noc be under-
stood until it has been fulfilled. Peter un-
derstood

JUST WHAT HIS MASTEE MEANT.

His positive assertion tnat be would not do
what Jesus bad said be would shows be-
yond a rational doubt bis clear comprehen-
sion of the Lord's declaration. The essential
features of prophecy are found in the warn-
ing given to the too confident Peter as really
as in any prediction of Isaiah or of Malachi.
What was thus given in scarp detail, nam-
ing the time, the things, the circumstances —
not, indeed, all the circumstances, but what
was least likelv to have been suggested to
mere human wisdom; was Deyond finite
vision and in the realm ol the Knowledge
belonging to God only.

We respectfully ask that some theologian
who holds tne necessity of fulfillment for
the comprenension of prophecy will sus-
tain his claim by as pertinent a case.
Eignt years ago in an editorial in a prom-
inent religious weekly published in Boston,
after referring to the theory of literal inter-
pretation of prophecy heid by a school of
exegetes, the editor remarked: '"Phis canon
of interpretation when once accepted must
be honestly obeyed, and this literal interpre-
tation leads to the most extraordinary and
ludicrous resulta"

Wo invite the editor to point out the
ludicrous results from the sharpest applica-
tion of historlco-grammatical interpretation,
in the illustration taken from Peter's pre-
dicted sin. Any one familiar with tbe history
of prophetio interpretation rinds not merely
the ludicrous and extraordinary in the
theories that ignore literal interpretation,
but results that distort language and make
it utterly worthless as a medium for com-
municating thought.

A second case of fulfilled prediction occurs
In predictions uttered in regard to Lazarus.
Word bad come to jesus from Martha and
Mary saying: "Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick Jesus says: "This sickness is
not unto deatn but for the glory of
God, that the Son of God may be glorified
thereby. The disciples evidently misunder-
stand this non-prophetic utterance of the
Savior. They apparently infer tnat Lazarus
is not to die from this sickness. For when
jesus a little time afterward says: Our
friend Lazarus is fallen asleep; but I am go-
ing that I may wake him out of his Bleep;
they supposing that Christ referred to their
common friend resting in sleep, replied:
"Lord, if he fall asleep, he will recover."
Christ at once corrected tnelr misapprehen-
sion. He said plainly: Lazarus is dead.
Christ's words to his disciples have, now be-
come: "Lazarus is dead and I am going to

wake him out of nis sleep." Tnia, though
containing two figurative words

WAS NO MOBE FIGURATIVE

than a score of passages that will ocour to
any one familiar with the history of the
kings of Israel. So David slept witn bis
fathers and was buried in the city of David.
This is a paragraph of history. Yet it con-
tains the same kind of figurative word, that
is, sleeps in the figurative sense, to sig-
nify is dead. If an expression in Christ's
conversation had not led the disciples to in-
fer that Lazarus would not die from this ill-
ness they would naturally have inferred
that Bickness had resulted in death, and so
would have understood that the awakening
was to be an awakening from death's slum-
ber. Is it a lack of perspicacity or of attention
that allows tbe critics who attack the doc-
trine of iiteral prediction to assume that
literality excludes the occurrence ot any
word not literal in a prophetic chapter, or in
a chapter historic, like Matthew IL No
literalist entitled to respectful attention
claims a literality of statement beyond that
of ordinary history. A metaphor, a synec-
doche, • metonomy, a simile may, instead of
obscuring a sentence, illuminate it. Does
any Sunday-school gin of ten, as she joins in
singring: —

Asleep in Jesus 1 blessed sleep.

From which none ever wakes to weepl

imagine that merely ordinary sleep is
meant? But tne figure is precisely
that used by Jesus in speaking to the disol-
bles about Lazarus, when Christ said
plainly: "Lazarus is dead," thouurn he does
not change the rest of the sentence, "I am
going that I may awake him," every one in
the company comprehends lust what He
meant. When the oompany reached Bethany,
and Martha, meetine Jesus, said: Lord, if
thou hadst been here my brother had not
died. But I know that even now whatsoever
Thou wilt asK of God, God will give. Jesus
replies: Toy brother snail rise again. Here
the prediction was as simple and literal as
it could be. but Martha did not interpret the
Savior's statement as was natural from bar
own words: I know that even now whatso-
ever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give.
Perhaps it was to come at the intention of
Christ more definitely that she replied: I
know that he snail rise again in the resur-
rection at the last day.

The prediction was so exactly stated that
after its fulfillment a simple change of tense
would have turned the prophecy into his-
tory: thy brother has risen again.

When any one says of a writer: "His arti-
cles are full of figures," does any one who
understands English conclude that every

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

noun o.uj adjective, and verb, and adverb
is figurative?

If not, one who understands English is not
authorized to inter that a believer in literal
interpretation whether of prophesy or of
other writings, holds that every word is to
be taken in its literal meaning.

To reach the actual sense is to reach the
literal meaning. The figurative word is no
bar to the actual sense, if the reader or the
interpreter understands the figure. The
tyro who should take tne words ot a simile
as if they were metaphorical would con-
found the meaning by such a course.
"Harden not your heart"

HAS TWO FIGURATIVE WOBDS,

but the ordinary hearer catches the actual
sense, and gets below the figurative words
as if the thought were expressed in the most
literal terms throughout.

The true literalist makes no protest
against metaphor, metonomy, or any
recognized figure. He only protests
against interpretations which " violate
the laws of rhetorical fisuresj ana also
asrainst that mysterious figure unknown to
Quintilian or to Whateley, yet the favorite of
the spiritualizes

When a metaphor, a metonomy, or a simile
is recognized, and its meaning is clearly
brought out in exegesis, the interpretation
gives the thought just as well as if no figur-
ative word had been used; and interpretation
that brings out the strict sense of the pass-
age is properly literal interpretation of the
passage.

The vice of the spiritualizer is his use of
what he is pleased to call a figure, yet a fig-
ure to which no rhetorician of ancient or
modern times has ventured to stand spon-
sor. Its lineage is unknown, and it is an ev-
ident stranger to him who Dresses it into his
service, its seeming use is to turn the ordi-
nary statements of »he Scriptures into alle-
gory, not to explain allegory. I remember a
bright sermon preached in the city of Wil-
mington, Del., on one occasion, from the
text: "Gather up the fragments, that noth-
ing be lost." The theme educed was "Econ-
omy." and one head, "Economize the Min-
utea" The thought was a good one, but to
assume that Jesus intended it to teach such
a leeson has no warrant in genuine herme-
neutics. We have not the slightest hint that
Peter or any of the other apostles employed
it to teach political or domestic or personal
economy.

Is it not a remarkable fact that so many of
Christ's predictions outside of a certain line
are accepted in their natural meaning as nat-
ural as "thou i-halt love thy neighbor as thy-
self?" and yet that many of those thus receiv-
ing them when some passage is presented at

variance with a favorite theory of theirs fall
back on the relief of the obscurity of
prophecy. We invite this class of friends to
account for their admission that the follow-
ing list that might be greatly enlarged from
Christ's own words are to be taken in as lit-
eral a sense as the non-prophetic parts of the
sermon on the Mount:

Whosoever shall speak a word against the
son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but
unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy
Ghost it shall not be forgiven him. Luke
xii., 10.

Except your righteousness shall exceed
that of the scribes and Pharisees ye shall m
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

When thou prayest enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father
who seeth in secret

SHALL REWARD THEE OPENLY.

Thou Capernaum which art exalted unto
heaven shall be brought down to
Hades * * * it shall be more tolerable
for the laud of Sodom in the day of judg-
ment than for thee. (Matth. xi. 22.)

The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the
judgment with this generation and shall
condemn it. (Matth. xii. 41.)

For there is nothing covered that shall not
be revealed, nor hid that shall not be
kuowu. (Matth. x 26 )

Whosoi-ver shail confess me before man,
him shall the son of man also confess before
the angels of God, (Luke xii. 6.)

These shall go away into eternal punish-
ment and the righteous into life eternal.
(Matth. xxv. 4b.)

If there be a true principle like this:
Prophecy is obscure and ambiguous until it
is fulfilled, why may not those who would
fain be free from accepting some of these
passages in their strict significance have
that right as those who affirm the principle
chiefly in reference to those texts that treat
of the Lord's return, or of the resurrection of
the body, or of the degeneracy of mankind
just prior to the second advent?

If it be sound orthodoxy to doubt, not
simply the speedy comine of the Lord Jesus
Christ, but that He will ever come person-
ally, why under the same exegetical law
may we not douDt, I do not say the eternal
punishment of the wicked, but their future
punishment? The punishment of the
wicked in this solemn verse of Matthew
(xxv. 46) has not been fulfilled. Is its mean-
ing ambiguous, is it obscure?
It is certainly evident that the canon,

"Unfulfilled prophecy is obscure,
Fulfilled prophecy is clear"
Is unsound.
The battle over the 24th Chap, of Matth.,

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

as applicable throughout its Drophetic por-
tions to the obstruction of Jerusalem, com-
pletely refutes the canon.

If all the predictions in that chapter were
fulfilled by the Roman armies in the over-
throw

OT THAT DOOMED CITY,

there ought to be no dispute. But even
anions: those who insist upon the clearness
of prophecy fulfilled there is no such har-
mony of .tfbat verses 30 and 31 mean in
Matth. 24, as of what verse 2 in the same
chapter means.

Even with the minute detail of Josephus,
an eye- witness of the siege and of the
capf re of the famous city, no adjustment of
the i_ .ediction contained in verses 30 and 31
can no made to tne facts given by the his-
torian. Let no one say: iTou must clear up all
the difficulties of prophecy. When tne diffi-
culties of interpretation found in the simple
tej jhings of Christ are all cleared up, then
thi demand may be fairly made. "This Is
My body" is not a prediction, but its real
meaning divides Christendom to-day. "Thou
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My
church." The sentence I will build my
church is a prediction. The Catholic and
Protestant would agree as to its meaning;.
The other part not prophetic is the part ihat
has been a battle ground for centuries.

The most eminent exegetes in the Christian
church to-day recognize tihe directness, the
simplicity, the naturalness of tne language in
which Christ couches his predictions. The
monstrous character of the style of inter-
pretation called spiritualizing is also recog-
nized Dy the most eminent autnorities. A
distinguished man in my own denomination
recently said to a brother clergyman, "I do
not believe that Christ will ever be present
on earth any more than He is now."

He explained the Parousia as a spiritual
ooming of Jesus, as others have explained
the first resurrection to be a spiritual resur-
rection. This kind of interpretation is ut-
terly without a recognized principle. No
two independent interpreters without some
common leader like Origin or Swedenborg
could reach any common result. The fancy
triat one saves the credit of Scripture Dy any
pucd. methods is as mistaken as it is danger-
ous It has led to the conclusion: "Any-
thing can be proved by Scripture." By a
like use of mathematics two may be shown
to ba ten, and the largest sum that can be
named equal to the smallest.

Exegesis has become a science. But It can
only use what is known. Added knowledge
often clears up an exegetlcal difficulty. But
the realm of prophecy is no more the realm
of mystery than is history, or government,
or biography. And Christ's predictions.

whether with or withoub figurative words,
are as simple and as comprehensible as are
his words of instruction to his disciples.

THE REV. DR. GEORGE S. BISHOP.

TIMES OF THE GENTILES.

The second paper of the afternoon was read
by the Rev. Dr. George S. Bishop, of the First
Reformed Dutch Church, of Orange, N. J. Its
reading was preceded by the singing of a
hymn and by a prayer bv the Rev. Dr. P. S.
Henson, of Chicago. Secretary Needham an-
nounced that no more collections would be
taken, since the balance of the money re-
quired for conference expenses would be pri-
vately raised among various gentlemen in-
terested in the conference. Dr. Bishop spoke
as follows on the subject, "Times of the
Gentiles," his pungent discourse exciting
deep interest and frequent applause:

"The times of the gentiles" is a compre-
hensive expression, and can only be under-
stood when taken in contrast — vis-a-vis —
with the counter-expression, the times of
the Jews.

"The times of the gentiles" — "Times,"
says Olivier, "rather than time, because
of the relations of successive alien
nations to one permanent Israel" —
represent that course of ages

which begins with God's rejection of His an-
cient covenant people, and the transfer of
earthly Kingly dominion from David's
throne and house to Nebuchadnezzar;
thenceforth they include tne whole inter-
regnum, or period of gentile supremacy —
i. e., from Nebuchadnezzar to there-transfer
and reversion of royalty to the last living
prince and lineal successor of the House of
David — i. e., to Christ at the coming of
Christ

The times of the gentiles include the
church dispensation, but the phrase does
not incluue the thought of the church,
which, looked upon as Heavenly, is outside
of the scene altogether, and, incognito, waits
for her rapture.

Focalize the Scriptures, and they teach
that all the lines of God's eternal purposes
as to the future blessing of the
world meet their fulfillment — not
mystically in Christianity and figura-
tively through the church, but literally
after the church has been caught away into
heaven — in the.restoration of the Jews, God'a
chosen earthly people to their original and
promised land — and in the reign and glory of
Messiah as the second Adam. Meanwhile the
times of the gentiles are being fulfilled —
they march in decadenoe —

THEY BIPEN TO ANTSGHBIST.

In those times of the gentiles it has pleased
God that we should have our life, and life-

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

work. We wish, therefore, to understand
them. We wish to take in our surroundings,
to have before us the projection and the
framing of the ages, and to know the ruin
that is impending, that we may not be de-
ceived, nor flattered, nor cajoled by any false
appearances; but resolutely stand
against the tide and flow of
vast ungodliness, and in the

midst of it, save principle, and from it rescue
souls.

An outline of thia decadence, this develop-
ment, the real evolution— tney called it
"evolution" at Harvard University the other
Oay; and so it is, but only down, not up— the
real evolution of our human nature is pre-
sented in the book of Daniel, supplemented
by St. John's Revelation, the one book being
the flower and consummation of the Ola
Testament as the other is of the New.

For, as revelation in the Old Testament be-
gins with theophanies, or direct appearances
of God, followed by prophecy or a subjective
communication, and ending in Apocalypse,
the objective, where the veil is swept away
and the subject himself rises like Daniel Into
the scene* and realities of the heavenly
world, so is it in the New Testament, where
we have first the manifestation of God in the
flesh in the gospel; then New Testament
prophecy in tbe Acts and Epistles, and,
finally, the ravished Beer of Patnios com-
panioned by ansrels, outside of all earthly
horizons.

Daniel, at the cloBe of the Old Testament,
is the resume of an preceding prophecy. In
him the coming star of Jacob and rising
Sceptre of Israel, seen in Balaam's vision,
and which should "smite the corners of
Moab and destroy all the children of Sheth —
which should tnumpn over Asshur, the Orient
and over Kittim, the Occident; — whoso
glories enlarge over all the expanses of after
prediction down to the mystic horses in the
myrtle bottom, and to the four carpenters
and horns of Zechariab, in him all this in
final panorama, telescopic for its reach,
microscopic, for exact minuteness of detail,
pours forth as streams which swell to Ama-
zon, and Amazon which swells to an Atlantic,
the ocean-like fullness and depth of the
manifold wisdom of God.

Nay, more; Daniel, the chief and colossal
Beer of the old dispensation, "the prophet," as
our Savior calls him. Jew, though he
was, outside of Zion, outside of the
limits of Palestine, unfettered by the
lines of any race distinction — broad as hu-
manity itself, goes back to Eden and to the
Dawning Evangel." "In the Antichrist of
Daniel," says Auberlen, "we have the last
and complete realization

or THE PBINCIPLE Of SIN

introduced into the world by the fall, just as
the 'Son of Man' in Daniel corresponds to
the 'seed of the woman' of Genesis liL The
"beasts" of Daniel are to Daniel's "Son of
Man" what the seed of the serpent is to the
seed of the woman. The last beast which
heads up in Antichrist and which comes up
from the sea (Revelations xiii.) has the
dragon — the old aboriginal serpent — behind
him, just as behind the Son of Man, who
comes down from heaven, is Go J."

And of thia prophecy the Revelation is the
supplement, giving to us the woman as well
as the beasts, and showing us the place of
the true church caught up, as also the work
of the false cnurch, the harlot.

Such are our sources of light on the phrase,
"The times of the Gentiies," the Scriptures,
and especially the prophetical Scriptures;
ana especially again, the Apocalyptical
Scriptures, the writings of Daniel and of St.
John.

Turning to these, then, let us consider:

L The outline or sketch of the times of
the Gentiles.

II Their character.

IIL The Power that puts an end to them —
the hanaless stone.

IV. The bearing of all this upon us modern
men, especially on young men of whom
Daniel is peculiarly a type.

L Then, the outline or sketch of the times
of the Gentiles. This is given us twice —

1. In the successive parts and members of
a statue-like world-man.

2. In the succession of four beasts which
represent those parts or periods again, but
from another point of view, the first is man,
the race, as seen by Nebuchadnezzar, i a
within nature's horizons. The second is the
race seen by Daniel, and, from the heavenly
view-point, by God.

Let us begin then

WITH THE GBKAT IMAGE.

There have been four, and only four, univer-
sal worla empires— Babylon, PerBia, Greece,
Rome. The world-man and the beasts, set
forth those four.

The heaa of the image represents Babylon.
(Dan. II. 38.) "Thou art this head of gold.
The arms and breast of silver represent the
double kingdom of the Medes and Persians.
(Dan. v. 28.) "Peres, thy kingdom is divided
and is given to the Medes and Persians."
The belly and thighs of brass represent the
"brazen ciaa" Greeks. (Dan, viii. 20.) "The
ram which thou sawest having two horns
are the kings of Media and Persia, and the
rough goat which "smote the ram" and
"broke his horns" and "stamped upon
him," is the king of Grecia" Th«
legs of iroa, with feet and toes

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

of iron ana of miry clay, are the great
Roman Empire, split into the East and
West and prolonged in the ten kingdoms of
our modern Europe (Luke ii. , 1). "There went
out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all
the world should be taxed;" that decree is
not repealed to this day.

The world of the present is Roman. Its
social fabric is Roman. Rex. regal; princeps,
prince; dux, duke; martius, marquis; comes,
count; vice comes, viscount; eques, esquire
— this whole social fabrie is Roman. The
laws of the world are all Roman. Their
character is that of iron mixed with miry
clay; of will, now arbitrary, and now shift-
ing; Justinian in the state; tradition, in the
church; the opposite of pure theocracy; the
rule of Scripture and Christ

Iron is the character of Rome. The crown
of Onarlemagne was iron. The crown
of Charles V. was Iron. Napo-
leon was crowned with iron. The
orown of Germany is iron. The crown of
Italy, worn by Humbert and handed down
from the year 590, is iron.

IKON BEPBESENTS

hardness, severity. It is more perishable,
more easily corroded, rusted, than brass or
silver or gold; but in the form of steel it is
ftaraer than any, and cuts through every
other metal. Sucn has been Rome — inexora-
ble, pushing everywhere a reign of arbitrary
law — now iron and now shifting, as the
JEmeute, the Chartist — Communism, gets the
upper hand.

This outline of the times of the Gentiles,
my brethren, is that of the Bible. These
things are the discoveries and plain asser-
tions, not of man, but of tne Bible. Re-
ject them, and we see no loop-hole
of escape but to give ud tne Bible.
And, right here, we must urge that we have
no philosophy. The question with us is one
of accepting or giving the lie to plain, une-
quivocal statements of Scripture. It ib the
question whether infallible Scripture is to be
laid alongside and explained by infallible
Scripture, and whether we still shall hold to
the Scripture in spite of all counter asser-
tions of man.

But the interpretation thus far has been
oonceded by unbelievers and by believers
alike. '"The four empires,'' Bays the infidel
historian Gibbon, "are delineated witn as
great a clearness in the prophecies of Daniel
as in the histories of Justin and of Dto-
dorus."

The same sketch of the kingdoms comes to
light again in the successive symbolism of
the beasts.

Here we have God's view of the on-rolling
a ges as opposed to that or man.
To Nebuchadnezzar, who sees tilings only in

their outer semblance; all has the gleam of
gold, the sheen of silver, the brilliancy of
brass, tne irresistibility of iron.

THE PLASH OF THE GREAT WOBLD —

man through tne monarch's dream is simply
the expression of that universal vanity writ
high as on the portals of the palace of Ver-
sailles: "A Toutes les Gloires Francaises" —
to all the glories of a fallen nature.

The beast, on the contrary, represents
God's view of the same subject Tne image
is Nebuchadnezzar and his successors walk-
ing on the roof of the palace — the beast is
that same image below, a lunatio herding
with oxen.

"Man being in honor abideth not; he
is like the beasts that perish." This
is true of fallen nature in the individual,
as Adam, as Nebuchadnezzar, and in the ag-
gregate.

The image is without dependence on God.
It looks down; it runs down. Its trend is
not up.

The glory of man is dependence on God
Tliat is the concept of creature. True man-
hood consists in the knowledge of God, in
communion with God, in sharing the impe-
rial and condescending honors of a gracious
covenant The true man, then, tne real Son
of Man, both in His person and His members,
comes down, is born from above, and walks
below, in fallen scenes, linked up to God

Other than this, man, set up anywhere, in
any position, for any purpose, is only a beast
Left to himself, he will dash tne crown
from his head and dim the fine
gold into clay, and twist the lion-like
in him down to a serpent Man is
capable of but one possibility and but one
potency, and that self-ruin. If any man be
damned, his own will damns him; if any man
be saved — Oh, miracle of grace I — God's will
it is that saves him. All history and all
experience and all theology are here at one.

A BEAST HAS STRENGTH

and also intelligence, but no higher nature.
His eyes are downward, his appetites are
earthly, his instincts are selfish. The slave
of his senses, he is without any right recog-
nition of self or of God.

The beast, then, is the flesh. Both words
point out man fallen from his first estate —
led captive by his lusts and having all his
home and all his interests in a material
world

The beasts of Daniel, the winged lion seeD
to-day on Babylonian tablets; the bear of
Caucasus, the rapacious appetite of Persia;
tne spotted, four-headed leopard represent-
ing tne rapidity of marcn, and tne mot-
tled heterogeneous elements of Alexander's
great army — breaking up as it did in four
heads — under Cassander, Lysimaonus, Be-

THE PROPHETIC CONFrVRiiNCE.

leucus, arid Ptolenn-. And, finally, the
nameless, terrible beast tbat sat upon the
seven hilJs — Rome, the creation, counter-
part, ana incarnation of the dragon — in its
final form, the little Horn, or Antichrist,
purely satanic, all these represent again
the four kingdoms — the rule and ruin of our
weltering and lost humanity — the times of
the Gentiles in contrast to and so oppressive
to the Jews — the times of chastisement — so
ominous in forecasts of the great tribulation
—so vividly repictured in Hosea aciii., 8. 9:
"Tnerefore will I be to them as a lion — I will
meet them as a bear that is bereaved of ner
whelps; as a leopard by the way will I ob-
serve them: the wild beast, the terrible
creature, shall tear them. O, Israel, thou
hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy.
help!''

This outline or sketch of the times of the
f entiles thus drawn out before us let us

IL Study their character.

It is decadence —

PROGRESSIVE DETERIOBATION.

The tableaux themselves — the image and
the beasts suggest this. The Scripture con-
firms and declares it

The metallic values of the image are found
to decline. Silver is worth less than gold,
brass than silver, iron than brass, and clay
than iron.

The ponaerousness or the weight of the im-
agedeclines. TUe specific gravity of gold is
19.5; of silver, 10.47; of brass, 8; of cast
iron, 5; of clay, 1.930. So top-heavy, so
unstable is this image, running down from
from 19 to 1, that the slightest touch upon
the toes must bring It over in fragments.

So, too, with the beasts. They begin with
the lion, the king of the animal
tribes, and with him winged as celestial,
and they run down to a monster emerging
from mud — half hippopotamus, ending in
serpent

The Scriptures declare that the world,
the natural around us moves on a descend-
ing scale, grows worse and worse.

Two awful fact«, starting volcano like,
up from the surface of Scripture prove this;
one of them judgment to come; the other,
Antichrist.

Judgment to come! If the world is hasten-
ing to judgment, if judgment be the next
thing to expect, then the world is not grow-
ing better and better, but worse.

Another tbing. Antichrist. The Roman
empire, like one vaster maelstrom, sweeps
into its swirl the evils and the virus of the
former empires, and the "little horn'' as
opposed to the "Horn of salvation,"
gathers up into itself the virus ot
this; and so the beast that
"was," "is not," i. e., now lies lost to actual

regards boneutu the fragments of the Euro-
pean empires, end "yot shall be," finds its
last expression, resurrection, reorganlc cul-
mination in the man of sin and the son of
perdition.

IN HIM APOSTACX CULMINATES.

"It is Pbaraob," says Henri Bettex crying
"Wno is the Lord?" It is Nebuchadnezzar,
commanding the people to prostrate them-
selves, before an idoL It is Darius forbidding
any man to pray or make a request to any
god but Himself. It is Alexander assuming
the honors of Jupiter Ammon. It is the di-
vine Augustus, to the genius of whom each
Roman legion must, on pain of deatb. offer
the sacrifice.

It is all these, my brethren, and
all the Caesars and Napoleons rolled
in one — a grand Satanic and self-deifying
ecclesiastico-political leader, beading up, in
open war with God, the damnable revolt of
nature.

Is Popery this newer Rome — this coming
man? In fact, no. Inchoatively, I for one
am constrained to say — yes. There is a false
system on earth — a church mixed wita the
world and apostate. Where is it? When we
were in the White Mountains we found a
little rattlesnake not more than six inch**
long. The flash of bis eyes, the dartings of
his lambent tongue, his lightning-like con-
tortions all showed what he was, where he
came from, what; he was going to become.
Now I do not say a little rattlesnake is as bad
as an eld one, full grown, but it is easy to
surmise what any snake left alone will be-
come, and you don't cotton to a snake,
especially a rattlesnake — and this one's rat-
tles ring down all the ages — simply because
he is small.

The moment we admit these things, my
brethren; the moment we concede a drift
that heads toward Antichrist, that moment
we deny the world's improvement

Outwardly things may seem to improve.

FOOLISH MEN AND EVEN MINISTERS,

foolish in this, however they may laugh at
our wisdom in other departments, may talk
of progressive perfection. They mar point
to the telephone and the Chioago limited ex-
press and tell us tbat one is quicker than
thought and the other quicker, almost, than
motion. We see all this, we take it all in as
much as the natural man does or can, but
we oppose to it all, in spite of appearances —
Anticbrist; Judgment.

The world is growing worse and worse. All
the while Tubal Cain was hammering out his
new machinery, and Iubal was building his
big organs, the world was growing worse and
worse, and preparing for the deluge, and so
is it now.

Nature grows worse and worse. The nar-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

ural man grows worse and wo^se. He may
flesh up, wear better clothes, make a more
handsome figure, climb to a superior place,
be flattered, be courted, but all tne while he is
deteriorating, growing worse and worse in-
side, more the prey of the devil, like a worm-
eaten apple, more brilliant and riper than its
companions, because of decay at the core.

Deterioration is the rule of the times of
the gentiles. Deterioration In what?

Not in all respects; not in the outward;
not that Greece with the blaze of her brazen
pretension, her genius which reflects as in
the broken mirror of her bright Egeau the
light of the Orient, her tragedies whose
deep intensity is tonea from He-
brew prophets, her mystic legends
which retrace their homes and inspiration to
the Asian shores — not that Greece makes no
advance on Babylon and Persia — not that
tbe image does not grow broader

AND THE ANIMALS MOBE BAMPANT

as they move down; but

One thing: There is delusion in form.* Not
■only is tbe head higher up than breast, than
thighs, and than feet, but; — Tbe first rule is a
unit; the second comprizes two kingdoms —
Media, Persia; tne third, four — Macedonia,
Thrace, Syria, EgyDt; the fourth kingdom,
ten, and so less and less constitutional unity
— more and more of what Is divisive as ages
roll on.

And with this the steady decay of tne no-
tion of stewardship— of delegated^ power
received from God ana exercised for Goa.

God made Adam in Eden the head of crea-
tion. "How came Buch a thing as a kingdom
on earth?" says the Chartist. The answer is
there.

In Adam all Kingdoms — mineral, vegeta-
ble, animal — were headed up, just as in
Nebuchadnezzar the iron, brass, and silver
were headed up.

Kingdom rule — constitutional rule — is
God's rule. "If I were not a Christian," says
Bismarck, *'I would be a communist," but
now 1 believe in government established
upon everlasting justice, in the lianas of
men ordained by God, accountaDle to God.

Kingdom rule is steward-like rule, founded
on law ana on justice bebind it.

Ana whatsoever force there is in any gov-
ernment to-day is kingdom force, i mean
tbat government is built on law, and law on
penalty, and penalty, at last, on hell.

Law without penalty is mere advice. You
tell me to do sometning, but unless you
have the right to punish me if I refuse,
anu do threaten to punish, what
you sav is advice — is not law,
I may do as I please and remain without
harm or regret.

PENALTY MAKES LAW,

and the certainty of penalty, tbe force of law.
There comes to light the radical necessity of
hell. Put hell beneath God's law and you
put stern penalty, evadeless, beneath every
law. Shake everlasting hell and you shake
the deepest foundations of justice; convic-
tion and nerve to inforce any penalty, any-
where; and you thuB leave both law and
government prostrate.

Kingdom rule is therefore the force, what-
ever force there be, of every government on
earth. Call it a republic, call it what you
like — the loftier the notion of stewardship;
the more sublime the conviction of ordina-
tion from God, the more theocratic it is the
noDler and purer the power.

God made Adam, his steward, the head of
creation. That kingdom rule failed.
Bestowed again upon Noah, he

failed. Devolved upon David, his dynasty
failed. Transferred to Nebuchadnezzar, it
runs from the gold of autocracy, down to the
heavings of the socialistic clay.

The first notion of God — the innate idea —
is linked with a sense of dependence and of
responsibleness. Those two — dependence,
responslbleness — are the factors of steward-
ship. Adam as head of the lower creation
felt his dependence on God for;hi8 place, and
his responsibility for its holding.

But from Adam down to Antichrist one
finds the gradual descent and diminution of
that light of stewardship aud denser dark-
ness.

"God hath spoken once," says David —
"Twice have I beard this that power belong-
etn unto God. Nebuchadnezzar knew this.
He was made to feel and confess it The
modern blasphemous doctrine of popular
sovereignty had not been broached in his
day.

You Bee Nebuchadnezzar down on his
knees before God. You read his magnificent
declaration of the divine autocracy. You
see the King of Nineveh and his court and
his subjects ana slaves and his

CATTLE COVEBED WITH SACK-CLOTH,

bowed in the dust before God. You read tbe
decrees of DariuB and Ahasuerus and Cyrus
concerning tbe temple and the worship of
the true Jehovah and you find yourself back
in a light upon man's felt depenaence, his
confessed responsibility to God as far above
the popular expressions of our day as gold is
above earthenware and mud.

I do not stop now to show, as a matter of
fact, how government ran down from the
autocracy of NebuchaOnezzar — through the
parliament of Persia and the oligarchies of
Greece — to tbat mingling of the commu-
nistic "clay and clamor" wbich ere-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

*ted imDerators and dethroned them,
and at last upheaved them all
in the vast hordes of those barbaric tribes
which like a restless sea flowed over and
submerged old Rome.

The descent through the ages is from God's
will to man's will. This is not affected by
civilization. A civilized man is no nearer to
God than a savage. An American citizen
boldly blaspheming under the light of the
gospel is no advance upon the devout Abime-
lech of the days of Isaac and Job, The mere
fact that he lives in a house with modern im-
provements and reads his paper by an elec-
tric light helps nothing.

God says that nature and the natural man
grow worse and worse. That as the ages roll
on they are becoming more reckless and
willful.

God says that which is born of the flesh Is
■till flesh. Pass it from nature to culture, it
is still unregenerate, natural, lost.

More than this — "All history," says
Delitzsch in speaking of the of the old world
culture which was born among the sons of
Cain —

"ALL HISTOBT HAS SHOWN

that the refinements of civilization are al-
ways in direct relation with forgetfulness ot
God." And Nitzsch savs in his "System ot
Doctrine," "that all progress resulting from
the natural faculties and powers of man
augments corruption and accelerates the
teal ruin of race."

In earlier days — in Nebuchaaezzar' days —
men, our race at large believed Jehovan — re-
ceived communications from Jehovah. Their
eyes were upward — they studied the stara

Now, men, our race, at large are infidel —
deny inspiration, and study slime instead of
stars.

A man is what he thinks. If he thinks
mud he will be mud That is
why, under the reign of Huxley
Darwin and the purient biologic school;
reverence is dying away; the sacredness of
womanhood dying away; dignities, titles,
self-respect dying away, and London De-
comes like to Sodom and Paris like to Gor-
morrah.

This ruin we confront. Its tides are roll-
ing on. The presence of the church, soon to
be caught away, holds it in check for a mo-
ment, but this removed — the coming or the
Antichrist — the lawless one is certain. His
avant couriers are with us now. Self-will,
the vice of human nature, ripened to one
revolt will flower in one who comes In his
own name, and doing his own wiil shall dei-
fy material force and show Himself as God;
and all inventions ana improvements bjnding
more and more to the material serve to help
on that day.

Humanity shall stand self-deified and self-
exalted, as upon the plain of Dura— wondered
after and adored by all the world, ana then
will come the stone.

1IL That is the third point, the destruction
of Anticnrist and end of the times of the gen-
tiles Dy the

SMITING OF THE MYSTIC STONE.

This stone, hewn from the mountain rock
and without hanas is Christ, but Christ not
in his first but second coming.

This appears, first, from the action of the
stone. Cnrist crucified and His gospel are
grace, but this stone is judgment

Again, the gospel converts slowly, but this
stone does the worK at once.

Again, this stone smites Antichrist, but
Antichrist has notjyet come.

Again, the reign established will be glori-
ous, but now it is said, "Ye shall have tribu-
lation."

Again, when this stone falls the Jews will
be restored, the visible kingdom will be
retransferred and forever; the people of the
saints, of the Most High shall receive it,
but that was not done at the
first coming of Christ.

Once more, the stone itself would seem to
indicate the meaning.

A stone is made up of many particleR, but
has cohesion m the Divine. No one can tell,
discover, or lay bare the secret of that cohe-
sion.

There is that, therefore, in the stone
which is in no one of these metals, nor in
the clay. A metal has cohesion, but it Kills
the individual fragment. There is only one
mass and one will. Clay, i. e., earth, is made
up of many gritty independent particles, but
falls apart. Take a lump of earth; how it
crumbles; no fusion, and no possibility of
fusion.

But now take a stone; here are substances;
take quartz or granite, or a common puaaing
stone; fragments, particles as distinot as
possible, seen to be so, but fused as in gran-
ite or quartz, into one. Hammers can never
breaK those substances apart. In-
dividual they are, yet a unit;
an absolute unity. That is Christ
and His church; Christ, the Divine ana the
human together — distinct as finite and as in-
finite, and yet so close that no edge of the
metaphysical chisel can sever between them.

AND SO THE CHUKOH —

10,000 separate wills united in the Divine —
those wills could never have met in the
metal — could never have yielded themselves
to melt away into the metal — but tire — the
volcanic fire of regeneration; the irresistible)
pressure of grace has aone this miracle— this
wonder of wonders — the chief wonder in
nature — which is above nature and which in

THE PK0PHET1C CONFERENCE.

prophecy has been caught ud, and now re-
turns, comes down and falls with Christ In
judgment

"And He hath upon His vesture and
on His thigh a name written, Sing of Kings,
ana Lord of Lords." "And the armies which
were in heaven followed Him uiion white
horses, clothed in fine linen, white and
clean." "And the kingdom and the domin-
ion and the greatness of the seven kingdoms
under the whole heaven shall be given to
the people of the saints of the Most Hiarh."
"Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be
broken 1 fuseal melted! heart-broken;" but
on whomsoever it shall fall in that day, it
will grind him to powder.

IV. I come now to the fourth and final point.
The bearing of all this upon us modern men,
especially upon young men, of whom Dan-
iel is peculiarly a type.

The first bearing of it all Is to show the
value of prophecy.

The most neavenly man in the Old Testa-
ment is Daniel; the most heavenly in the
New Testament Is St. John. "How
did they become so? By their

living in prophecy. You see how Daniel be-
gan. First Nebuchadnezzar has dreams, and
Daniel only remotely interprets — the thing is
outside of him. Then Daniel Himself has a
dream. Then he has a fixed vision, his eyes
being open in daylight, what St Paul had —
the trance.

FINALLY HE PASSES THE BOUNDS

of the senses and outruns the need of all
visions and symbols. Practically he is in
neaven, for in the last three chapters, and
especially the last, he is found conversing
with the anarels, just as much at home with
them as with his relatives of flesn and blood.

Don't be afraid, my bretheren, of the dream
— the vision — the future. If the Bible is a
complete revelation from God, it must shed a
light on the future. The Bible in one place is
compared to a lantern. You don't carry
a lantern on a dark night in
order to see the path behind, but
that which lies before you. Any man
with a straight track before him, wdo
knows just where he is going and wnat to
expect, will do better than one who con-
fessedly walks in confusion and darkness.

Prophecy is of value to give us an object —
a drift Man must live in the future. What
shall he live for? "The great trouble with
the mass of so-called Christians,'' says Trot-
ter, "lies just here. A man is arrested by
conviction in his wordliness and sin. Ac
once he is anxious; gives himself to prayer
and reading of the Scriptures and to every
means he can think of in order to get peace
By and by he is brought to see and to believe
the gospel, viz., that what he is vainly seek-

ing and striving to do for himself, Christ has
done for him at once and forever by

SHEDDING HIS BLOOD

on the tree. The effect of this we all Know.
Anxieties and fears are at an end. The
soul has joy and peace in believing —
is happy, is free. Then what? Ah,
what? How sickening and how sad to finish
the picture. Little by little the soul bought
with blood — redeemed from all iniquity,
goes back to worldliness and selfishness and
fashion, ease and gain. What is the trouble?
What, but that people learn what they are
saved from, without going on to learn what
they are saved for— without an object before
them."

Now prophecy places an object before
us. The Thessalonians were turned from
dead idols to serve the living God and wait
the coming of His Son from heaven. They
had their eyes upon their absent Savior to
come any moment. That made them earn-
est, and it made them unearthly. It made
them earnest. A person whom 1 dearly love
said to me only tne other night: "Doctor, is
it not true that every earnest, successful
evangelist — man on fire I mean — from
Spurgeondown is a millenarian?" Certainly,
I said, it is true. Moody, Bonar, all tne
Swiss men who are on fire, all the Germans,
all the English, all Millenarians.

Prophecy makes men earnest and ma&es
them unearthly. The worldly laugh at
visionary men, but let them take care. All
revelations from God at first

ABE LIEE VISIONS,

not auite distinct, clothed in halo, men like
trees walking. Abraham saw the sacrifice
first in a vision, then he saw a lamp that
passed between the pieces. He saw more
distinctly, and he saw Christ

Not a man who has done anything for God
upon the resurrecting palimpsests of all
your records, but he was what men style a
dreamer, a visionary, a fanatic. Abraham
Baw visions; so Moses, so Joshua, so Sam-
uel, so David. Lot saw no visions. Korab,
Dathan, and Abiram saw none, the ten falsa
spies saw none, Eli saw none, Saul saw none,
except to his own condemnation.

Where would the world be if none were
uplifted out of the level and mire of a nom-
inal godliness? Where, were there no Luth-
ers — men seeing Christ and devils quite as
vividly as other men see flesh and
Dlood? Where would the world be with
out such men as Butherford, Bunyan, Whit-
field, Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards?
They said of Edwards: "He is a dreamer. He
don't live on earth. He walks in the woods
half in heaven I" Yes, those are the man
who have 6aved the world and will save it.
Young man, if you've got no romaace of

I HE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

God in your soul, you are not a young man.
You may be Dub 20, but you are a fossil,
without any

PIBEB OB SAP.

Oh! if you have born in you only one idea,
but one inspiration which strikes away into
the future — which breaks the meshes of red-
tape, which gets out of the grind, grind,
grind of circumlocution, the fussy parade of
how not to do it. If you are astir witn one
notion, nonest and downright, ana looking
ahead and meaning: some business, then
cling to it, work it — work it till ilworks it-
self out. That's prophecy — Daniel.

2. The second bearing of all this, that we
have seen, is to show the influence upon the
world of one prophetic man. Take Daniel;
History will tell us how Confucuis came
to Babylon; how Zoroaster borrowed from
Daniel; how all the purer teachings of the
Vedas sin, atonement — came from Daniel's
light, to this day; I have not time to stop
on this; the only thing known by the peo-
ple who live in the midst of the ruins of
Babylon is the story of Daniel. The only
tradition they have is the aen of the lions,
tne place of which they point out. Daniel
reformed the religion of the Magi from Asia
Minor to Japan. To Daniel came Thales,
Solon. Pythagoraa All the light that there
was from Solon to Christ is chiefly due
to one man. No wonder, then, that when
Constantino built his great city, Constanti-
nople, upon the Bosphorus, upon Sunday,
May 10, A. D. 330, 1,000 years after.

THE PROPHET HAD DIED,

there was dedicated with most solemn pomp
and to the God of the Martyrs an immense
etatue of brass in the great square of the
oity — a statue of Daniel, "because he be-
lieved in his God."

"Despise not prophesyings," says the
apostle. The knowledge of them is power.

But how to get hold of it. How? There
is only one way — .separation, suffering,
prayer.

Separation — You can't keep in witn what
is called society, and have this knowledge.
Look at UanieL Altogether outside. So-
ciety's drift is the world. Prophecy's drift
is to God.

Again: Suffering — Something more tnan
intellect and study are necessary for the un-
derstanding of prophecy. A worldly heart, a
heart undisciplined can never understand it.
Nebuchadnezzar saw the image better than
Daniel did. He saw it first. He saw it twice
over and forgot it both times. It made no
impression on him. But it did upon DanieL
He never forgot it, and why? Because he
was a sufferer weaned from the world. The
poor eunuch, the self-denied man of pulse
aud water, the man of the den of the lions;

the sympathizer and companion of the men
who trod the fiery furnace, took it all in. His
heart was prepared.

Separation, suffering, prayer Nothing
without prayer. NothingI No sight of the
cross, no triumphant assurance, no power,
no joy, no vision, no inward and felt and
ripening glory. Lord teach us to pray!

THE BEV. W. J. ERDMAN.

THE FULLNESS OP THE OENTILES.

The addresses of the evening meeting were
made by the Bev. W. J. Erdman, pastor of
Olivet Congregational Church, Boston, and
the Bev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, pastor of the Clar-
endon Street Baptist Church, Boston. The
Bev. Henry M Parsons, of Toronto, Canada,
presided. The attendance was large. After
singing and prayer by the Bev. Dr. Pierson,
of Philadelpnia, and the Bev. Mr. Parsons,
the Bev. W. J. Erdman, an old and most ac-
curate Biblical scholar, read a paper on the
Bub]ect, "Fullness of the Gentiles."

The question of this paper is touching the
import of the phrase, "the fullness of the
gentiles," in Eoinans ii. 25-27. and the spe-
cial object of its brief discussion is to show
that it is not identical with "the conversion
of the world" before the return of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

THE SCE1PTUBE

is as follows: "For 1 would not, brethren,
that ye should be ignorant of this mys-
tery that blindness (hardness) in part
is happened to Israel until the fullness of the
Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be
saved, as it is written. There shall come out
of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob. For tnis is my
covenant with them when I shall take away
their sins."

These words introduce the great conclu-
sion of that section of the epistle in which
are set forth the grounds of tne mysterious
dealings of God with Israel and the gentiles
in this present time.

Paul, the apostle of the gentiles, after con-
fessing his great sorrow and incessant pain
of heart for his kinsmen according to the
flesh, because of the apparent failure of the
word of God in his unbelieving bur. belove*d
nation, proceeds to prove that not all of Is-
rael are Israel, that even now there is, as in
lormer dark days of unbelief, a remnant ac-
cording to the election ot grace, and that in due
time Israel, thougn now as a people smitten
with judicious hardness of heart shall again
be restored to the favor and blessing of God.
This due time, however, it is declared will
not be "until tne fullness of the gentiles be
come in."

The announcement of "this mystery" was
also intended to prevent the self-complacent

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE

conceit of believers from among the Gen-
tiles that, because of the fall of Israel there
was for them, as a nation no future of

SPECIAL BLESSING

and pre-eminence. This warning against
gentile high mindedness is still most perti-
nent and necessary; for, many Christians to-
day expect no other future for the Jew than
such an unscriptural one as the gentile fore-
casts for himself, and seeks to accomplisn
before the coming of the Lord.

1. The word "fullness" is used in various
senses. It signifies ''that with which any-
thing is filled, its contents;" also "that which
is filled, the receptacle," "the state of full-
ness:" ana also "the act of filling." Modifi-
cations of the primary meaning are
"abundance," "full measure," "comple-
ment," "supplement," also "full end" and
performance. Corresponaing to these dif-
ferent meanings of the word, exegetes ana
commentators have given inharmonious in-
terpretations of the Scriptures containing it.
To some it denotes "the elect
among the gentiles as the supply of
a deficiency so completing the Israel-
iti6h people of God;" Olshansen, Philippi;
"the recruitment from the gentiles,"
Michaelis. In this sense they are regardea
as filling up the gap made by the fall of un-
believing Israelites.

Others see in the word "a multitude of
gentiles," Hodge; "a great multitude,"
Stuart; "a large concourse," Calvin; "a great
mass." Barnes, Cowles; "a vast harvest
anions the neathen," Wesley; *'a great
multitude of nations," Adam Clark; "a most
abundant supply," Bengel; "the greater
number," "the bulk," Tholuck. Wetstem,
and other Germans.

The more definue meaning, **the lull
number," "the totality," is given to it

BY SUCH NAMES

as Cremer, Meyer, Bobinaon, Brown, Beiche.
GoOet, Alford, Koch, Luthardt, Lange. and
others, but they differ in its application on
certain points to nations as nations. Meyer
claims the expression must "be taken nu-
merically, the plena copia of the gentiles
(of whom, in the first instance, only a frac-
tion has come and is coming in) their
full number," and speaks of the
"collective number of converted per-
sons" and "the totality of the
gentiles" and of that of Israel. Others unaer
this head speak of every nation unaer
heaven, the proper subjects of the preaching
of the gospel — Matt. xxiv. 14, Alford; "the
totality of the gentile nations passing suc-
cessively into the church through the preach-
ing of the gospel," Godet; "the totality of
the gentiles, not including every individ-
ual, but the nations as a whole," Schaff;

"not an indefinite mass^of gentiles, nor yet all
the srentiles aown to the last man, but an or-
ganically dynamic totality of the heathen
world," Lange; "the whole body of tne gen-
tiles professing Christianity," John Locke;
"the full number of nations made nominally
Christian;" "the world of peoples;" "the
whole gentile world" as externally Chris-
tianized. Koch, Luthardt

Wlule another class consider "the fullness"
as "the elect of the gentiles;" "the full num-
ber of the eentiles as foreknown or conipre
hended in the purpose of God," Theophylact,
Augustine, Oecumenius, Chalmers, Gill, Sut-
ton, Halaane, PJumer, Hebart, (Theurer,
Krummacher; "the full complement of the
gentile elect," Lord.

2. The question then arises whether the
fullness of the gentiles stands for their full
number as nations

OB AS PERSONS ;

for the totality of nations evangelized or the
complete body of converted gentiles gath-
ered out of all nations and as distinct from
the remnant of believing Jews existing dur-
ing the same time. Tnat such fullness signi-
fies merely an indefinite great multitude or
abundance seems not to agree with this part
of the epistle. It is hardly in keeping with
the tone of rebuke and warning in which
Paul addressed these gentile believers, to in-
form them that blindness in part had hap-
pened to Israel until great multitudes of
gentiles have come in. That there will be a
great multitude of them saved during this
dispensation is not in dispute or doubt.

3. There are also some illustrious names,
among them Calvin, who, in favor of the in-
terpretation that "all Israel" signifies the
so called "spiritual Israel," consisting of all
converted Jews and Gentiles of all subse-
quent ages, would give to the wora "until"
the sense of "while;" Dlindness in part is
huppenea to Israel while the fullness of the
gentiles is coming in; but insuperable ob-
jections lie against such an interpretation.

Ihe word "Israel" is made to stand for
two different peoples, for natural Jews and
for converted gentiles, in the same verse
and in opposition to the whole context and
positive statement, "God hath not cast away
His people which he fore knew" (ix. 1, 2),
and that people is the very people who are

STILL BELOVED

for the sake of their fathers Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.

In every other place in the New Testa-
ment where the word "until" is used to
render not one, but two Greek words in con-
nection with the verb in a certain mood and
past tense it is impossible to make it mean
"while." "Ye do shew the LorO's death till
he come." L Cor. xi., 2G. "Hold fast till I

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

come.'' Rev. ii., 25. Also Acts viL, 18; I
Cor. xv., 25; GaL iii., 19; iv., 19.

It raav be added the commentators on
Romans are now virtually unanimous in
taking Israel in this Scripture to mean the
natural, national Israel.

3. Another intrepretation of this prophetic
Scripture, of which Mede, Rieger, Gerlach,
and others are representatives, locates this
gentile fullness not in this present period of
Israel's blindness, but in the age of Israel's
salvation and glory. This theory does not
deem the present ingathering out of all
nations as at all to be compared with the
world-wide salvation and life from the dead
which attends the restoration of Israel to the
favor of God. The text of this discussion
would then be made to read "until the
the fullness of the gentiies "may come
in," or "shall come in;" that is,
the hardness will continue until the
millennial conversion of all nations.
The same grammatical objection brought
against Calvin's view in relation to time can
be laid against this interpretation; tne verb
as used in this passage and in similar Script-
ure should, in the almost unanimous opin-
ion of modern exegetes, be translated "shall
have come in," or, as in both the authorized

AND EEVISED VEBSIONS,

"until tne fullness be come in." It denotes
completed action; the fullness comes in be-
fore the hardness ceases.

4. Still another and more alternative view
of this question is taken by those who inter-
pret the passage of the totality of nations
evangelized or Christianized before Israel is
saved. The words "be come in," or "shall
have come in," are understood in a general
or absolute sense, or as expressing entrance
into "the proressing church," or "into
Christendom," or "into the Kingdom of
God," or "into a condition of external
Ciiris tiau ization. "

However it may be with some of these
terms, it 1b not at all Pauline to loot upon
one portion of the world as exter-
nally Christianized and into which
the remaining portions successively enter.
Sven wneiwn his later epistles the deplora-
ble fact of a nominal Christianity is recog-
nized, it is still viewed as belonging to a
corporate form and spoken of as "a great
house."— II. Tim. ii. 30. But this is an alto-
gether aifferent conception from the modern
notion of Christendom, which comprehends
within its vast and easily moveable bounds
not only what is indeed Christian but all
that is ungodly, anti-Christian, atheistic, a
changing world whose oldest churches con-
tinually need reconversion themselves and
whose most civilized nations longingly turn
toward that ideal of civilization which be-

longed to an age when the world by wisdom
knew not God.

Even if the word "elect" may not be ap-
plied in the strictest sense to this fullness, it
can, according to apostolic usage, corre-
spond to tne collective bodies or churches to
wiiich Paul addressed his epistles, God alone
knowing who in such bodies were truly His
own.

In this way the seven churches of Asia are
addressed, and from such a standpoint the
gentile churches at Rome and elsewhere
could be warned

AGAINST A HIGH-MINDEDNES8

that might result in a breaking olf of the
branches once grafted, contrary to nature,
in the good olive tree of Israel. It was a
corporate testimony they were to bear; it
was a corporate unbelief they were to fear;
but this was a testimony or unbelief of evan-
gelized nations, not of bodies out of all na-
tions.

5. It should also be added that this fullness
has been deemed by some as the equivalent
of the analogous prediction, "and Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the gentiles until
the times of the gentiles be fulfilled." — .Luke
xxi. 24. But the fullness in Romans is found
in a text and context touching the theme of
the salvation of Jew and gentile, whiie in
Luke the prophecy is concerning the dura-
tion in gentile hands of the political and im-
perial power that originally and forever was
granted to David's seed, and which no in-
terregnum however long can annul, but it is
in harmony with the prophetic Scriptures
that the clos.ng season of the times of the
gentiles, and the completion of rheir fullness,
the removal of the hardness of Israel and
their salvation both from sins and from ene-
mies, and the return of the Lord, King of Is-
rael and King of nations, shall synchronize
in tne end of this age.

In support of the proposition that the
fullness relates to persona

INSTEAD OF NATIONS,

the following reasons may be given:
When Paul changes from the illustration of
the olive tree to the formal announcement
of the "mystery," not only does a definite-
ness of affirmation appear both in it, and in
the great conclusion which follows, but he
expressly speaks of a real faith, and obtain-
ing of mercy by these gentiles viewed col-
lectively as a body of believers in distinc-
tion from an existing remnant of believing
Jews, and also in distinction from the Israel
that should hereafter believe (ii, 28-32), and
such living faith and enjoyment of great
mercy can not be spoken of nations as an
integral mass. It was a positive righteous-
ness that was obtained, a real
conciliation that was effected. To

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

quote Meyer, who, however, believes
the totality of gentile conversions and "the
conversion of the Jews in their totality" to
be vet far off, it is "contrary to the language
and the context to interpret what is said of
individuals as applying to the nations." (On
xi. 32.) And another says "the full number
ordained of God is, however, not merely ex-
ternally Christianized, but enters through
inward faith into the kingdom of God."
(Theurer.)

2. It was affirmed in the council at Jeru-
salem that God is visiting the gentiles "to
take out of them a people for his name."
(Acts xv. 14.) W ith this great purpose Paul
opens the epistle to the Romans, saying:
"We received grace and apostleship unco
obedience of faith among all the nations of
His name's sake; among whom ye are
also called to be Jesna Christ's." (L 5-6.)
To this he alludes when he says: "Jesus
Christ was a minister of the circumcision
for the truth of God to confirm the promises
made unto the fathers; and (but) that the
gentiles might glorify God for his mercy
(xv. 8-9); the promises were confirmed by
His first coming; they will be fulfilled by
His second coming. In the meantime Israel
is nardened and the gentiles enjoy a season
of special grace. This divine purpose Paul
has in mind when, beholding the embodied
result of his gospel among the nations,
he, with priestly consciousness, calls it
a meat offering; saying the grace that is
given to me of God that I should be the min-
ister of Jesus Christ to the gentiles, minis-
tering

THE GOSPEL OP GOD,

that the offering up of the gentiles might
be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy
Ghost (xv. 15-16). With this, too. he closes
this epistle of world-wide significance when,
gathering into one grand ascription of
praise its great purpose and the kindred
theme and mystery of the epistles to the
Ephesiansand Colossians, that gentiles once
"aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants of prom-
ise" 'Vhould be fellow-heirs, and of the
same body and partakers of his promise in
Christ" Paul in adoration exclaims:

Now to Him that is of power to stablish
you,

According to my gospel and the preaching
of Jesus Christ

According to the revelation of the mystery

Which was kept secret since the world be-
«?an,

Bat nsw is made manifest and by the
8criptureB of the prophets,

According to the commandment of the
everlasting God.

Made known to all nations for the obedi-
ence of faith.

To God only wise be glory thro' Jesus
Christ rorever.

Rom. xvi. 25-26, Eph. t 9, iii. 3-5, CoL

26, ii. 2.

To this same purpose, ever true, Paul in his
last letter, never disconnecting from his
preaching of the gospel to all nations the re-
sultant fact of a called out and separated
people of God, rejoices that In his defense
before Caasar the Lord stood by and strength-
ened him, that through him (especially
through him) the preaching might be
fully known and all the gentiles
might hear. (IL Tim., iv. 17.) In
eager haste to accomplish the full-
ness, he declares. ,4Therefore I endure all
things for the elect's sake, that they may
also obtain the salvation which is in Christ
Jesus with eternal glory" (ii. 10).

It is hard for us gentiles to realize that
when Paul declared himself to be the apostle
of the gentiles it was in a significant con-
trast with Peter, the

APOSTLE OP THE CTBCU5IOTSION.

and that each was engaged in filling up his
own elect number, even though both belong
to one mystical body in glory. Therefore
Paul could talk of "my apostleship," "my
gospel," "my preacning;" and Peter, also
the apostle of the circumcision, address his
letter to the elect sojourners of the disper-
Bion as if a body by themselves. In it he
implies a distinct filling up of a gentile num-
ber in his passing allusion to "their brother-
hood in the world," who were accomplishing
like sufferings with themselves, and in his
previous exhortation most pertinent to Jew-
ish believers, "Honor all men. Love the
brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the
King,"— 1 Peter ii. 17, v & To love
his Jewish brethren, a Jew did only
too well, but to exhort Jewish believers to
love their gentile brotherhood was at times
most necessary, in the Acts of the Apostles
Paul, in fulfillment of the same once-hidden
purpose, of special grace to the nations, is
seen traversing lands and seas, and, as
avowed in Romans, aiming to reach even the
shores of Spain; and the Book of Acts is the
permanent symbol and mirror of evangelis-
tic activity among all nations, but surely in
it is no hint or specimen of one people con-
verted unto God. Israel's blindness of eyes
and deafness of ears and hardness of heart
are seen depicted even on its latest page, to
show that Isaiah's prophecy will continue its
fulfilment so long asasrentile of thia special
parenthetic fulness ordained unto eternal
life remains to be gathered in (xiii, 44-52).

Likewise in passinsr it may be said the
hints and avowals of present grnce to gen-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

tiles and temporary blindness of Israel

and future conversion
of the nations are found in discourse and
parable throughout the four gospels.

ibkael's tempobabx blindness
in connection with the present world- wide
sowintr of the word of God is tnere; the net
is cast into the sea of nations, but the full-
ness of the net is not the fullness of the sea;
the rejection of the Messiah by the hardened
Pharisees is followed by the eager quest of
Greeks who would see Jesus; the destruction
of Jerusalem scatters apostle and preacher,
the servants far and wide alone the nigh-
ways and hedges and ditches of the gentile
world that the wedding may be tilled with
guests; but throughout it is the fullness of
persons and not of collective nations.

4. If now, however, attention should be
called to the seemingly distant way in which
Paul says, "blindness in part is happened to
Israel, until the fulness of Israel be come
in," as if he were speaking of the nations
rather than of persons. Let the fact be re-
called that there was in the apostolic age
what may be called a church — consciousness
intense, vivid, a realization of tne corporate
fellowship of Christians thro' a common
union witli the risen, ascended, glorified
Christ, to which the church of to-day is almost
a stranger. Because of this Paul, deeply as
lie loved bis nation, must still speak of
them as an Israel from whom grace had
severed him, and though the apostle of the
Gentiles for wnose salvation he was becom-
ing all things to all, yet so long they were
unbelieving or unevangelized he must speak
of them as far off and strangers, and not yet
of the same body. So wide, intteea, is now
the chasm between him and them. So nigh
the realm of the new life and churchly
brotherhood in Christ above both Jew and
Greek, that now, as a stranger to his
unbelieving kinsmen and a brother
by grace to once hated aliens,
he can speak of God making known "the
riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy
which He afore prepared unto glory, even us,
whom he also called

NOT FEOM THE JEWS

only, but also from the gentiles." (Rev. Vers.
Rom. ix 23-24.) That "us" is a word be-
tokening a life hid with ChriBt in God where
all distinctions of earth and time are known
no more. It is on this ground a Christian
to-day can, like Paul and the believers of the
apostolic age, rejecting the word "heatnen"
as translating "nations," still adopt the
divine cl&seification of the world as consist-
ing of "the Jews, the eentiles (the nations)
and the Church of God." (L Cor. x 32.)
and not in the pride of a denizen of an apos-
tate of Christendom send the gospel to "tne

heathen," but in the humole yet sub-
lime consciousness of oneness with
Christ in glory send the gospel to the na-
tions, who are to-day for lack of tnat gospel
just what our heatr.en fathers were a few
centuries ago in their gloomy groves of idol-
atrous hills.

5. Another reason in favor of such fulness
as of persons called out, lies in tne evident
relation tlie whole argument of J'aul sus-
tains to the divine dealings as being of "this
present time." Paul recognizes a mysterious
break in the continuity of Israel's relation to
the promises of God; he mourns over
it; he beholds the gentiles coming
to the front; he magnifies his
office as the apostle of the gentiles
by showing his Kinsmen what gentiles have
gained and Israel has lost, that so by pro-
voking them to emulation he may sa.ve some
of them; he would preach the gospel to all
nations to complete the body of Cnrist and
hasten the day of Israel's salvation, accord-
ing to the unchanged and unchangeable
purpose of God. It was now, "in this pres-
ent time," the gentiles in large numbers
were entering into the possession of the
riches of grace, while tne Jews were filling
up their sins at all times; it was now the
time of the ingrafting of the wild olive
branches while the natural branches were
broken off; it was a present filling, not

A FAB- OFF FOLNE8S

not yet begun, that was the cause of gentile
nigh-mindedness and self-complacence. It
was and is an unexpected present time;
and these very three chapters of Romans
seem almost as parenthetic in the epistle as
the blindness of Israel and the fulness of
the gentiles are parenthetic in human his-
tory between tha first and second coming of
Cbrist.

Nagelsbach, commenting on IsaiaU xl. 1-
22, even says: "But after the destruction
of the earthly Jerusalem, and during
the time of the gentiles, when tne
Holy place in trodden down (Rev. x. 2)
there is no other Jerusalem on earth than
the Church of the Lord, a poor and only
provisonai form of His kingdom which, for
the period between the first and second act
of the judgment of the world (Matt, xxiv,
29), i. e., between the destruction of Jeru-
salem and the second coming of tne Lord to
effect the first resurrection (Rev. xx, 4, sqq),
has for its task in conflict with opposing
forces the calling, gathering, and enlighten-
ing of the elect from all nations." P. 654.

In the light of these truths necessarily in-
separable from the consciousness and con-
fession of the brethren to whom Paul wrote,
it would appear that the gentiie readers of
this epistle must nave understood that they

1HL PEOPHETIC COfcFEKENCE.

themselves were part of the fulness whose
completion may have been deemed to be not
far off, (10: 18) but which we know Is not
yet finisned thousrh we can rejoice that the
preaching of the grospel has at last reached

THE FINAL PEEIOD

In which it need no longer be
successive from nation to nation
bat simultaneous to all nations. Its "sound
in all the earth, its words unto the end3 of
the world."

V. However this fullness may be viewed,
whether of nations entering the fellowship
of the older nations of Cnristendom or of
persons' entering into the community of the
people of God, whether a present or a future
in gathering of gentiles, one general testi-
mony is borne by the exeat names of the
church to the truth that not before the Jews
are converted will all nations of the world
be converted, that however great the results
of missionary activity may yet be in behalf
o? the fullness of the nations, this fullness
can not be compared with the millennial
Messianic blessings and riches of salvation,
yet to come through Israel and the power
and glory of Israel's Redeemer and King.

This is the testimony even of those who
may not associate, or are not positively
known to associate, the personal return of
the Messiah with the conversion of the
chosen people. Tne conclusion of the com-
mentator and exegete is often in strange
contradiction to the enthusiastic predic-
tions of the preacher and orator of
the same post-millennial school, who do
now believe the conversion of the world
ninges so entirely upon the conversion of
Israel; but it is undeniable that an unbiased
exegesis acknowledges the fullness of Israel
to be the means and the time of the conver-
sion of all nations to the Lord.

Godet comineuts: "It will not be till the
national conversion of Israel takes place
that the work of God shall

EJCACH ITS PEBFEOTION

among the gentiles themselves." John
Owen, in his work on Hebrews, affirms,
"Israel shall be a guide and blessing
to the residue of the gentiles
who shall seek after the Lord
and may be entrusted with great empire and
rule in the world."

John Wesley, In hiB note on Rom. xl. 12,
concerning "the fullness of Israel." "There
will be a still larger harvest among tno gen-
tiles when all Israel is come in." "So many
prophecies refer to this grand event that it is
surprising any Christian oan doubt it. And
there are great confirmations by the won-
derful preservation of the Jews as a distinct
people to this day. When ic is ac-

complished it will be so strong a

demonstration both of Old Testament and
New Testament revelation, as will doubtless
convince many thousand deists in countries
nominally Christian, of whom there will, of
course, be increasing multitudes among
merely nominal Christians. And this will be
a means of swiftly propagating the gospel
among Mahomedans and pagans, who would
probably have received it long ago had they
conversed only with real Christians."

Meyer, though a strenuous advocate of the
cominer of our Lord and the Messianic
Kingdom, yet differing in some important
points from otners of the same general be-
lief, says: "The conversion of Israel is the
last seep in the universal extension of Chris-
tianity upon earth;" and yet ho adds this
does not mean "until no people of the gen-
tile world is any longer found outside the
church, for this is decidedly at variance with
verse 12. Now if the fall of them be the
riches of the world and the diminishing of
them the riches of the gentiles, how much
more their fullness?" and witn

THE WHOLE CONTEXT

down to its evident concluding, verse
32, "For God hath concluded them
all in unbelief that He might
nave mercy on all." And this last verse he
interprets as spoken of individuals and not
of nations.

J. A. L Hebart in his "Second Coming"
says: "By the fullness of the gentiles is not
meant the conversion of all the heathen nor
the confessionship of the gospel by all na-
tions, but only a detinite number of gentiles
converted to God. Israel's reception will be
a greater blessing to the world than Israel's
unbelief and fall. We shall see later
on how the nations as such en masse
close in on Israel's national conversion."
# * * "When the fullness of the gentiles
has come in then shall the offspring of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 'all Israel,' as
one man be converted really to Christ, and
this 'all Israel' is the 'remnant' of which
Isaiah prophesied." Isaiah, x. 22-23. Bo-
mans ix. 27.

5. In conclusion, if the fullness is of evan-
gelized nations, it does not mean the con-
version of the world, for the nations already
evangelizsd are not converted; if it is the
fullness of converted individuals, it does not
mean the conversion of the world ac-
cording to the modern, vasjue notion, for
such conversion is foretold to be not until
the fullness of Israel takes place.

It can not be the conversion of the world,
for Israel is discriminated from the gentiles
or the nations in this Scripture and in all
Scripture: "Lo, the people shall dwell alone
and shall not be reckoned among the na-
tions." (Numb, xxiii. 9). and yet Israel is

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

the divinely appointed Heart and core of the
race (Deut. xxxii. 8).

Salvation is out of the Jews (John iv. 22).
It can not be the conversion of the world for
nearly nineteen centuries have not pro-
duced one nation

WHOLLY CONVEBTED

to Christ much less a world, but their dark-
ness has been illumined and their corrup-
tion stayed by the elect of God, Jew and
gentile, as the light of the world and the
salt of the earth. The very expression "the
gospel to be preached for a witness" has it-
self a hint and flavor of opposition and re-
jection. It cannot be the conversion of the
world, for this very period of the
calling out of the church is
to close with a consummate apostasy
and a tumultuous assembling of angry
nations against the coming Kingdom of our
Lord ana of his Christ. Rev. vi. 14-18. Pa
ii, 110.

It can not be the conversion of tne world,
for if it is, if the fullness of the gentiles
is identical with the millennial salvation of
all peoples, and Kindreds, ana tongues, then
the aivine distinction between Jew and gen-
tile in this argument of the epistle to the
Romans has lost its point and its need since
the apostolio day, then Paul's sor-
row for his kinsmen according to
the flesh was not assuaged by the
inspiring promise of their future re-
restoration to a predestined pre-eminence
over all nations; then God has cast off His
people and intends to merge them in the
mass of the converted gentiles as if the
present elect church took the place of the
Messianio Kingdom, then there will be no
distinct and seuarate future holy lump or
future ingrafting of holy branches; then
there Is no mystery at all concerning the
present hardness of Israel or need of the
warning against gentile highmindedness;
then there is no return of tne Re-
deemer, the miehty one of Jacob,
to dwell in the midst of his people, Israel
forever, but having come to Israel but once,
the Man of Sorrows, the pleading lament of
Jeremiah would continue forever, 'O, the
hope of Israel, the Savior thereof in time of
trouole, why shouldest thou be as a stranger
in the land, ana as a wayfaring man that
turnetn aside to tarry for a night?" xiv.,
8-9. But these things are not so; the ever-
lasting covenant remains as un-
broken as the divine covenant with
day and night and the ordinances
of heaven and earth Jer. xxxiii., 19-26;
"the gifts and calling of God are without re-
pentance," Rom. 11-29; and still must we
exclaim in adoring wonder, "O, the depth of
the riches both of the wisdom and knowl-

edge of God, how unsearchable are Hit
judgments and His ways past finding out.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord?
or who hath been His counsellor? or who
hath first given to Him and it shall be rec-
ompensed unto him again? For of Him and
through Him and to Him are all things; to
Him be the glory forever. Amen." (Rom.
xL 33-36.)

THE REV. DR. A. J. GORDON.

SPIBITUALISM, BITUALISM, THEOSOPHY.

After a hymn, and a vote of the conference
on motion of the Rev. Dr. Pierson, request-
ing the cummittee to supply a programme
for Saturday morning exercises, the Rev. Dr.
A J. Gordon, of Boston, a widely known
theological writer, read a paper, command-
ing the closet attention, on "Latter-day De-
lusions." It was as follows:

"The consideration of this subject will oo-
cupy me quites exclusively with a shadowy
and somber aspect of the present age. But I
must avow at the outset my belief that this
is by no means the only or principal aspect
It is the fault of post-millennarians that, look-
ing for the millennium insteaa of looking: for
the comine: of Christ, they magnify pres-
ent successes ana anticipate the speady
conversion of the whole world, when
the Scriptures authorise us simply to look
for the preaching of the gospel among all
nations tor a witness ana the gathering out
of an elect people for the Lord. It is the fault
of many premilenlarians, on the contrary,
that, looking for the coming of Antichrist
instead of looking for the ooming of Christ,
they exaggerate the

PEESEKT TBIUMPHS OS" EVIL,

magnifging every shade into a sorrow, and
every shadow into a sign of the
son of perdition, and so predict the
speedy triumph of the Man of Sin,
"Watchman, what of the night? And the
watchman said, 'The morning cometh, and
also the night'" Also the night, because
the morning cometh. For the sunlight al-
ways casts a shadow, and the brighter the
light the deeper the shadow. Does not the
Scripture declare that "Evil men and se-
ducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving
and being deceived?" Yes; and the same
Scripture saith that "The path of the just is
a shining light that shineth more ana more
unto the perfect day." The one fact is
true because the other is true. For Satan
mocks the Lord Jesus at every Btep by
matching his work with some counterpart of
evil. And if we watch the present progress
of evil from worse to worse let us not forget
to look at the obverse side of the picture and
rejoice, as we may, that the good is growing
better and better. To use a household illus-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

tration, what progress has there been made
in lighting our homes within a single
century; from the rude tallow candle of
our forefathers, through the sperm-oil wick
and the rock-oil lamp ana the jet of burning
gas, tilt we have reached the electric light —
bo surpassingly brilliant that I can not see it
without beholding a startling emblem of
"that light into which no man can ap-
proach." Butiiook at the shadows which
this electric light throws upon the pavement
at night! Was there ever such blackness of
darkness — such a dense and almost tangible

CONCENTBATION OF NIGHT?

Now, I make bold to say tnat the Church of
Jesus Christ to whom He said: "Ye are the
light of the world," never since the apostolic
age has shed a purer and more widely dif-
fused light upon the world than she is doing
to-day. One glance at the work of present-
day evangelism will justify the statement:
The six thousand missionaries who are
preaching the gospel to everv nation under
heaven; the Bible translated into three
hunaied and two different languagess and
scattered broadcast among ;he nations; the
world-wide study of the Scriptures by the
millions of adults and youth in our Sunday
schools; the earnest evangelism touching
court and drawing-room on the one side,
and lane and alley on the other; the marked
revival of supernatural works of healing and
help among God's people. Here is the light,
and without vainglory we may rejoioe in its
beams, but the shadow is correspondingly
black The ship that carries the missionary
carries rum and opium, wnereby so-called
Christian nations are destroying a hundred
souls among the heathen where the church
saveB one. The printing-press which scatters
the Bible is flooding the world with Infidel
and obscene literature, and the Prince of
Darkness is on hand to caricature any miracle
of mercy with some dazzling miracle of per-
dition.

Now let us ask, What Satanio delusion
especially and peculiarly characterizes the
present age? My reply is not with some:
Infidelity foreshadowing an approaching
atheistical Antichrist Infidelity is charac-
teristic of our age, no doubt, but not more
so than of some other ages. Indeed if we
may credit

THE BEST AUTHOBITIES

the unbelief of the last half of trie eighteenth
century was far more wide-spread and para-
lyzing in Christian countries than that of
the last half of the nineteenth century. And
so, with Kelly In the preface to bis
"Exposition of the Apocalypse," I hold
that the oonoeption of an avowedly
Infidel AntlOhrist does not meet the require-
ments of Scripture. The fact is that open

infidelity is not especially in Satan's line.
His way is to masquerade in the symbols
and sacraments of the ohurch, to manipulate
the machinery of miracles, and by super-
natural signs and wonders to accredit the
doctrine of demons." After figuring for
ages as an "angel of light" it would be an
entirely new departure in his administration
for him to propose for himself an open
coronation as the Drince of darkness. His
way Pas ever been to dishonor Christ by a
feigned allegiance and betray him by a de-
ceitful kiss.

Now I open the scriptures for the signs of
the approaching end of the age and of the
coming of Christ, and what on this darker
side do I find? Not atheism so much as
demonism and delusion.

In the first epistle to Timothy and the
fourth chapter it is written : "The Spirit speak-
eth expressly that in the latter times some
shall apostatize from the faith, giving heed
to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons;
speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their con-
science seared with a hot iron; forbidding to
marry, and commanding to abstain from
meats," etc. Then I turn for

A SINGLE OliANOB

at the Apocalypse, and the same thing con-
fronts me there. In the sixteenth chap-
ter, after the successive outpouring of
the vials and just before the seventh
there is a sudden startling note of warning —
"Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he
that watcheth and Keepeth his garments."
But what is the event mentioned just pre-
viously to this note of warning? It is this:
'"The spirits of demons working miracles
which go forth into the kings of the earth
and of the whole world to gather them to the
battle of the great day of God Almighty."
Seducing spirits, doctrines of demons. Sa-
tanic miracles — these are the manifestations
which Scripture predicts of the latter day,
and these are the most appalling oharacter-
ists of our own timea The sources from
whioh the unclean spirits proceed are de-
clared in the Apocalypse to be three — 4*out of
the mouth of the dragon and out of the
mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of
the false prophet" I will not dogma-
tize concerning the systemsthus indicated,
1 will simply point out the fact that
the present influx of superstition is in these
three forms and from these three principal
sources:

1. Spiritualism proceeding from the p't

2. Ritualism uroceeding from the papacy.

8. Theosophy proceeding from paganism.

Spiritualism without doubt is ancient sor-
cery, reappearing under a different name,
bat with totally unchanged characteristics.
And when 1 tell you that in the city of Bos-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

ton, where Cotton Mather, chat eminent with-
■tander of witchcraft, once lived and labored,
there is now a magnificent temple for the
worship of Spiritualism, which, being inter-
preted, means for the

PBACTICE OF DEMONOLOQY

and witchcraft; when 1 remind you that this
dark system claims from ten to twenty
millions of devotees, who have been discipled
within the less than fifty years of its modern
manifestation, and when I repeat its proud
boast that it has gone forth unto the kings of
the earth and has royal apostles in many ot
the thrones and palaces of tne Old World,
you will see that it is no mere insig-
nificant superstition, utterly unworthy of
notice. The theory that spiritualism is a
system of sheer imposition ; is not the one now
held by the most candid Curistian investi-
gators; nor is it the one most accordant with
fact and Scripture. ' The Bible explicitly for-
bids intercourse with spirits of the other
world, and it would not forbid what is im-
possible. "There snali not be found among
yoa any one that useth divination, or an
observer of times or an enchanter or a witch,
or a charmer, or a consuitor of familiar
spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For
all that do these thiugs are an aDomination
unto the Lord" (Ex. vii. 2). And not only
are these thiners an abomination, but a crime
punishable with death. " A man or a
woman that hath a familiar spirit, or tnat
is a wizard, shall surely be put to death,"
(Ex xiii. IS) saith the Lord. Our rational
age congratulates itself on having outgrown
the belief in such puerile superstitions. Eut
incredulity is often tne next door neighbor '
to stupidity; and he who boasts himself too
wise to believe In the existence of evil
spirits, may be the eaaiest prey Co their
Deductions. God and the cievii, the king-
dom of light and the kingdom of darkness,
are both realities; and in proportion to our
belief and realization of the supernal will
be our apprehension and dread of the in-
fernal. And not only is the reality of fallen
spirits

DISTINCTLY TAUGHT IN SORIPTUKE,

but their power to produce startling miracles.
In Thessalonians we are told that "the
working of Satan" is "with all power and signs
and lying wonders," and in the apocalypse
we have the prediccion of "Che spirits of
demons working miracles." The man who
supposes thac satan would undermine che
belief in the supernatural is utterly igno-
rant of his devices. He has a creed to incul-
oate and a code of infernal morality to pro-
pagate, and he would employ miracles to
authenticate his aoctrines. Let us remember
indeed chac in the emergence of modern
spiritualism satan actually comes on the stage

as a defender of the faith. "This generation
has fallen into doubt concerning the Immor-
tality of the soul," say his ministers, the me-
diums or sooth savers; "and we propose to
demonstrate this doctrine to you by calling
up your dead and letting them speak to
you." Thousands of once professing Chris-
tians who are now in the coils of this delu-
sion were first seduced by the plea of larger
knowledge and firmer faith concerning the
unseen. The ear having been thus gained
for the communications of the de-
parted, the instruction has gone on —
no rude denials at first but the
most soothing platitudes and the most
subtle counterfeits, till little by little the
wnole system of evangelical faith has been
supplemented by that soul-de.-«troying creed,
"the doctrine of demons." I say "of
demons," for I have no question that what
are supposed to be departed friends speaKing
from Deyond the veil are iu reality fallen
spirits, foul, malignant, and seducing, sent
to beguile men into the allegiance and wor-
ship of Satan. And here as elsewhere
the evil one follows most closely
the divine method — first teaching
through rapping, planchette, and medium-
istio writing, and then miracles

OF PHYSICAL HEALINO

and materialization to accredit these teach-
ings; "speaking lies in hypocrisy" and con-
firming the word spoken by satanic signs
and wonders following.

And I must tax your credulity still further
by declaring my belief in the substantial
correctness of Pember's theory, which is held
by Alford and many other commentators,
that fallen angels nave power actually to as-
sume fleshy bodies; and chac in Che period
just preceding Che flood these

apostate spirits cohabited in the
flesh with the daughters of men
begetting a forbidden and accursed seed
which God destroyed by the deluge. To say
nothing of the fact that that mys-
terious apocryphal record, the Book
of Enoch, tells this story with the
minutest detail and that the early
fathers of the church heed it as a veritable
tradition. We believe that a candid exegesis
ot the Old Testament strongly supports it,
while we find that the Epistle of Jude, ac-
cording to the revised version, explicitly de-
clares that the tin of the fallen angeis was
identical witn the sin of the Sodomites — the
"going after strange fleSh;" the lust of Che
disobedient angels, it would seem, culmi-
nating in forbidden Intercourse with the
daughters of men, as the sensuality of the
Sodomites culminated in a daring attempt
at fleshy defilement with the angels in the
house of Lot

Rev. A.J GORDON, D. D.,

PASTOR CLARENDON ST. BAPTIST CHURCH, BOSTON.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

And from this statement of Scripture tarn
to the latest claim of spiritualism: that in
materialization the spirits of the departed
dow actually reappear, hahited in flesh ana
blood, and hold communion with their
frienas; then listen to the concessions of
some of the ablest Christian investigators of
this system, who are constrained to admit
that they have seen such forms conjured up
at seances, that they have handled them
with their hands, and, after the most dill-
gent caution against fraud and de-
ception, have been compelled to con-
cede the apparent reality of the
phenomena What a frightful suggestion
we do not say demonstration, is there here,
of the triumph of seducing spirits in their
last irruDtion upon a fallen race! What a
startlingly literal fulfillment our Liord's pre-
diction may we yet have! "As it was in

THE DATS OF NOAH

— and as it was in the days of Lot — even
thus shall it be in the day when
the son of man is revealed;" tne subtle tui-
tion in free-love and uncleanness which
spiiitualism Pas been carrying on, end-
ing at last in a deified sodomy; aDd its
industrious inculcation of the doctrine ot
demons, ending in the worship of Beelzbub,
tne prince of demons! Have I hinted aj, a
culmination which is utterly inconceivable?
I remind you that tbe snort plummet of
present day naturalism may not be able to
sound such depths of satan. But lengthen
your sounding iine by a diligent study of
that mucn neglected subj ct, the dem©uolgy
of Scripture, and you may see enough to
cause you to start back affrighted, with tbe
exclamation: "Oh tbe deptns!" An emi-
nent writer on prophesy reminds us that tbe
close of every preceding dispensation bas
been marked by an outbreak of demoniacal
manifestation. If the precedent is to bold
concerning this dispensation, then in mod-
ern spiritualism we have a startling sign of
the approaching end of the age.

Ritualism ought not to be mentioned in
the same volume with spiritualism, consid-
ering that it is an ecclesiastical eccentricity
into whicn men of unquestionable piety and
consecration have fallen, while spiritualism
is utterly godless. But at the risk of a seem-
ing breach of Christian charity I must clas-
sify it where its origin a"nd hittory place it
among the strong delusions which have come
in to corrupt the cnurch and despoil it
of the simplicity that is in Christ.
Most gladly do 1 bear tribute to

THE HUMBLE SELF-DENIAL

which many of the ritualistic priests are
practising, and to the much sound theology
- uich they are setting forth from their pul-
mv-6. Nevertheless, I must remind you how

often, in the history of the church, tha high-
est saintship has been found in intimate con-
junction with the lowest superstition.

John Henry Newman, in a work which
he put forth as a justification for
his departure to Rome, makes this striking
concession. In speaking of holy water and
some other elements of the Roman Catholic
ritual he declares that originally they were
"the very instruments and appendages of
demon worship," though "sanctified by
adoption into the church." .Literally true is
this statement, and as comprehensive as
true, for it covers almost every element and
particular of the ritualistic service.

Going into a church where this system
is in vogue you see the congregation
turning reverently toward the east at
certain stages of the service. It seems inno-
cent enough to assume this position, though
you know no reason for it. But you open
your Bibles to the eighth chapter of Ezekiel,
and there hear God denouncing the abomin-
ations which Israei is committing by min-
gling the worship of Babylon with the ser-
vice of God. Among these abominations
was the spectacle in the "inner court of the
Lord's house" of "about five and twenty men
with their packs toward the temple of the
Lord and their faces toward the east; and
they worshipped the sun toward the east."
Such is unquestionably the origin of the
eastward Dosture — a relic and remnant of
primitive sun-worsnip.

IN THE SAME CHAPTEB

of Ezekiel tnere is a reference to the cere-
mony of "weeping for Tammuz." Tammuz
being another name for the pagan god Osiris.
If in the ritualistic church you see some
making the sign of the cross, remem-
ber that this was originally a pagan
and not a Christian ceremony. For
though X, the initial letter of Christ,
very early Decaine a Christian
symbol the T shaped cross was originally
simply the mystic Tau — the initial letter of
Tammuz, and this sign was used in Babylon-
ish worship and emblazoned on Babylonish
vestments fifteen hundred years before the
crucifixion of Christ. [For ample proof of
this statement see Hislop's "Two Babylona,"
pages 322-334] If the ritualism is suffi-
ciently advanced lo make use of the wafer
in the communion turn again to the descrip-
tion of Jewish apOBtacy contained inJeremiah
xlv. 19, where the Israelites confess. "We
burned incense to the queen of heaven and
poured out drink offerings unto her, and we
did make our cakes to worship her." Here the
pedigree of the wafer is suggested, and if one
will examine the literature of tne subject we
challenge him to resist the conclusion that
it has come down directly from this Babylon-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

ish cake. This cake was round, for the rea-
Bon that it. was an image or effigy of the sun,
and was worshiped as such, and when it
became installed as part and parcel of
Christian worship the shape was strenuously
insisted on, and is to this day. John Jinox,
in referring to this fact, says with his usual
vigor of speech: "If in making the round-
ness the ring be Droken, then must
another of his fellow cakes receive
the honor to be made a god
and the crazed or cracked miserable caKe
that was once in hope to be made a god
must be given to a baby

TO PLAY WITHAL."

So, too, in regard to that which is univer-
sally characteristic of ritualism, the lighted
candles about the altar. In the Apocryphal
book of Baruch there is a minute and
extended description of the Babylonish
worship, with all its aark and abominable
accessories. Of the gods which

they set up in their temples It is
said that "their eyes be full of aust
througn the feet of them that come in."
And then it is added that the worshipers
"light for them candles, yea more than for
themselves, whereof they can not see one."
In the pagan worship at Rome, which was
confessedly borrowed largely from Assyria
ana Egypt, we have accounts of proces-
sionals in which surpliced priests marched
with wax candles in their hands, carrying
the images of the gods," and we find a Chris-
tian writer in the fourth century,
ridiculing the heathen custom of
"lighting of candles to gods as if he
lived in the dark,'' which he certainly would
not have done had the practice formed any
part of Christian worship.

And time would fail me to tell of the con-
fessional, so closely reproducing that im-
posed on the initiates in the ancient mys-
teries, and of holy water whose orisrin has
already been pointed out, and of ceremonies
and vestments nameless and incomprehen-
sible.

Granting for the saKe of charity that altars
and incense were borrowed from Jewish
worship, which things indeed were aone
away in Christ, it mill remains true that the
great bulK of the ritualistic ceremonies were
originally part and portion of primitive idol
worship. I am ready to challenge anybody
who will make a candid investigation of the
subject to disprove it But what if it be
said with Newman that these things are
"sanctified by adoption into

THE CHEISTIAN CHUKCH?"

Our answer would be, alas, how has the
Christian church been unsanctified by their
adoption I For of what are they the ac-
cessories? What have they brought In with

them as they have crept stealthily back into
the sanctuaries that were once purged of
them? These two central errors — baptismal
regeneration and transubstantiation — false-
hoods of Satan which have done more to de-
ceive souls, ana accomplish their present and
eternal undoing, than is possible for the
strongest language to set forth. Concerning
the first — baptismal regeneration — what
shall we say? Is it not enough to make one
who has any pity for the souls of men weep
aloud, to think of the baptized multi-
tudes still "in the erail of bitter-
ness ana in the bond of iniquity,"
who are being .betrayea unto eternal death
through this sacramental lie?

Concerning the doctrine of transubstantia-
tion, let me quote the words of a godly
English rector, whose soul is stirred within
him as he is compelled to see what he calls
•'the center and sum of the mystery of law-
lessness" gaining recognition in his own
church. He says: "The crowning error in
the process of Satanic inspiration is this, that
the priesthood possesses a divine power to
locate the Lora Jesus Christ on an
earthly altar, and to lift Him up
under the veils of bread and wine for
the adoration of the people." It is in this
blasphemous fraud that the Apostle Paul's
prophecy finds its accurate fulfillment Of fhe
apostacy forerunning the second coming of
Christ; he says that the deluaed followers of
the lawless one shold believe the lie. Of
all the impostures that the father of lies ever
palmed upon a credulous world this aoetrine,
which, both logically and theologically, re-
peats millions of times the humiliation of

THE BLESSED EEDEEMEE,

necessarily transcends all." It is worthy by
pre-eminence to be called the lie.
Admitting now that ritualism is of pagan
origin what is the conclusion to which we
are brousrht? To this; that by its revival iu
the church there is a repetition of that sin
which Goa so constantly Uenounces in the
Scriptures as an abomination — the mingling
of the worship of demons with the worship
of God. Here we go expressly by the book. In
Denteronmy (xxxii. 17) when the Israelites
are chargea with provoking the Lord to
jealousy by strange Gods, the grouna of
offense is declared to be that "they sacrificed
unto devils, not to God." In the Septuagint
version of Psalm xcvi. 5, it reads: "For all
the goas of the nations are demons." And
in 1 Cor. x., 20, it is written: "The things
which the gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice
unto demons and not to God; and I would
notthat ve should have fellowship with
demons.'' Dr. Tregelles, commenting on this
last passage, savs: "Did the ancient heathen
think they were adoring evil spirits — demons

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

— wheu they sacrificed to their gods and
demi-gods — when they honored Jupiter and
Hurcules? And yet the Scripture thus
teaches us that the worship did actually go
to demons; it was thus directed by Satan.
And this put the idolatrous nations under
the distinct tutelage of demons-,
•whose power showed itself anions?
them in many ways. We should form
I believe a very inadequate estimate of
Romish idolatry if we were to overlook the
solemn fact that it is demon worship com-
mingling itself with that of the living and
true God, so tnat Romish nations stand under
aemoniacal tutelage, just as did the gentiles
of old." And this conclusion accords as
closely with the teachings of history as with
the teaching of Scripture. How can we ac-
count for the eouise of the Roman apos-
tacy for the last twelve hundred years — that
career of blood and blasphemy unmatched
by anything in human history, except

UNDEB THE SUPPOSITION

that behind the scene it is Satan who is the
real pope and his subordinate demons who
are the real cardinals — tnat just as through
the mystery of godliness the Holy Spirit be-
came incarnated in the body of Christ to
guide and enlighten it, so through tne "mys-
tery of iniquity" the evil spirit became in-
carnated in tne great apostacy to inspire it
with "all deceivableness ot unrighteous-
ness." Is then ritualism an inno-
cent ecclesiastical pastime — a narimess treat
ot religious a3stheticisni? So it seems to
many, even of those who nave no affiliation
with it, But loot at it just as it is. Trace
the history of the ceremonies piece by piece
back to their original source, till you find
that true of almost every one of them which
Newman admits ot a part of them, that they
were "the very instruments and appendages
of demon worship," and then imagine the
exultation among these demons as
they - see Christian priests, clotned in
their paraphernalia, marching in their
idolatrous processions and preaching their
delusive doctrines. And how must their joy
be enhanced by the anticipation of the yet
greater triumphs still to come in the culmin-
ation of idolity and man-worsbip. Those
who are looting for a future infidel anti-
Christ have imagined How easily some master
genius inspired with infernal energy and
magnetism might evoke a world-wide allegi-
ance to himself, and out of the restless ele-
ments of socialism and atheism and pagan-
ism get himself worshiped a< a eod.

But X ask you to look not at
what may be possible, but at what has actu-
ally been accomplished along the line which
we are considering, and this, too, not merely

in the first centuries of the papacy but
in our

OWN DAT AND GENEKATION.

ft is hardly more than fifty years since the
tractarian movement began in Oxford.
From among the company of its orig-
inators we may select two, New-
man and Manning, as noble and
sincere souls, so far as we can judge,
as any age of the church has produced. But
they came under the fascination of ritual-
ism; and it threw its spell little by little over
their minds. Watch their course from the
beginning to the present day. Observe the
mental struggles, the ill-concealed re-
luctances, as fold after fold of mediaeval
delusion closes about them. Almost can we
hear cries of pain nere and there as the
process of branding the conscience with
a hot iron goes on. But at
last the work is complete; they have reached
old age, and with it the dotage of supersti-
tion. And wnere do we find them now?
Prostrate on their faces before a deified man;
all the ascriptions which could be claimed
by a god on earth they yield without re-
luctance to the Pope. Infallibility in his de-
crees, indefectibility in his conduct they now
ascribe to him who sits upon the throne
at Rome. Cardinal Manning, speaking for
the line of popes says: "In the person of
Pius IX. Jesus reigns on earth, and He must
reign till He hath put all enemies uner His
feet." Words, wnich as I read them, con-
strain me to ask of this sovereign pontiff:
'Art thou the Antichrist that was come or
do we look for another."

Cardinal Newman voicing the senti-
ment of the church, which he calls ua never
falling fount of humanity, equity, forbear-
ance, and compassion," uses

WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS,

these words: "We find in all parts of
Europe scaffolds prepared to pun-
ish crimes against religion. Scenes
which sadden the soul were everywhere wit-
nessed. Rome is the one exception to the
rule. The Popes, armed with a tribunal of
intolerance, have scarce spilt a drop of ■
blood; Protestants and philosophers have
shed it in orrents" — so "drunk with the
blood of martyrs" that she does not even
know that se has been drinking!

Here is the goal which the advance-cour-
iers of ritualism have reached in half a cen-
tury; is it unlikely that the thousanas
of clergymen and laymen who have
within a few years entered upon the
same path will fail to arrive at the same des-
tination?

To sum up this part of our subject, then,
I believe that ritualism is a desperate bat
marvelously insidious attempt of the great

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

enemy to regain for the Man of Sin what was
wrested from him by the reformation. It is
a scheme so fascinating: that already many
of the very elect have been deceived by it,
and are being led back to Rome as sheep to
the slaughter. Tc such I would commend
again the solemr. words of Tregelles:
"A recurrence to Romish connection
are-comniingly in any way witti the mainte-
nance of Roniish idolatry would place a Pro-
testant nation again under the sway of those
demons to whom idolatrous worship really
ascends.whether the name under which they
are-adored be that of Jupiter or Simon Peter,
the apostle of Christ"

All this is hard to say, for one who prefers
the charity which covers a multitude of
faults to the criticism which lays them bare.
And in dwelling on this subject we are not
insensible to the perversions of another kind
which have crept into our non-litur-
gical bodiea For, so far as we know,
the liturgical churches, have not fallen into
the

COOKING STOVE APOSTASY

which is turning so many of our church
basements into places of feasting; nor have
they been ensnared with the entertainment
heresy which sets up all sorts of shows and
exhibitions for amusing the unchurched
masses into an interest in the gospel. We
deplore these things, and here and now lift
up our* warning against them as another
device of the enemy for corrupting and
enervating the church of God.

(At the utterance of this sentiment, or its
equivalent in an improvised form. Dr.
Gordon's colleagues on the platform, Dr.
Pierson leading, and the audience as a whole
arose to say '"Amen.")

But while considering ourselves lest we
also be tempted we must none the less warn
our neighbors against the fatal infatuation
of ritualism. We take up the Trinity Church
catechism of Dr. Dix and find it streaked
through and through with the tinge of
the scarlet woman — baptismal regenera-
tion, eucharistic sacrifice, apostolic suc-
cession, praver for the dead, inter-
cession of departed souls, when we find its
eminent author so enamored of the papacy
that he draws away from all Protestant
bodies and embraces her, declaring that the
three chief branches of the holy Catholic
Church are the Church of Rome, the Greek
Church, and the Anglican Church, and that
the body thus formed is the

TEUE CHURCH CATHOLIC,

"because she endures tnroughout all
ages, teaches all nations, and main-
tains ail truth." When we find
Protestant ecclesiastics so smitten
with what the reformers used to call "the

trinkets of Antichrist," as to allow them-
selves little by little to be reinvested with the
cast-off clothing of Babylon, so that
a recent writer describes the Bishop of Lin-
coln as "adorned with mitre and cloth of
gold, his orpheys so lavishly decorated with
amethysts, pearls, topazes and chrysolites set
in silver as fairly to dazzle the beholder;"
when we see all these we are moved to re-
peat with solemn earnestness the warning of
Bradford, the Smithfield martyr, "O, Eng-
land, beware of Antichrist; take heed that
he doth not fool thee."

Theosophy, is the latest relierion of tran-
scendentaiists. In it, the attenuated unbe-
lief of our times is seeking to find relief from
the ennui of denial. How to describe that
which takes for itself the name of "Occult-
ism;" how to give an idea of doctrines which
claim to be hidden from all but the ini-
tiated we do not know. It is enough to say
that substantially it is Buddhism
seeking conquests in Christian

lands; "the light of Asia," offering itself
to those who have turned away from "the
light of Christ." It has its circles in many of
our great cities, where its occult philosophy
is diligently studied; though its following is
small compared with that of spiritualism, it
being the religion of the literary elite, as the
other is of the common people. If we ques-
tion it in regard to its doctrines, it tells us
that they are the same as those of "the sacred
mysteries of antiquity." It inculcates
a very attenuated philosophy of evo-
lution; it teaches the pre ^existence
and the transmigration of souls, and
instructs its disciples how by a rigid asciti-
cism they may cultivate what is called

"THE INTUITIONAL MEMORY"

by which they can enter into profound recol-
lection of what they knew in far distant
ages. In a couplet which it is fond of re-
peating it declares that

Descending spirits have conversed with man
And told him secret3 of the world uuuaown.
And these words give the ingst reasonable
hint of its origin. For its creed is
"the doctrines of demons from beginning
to end." No personal devil that which is
mystically called the devil being but the
negative and opposite of God' No atone-
ment except man's "unification" with him-
self; no forgiveness of sin, souls being re-
quired to wear away their guilt by self-ex-
piation; miracles, mysteries, ultimate
deification — these are specimen articles otita
delusive greed. It's whole character and
contents so far as we can comprehend them
are yet another phube ot satanic delusion. Now
if we compare these three sytems, counting
ritualism as incipient Popery, we find them
agreeing remarkably to fill up the outlines

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

of the predicted apostacy. The "forbidding
to marry' realized in the celebacy of Roman-
ism; tbe enforced continence of theosophy
and tbe anti-marriage doctrine of spiritual-
ism; tbe "commanding to abstain from
meat" appearing in the superstitious fasts of
ritualism, and the rigid abstinence from flesh
enjoined on the initialtes of esoteric
Buddbism; the doctrines of demons mani-
fested in the magic and idolatry
which ritualism substitutes for the
chaste and simple doctrines of
ordinance of Christ, and which in many par-
ticulars hold a common ancestry with those
of theosophy and spiritualism, and the far -
tastio miracle-working which cbaractecize
them all All three of these delusions give
a praotioal denial of Christ's second advent
— that doctrine at which demons

FEAB AND TREMBLE —

spiritualism and theosophy declaring that in
that in them the promised Epiphany of
Christ is taking place; while ritualism by its
doctrine of transubstantiation makes the
communion declare the ''real presence of
Christ" in flesh and blood, when the
Lord ordained it to declare his
real absence "till he come" — 1 mean, of
course, bodily absence.

What now is the prophetic significance of
all that we have said? Ihis it seems to me,
that according to the predictions of Scripture
we are witnessing an irruption of evil spirits
who are again working powerfully along
their favorite lines — ritualism, superstition,
and philosophy.

We hear much said about Infidelity and
communism "heading up" in a personal
Antichrist. Believing as 1 do, that Anti-
christ came long ago. and that he was
crowned a few years since in St. Peter's at
Rome as the deified man — infallible and
Bupreme. I see in the present aspect of
affairs his final bodying forth, rather than his
ultimate heading up. As in the case of Christ,
so in the case of "the man of sin," tbe head is
revealed first, and the body gathered
throughout all generations grows up in all
things into Him who is the head." For the
career of Antichrist is the exact parody and
evil counterpart of that of Christ. If you
say '"the Antichrist must be

AN INDIVIDUAL

us certainly as Christ is," I remind that the
word Christ does not always stand for a
single individual in description, for in L
Cor,, xii.. the apostle describes the Dody of
believers, gathered to the Lord through all
time with its divers gifts an i administrations,
and this corporate whole with its many
members, but "all baptized oy one spirit
into one body" he names Ho Christos — the
Christ. iSo tnat evil system with its various

offices and administrations yet baptized into
unity by "the Spirit which now worketh in
the children of disobedience" is the An-
tichrist. The one is the head of the ecclesia,
and the other is the head of the apostasia;
but the bead and tbe body are so identical
that they bear the same personal name.

"But he is called 'the man of sin,'" you
say, "and therefore must be an individual
Not of necessity. For the line of
believers extending through all ages la
declared by the apostles to be taken out
from Jews and gentiles to "make of twain
one new man."

I can not believe that "the mystery of in-
iquity," which Paul declared to be already
working in bis day, has been toiling on for
nearly two thousand years in order to bring
forth a single short-lived man, and he so
omnipotently wicked that the Papal Anti-
christ, witn the blood of fifty millions of
martyrs on his skirts, is too insignifioant
a sinner to be mentioned in comparison.
And now, i hear the objections coming
thick and fast "But is he not an open infi-
del since he is said 'to deny the Father and
the Son?'" Search your concordances for
the meaning of the word "deny," and ob-
serve bow constantly it signifies the denial
of apostasy and false profession. But is ha
not

THE INCARNATION OF SATAN

since he is called "the son of perdition?"
Yes; Judas was named "the son of perdition;"
and "Satan entered into Judas Iscariot;" but
so far from atheistically denying Christ he
openly professed Him. saving, "Hail, Mas-
ter," and then betraying Him with a kiss.
But is he not a godless blasphemer, since he
is declared to have "amouth speaking great
things and blasphemies?" The counterfeit of
Christ again, for Christ was twice falsely
accused of blasphemy, because he made
Himself equal with God, and because
he presumed to forgive sina Tne
Pope is justly accused of

blaspnemy on both these erounds, for ne
profanely calls himself God, and assumes to
forgive sins. Said Alexander VL : "CflMar
was a man; Alexander is a God" But must
he not be a Jew established in Jerusalem,
since it is said that "He sitteth in the temple
of God, showing Himself that He is God?"
No. This particular phrase "temple of God,"
is never in a single instance in the New Tes-
tament applied to the temple at Jerusalem,but
always to the church, the body of Christ, to
its head or to its members in heaven or on
earth. But could the Holy Ghost call that
"the temple of God" which nas become apos-
tate? Just as possibly as Christ could call the
apostate Laodicean* whom he spues out of
His mouth

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

"TBB chubch in laodicca."
"But does not this view commit one to the
year-day interpretation, since the career of
Antichrist is three years and a half and the
papal system extends through centuries?
Yes, for the one instance of prophetic time
which has py unanimous consent been ful-
filled, the seventy weeks of Daniel is demon-
strated to have been upon this scale. Since
the period was actually 490 years— a day
for a year — and this may be taken as a clue
to the prophetic time of Revelation. But if
the Holy Spirit meant years in the Apocalypse
why did he not say years? you reply. Why.
when he meant churches and ministers, and
kingdoms and kinsrs and epochs, did he say
candle-sticks, and stars, and beasts, and
norns, and trumpets? Yet, having used
these miniature symbols of greater thincs,
how fitting that the accompanying time
should also be in miniature! To use citeral
dates would distort the im >gary — as though
you should put a life-sized eye in a small-
sized photograph.

I have said that Antichrist is the evil coun-
terpart of Christ. When Satan offered Christ
all the kingdoms of the world if he would
fall down and worship him He refused, ac-
cepting present rejection and crucifixion,
and waiting the Father's time for the king-
doms of the world to become the kingdom
of our Lord and of his Christ. The papal
Antichrist accepted the kingdoms of this
world when the temptation was presented
him, and proceeded to announce himself the
"King of kings" and that the Kingdom had
come, and that in himseif was fulfilled the
scripture, "He shall have dominion from sea
to sea, and from river to river, ucto the ends
of the earth. "

The bride of Christ — the church — was left
in the world to share her Lord's re1 ac-
tion and cross, enduring present suf-
fering and widownood, and waiting for
the return of the bridegroom.- But the
harlot bride of Antichrist accepts and
earthly throne and a present glory, boast-
fully saying, "I Bit a queen anu am no
widow and shall see no sorrows." Do we
not see ihat it was this usurpation of the
headship of the church bv the man of sin;
this premature errasping of the Kingdom and
the setting up of a mock millennium under
rules of a pseudo-Christ, that destroys the
millennial hope of the church and has

INFECTED GENERATION

after generation, with the delusion of a pres-
ent reign and a present kingdom, while
Chriat is yet absent in person from his flock?
But this enemy of God and His Saints must
soon come to an end. In Daniel and in
Thessilonians this end is predicted in two
■races: gradual, and then sudden and com-

plete. "They snail take away his dominion
to consume and destroy unto the end," says
Daniel. "Whom the Lord shail consume with
the breath of His mouth and shall destroy
with the brightness of His com:ng," says
Paul in Thessalonians. The consuming pro-
cess has oeen going on mightily in our gen-
eration by the breath of the Lord's mouth
in the world-wide diffusion of the in-
spired Scriptures. "And now the devil is
come down with great wrath because he
knoweth that he hath but a short time." He
is putting forth the energy of despair. He -
is sending his legions to work alone various
lines, which all center, visibly, or invisibly,
In one head. On the line of sacerdotalism
he Is seeking to thwart the work of the
Reformation by again insinuating popish
worship into our churches; on the line of
superstition he is aiming to bewitcn the god-
less and curious multitudes through the
energy of unclean spirits; on tbe
line of culture he is mov-

ing to foist upon the literary elite
a diluted paganism as an extra fine religion.
But these things cheer us rather than sad-
den us, for all the shadows point to the
dawn. The church's salvation means Anti-
christ's destruction, and the same Scripture
which speaks to us so powerfully to-day in
the light of passing evil=, "Yet a little while
and he that shall come will come and will
not tarry," says also, "And the God of peace
shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you, Amen." All this which I have set forth
I have declared with unutterable sorrow.
All this I can think of only with weeping,
crying

"O, BKIDE OF CHRIST.

how are they increased who would rob thee
of thy chastity." All this I now review with
a fervent prayer that if I have spoken aught
against any of the Lord's anointed He will
forsrive me, while for myself 1 cry daily
unto Him "Deliver me from the evil one."

Men and Brethren: We are here for a can-
did and courteous discussion of certain
great prophetic questions. Among these
none is more important as affecting our
present testimony than the one upon which
I have just now touched.

I need not remind you that one of the first
tasks which the ritualistic leaders fifty years
ago felt called upon to undertake was that
of gettinar rid of the Protestant interpreta-
tion of Antichrist as the Pope of Rome.
How desperately they wrouarht at this task
will be apparent to those who read New-
man's essay on "Tne Man of Sin," and
observed especially his earnest wrestling
with the ominous saying of Gregory tne
Great, that "Whosoever adopts or desires the

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

title of universal bishop is the forerunner of
Antichrist."

If I must take sides between parties on
this queption my sympathies will be with
Latimer and Cranmer and Bradford, whose
vision was clarified by the fires of martyr-
dom, to recognize their perscutor and call
him £>y name, ratner than with Manning and
Newman, whose eyes are holden by the
charm of medievalism.

But our appeal is not to man,
but to the sure word of proph-
ecy. The profoundest discussion
of this question which has appeared in fifty
years in my opinion is contained in the
two recent volumes of Mr. Grattan Guin-
ness. There history ia shown to answer to
prophecy like deep calling unto deep; there
the mysterious chronology written ages ago
by God is verified point by point by

THE TEEMINAL PEBIOD3

which are running out under our own eyes.
Such correspondencies can not be accidental;
such clear pointing's to the man of sin as a
story of his predicted age as 1,260 years
gives can not be fortuitous. One of the
ablest prophetic scholars of the Futerest
school in this country declares that he knows
not how the conclusions of these volumes
can be gainsaid.
I humbly concur in that opinion. Nay, I

speak rather of The Book than of any human
books and avow my conviction tnat th e
papal "Man of bin" was accurately pho
tographed on the camera of

prophecy thousands of years ago;
that no detective searching for him
to-day would need any other description of
him than that which is found on the pages of
the Bible. Taking these photographs of
Daniel and John and Paul, and searching tbe
world upside down for their origrinals, I am
confident that tnis same detective wouid
stop at the Vatican, and after gazing for a
few moments at the Pontiff, who sits then;
gnawing the bone of infallibility, which ne
acquired in 1870, and clutching for that otfier
bone of temporal sovereignty wiiich he lost
the very same year, he would lay his hand on
him and say: "You are wanted in the court
of the Most Hisrh to answer to the indict-
ment of certain souls beneath tbe altar
'who were slain for the word of God and
for tbe testimony which they bore," and
who are crying, 'How Ions, O Lord, holy and
true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our
blood on them that dwell upon the earth?' "
My brethren, let us search the Scriptures
anew and let us be sure that they do not re-
quire it of us before we silencs our testi-
mony asrainst the Man of Borne as Anti-
christ.

THIRD DAY.

THE REV. DR. J. S. KENNEDY.

PBACTICAL, INFLUENCE AND POWER

Snowy, Dlustering weather was no obstacle
to the atttendance of the faithful many at
the third day's session of the Bible and
Prophetic Conference. In the opening devo-
tional exercises there was congregational
singing and prayer by the Rev. Dr. Goodwin,
of Chicasro. Before proceeding with the ex-
ercises the Rev. George C. Needham, Secre-
tary, made the following statement:

"It is hardly necessary to state to this au-
dience that there has been no arrangement
or understanding between the speakers at
this conference, coming as they have from
many States, to avoid repetition in their ad-
dresses. In tact repetition is essential and
can not Dossibly be avoided. Post-mille-
narians have a variety of views on the sub-
ject of our Lord's coming. Pre-inillenarians
the world over are one in their hope. They
may differ on the interpretation of Script-
ures bearing on events connected witb the
subject, but the committee had no hesita-
tion in inviting these good brethren of all
evangelical cburches and from many States
to present with the ability given them this
subject of our Lord's'

PBE-MIDLENNlALi ADVENT.''

The Rev. Dr. J. S. Kennedy, of the Abing-
don, Va., M. E. Churcb, South, tben read a
paper on the subject, "Practical Influence
and Power of Christ's Second Coming." It
was as follows:

Dear Brethren in Christ: "Grace to you
and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His great mercv begat us
again unto a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead unto an inher-
itance incorruptible and undefiled. and that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
who by the power of God are guarded
tbrougn faith unto a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time.

"Wherein ye greatly rejoice, tbough now
for a little while, if need be, ye have been
put to grief in manifold temptations, that
the proof of your faith, being more precious
than gold that perisheth tbough it is proved
by fire, might be found unto praise and

glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus
Christ" (t Pet i. 2-7).

The Christ of prophecy — "the same yester-
day, to-day, and forever" — is not only the
Christ of history, but the living sovereign
headof the church, "whicb is His body, the full-
ness of Him that filleth all in all" Eph. 1.(23.)

THIS CHEIST OF PBOPHECY —

"being the image of God, the invisible —
the first- bern of all creation" (Col. i. 15);
yea, being "the effulgence of God's glory,
and the very image or impress of His sub-
stance" (Hebr. i. 3); as the eternal Logos or
word of God, "became flesh," the living in-
carnation of all the treasures of divine grace
and truth, in order that he might be fitted to
become the "Captain and Prince of our Sal-
vation," and the medium through whom God
the Father "might reconcile all things to
Himself, in the earth and in tbe heavens"
^Col. i. 20), and "that in the dispensation of
the fulness of times He might gatber to-
gether in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and on earth" (Epb. L 9-10).

Having wrougbt out the great problem of
man's redemption by procuring for him ini-
tial salvation "by grace througn faith," He
then became the "first-born from the dead,''
the fir.-t arising from death to everlasting
life, "that in all (possible respects) He might
have the pre-eminence," or first place in
rank, as well in His Soteriological as in His
Cosmical glory.

And now in His exaltation to the right
hand of the Majesty on high he abides "in
the form of God," being "the brightness of
His glory and the express image of His per-
son," and "has been appointed heir of ali
things" (Hfb. i. 2-3). And "to us" Paul
declares "there is but one * * Lord
Jesus Christ by whom are all
things, and we by Him (L Cor. viii. 6);
to whom John in the Apocalypse applies the
ineffable name of Jenovah, "The vVas and
the Is and the Coming One" (Rev. iv. 8).

It is, we think, universally conceded by
those competent to judge that in every age
the faith and hope of the ohuioh of our
Lord Jesus Christ have been

DIRECTED TO AND CENTEBED IN

the second personal coming of our now ex-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

-a!ted and glorified Savior, as the event in
which the Lord's redeeming worK snail cul-
minate in the resurrection and glorification
of His saints, in the full establishment of
His messianic kingdom, in the regeneration
of this sin-cursed and sorrow-smitten planet,
and in the regenesis of che Cosmos in its
complete deliverance from all physical ana
moral evil by His personal reign. Tnis as-
sumes His coming not only to be personal
and literal, but also pre-millennial, antedat-
ing in time ana fact the millennial era. His
coming in person must precede His reigning
in person on the earth. That is self-evident.
Before proceeding, therefore, to unfold
ana discuss its practical hearings upon the
church of to-day, and the inspiring and
transforming power of this "living hope"
of the Master's second personal com-
ing, let us consider for a moment
some of the reasons for embracing
a doctrine of such amazing import, if true,
and which by its logical and essential con-
tents, whether we will or not, must sweep
away the foundations and traditions of the
commonly received post-millennial theory of
"the last days." This theory, as all know,
puts the millennium before Christ's coming,
and conjoins in an inexplicable manner the
sublimities of our immortal destiny with the
irreconciliable and contradictory diabolism
which, if the Scriptures are to be believea,
Btiall immeaiately preceae the second ad-
vent Ana the more so, if, as we believe, we
are stanaing to-day

FACE TO PACK

with the great predicted crisis of the world's
history toward which the sublime march of
events is steadily pressing with quickened
pace, and converging with infallible cer-
tainty. In tne very last discourse to His sor-
rowing disciples before His departure, Christ
said, "I go to prepare a place for you. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again, and receive vou unto Myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also'' (John
xiv. 2-3). "When the Hon of Man shall come
in His glory, and all the angels with Him,
then (not before) shall He sit on the throne of
His glory," and commence his separating
judgments upon the wheat and tares (Matt,
xiii. 39-43, xxv. 31).

In Acts i. 9-11, it is written that when
"Jesus was taken up, ana a cloua received
Him out of sight," angeJs said to the aston-
ished Galileans, "Why stand ye looking into
heaven? This same Jesus which was re-
ceived up from you into heaven, shall come
in like manner an ye beheld Him going into
heaven." Again: "The Lord Himself in His
divine-numan personality shall descend
from heaveu with a shout, with tne voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God;

a sublime
same event.

and the dead in Christ shall rise first." (L
Thess. iv. 16). "And to you who are troubled
rest with us, when the Lord Jesus Christ
shall be revealed from heaven with the
angels of His power." (IL Thess. i. 7). So
in Luke xiv. 5, "The Lord my God shall
come, and all the saints with Thee." "Be-
hold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand
of his saints," says Jude (14 vr.), to inaugur-
ate the juagment of the millennial day.
Daniel, vii. :9-10, also gives us
prophetic description of the
Ana St. John, in his

APOCOLTPTIC VISION

of the "last times," depicts in graphic sim-
plicity the fact, the manner, and the pub-
licity of His coming. "Behold, He cometh
with clouds; and every eye shall see Him
ana thev also which pierced Him: and the
kindreds of the earth shall wail because of
Him. Even so. Amen I" (Rev. I 7).

There is not and can not be any dispute
therefore, as to the question and fact of His
coming again at some time. Our blessed
Redeemer has not gone to heaven to stay
there- He has gone there for the benefit of
His militant church, to enlarge the scope
and multiply the blessings of His high-
priestly mediation, "by appearing in the
presence of Goa for us," "an high priest for-
ever after the order of Melchiseaec." (Heb.
vL 20).

He will and must return again in majesty
and glory, not mediately by His spirit or
providences, but directly in His own proper
person, to consummate the work of His re-
deeming love in and for His people. Nor can
there beany doubt as to a millennium or era
in which truth and righteousness shall uni-
versally reign among all nations; "when all
kings shall fall down before Him, and all na-
tions shall serve Him" Ps. lxxii. 11);
"when the heathen shall be given Him for
His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of
the earth for His possession" (Ps. xi. 8);
"where the wilaerness and solitary place
shall be glad for them, and the desert shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose" (Isa. xxxv.
1-2); and "when the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea" (Heb. xi., 14).

The literal and personal second coming of
the Lord, if we mistake not, is accepted
by all

EVANGELICAL CHBISTIANS

as an indisputable doctrine of the Scrip-
tures. It is not a mere dogma or idle specu-
lation.

The differences in the theological views
of His coming grow out of this question:
How does the event of Christ's second com-
ing, considered as an isolated tact, stand ro-
tated to the scheme of completed Messianio

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

salvation as revealed in the Scriptures?
What is its true and essential place in the
system of revealed truth, touching the "last
times."

We believe with all our neart that God's
word places or puts this grand and mo-
mentous event at the end of the times
of the gentiles, called "the time of
the end" in Dan. xii , 9; ana of which the
present Cnristian dispensation is that part
of '•the times of the gentiles," called the
"gospel of the kingdom." or the kingdom
of God "in mystery," during which the
gospel is to be preached to all natione "as a
witness" of the truth, in order "to take out
of (or from among) the gentiles a people for
Christ's name (Acts xv. 14), preparatory to
their admission into "the kingdom of God"
in manifestation (Rom. xi. 25; and viii. 19)

We believe, further, that the sec-
ond coming of Christ, as an isolated
fact, must occur before the millenium,
because the fundamental and essential con-
dition casually of the rise ana establish-
ment of the Messianic kingdom in open
manifestation. If these two propositions
are scriptural and true, then the Messianic
salvation in its completeness can only be
effected by the parousia. But we learn from
Col. I, 5 that the fullness of the Messianie
salvation, the objective contents of the
Christian's hope, "is laid up for him in the
heavens;" and that

THE BLESSED BESUBBECTION-LIFE,

"hid with Christ in God," vv ill only set in
witu the parousia in the "future age," at the
end of this age. Hear Paul: "When Christ,
who is our life (resurrection — life), shall be
manifested, then shall ye also with Him be
manifested in glory" (Col. in. 4). "For our
citizenship," says he, "is in Heaven; whence
also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ; who shall fashion anew trie body of
our humiliation, that it may be conformed
to the body of His glory" (Phil. iii. 20-21).
This will take place at trie parousia

Moreover, Messianic sovereignty consists
in Christ's universal dominion over the
world and in the glorious fellowship of His
believing saints with Him. "All autnoiity
hath been given unto Me in heaven and on
earth" (Matt, xxviii. 18). "Wherefore God
hath also highly exalted Him, ana
given Him a name which is
above every name" (Phil. ii. 9-11).
Again the Master says, "Ye which
have followed Me in the regeneration— pa-
lingenesis— when the Son of man shall sit on
the throne of His glory, ye shall also sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel (Matt, xix, 28; Rom, viii, 12-18). See
this, too, follows the parousia,

Pre-millennialism, whose inspiring and

uplifting hopes we are to consider, requires,
by the verv nature of its sublime and awe-
inspiring connections, that the true basileia
of Christ belong to the future eon, to be
erected after He comes; and that the "ve
shall be manifested in glory" simply means
the glory of the Messianic kingdom in which
believers, readv and "waiting for their adop-
tion," shall in their glorified bodies be mani-
fested visibly at the revelation of Jesus
Christ, their divine and risen Head. Till the
parousia this glory is "Bidden

WITH CHBIST IN GOD. "

If these cardinal tenets of Pre-millennial- ■
ism be true, then we are also obliged to ad-
mit that the last sacred historical develop-
ment in Christendom and in Gentile heafchen-
aom, antedating the parousia, instead of
producing a millennium by the universal
spread of a pure Christianity in the earth,
will, on the contrary, embrace and present
moral, social, and political phenomena of the
most alarming and extraordinary character.
Such as fatal and wide-spreaa ignorance of
aivme things. (See Isaiah, Ix, 2; Hosea, xiv,
9; Rom., xi. 8-10; Rev., ix, 20-21.)
General apostasy in the church from "the
faith once delivered to the saints" — especially
touching the Lord's imminent appearing.
(2 Pet. iii. 1-4; Luke xviii. 8). The prev-
alence of religious formalism, adulterous
friendships with the world, th6 abounding
of iniquity, tne waning of faith and love,
awful and general revolutions and com-
motion.-, among all the nations, resulting in
tyranny, anarchy, destructive wars, famines,
and pestilences without a parallel in the
history of the race. (See Matt xxiv. 12;
Jas. v.1-6; 1 Tim. iv. 1-3; Jere. xxv. 15-29;
Luke xxi. 7-11; EzeJs. xxi. 24-27; 2 Pet. ii.
12-15; Rev. vi. 1-17, etc.)

Christ the Lora must come, therefore, first
to receive His church, the Bride, and then to
establish His kingdom in judgment and
righteousness.

Not uutil the predicted "fullness of tne
gentiles be come in," can we hope for the
restoration of the Jews and their establish-
ment as a nation in their own promised
land, ana their subsequent salvation. The
mighty aeliverer, who is to effect

THE SALVATION OF ALL ISBAEL,

(Kora. xi. 25-26), must come and first destroy
Antichrist and bind Satan. In short, the two
grand scenes which are eminently to charac-
terize Christ's second personal coming, are
the rapture of the church oy her risen head;
and the return of the Lord with His glorified
church

The scene of tne rapture of the churoh is
tersely and comprehensively presented to
our faith and hope in 1 Thess. iv, 13-18. in
these deeply Impressive words: "But we

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

would not have you ignorant, brethren, con-
cerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow
not, even as the rest, which have no hope.
For if we Delieve that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also that are fallen
asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For
this we say unto you by the word of the
Lord, that we that are alive, that are left
unto the coming — parousia — of the Lord,
shall in no wise precede them that are fallen
asleep. For the Lord. Himself shall descend
from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of
the Archangel, and with the trump of God:
and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then
we that are alive, that are left, shall together
with them be caught up in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever
be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one
another with these words."

The scene of the return of the Lord with
His church, the glorified Bride, to judge the
world in righteousness, and to inaugurate
His glorious reign on earth, is most graph-
ically described in the nineteenth chapter of
Revelations. After portraying in sublime
beauty the celebration ot the marriage of
the LamD and His bride, "the Church of the
first-born," St John

WAS TOLD TO WRITE:

"Blessed are they which are bidden to the
marriage 6upper of the Lamb." And now
comes the vision of the Lord's return in
majesty and great power:

"And I saw the heaven open, and behold,
a white horse; and He that sat thereon,
called Faithful and True; and in righteousness
He doth judge and make war. And His eyes
are a flame of fire, and upon His head are
many diadems; and He hath a name written
which no one knoweth but He Himself. And
He is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with
blood: and His name is called the Word of
God. And the armies which are in heaven
followed riim upon white horses, clothed in
fine linen, white and pure. And out of Bis
mouth proceeded a sharp sword, that with
it He should smite the nations: and He shall
rule them with a rod of iron: and He tread -
eth the winepress of the fierceness of the
wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on
His garment and on His thigh a name writ-
ten. King or Kings, and Lord of Lords."
(Rev. xix. 11-16.) With this brief and im-
perfect survey of the general field of pre-
millenniaiisra, we can not fail to discover
many and cogent reasons why we are and
ought to be profoundly interested in the
Lord's second coming; and why in truth we
are bound to place that coming before the
millennial era, and the extraordinary events
eonnected therewith.

It may be safely postulated, therefore, that
there can be no millennium without the

Jews. "For salvation is from the Jews"
(John iv. 22). No millennium without a res-
urrection No millennium anticipating the
widespread and awful antichristian apostasy
of "the very last days of this dispensation"
(II. Thesa II. 8).

NO MILLENNIUM

antedating the establishment of the Mes-
sianic kingdom of God on the earth (Dan.
vii. 13-14; Rev. xi. 5).

No millennium so long as the whole irra-
tional animal creation remains "subjeot to
vanity and the Dondage of corruption''
(Rom. vii. 20-211.

No millennium till the Christ of God and
of the Bible, and of the church and of the
nations, shall Himself return to this sin-
cursed and sorrow-smitten planet, and here
on the very theater of the fall and Calvary
complete and consummate the work of His
redeeming love by delivering the cosmos —
the natural and moral creation — from the
curse of sin, and by perfecting and finishing
forever the reconciliation of the alienated
universe with His Father, God; which divine
work is and must continue in course of devel-
opment until the parousia.

What, then, shall we say of the the prac-
tical influence and power of Christ's pre-mil-
lennial coming? If so many and so great
things depend on the second appearing, per-
sonal presence, and srlorious open revelation
of our adorable Redeemer from heaven at the
close of "the times of thegientiles," what
ends or uses in Christian life and experience
does it subserve? If this sublime doctrine is
really the corner-stone In the base, and the
key-stone in the glorious arch of our millen-
nial hopes, how ought it to affect our faith
and doctrinal beliefs?

Faith is for every Christian the means, the
divine organon, by which he receives and ap-
propriates all the blessings of life and sal-
vation which we have in Christ, now and for-
ever to come. This faith, therefore, must
nave in it the elements of an intelligent ap-
prehension of

THE DOCTRINES OP SALVATION",*

and of self-active perseverance. We must
abide by it. (Coi. i. 23). It must not only
survey and scrutinize the past with an intelli-
gent and penetrating eye, but it must clearly
and definitely apprehend the present, and as
with the spirit of prophetic discernment pro-
ject itself upon the mighty future, and
sweep its sublime horizon of oncoming
events from the lofty eminences of true
spiritual vision — aye, of prophetic inspira-
tion itself.

Does the patient waiting, the earnest look-
ing for the blessed hope and glorious appear-
ing of the Great God, even our Savior Jesua
Christ (Titus ii. 13), exert any directing and

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

transforming influence and power over the
Cnnstian mind and heart? If so, what?
Does it tend to magnify or vivify the
Christian's faith, hope, and love — those es-
sential and basal elements of the Christ-life
in us? Elements which are to survive the
fiery and sifting judgments of the millen-
nial day upon and against antichristian
Christendom — yea, even the universal con-
flagration of St. Peter (IL Peter iii. 10), "in
the day of the Lord," and to shine on un-
dimmed amid the increasing and intensified
splendors of the final new heavens and new
earth.

Who will say that subjects of such infinite
moment and such appalling magnitude, oc-
cupying so large a portion of God's own holy
Scriptures, the Bible, ana involving immor-
tal destinies, can be matter of indifference
to the church at any time I They are preg-
nant with spiritual instruction

FOE EVEKT AGE.

flow much more so for us

who have so many cogent and satifactory
reasons for oelievinsr that we are standing
to-day on the very threshold of "the time
of the end" of the gentile dispensation. If
God's word be true; if a just and intelligent
apprehension and anticipation of the most
extraordinary and awakening coming
events, "casting their shadows" — mighty
and dark — before the vision of the watch-
ing and waiting Christian; and if a lively
and animating hope of sharing: in the ap-
proaching glory of Christ's openly mani-
fested and established kingdom; do not fur-
nish quickening motives and controlmg
reasons for watchfulness, prayer, self-denial,
consecration, earnest study of the divine
word, and thorough preparation for the
Lord's coming, then we know of nothing in
the whole scheme of the Christian religion
that is practically useful for personal edifi-
cation.

Let us take illustrations from God's word.
For there is, perhaps, not a doctrine or
Christianity upou which the light of this
great truth does not shine, and render
more luminous and instructive by its own
radiance. There is no duty in
the whole catalogue of Christian re-
quirements which is not invested
with higher and holier significance in the
light of this great truth. There is no hope
which is the subject of Christian promise
that is so uplifting and comforting, so
rich in

PRESENT PEACE AND BLESSING,

so inspiring in times of trial and affliction,
and bo all-absorbing and abiding and illimi-
table in its glorious contents as this "Dlessed
hope." St. Peter, in his discourse from Solo-
mon's porch, urged the second coming of

Christ as a prime motive for repentance.
"Repent ye, therefore, and turn again, that
your sins may be blotted out, that so there
may come seasons of refreshing from the
presence of the Lord; and that He may send
the Christ, who hath been appointed for you,
even Jesus: whom the heaven must receive
until the times of the restoration of all
things, whereof God spake by the mouth of
His holy prophets, which have been since
the world began." (Acts iii. 19-21. Rev.
ill. 3).

It is also used as a motive to incite us to a
mortification of earthly lusts. "vVhen
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear in glory with Him. Mor-
tify, therefore, your members which are upon
the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion,
evil desire, covetousness," etc. (Col. in. 4-6).
"For the grace of God that bringeth salva-
tion hath appeared to all men, teaching us
that denying ungodliness and wordly lusts,
we should live soberly and righteously and
godly in this present age; looking for the
blessed hope and glorious appearing of the
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ"
(Titus, ii. 11-13).

So, too, it is used to incite to general obe-
dience and holy living. "We know that
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is. And every
man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth
himself even as He (Christ) is Dure" (John,
iii. 2-3).

AND '"ABIDE IN HIM;

that when He shall appear, we may have
confidence, and not be asuarned before Him
at His coming." (John ii. 28). "For the Son
of Man shall come in the glory of His Father
with His angels; and then He shall reward
every man according to His works" (Matt,
xvi. 27. Rev. xxii. 12).

It is employed as an incentive to heavenly
miudednesa and holy conversation. "For
our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven,
from whence also we look (wait) for a Savior,
the Loid Jesus Christ; who shall fashiou
anew the body of our humiliation, that it
may be conformed to the body of h:s glory,
according to the working whereby He is able
to subjeot ail things unto Himself."
(Phil. iii. 20-21). Seeing, then, that
all these things are to be dissolved, what
manner of persons ought ve to be in all holy
iiving and godliness, Jooking for and earn-
estly desiring the coming of the day of
God" (IL Peter iii. 11-12).

This hope propels us to works of mercy.
"When the Son of man shall come in His
glory, and all the angels with Him * * *
then shall the King say unto them on His
risrht hand. Come ye biessed ot my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

* * * Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of
these, My brethren, even these least, ye have
done it unto Me" (Matt xxv. 31-40).

Also to moderation and patience. "Let
your moderation be known unto all men.
The Lord is at hand" (Jas. v. 7 and 8).
"For ye have need oi' patience, that, after ye
have done the wiil of God, ye might receive
the promise. For yet a very little while, he
that eome^h shall come, and shall not tarry"
(Heb. x. 35-37).

It also excites to pastoral diligence and
purity. '"Feed the flock of God which is
ainone you, exercising the oversight, not of
constraint, but willing, * * * ; neither as
Jording it over the charge

AIiOTTED TO TO0,

but making yourselves examples to the
flooK. And when the Chief Shepherd shall
De manifested, ye shall receive the crown of
glory that f adeth not away" (L Peter v.
2-4). "For what is our hope, or joy, or
crown of rejoicing? Are not oven ye, before
our Lord Jesus at His coming parousia?"
(L Tness IL 19 and 20).

It stimulates to greater watchfulness and
prayer.

"Let your loins be girded about, ana your
lamps burning; and be yourselves like unto
men looking for their Lord, when He shall
return from the marriage feast * * *
Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord,
when he cometh, shall find watching" (Luke
xiL 35-37). "Take ye heed, watch and pray;
for ye know not when the time is," etc. (Mark
xiiL 33-37). "Behold, I come as a thief.
Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his
garments (Rev. xvi. 15; Matt xxiv. 43 and
44; L Thess. v. 2-4).

It intensifies brotnerly love. "The .Lord
make you to increase and abound in love one
toward another, and toward all men * * *;
• to the end he may establish your hearts un-
blamable in holiness before our God and
Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all His saints — paroneia" (L Thea
lit 12 and 13: Phil, i. 9; L Cor. i. 7).

It is of the nature of this ''blessed hope" to
kindle in our hearts earnest love of the
Lord's second corning itself. We have a
beautiful illustration of it in St Paul. He
says: "I have tought the good fight I have
finished tbe course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up tor me the crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righte-
ous Judge, shall give me at that day: and
not only to me, but also to all them that have
loved His appearing-' Epiphany (IL Tim. iv.
7 and 8). "Blessed is the man tnat

KNDURBTH TEMPTATION:

for when he had been approved he shall re-
ceive the crown of life, which the Lord

them chat love Him (James i.

promised to
12).

This hope invests our faith here with a
higher practical value. It enriches it mani-
foldly during our earthiy|pilgrimage bj open-
in? wide its wings for higher and grander
flights above the din and strife and trials of
this fallen world. Hence Paul congratulates
the church at Corinth "for the grace of God
which was given them in Christ Jesus; that
in every thing they were enriched in Him;
* * * so that they came behind in no gift;

wating for the revelation— aDocalypse of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you
unto the end, that ye be unreprovable iu the
day of our Lord Jesus Christ." (L Cor. i, 4-8).
The parousia, therefore, is the principal
event in the future for which the boliever
patiently waits; because the event of des-
tiny. For whilst performing our ordinary
Christian duties so as "to walk worthily of
the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in
every good work; * * * and giving
thanks unto the Father, who made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the
saints in light" (Col. i, 10-12); we neverthe-
less in thus "serving the living and true
God wait for His Son from Heaven." (L Thes.
i, 9 and 10).

Let us consider some other fruits of this
patient waiting for "the blessed hope." They
are eminently practical, and as potential as
practical. What does the Christian more
need in this world of sin and sorrow, of af-
fliction and trial, of mourning and tears,
than sanctification, and uplifiing, and

1NSPIBINO COMFOBT?

Whatever elevates and sanctifies the affec-
tions and thoughts, and intelligently en-
grosses them with an ever increasing inter-
ets and delight, ie obliged to bring comfort
and peace. If our hearts be filled with the
assured hope of being with Jesus in His
glory as His recognized and glorified bride,
will we not seek by all possible means to be
found of Him at His sudden coming without
spot, and blameless, and in peace? And is
not the thought of the near approach of the
parousia, the personal presence of the
Blessed Redeemer, eminently calculated to
sanctify and comfort His people by raising
their hearts above the world with its en-
grossing occupations and corrupting lusts?
No wonder Paul closes one of his inspired
descriptions of the opening* scenes of the
parousia thus: ''Wherefore comfort one
another with these words." (L Then v. IS).
Our struggle with sin and the devil, our
conflicts with the powers and darkness, our
bodily ills and infirmities, our disappoint-
ments in life, the loss of friends and loved
ones, the abounding of iniquity, and the
prevalence of theoretical and practioal in-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

fidelity, are often very discouraging to the
humble and devout Christian. But if he be
able to receive in his heart the sweet and
blessed assurance that his Lord and Re-
deemer will soon come in person, and bring
an end to all these troubles by the mani-
festation of His glory, and by ushering in
the day of "the glorious liberty ot the chil-
dren of God" (Rom. viii. 21-26), how com-
forting, how elevating,

HOW SANCTIFYING

is such a hope! We are not surprised that it
is denominated by St. Paul, "the blessed
hope." Let us glorify God, tbarefore, by
"rejoicing in (this) hope, being patient in
tribulation, and continuing steadfastly in
prayer," (Rom. xii. 12), that we may "hold
fast tnat which we have till He come" (Rev.
ii. 25).

Will my Lord return? Will He come soon?
Will He come suddenly, "as the lightning
cometh forth from the East, and is seen
even unto the West?" (Matt xxiv. 27).
Will He come as my Savior or my
Judge? Am I ready for His coming? Am
I praying and patiently waiting for it?
Has His coming such an absorbing and vital
interest for me as to leave me to watch earn-
estly for it, to pray for its hastening, to look
for it continually, to love it and anticipate it
with cheerful and fond desire, and to keep
myself in constant readiness for it by always
"having on the wedding garment," and "oil
in my vessel?" (alat. xxii. 11, Matt xxv. 1-
13, Luke xii. 35, 36, 40).

My brethren, in conclusion I can only con-
gratulate you as you stand upon the very
thresnhold of the consummation of the cov-
enant of grace with respect to the militant
church, and in the very atmospnere and
light and quickening power of the dawning
"day of the Lord." when the coming Son of
man, "our elder brother," shall fully in-
augurate the millennial glory of His king-
dom on earth, delivering her, blessed be
God, from her long and wretched bondage
of corruption into the "glorious liberty of

THE CHILDREN OP OOD."

(Rom. viii. 21). And when all God's high
and holy purposes concerning Judah and
Israel restored and rehabilitated in the land
of promise, as also concerning the nations of
gentile heathendom and of Christendom,
shall have been fully accomplished dur-
ing the thousand" years of Christ's personal
reign in righteousness ana kingly power;
and after that He shall have put down and
abolished "all (Anti-christian) rule and all
authority and power," "with His enemies
unaer His feet," and Death, the last of them,
destroyed; "then shall He deliver up the
kingdom to God, even the Father," and the
millennial glory of His messianic kingdom,

now our "blessed hope," shall then be suc-
ceeded by, and culminate in, the unspeak-
able blessedness of paradise restored and in
the eternal glory of "the church of the first
born" amid the splendors of "the new Heav-
ens and new earth" — the final palingenesia
of| the redeemed and glorified universe (IL
Peter iii. 8-13. Rev xxi. 1-8).

"He which testifieth these tnings saith,
yea; I come quickly. Amen. Even so come.
Lord Jesus." (Rev. xxil. 20). And in the near
prospect of the apocalyptic glory surely we
may ever more sing:
i Jesus, lover of my soul,

■ Let me to Thy bosom fly;

i While the billows near me roll,

While the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide.

Till the storm of life be past.
Safe into the haven snide,
Oh, receive mv soul at last."
"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all
the saints." Amen!

THE REV. HENRY M. PARSONS.

JUDGMENTS AND BEWAEDS.

The Rev. Henry M. Parsons, of Toronto,
Canada, read the second paper of the warn-
ing, his subject being, "Judgments and Re-
wards." After congregational and quartet
singing, and prayer by Bishop Nicholson, of
Philadelphia, :he Rev. Mr. Parsons read as
follows:

The term judgment is often used in Holy
Scripture to express the judicial dealings
of God with men, as part of His govern-
ment As earthly governments always have
the judicial department, so when the day of
the Lord is spoken of as a thousand years,
and the saints are said to judge the world,
the whole term and the exercise of the func-
tions of government are often included in
the expression, judgment The statement
of the subject given to me limits the term
to those occasions when rewards and penal-
ties are declared. In this view we have
three important and final judgment scenes,
revealed in the Scriptures, and involving
eternal gain or loss for those who are the
subjects ot them.

These three have also peculiarities defin-
ing and distinguishing each.

The first one is a judgment of saints only
as to their deeds done in this life, for recom-
pense or rejection, according to the motive
inspiring them.

IT IS THE JUDGMENT OF WOBKS.

It is described in IL Cor. v. 10:

"For we must ail appear before the judg-
ment seat of Christ, tnat every one may re-
ceive the things done in Hie body according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or
bad. "

We learn trom the first verse of this epiaUa

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

7:)

that it is addressed to saints oniy, and the
manifestation at the seat of judgment is
pressed upon all believers as the most urg-
ent stimulus to fidelity and diligence in
service tor the glory of God. That this re-
fers to deeds only, as to their motive charac-
ter, is plain from Eom. viii. 1: "There is
therefore now no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesua" And if no sentence be
upon them no judgment can be
executed. This is plainly seen in
the experience of the apostle, which is
shared by ail believers — that he had been
crucified with Christ and in the eye of the
law, was no longei alive. But in Christ be-
lievers are a "new creation" and "have
passed from death unto life." The "life they
now live in the flesh is by "faith of the Son
of God" is Christ living in them the hope of
glory. This shows that their state is ever-
lasting life, the moment they believe, and
that according to the word of their risen
Lord, "They shall not come into judgment"
(John v. 24). The time of this judgment for
reward is indicated by our Lord in Luke xiv. ,
14. "Thou bhalt be recompensed at the
resurrection of the just." And this resur-
rection is at the coming of Christ for the
saints, according to I Cor. xv. 23, and Thes.
iv. 16-17. In the order of the resurrection
given in the first passage, none but Christ's
people rise when He comes, and according to
the laBt they ri6e before the living,
are changed into similar bodies, and with
them meet the Lord in the air. From that
moment they are "forever with the Lord."
This manifestation of their works is for the
purpose of receiving — "something from the
hand of the ]udge — according to the char-
acter of the work, under the standard of
judgment then to be applied. This accords
with the idea of the judgment seat, in the
Greek, a raised dais, from which the judge
gave the crowns to the victors in the public
games. And that these promised rewards
then bestowed is seen from the vision of the
church in the heavenly places given in the
Apocalypse. (Rev. iv. v. vi.). This gives
us the locality of the judgment seat. The
epistles of the N. T. contain many allusions
to this place of reward,

In I Cor ix-27 the apostle urges the control
and subjection of all bodily

LUSTS IN THE CHEISTlAN EACE,

"lest that by any means, when I have
preached to others, I myself snould be a
castaway."

The literal meaning of the Greek term is.
"unable to stand the test," and the refer-
ence is to the test of his deeds at the judg-
ment seat. Again, the same apostle, review-
ing his life work, exclaims: "Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous-

ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
will give me at that day; and not to me
only, but unto all them also that love Hia
appearing" (Tim. ii. 4-8). This clearly dis-
closes the nature and object of this judg-
ment. It is an inspection of deeds, with a
judgment of their proportionate reward, or
rejection. And these rewards or losses bear
upon the position of believers in the coming
kingdom of glory. Agreeing with this we
find the glory and honor of saints portrayed
in the preparation for the marriage supper
of the Lamb in heaven, and the advent of
the Lord on earth with His bride. And "to
her was granted that she should be arrayed in
fine linen clean and white; for the fine linen
is the righteousness of the saints. This was
her adornment tor the marriage. (Chap. xix.
7), "for the marriage of the lamb is come,
and His wife hath made herself ready." In
their robes of office, the saints who have
been glorified and invested with royal
honors, come forth with their victorious
leader ano>Lord, to introduce the next scene
of judgment on the earth as predicted in
D-in. vii. 22. "Judgment is given to the saints
of the most high" (Rev. xix 14), "and the
armies which were in heaven followed Him
upon white horses, clothed in fine linen,
white and clean." Thus the result of the
judgment is proclaimed. The future judges
and rulers of the earth co-heirs with the Son
of man. then enter upon the new field of
service assigned to them.
That

THEBE ABE DEOBEES OF ADVANCEMENT

and glory among the redeemed is evident
from our Lord's parabie of the talents and of
the pounds.

From this testing of works at the judg-
ment seat will result loss as well as gain and
reward.

Christ is recognized as the only founda-
tion for life and for character, for power
and ior works. Upon Him and in Him the
builders work. A test will be applied to all
this recorded work. This test will be search-
ing and sure. The motive power, "for the
glory of God," in the state and actions of
this present life, or otherwise, will be
clearly distinguished and discerned in that
day of sifting and testing (1 Cor. lii, 13, 15).
"Every man's work shall be made manifest,
for the dav shall declare it, because it shall
De revealed by fire, and the fire snail try
everj' man's worn of what sort it is. If any
man's work abide which he hath built there-
upon, he shall receive a reward. If any
man's work shall be burned he shall suffer
loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as
by fire. ' Though the specific reference or
this passage is to a distinct class of work-
men, the principle applied is evidently tha

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

same as governs the decisions at the judg-
ment seat. The last statement in the quota-
tion, the salvation of tbe believer, without
any works for reward, proves that this judg-
ment is not of character in the persons
judged, but of their worKs, and the test ap-
plied, "the glory of God" as the inspiring
motive — shows there is no place for selfish
exaltation; and that the personal righteous-
ness manifest in their works flows only from
the righteousness of Christ, by whom they
are made just and perfect before God, ante-
cedent to any and all works. It is in view of
the manifest

MAJESTY AND QLOET OF GOD

at his heavenly tribunal that the apostle
finds the strongest impulse to that consecra-
tion and persistent service, which secure the
triple crown, of life, of righteousness, and of
glory. In this related connection of the indi-
vidual righteousness of the believer springing
from the personal rigbteousness of His Be-
deemer is found the only ground on which
sinners stand at the judgment seat In
Revelations, iv. 10, the boly throng repre-
sented .by the four-and-twenty elders not
only "'worship Him that liveth forever and
ever," but. in proof of perfect loyalty and
absolute submission to Him in all their
glory, they "cast their crowns" (stephanoua,
crowns of victors, symbols of all rewards of
grace) "before the throne saying1: 'Thou art
worthy, O Lord ! to raceive glory and honor
and power; for Thou ha^t created all things,
and for Thy pleasure they are and were cre-
ated. " Thus all the works or all believers
Bhall come into judgment That scrutiny
will discover to what extent they proceed
from Him who dwells in the temple, the
"bope of glory." The spirit of God in
this connection urges us to cease
from all uncharitable and unprofitable
judgments of each other as co-work-
ers here with one common Master.
<Rom. xiv. 10), "For we shaii all stand be-
fore the judgment seat of Christ," and
(Rom, xiv. 12), "Every one of us shall give
account of himself to God;" (IL Cor. v. 11),
"Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord,
we persuade men." The great apostle found
in this fact the strongest incentive to self-
judgment. The searcbing discriminations
found in all his writings and teachings were
adapted to make men tremble in view of
coming judgment and sift their motives, lest
in the day of reckoning thev would be found
unable to endure the test. JNo less needful
is it in this day of laxity and departure that
the servants of God apply unflinchingly the
test-motive of the judgment seat of Christ.
IL The judgment of living nations

IS THE SECOND GKEAT SCENE

of judgment, to which tne Scriptures call

our attention. This is recorded in Matthew
xxv., 33: "When tne son of man shall come
in His glory and all the holy angels with'
Him, then shall He sit. uoon the throne of
His glory, and before Him shall be gathered
all nations, and He shall separate them one
from another, as a shepherd divideth his
sheep from the goat", and He shall set the
sheep on His right hand but tne goats on the
left."

The subjects which bave already been
treated in this conference have so clearly de-
fined the several relations of our Lord to
Israel, to the church, and to the world that
we need not dwell on the fact that the judg-
ment scene already considered will be the
introduction of the innumeraDle company of
kings and priests, gathered from ail nations
in this dispensation, to the co-partnership of
the throne of glorj on this earth. This won-
derful company will contribute the special
accumulation of glory predicted of our
Lord in Isaaih liii. 11, in return for all
the travail of His soul. They were a
covenant possession given to Him before the
foundation of the world. (See Eph. i. 4,
I. Peter i. 20, John xvii. 24.) They were
purchased by His blood (Eph. L 14). Their
inheritance is co-heirship with Him, and
they are in possession of it at the time of
this judgment (L Cor. ill. 21-23). All the
circumstances of the judgment of tne na-
tions differ widely from those of the judg-
ment seat just considered, and equally from
those of the great white throna revealed at
tbe close of the Apocalypse.

Those of the judged nations whom at His
coming He shall set at His right hand are
called to inherit a kingdom prepared for
them "from" (not before) the foundation of
the world. The expression vro katoboCei
kosmou — "before the foundation of the
world" — found in John xvit 24, Eph. i. 4,
L Peter i. 20, will

DOUBTLESS BE CONSrDEBED

by intelligent students of the Bibie to refer
«o the covenant of Horeb under which God
is gathering His elect church to-day to fill
the place forfeited by the defection of Israel.
The different expression of the passage now
in hand (apo kataboles kosmou), "from tbe
foundation of the world," will suggest "tne
relations of the nations to the earth, as inti-
mated in Psalms cxv. 16, and Daniel vii. 27.
Another difference is seen in the terms of
admission to the kingdom. The different
parts of this prophecy, as seen in Matthew
xxv. indicate this. For admission to the
"kingdom of priests" we have the "wedding
garment" (Matt xxiv. 11-12), "the oil in
their vessels, with their lamps" (Matt. xxv.
3-4), "faithful use of talents in service"

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

(Matt. xxv. 20-30). For admission to an in-
heritance in the kingdom of this earth at the
judgment of the nations, the blessed of the
Father receive their blessing on the
eround of their worKs of mercy (Matt
xxv. 34-30), and the cursed are under
the curse because they did not do these
works. The wavs of providence with the
nations of the earth, are different from His
dealings with Israel the elect nation, and
also distinct from His dealings with the
Church, the election from among the
nations.

As Son of man, our Lord opens this judg-
ment of livinsr nations. This also determines
the nature and the object of the decisions.
The terms employed, "sheep" and "goats,"
imply an organized state of Christianity.
The fact too, that this scrutiny is an assign-
ment of the respective parties to their own
place, in reward and in retribution, suggests
that it must he after the "residue" of men,
and "all the gentiles" have been

THE EECIPJENTS OF MEBCV

through Christ as indicated in Acts, 15-16.
In this case the scope of this judgment
mayj include the millenial age which
is still future and occurs after
the satanic insurrection is quelled and the
"devil aDd his angels" have been consigned
to ''everlasting fire." Another element in
the retribution here declared should be no-
ticed, "these shall go away into everlasting
punishment." This certainly describes a
state of existence, but the stress of the sen-
tence to be executed, lies in the word "pun-
ishment." It contains the element of con-
scious surfering ana torment as endured by
those upon whom it is inflicted. This lan-
guage is chosen bv the infinite Son of God to
express the divine thought and intent of thts
judgment sentence. The element or eternity
in this retribution and reward leads us to
consider it a final settlement with the na-
tions, upon the ground of tne gospel
preached to them, during the period of
Satan's restraint and brief release. The
term "nations" is used, and can be used only
of livlnEf persons. Hence this terra separates
this judgment from the one re-
vealed in Itev. 20 12, when oniy
those who are raised from the dead are
named. The state of those rewarded is also
eternal, and the welcome given them into
the earthly and eternal kingdom may
identify them with the nations spoken of in
Eev. 21-24 as basking in the light of the
New Jerusalem. "The nations shall walk in
the light of it and the kin<js of tne earth do
bring their glory into it" (revision). As the
Jews are to be the missionaries to the nations
in the opening of the next aere. and have pre-
eminence among them as God's earthly

people, it would seem congruous with tho
language of this prophecy, and with the sub-
stance of this judgment, that it should occur
at the close of the millenial age. On this
point, however, we will not speculate. The
chronological data of the prophecies, the in-
tervals between great and mighty changes
are not in scripture so clearly marked as to
the date of occurrence or length of continu-
ance as to justify any positive asser-
tion! Whether this judgment take
place at the opening or the close of the
next dispensation in the economy of the
ages, its terms are exa?t and definite, its
issues so tremendous and final that no one
can fail to see the vindication of the holy
character, and the impartial justice of the
Son of man in His glory. The reward an-
nounces the glorious deliverence of this
earth from the bondage of its oppressor, ful-
filling the ancient promise, "The ineeR shall
inherit the earth." "Come ye blessed of m>
father, inherit the kingdom prepared foi
you from the foundation of the world."
Upon this inheritence th^ blessed will enter
at once, and enjoy "life eternal." The ret-
ribution promised is equally decisive and
definite. "Depart from me ye cursed,

INTO EVERLASTING FIBE.

prepared for the devil and his angels." ThiB
sentence is further described as "everlasting
punishment,'' It words have any fixed
meaning by which we may know the
thoughts of God, this is a final settlement
with those who are here judged and sen-
tenced.

No intimation can here be found from the
Judge of all the earth, that either the char-
acter of those consigned to this eternal state
will ever change, or that the guilty can evei
exhaust this sentence. If language can con-
vey the truth of God's heart concerning1 any-
thing He is pleased to reveal, nothing can b&
clearer than the terms here employed re-
specting eternal reward and eternal retribu-
tion. They are the words of the Judgre him-
self. Absolutely they have the same import.
The very same word is applied to both,
therefore the terms of this judicial inquest
mu8tbe held as absolute, authoritative, and
final, by everyone receiving the Bible as the
inspired word of God.

1IL The last judgment is described in Rev.
xx. 11-15: "And I saw a greatwhite throne,
and Him that sat on it, from whose face the
earth and the heaven fled away; and there
was found no place for them. And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand before God, and
the books were opened, and another book
was opened, which is the book of life; and
the dead were judged out of these things
which were written in the boots, according
to their works.

THE PKOPHETIC CONB'ERENCE.

"And the sea gave up the dead which were
in it, and death and hell delivered up the
dead which were in them, and they were
Judged, every man according to their works.

"And death and hell were cast into trie
lake of fire.

THIS IS THE SECOND DEATH.

"And whosoever was not found written in
the book of life was cast into the lake of
fire."

Several incidents in tnis scene deserve our
attention, as separating this judgment from
those we have just considered. 1. The earth
snd heaven are here said to flee from the
face of the Judge, the locality, therefore, ap-
pears to be some point in space apart from
our globe. This would not be incongruous.
As we have seen the place of tne judgment
seat for the righteous only, was not on the
earth. 2. All subjects of this judgment are
raised from the dead for this purpose. They
comprise all who have died in all aeres of the
race without God, without hope, and who
have not been sentenced in the judgment of
the living nations.

3. It is a judgment of character as ene-
mies of God, as evidenced by their works.
For this purpose the books of remembrance
are opened to discern personal char-
acter from their deeds; "The dead were
judged out of those things, which were writ-
ten in the books, according to their works."
This is very different from the purpose
of inspecting deeds at the judgment seat
For then the object is to discern works for
reward. They are to "receive according to
that (they) have done." Here the object is to
show the character, already formed, to be
confirmed by their own deeds, and receive
sentence accordingly. Nor can this Inquest
be confused with the glory-throne judg-
ment, for there all the parties are living,
and severally named "sheep" and "goats."

4. A special carefulness is manifest in
this scrutiny, the most solemn and awful
ever witnessed in the universe. The book
of life, containing the names of ail given in
covenant before the foundation of the world,
and, therefore, called the Lamb's Book of
Life, is searched for the name of every one
condemned by his works, to see if by any
possibility that account can be found

COVEEEP WITH KEDEEMING BLOOD.

Such painstaking, accuracy can never De
questioned throughout eternity. Never will
there be found a mistake in the books of God.
The sentence marks this as a distinct and
final judgment. There is no arraignment
and no pleading. It is, in fact, an execution
of sentence before declared but now made
public in presence of the whole universe.
The terms imply the inclusion of all the
wicked dead of every aare. The sea, death,

hades deliver up their dead, thus defining
the fact of the boay, though mortal and cor-
rupt, havinsr in it the seed of the resurreo-
tion oody, and the spirit, though separate
for a time, reunited to the body of shame
and death. Death and hades are personified
as enemies of Christ, and therefore allied
with Satan, whom he has conquered and de-
stroyed.

There is a most important sense in which
this is a final and general judgment. It is a
revelation of the eternal truth and justice
of God in His dealing with sinners. The
confessions of the guiltv by their
speechlessness when confronted with
all their misdeeds — not one forgot-
ten— will be the most eloquent
though silent vindication of the purity and
holiness, and eternal justice of God.

In a sense, all dispensational judgments
are prefatory and preparatory to this.

Peter in his second epistle contrasts the
deluge with this final day. and as we know
that in the destruction by water every soul
perished, so the purgation of the earth by
fire may be going on at the very time of this
assize (IL Peter iii. 6-7). "The world that
then was being overflowed with water per-
ished; but the heavens aud the earth which
are now, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judg-
ment and perdition of ungodly men."

In like manner the judgment of the Bed
Sea and Sodom are set forth t>y J ude as ex-
amples, "suffering the

VENGEANCE OF ETEENAL FIRE."

This dread assize will signally vindicate
the equity of all judicial dealings with the
wicked, both men and angels. For the same
writer declares that the fallen angels "are
reserved in everlasting chains, under dark-
ness, unto judgment of the great day." The
place into which the persistent and incor-
rigible enemies of God are cast is called the
"lake of fire." "This is the second death."
When we consider the use of this term
"death" in the word of God we find it ap-
plied to man while alive in his body and
active in his mind.

In his native state he is "dead in tres-
passes and sins," utterly separated from
the knowledge and the life of God.
Separateu from the present state he still has
a character either in harmony with God or in
opposition to Him. The first death separates
each responsible sinner — either "to be absent
from the body and present with the Lord,"
or to be "absent from the body and present
in his own place." In both cases permanence
for eternity is settled. If this be not the as-
stimption — the assertion, and the conclusion
of the word of God — then language has
ceased to have definite meaning — and plain

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

statements of facts are utterly delusive and
misleading. All entreaties and denunciations
are

FOUNDED VVOS THIS CEBTAINTX.

Ail promises ana threatening run in
this eternal groove. "As the

tree falleth so it shall lie."
(Rev. xx 6.) "Blessed and holy is he that
hath part in the first resurrection; on such
the second death hath no power." (Rev. xx
13, 14, 15.) "And they were judged, every
man, according to their works." "And who-
soever was not found written in tbe book of
life was cast into the lake of fire." "This is
the second death."

Another thought pressed upon us by these
eternal verities of Revelation is that every
judgment contains distinct recognition of
personal character and responsibility in
those who are judged as continuing forever.

The assumption made by some teachers of
the Word, that there is ground for hope in
tbe future, called the "Eternal Hope," either
through restoration after ages of suffering,
retribution, or of recovery under some future
probation, is seen in the light of this judg-
ment to be groundless, and therefore most
perilous when insinuated or bolaiy interpo-
lated within the lines of these judgment sen-
tences. It is simply the old device of Satan.
From the beginning he has both questioned
and disputed the benevolence and the justice
of God, in dealing with rebels against His
government and sinners against His laws,
until He has boldly said, "ye shall not surely
die."

THE CONCLUSION OF SIN,

whether it be rejection of light or violation of
law, is death (Rom. ii. 12-16). "For as many
ab have sinned without law shall also perish
without law, and as many as have sinned in
the law, shall be judged by the law in
the day when God shall judge the secrets of
men by Jesus Christ, according to the
gospel."

Ana when we follow the sinner into that
state where no mention is made in any
revelation we have from God, of any second
opportunity or privilege of hearing the
message of mercy; when we know from the
experience of the present life that no change
of circumstances or external condition can
cause a change of heart; when we know
that continuance in sinning produces greater
hardness of heart in whatever part of the
universe it is practiced, ana increasing
guiltiness in the sight of God; when every
word of the Bible shows that as long as un-
fitness for the presence of God continues.
Reparation by reason of sin must not only
continue but also increase; wheu we see the
goodness of God in the grace of Christ,
visiting all men of every age, so that they
are without excuse In their sinful

ignorance and rebellion, it would
seem to be the madness of impiety
itself, to tell men they had not had a fair
chance of salvation, and more than that, to
declare a future hope of salvation and mercy
through Christ when this life is ended, would
seem to be blasphemous contradiction of
that "grace of God," that bringing salvation
"hath appeared to all men." For nowhere
in the words of grace is even "to-morrow"
allowed the sinner for repentance. "To-
day" if ye will hear his voice harden not
your heart" This very day of judgment1
upon which our thoughts are fixed is made
an argument for the instant repentance ol
all men. No one is exempted from the obli-
gation. "But now (Goa) commandeth all
men everywhere to repent because he hath
appointed a day in the which He will judge
the world in righteousness by that man
whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath
given assurance unto all men, in that He
hath raised him from the dead." (Acts xvii,
30-31.)

The regular Farweli Hall noon-day prayer-
meeting, attended by many conference
members, was conducted by the Bev. Dr.
William Dinwiddie, of Alexandria, Va.

PROFESSOR D. C. MARGIUTS, D. D

ESCHATOLOOY, AS TAUGHT BY CHEIST.

Colonel George R Clark, of Chicago, pre-
sided at the afternoon meeting. After the
singing prayer was offerpd hv thpRev. V. O^ler,
of Trovidence. B. L, and Professor D. 0.
Marquis, D. D., of the McCormick Theolog-
ical Seminary, of Chicago, read the folio w-
paper on the subject, "Eschatology, as
Taught by Our Lord:"

[Note — In the literal reproduction of Greek
words in English text throughout this pa-
per, the Greek letter "omega" Is represented
by the English "oo;" and the Greek "eta" by
the English "ee." — Ed.]

The eschatological discourses of Jesus, as
recorded in the twenty-fourth and twenty-
fifth chapters of the gospel by Matthew, and
in the twenty-first chapter by Luke, have
long been a source of perplexity and diffi-
culty to the interpreters of Scripture.

The difficulty appears to be twofold:

1. To bring the two records of Matthew
and Luke in harmony with each other.

2. To so interpret the record of Matthew
as that it shall be in harmony with itself.

The common interpretation supposes
tnat Matt. xxiv. and Luke xxi.
are two reports of one and
the same discourse, delivered to the cama
audience at the same time. There is, in-
deed, a marked similiarity between the two,
amounting to almost complete identity in
certain paragraphs. E. g., Lute xx. i8-ll. is
almost Identical with Math. xxiv. 4-7.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Again, Luke, xxi. 29-33, is nearly identical
with Math., xxiv. 32 35. But here the
identity ends, and features of marked con-
trast appear.

1. Luke, xxi. 12, goes bact and predicts a
history that shall precede the events which
have just been foretold — but before all these,
whereas Matt. xxiv. 8, goes forward and
predicts a history that shall follow the events
thus predicted — but all these are a beginning
of sorrows.

2. Luke's record makes no mention of the
"end of the age," except to affirm (vs
9) that it does not immediately
follow tne earlier

COMMOTIONS OF THE WORLD.

He does speak (vs. 281 of a redemption of the
church which is to be consummated in tne
beginning of a final tribulation. He also
records (vs. 36) an exhortation to watchful-
ness and prayer on tne part of the church
that they may be counted worthy to escape
this period of trial, and to stand before the
Son of man.

Matthew, however (xxiv. 14) speaks of the
telos as about to follow "then" tote upon the
universal proclamation of the gospel of the
kingdom. He also describes (xxiv. 29-31)
the wreck of nature and the glorious appear-
ing of the Son of Man, as about to follow
"Immediately" eutheoos upon a period of
trial just described.

3. Luke xxi. 24 pictures the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem and its sub-
jection to gentile sway as continuing
until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled.
Math. xxiv. 15-29 pictures an awful woe
upon Judea and a shortened period of un-
paralleled severity to be followed imme-
diately by the end.

4. Luke xxi. 20 gives the sign for the
faithful to escape from Jerusalem to be the
beginning of a military siege, Matt. xxiv. 15,
gives the sign of departure from Judea to
be the abomination of desolation standing in
the holy place.

To harmonize these incongruities on the
common idea that these are two reports of
the same discourse delivered to the same
audience at the same time is to my own
mind simply impossible. One of the best
proofs of its impossibility is the unsatis-
factory result of all attempts to
work out a consistent interpreta-
tion on that line. No commentator
whom I have consulted, has succeeded to
his own satisfaction, much less to the satis-
faction of his readers.

Reconciliation seems equally impossible,
too, if we suppose that the passages wherein
these Incongruities occur refer to the same
event, or to tbe same period of human his-
tory, e. gr. , Wnen Luke's record makes tne

woe of Jerusalem to be followed bv ita sub-
jection to gentile domination until the times
of the gentiles are fulfilled, that is one thing.
But when Matthew's record makes

THE WOE OF JUDEA

and its unequalled tribulation to be followed
immediately by the wreck of nature and the
coming of the Son of man, that is another
and quite a different tiling. It is impossible
upon any fair principle of interpre-
tation to refer these two woes
to the same period of the
world's history.

The commentators who have proceeded
upon the supposition that the woe of Judea
described in Matthew is identical with the
woe of Jerusalem described in Luke, and
that both were fulfilled in A. D. 70, nave
ventured upon various solutions of the diffi-
cult problem. E. g. one (Morison in loe;
finds a transition from the woe of Judea, to
the scenes of the last times, in the tote of
vs 23. He makes tote equivalent to epeita,
and translates it "afterward." Thus, by
making tote cover the whole of the period
between A. D. 70 and the last times he pre-
pares the way for eutheoos of verse 29. But
this is certainly an unwarrantable use of
tote. In ail the many places where the word
is used in the JNew Testament it expresses
either simultaneousness or immediate
succession; never indefinite succession.
Another (Owen) makes the entire passage,
even down to the close of verse 31, to be
but a figurative description of the scenea
attending the capture of Jerusalem by the
Romans, although the glorious appearing of
the Son of man is minutely described (verBes
29, 30, 31). Still others give to the predic-
tions a double reference (1) to Jerusalem as
then existing and (2) to the scenes of the
last days, but the attempt to distinguish the
one from the other, or to find the double
reference extending throughout the pro-
phecy, only makes confusion worse oon-
founded.

I see no reason why the two records (Math,
xxiv., Luke xxi.) may not be understood as
containing two separate discourses, the one
overlapping and partially repeating the
other. The discourse recorded by Luke
may have been spoken either by
the temple wall or on the way
to Olivet

IT WAS IN ANSWER

to the question of the disciples, When shall
these things be, and what sign when these
things are about to take place? — "these
things" referring to the predicted destruc-
tion of the temple.

It begins with a description of the trials of
the church in its earlier davs — trials arrising
from tbe pretensions of false Christs and

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

from popular commotions — with an exhorta-
tion not to be deceived by these for they are
not the heralds of the immediate end. of the
age (Luke xxi. 8 9).

Instead of these earlier trials, indicating:
the immediate end, he declares (vv. 10-11)
that the world's history shall be a story of
wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilences, and
at the last, terrors and great signs from
heaven. In this . brief paragraph (vv.
10-11) we find a succinct history of tne
world during the present age. For what
is history, but a story of wars — nation against
nation ana kingdom against kingdom —
earthquakes, pestilences, famines. The
world's commotions, calamities, woes have
always been and are to-day the world's
great epochs.

Having thus thrust the world's whole his-
tory into a nut shell he turns back (vs. 12)
and describes more minutely the ex-
perience of the churcb in connection
with tbe nearer woes that are about to fall
upon Jerusalem. "Before all these things" —
i. e. , before the Historic scenes just de-
scribed— certain things will taKe place. Then
follows (vv. 12-19) an account of the perse-
cutions that should befall the disciples in
their first antagonisms with unbelieving
hate — a prediction which was accurately ful-
filled in the history of the early church. He
tells them also of the destruction that would
come upon Jerusalem, and foretells the sign
that would warn the disciples to make
pood their escape from the doomed city.
"When ye see Jerusalem encircled by arm-
ies," etc This prediction was literally ful-
filled in the escape of the Cnristians to Pella
at the time of the siege by the Roman forces
under Titus. The (vv. 22-24) he describes
the awful destruction that would come upon
tne city and the scattering of the people
among all nations, and the subiection of the
holy citv to gentile domination "until the
times of the gentiles are fulfilled."

In that brief sentence "until the times of
the Gentiles are fulfilled" is covered

A VAST PERIOD OF HUMAN HISTORY.

It carries us forward by a single step to the
closing scenes at the end of the age. He has
reached now the very point indicated at the
close of verse 11 — from which he had turned
back — with the words pro de toutoon apan-
toon — to bring- up the history more minutely.
Now, when "the times of the gentiles are
fulfilled" shall begin (vs 2b) the opening
scenes of a great tribuiatinn, which is to
proceed to the wrecK of nature, and to end
in the glorious appearing of the son of man
(vs 27). But (de, the Greek conjunctive,
strongly adversative) tlie beginning" of these
awful scenes ought to be a time of rejoicing
to the believing and waiting church. When

these things are beginning to be, then wake,
lift your heads, for your redemption is near.
'.'ids promise, with its accompanying exhorta-
tion, points clearly and unmistakably to the
saparation of the believing church from the
world as described in L Thess. iv. 16-18.
Tnie separation of the saints from the world,
we are told, shall take place at the beginning
of the tribulation. While they are thus sep-
arate, in actual enjoyment of their com-
pleted redemption, the trial of the world
shall go on, as it; is here described (vv. 25-
26). There shall be signs in the sun, moon,
and stars, on the earth distress of nations with
perplexity, the sea and the waves thereof
roaring and men's hearts failing them for
fear because of those things that are coming
upon the inhabited earth. And all this com-
motion and confusion shall end in the final
and glorious coming of the Lord; when
J ude's quotation from Enoch shall be ful-
filled: "When the Lord comes amid His holy
myriads" to execute judgment The begin-
ning of the tribulation marks the time when
the Lord will separate His people as foretold
(L Thess. iv. 16-18). Therefore, he says:
When these things are beginning to be, lift
your heads, for your redemption is near.
The end of the tribulation marks the time
when He will come with His holy myriads to
execute judgment as foretold in Jude
xiv. 15.

A natural question just here would be, is
there any sigh by which we may know with
certainty the beginning of the tribulation?
As if anticipating this question Jesus pro-
ceeds (vs 29) to answer it. The sign is the
same in kind as that by which we tell of the
coming of summer.

WHEN WE SEE THE BUDDING LEAVES

we may expect the summer, though if we
had no experience to guide us we could pre-
dict nothing as to the time. Just so when
we see these troubles, ginomenia in exist-
ence we may know that it heralds the near
approach of the completed redemption,
though, as we have no experience to guide
us, we can predicate nothing: as to the time-
But we may be sure of this, that when the
times of the gentiles are fulfilled, and the
trials of the last days are begun, the redemp-
tion of the waiting church is so
near as to fall within the lim-
its of a single generation —
eefjenea autee — this generation. The pronoun
is demonstrative, not intensive. This is de-
cided, not by the accent (for that is no part
of the inspiration), but by its position. It
must describe the generation then existing
at the time contemplated in the view-point
of the speaker. If it referred to a generation
distant from the speaker's view-point, ekeinee
would be the pronoun employed, The only

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

question, then, is what is the view-point of
the speaker? That is determined by verse
31. He is addressing you who see the e
things ginomena, becoming'. The divine
prophet is standing in prophetic vision amid
the scenes above described. He spea&s to
you, or you, or you, wnoever may witness
the beginning: of these commotions, just as
Paul said, "We who are alive." etc. To such
he says: "The wished-for consummation
will arrive before this generation shall pass
away." The general truth taught is, the pe-
riod intervening between the beginning of
the tribulation of the last times, and the
"consummation of the age" is very brief.
The same generation that sees the sign will
also behold the consummation.

The lesBon to the church, in view of these
disclosures, is not to let that day come upon
you unawares. Uncertain as it must ever
be as to when the final tribulation will be-
gin, or as to which of earth's constantly re-
curring woes is the beginning: of the final
trial — the exhortation must be always timely
to watch and pray that we may be accounted
worthy to escape those things which shall
come to pass. So watch against the excesses
and cares of this world, as that, when the
church's redemption is consummated, in the
raising of the dead and the changing of the
living, ye may be counted worthy of a place
among the separated ones who shall escape
the dire tribulation that has just begun, and
be counted worthy to stand with Him in
secure separation from those awful calami-
ties which the world must undergo lmmedi-
ately preceding the final judgment.

This ends the discourse as recorded by
Luke. Before

PASSING TO MATTHEW'S RECORD

it may be well to call to mind three well-
known and generally accepted truths:

L Luke's gospel was written for the gen-
tile.

Therefore, if among the traditions of the
apostolic church, or if among the written
logia of Jesus, there was found a discourse
which portrayed the future of the church
during the times of the gentiles, we might
expect that the Holy Spirit would direct
Luke to incorporate that discourse in nis
gospel.

2. The gospel by Matthew was written for
the Jew.

Tnerefore, if among the preserved logia of
Jesus a discourse was found which
gave prominence to the future of
God's ancient people, as regards their
relation to the kingdom of Christ,
we might expect the Holy Spirit to direct
Matthew to incorporate that discourse in his
gospel.

3. The Holy Scriptures, both in the Old

Testament and in the New, predict a future
dealing of God with His ancient people of
Bome marked and marvellous character.

The prophets are full of it Paul, in the
eleventh of Romans, reaffirms it The
Apocalypse foretells it The past history
ana present status of the Hebrew people in
the world is a standing witness that some
wonderful future is in store for the Hebrew
nation.

Bearing with us these three truths, we
turn now to the record of Matthew.

This discourse was delivered on the Mount
of Olives, in response to the question of
certain disciples (Mark gives their names,
Peter. James, John, Andrew — distinctive
representatives of Judaistic ideas concern-
ing the kingdom) wno came to Him pri-
vately and asked when shall these things be,
and "what the sign of thy parousia. and of
the consummation of the age." The ques-
tion contains two points which could not
have been suggested by anything which ap-
pears in Matthew's record. The "parousia' ■
and the "consummation of the age" could
only have been suggested to them by their
previous hearing of the discourse recorded
by Liuke.

In answering this question Jesus begins
with a repetition, almost word for word, of
the opening sentences of the previous dis-
course. (Matt. xxiv. , 4-7.) It is a brief de-
scription (vv. 4-6) of the near trials of the
early church, with an assurance that these
are not the end. Then follows (vs. 7) an

EPITOME OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY,

nation against nation, kingdom against
kinardom, famines, pestilences, earth-
quakes. Just as in the pre-
vious discourse, he condenses the world
history into a terse statement of the events
which constitute the epochs of that history.
So far the two discourses are identical.

But instead of goinsr back as before, and
portraying the experience of the church
from apostolic days down to tne end of the
age, he goes forward, beyond the times of
the gentiles, and sketches the history of the
Jewish people during the tribulation of the
last times. "All these — all the experiences
of the church during the world History just
narrated — are a beginning of birth pangs."
All that has preceded, during the times of
the gentiles, are as nothing compared with
the sharper pains and sorer tribulations that
are to come.

The prophecy from this point on-
ward must presuppose, at least,
a partial fullfilment of those

ancient predictions concerning Israel which
the prophets so often repeat, when there
shall be a gathering of Israel in their own
land, and this "gathering of Israel," Paul in-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

timates (Rom. xi., 26). will be accompanied
with a National profession of the faith of
Christ.

In that condition this prediction of Jesus
contemplates Israel, and foretells something:
of the trials that will thenbefal His covenant
people.

L The Nations of the earth will then be
roused against them with a peculiar ana
deadly enmity, because of their profession
of the name of Christ

2. There shall be defections and betrayals
among themselves.

3. False prophets shall arise and shall de-
ceive many.

4. The Intensified hostility without,
together with the falsehood and
treachery within will have a discouraging
effect upon the professedly faithfuL

5. But whoever abides faithful through
the trial — without defection or apostasy —
shall be saved (vs. 13).

6. And by their very faithfulness they will
testify this, the gospel of the kingdom.

THE THING TO BE HEBALDED

is the good news that the glorious Messianic
kingdom, which the prophets long; ago fore-
told and for which the fathers waited, is at
hand. The same gospel that John the Bap-
tist preaciied — the same that I preached (says
Jesus), but which Israel has now rejected,
and by that rejection the manifestation of
the kingdom is postponea until the fullness
of the gentiles is Drought in — that gospel
shall then be heralded in the whole inhabited
world in the certainty of the kingdom's near
approach — a witness to all the nations — and
then (tote) the end will come.

The sure sign of the approaching end will be
"the abomination of desolation, foretold by
Daniel, the prophet, standing in the holy
place." This is demanded by the connective
particle dun. "When, therefore, ye may see."
The oun connects this paragraph directly
and indissolubly with the telo.s, which pre-
cedes. It points to the abomination of deso-
lation as the unmistakable sign of the pre-
dicted end. Here, again, the interpreters
who strive to locate this passage in A. D. 70,
are widely at variance among themselves.
Ebrard and Wiesler make oun to refer back
to the first part of the disciples' question,
wnicb had reference to the destruction of
the temple, But that part of their
question did not ask for a sign. It only
asked, "Wnen shall these things be?" The
sign is asked for in the second part of the
question, and it was to be a sign of the
Aparousia," and of the "consummation of
the age." So that, if we grant to the parti-
cle a connection so distant, it is still a con-
nection of the sign with the end. Seeing
this difficulty, Dorner regards oun as "in-

troducing an application of the eschatoiogi-
cal principles enunciated in all the preced-
ing verses," though what those "principles"
are and what the "application" is, he does
not clearly inform us. Morison understands
oun to point to an inference from all that
precedes, "Therefore, flee to the mountains. •'
These are but specimens of the many and
varied attempts to dispose of the particle so
as to locate the paragraph in A. D. 70. Yet
the unbiased student of the Greek New
Testament must regard every one
of theee suggestions as somewhat
forced and unnatural. I do not think
It either uncharitable or untrue
to say that the poor little oun
would never havobeen tossed about through

A BANOE OF THIBTEEN VEB8ES,

like Noah's dove, seeking in vain for a rest-
ing place, had it not been necessary to main-
tain a theory. The plain, simple, logical
connection is with tbe telos wnich imme-
diately precedes. The "abomination of deso-
lation is tne unmistakable sign of the end."

The "abomination of desolation" can not,
theretore, be descriptive of anything that
occurred when Jerusalem was destroyed bv
the Romans. It must refer to <vnat will
take place in the restored Israel after the
times of the gentiles. In the midst of hos-
tility without and treachery and apostasy
within the faithful are warned that a sign
shall be given when the nation must be de-
serted. That sign is "the abomination of
desolation," foretold by Daniel the Prophet
standing in the holy place.

Precisely who or what this is it would be
unprofitable to conjecture. May it not, by
fair interpretation, be identified with that
man of lawlessness whom Paul describes as
the final development of the world's wicked-
ness (IL Thessalonians, ii.) and whose
parousia is the certain precursor of the
parousia of the Son of Man? He is to set
Himself In the temple of God and proclaim
that He is God

When He shall be seen standing in the holy
place then let the faithful separate them-
selves absolutely from all association or affil-
iation with their nation, ijet them "stand
not upon the order of tneir going but go at
once" (verses 17-18). For then the triDula-
tion will deepen until it will reach a point of
dire distress such as never has been nor
may be (verses 19-21). It is suffering so
intense and terrible that no flesh oould
endure it if it were to continue
Ions*. But for the sake of the
elect— (that remnant of Israel whom God
hath chosen, whom John describes as the
"hundred and iorty-fou: thousand sealad
ones (Rev. vii. 4-8) — the period of trial is
mercifully shortened (vs. 221

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

"Then," (Tote. As it Is known to the be-
lieving ones that this intensity of trial
ia a predicted sign of the near approach of
the Messiah King, it may be expected that
the pressure of the trial will Dring out pre-
tended Messiahs.) if any one say, "Behold
here, or there is the Christ, believe it not."
(v. 23).

FALSE CHRISTS WILL BE ABUNDANT.

Some of them will be accompanied by super-
natural powers and by wonderful tokens of
a supernatural mission, so numerous and
marvelous that even the very elect micht be
deceived, if such a thing were possible.

The ultimate developments of supernatu-
ralism, the germs of which may be seen in
spiritism, and mind cure, and faith cure,
will then be rife and rampant

But no matter where they may concentrate
their influence and attempt to rally their
followers, heed them not. If they send forth
their proclamations from the desert, go not
out to join them. If it be whispered that
Messiah is come and is waiting his oppor-
tunity in secret, believe it not. For the
parousia of judgment will be so open and
universally visible that no one can be mis-
taken about it when it comes. It will be
like the flash of lightning, visible from hori-
eon to horizon, illumining all the earth. Just
as the eagles light where the carrion putri-
fies, so judgment will fall where corruption
is foul; and as corruption covers the earth,
bo the coming of the Son of Man to judg-
ment will be everywhere visible (vv. 23-28).

But (de strongly adversauve) although the
judgment parousia when ir, comes will be
so manifest as to leave no ex-
cuse for deception by any of
the pretended Messiahs; it will
be accompanied by signs peculiarly its own.

•Ttninediately" — eutheoos. This is a word
with which the coinmentntors have hope-
lessly wrestled. Morison says: "It has been
a very rack of torture to such expositors as
have lost their way." And he proceeds to
verify his statement by losing his own way.
Aug. Meyer says: "It may be observed gen-
erally that a whole nost of strange and fan-
ciful interpretations nave been given here in
consequence of it3 naving been assumed that
Jesus could not possibly have intended to
say that His second advent was to foilow im-
mediately upon the destruction of Jerusa-
lem," meaning, of course, the destruction of
A. D. 70. If this statement means anything
it must mean that Meyer would avoid a fan-
ciful interpretation by assuming that Jesus
could and did utter a false prediction.
Others (Wetstein, E. J. Meyer, Owen,; make
the entire paragraph (vv 29-31) to be but a
poetic or figurative^description of the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem Dy the Romans. But the

visible coming of the Son of Man — tha
mourning of all the tribes of earth —

THE GATHEBING OF THE ELECT

Dy the ministry of angels from earth and
heaven — these things present a very bog of
difficulties in which that line of interpreta-
tion becomes hopelessly mired. Others
(Schott, Hammond) try to make eutheoos
mean "suddenly," as if it were tacheoos, but
that is simply playing with words for a pur-
pose. Nowhere else in the New Testament
does eutheoos mean anything else than im-
mediate succession. Others (Morison) hud a
transition from the Boman conquest of
Jerusalem to the last times in the word tote
of v. 23, translating "afterward" as though
it were epeita. But that is maintaining tha
integrity of eutheoos by falsifying tote, rob-
bing Peter to pay jfaul. Even it this were
allowable it would not help the matter, be-
cause the tribulation referred to in v. 29 was
described in vv. 21 and 22 before
ever tote appeared in the text
at all, and tote is only spoken
for the purpose of injecting a warning
against the pretended Messiahs of those
days. The plain common-sense meaning of
both eutheoos and tote can be retained, how-
ever, and the difficulties of the passage dis-
appear, if we but accept the truth that "tha
tribulation of those days" is the tribulation
of the last times, and that the abomination
of desolation is a development of the last
times.

Immediately after those trying days the
whole framework of nature will be convulsed
in the throes of dissolution (v. 29) Tne
relations of the planets of the solar system
will be violently disturbed. The very laws
that bind material bodies to their orbits, and
that hold Lhem in relation with eaca other
wiii be loosed. The powers of the heavens
will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of
the Son of Man in the heavens (v. 30). The
flashing of His glory, the blazing effulgence of
that ineffable brightness which radiates from
His glorified peraohSvill flash over the heav-
ens and illumine all tnu sRy. Then all the
tribes of the earth will mourn. Tha unbe-
lieving world is roused at last to greet the
shining of the e'lory of the Lord, as it blazes
out amid the convulsive throes of uatuie,
with one universal wail of woe and despair.
They shall see the Son of Man ooruinjj upon
the clouds of heaven, with power and much
glory. Behold He cometn with clouds, and
every eye shall see Him, and such as pierced
Him, and all the tribes of the earth shall wail
on account of Him (tie v., i, 7).

Then (v 31) the angels,

THOSE SWIFT MESSENGEBS

of the providence of Christ, will gather His
elect together from the four quarters of the

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

ear to, and from the utmost limits of the
heavens. The elect of God, those saved
through the tribulation and those saved
from it, who nailed .their redemp-
tion as complete in its begin-
ning; the one gathered from the
tour quarters of the eartn; the otner, from
limit to iimit of the heavens where they
have been with Christ during the heat of the
trial standing before, the Son of Man (Luke
xxi. 36). All of tnem together shall be
gathered to tne side of the King. This is the
parousia of judgment.

Before proceeding to describe the judg-
ment scene itself he turns aside at this point
to repeat what he had previously said in the
discourse recorded by Luke, and, from what
follows, it would seam that the immediate
reference nere, as .well as there, is to the
parousia of grace. Its sign is as tne sprout-
lug of the tree to the summer (verse 32). Its
only sien is the beginning of the tribulation.
Prom the time when the tribulation begins,
until the gracious parousia that shall separ-
ate the believing cnurcii from the unbe-
lieving world will be a period so brief
as to fail within the limits of a
single generation (v. 34). (See page 86).
But concerning that day and hour no man
knoweth, i. e., the time of the completion of
the redemption of His believing ones, which
is to come so soon after the beginning of the
tribulation. It must always be uncertain
which of earth's constantly recurring trials
is the beginning of the final one. Tnerefore
no man can know, and it is useless for any-
body to predict the time. The aogels do uot
know it. It is a secret locked in the bosom
of the divine Omniscience, and the event
alone will declare it. Bat the world will not
be expecting it when it comes. It will be j use
as it was in the days of Noah. Then the peo-
ple kept on living their accustomed life, eat-
ing, drinking, marrying and giving in mar-
riage until the flood overtook them. So will
be the parousia of the Son of Man, when His
saints will be separated and His judgments
will begin. Just when men are pursuing
their accustomed life, planting, building,

BUXINCi, SELLING, TALKING POLITICS,

and bunding railroads the parousia will be
present and the day of the Lord will begin.
<vv. 37,39.)

Then to illustrate still more forcibly, if
possible, the absolute unexpectedness of the
event, He pictures two meu at work in the
field. They are farmers, pur*>uing their
u-ual occupation. One of them is of the
number of the Lord's redeemed and regen-
erate children. The other is a child of the
world, instantly, in the twinkling of an eye
(L Cor. xv. 52) one is changed to tne body of
the resurrection and caught up to meet the

Lord in the air. The other is left to share
the world's tribulation and Judgment.

Two women are at work with a hand-milL
If he had said baking bread, or working sew-
ing-machines, or stitching embroidery, it
would have the same meaning. It means
anytbing in the line of every day occu-
pation. One is a follower of Jesus
The other is a woman of the world. In-
stantly, just in the midst of their conversa-
tion and work, one is changed into tne
the bodily likeness of Christ and taken with
the risen saints to be with the Lord, the
other is left to share the tribulation and judg-
ment that are coming upon the world, (vv.
40-41.)

As this is the feature of the parousia that
most concerns the church, and as the time
of it is absolutely unknown and imminent,
it behooves the church to watch, and to be
always in an attitude of watchfulness. Dia
touto (vs. 44). Be ye also ready, for just at
the time wnen we think He is not coming,
then is the very time when He will come.
Our position is that of a steward whom an
absent master has left in charge of a prop-
erty. If we take courage in negligence by
His delay and think to indulge our selfish-
ness with impunity, the accounting will be
unexpected and the penalty swirt and terri-
ble. We have proved our falsehood and un-
worthiness, and the space for repentance
has gone.by. (vv. 45-51.)

Then (ch. xxv., 1-13), by the story of the
ten virgins, He illustrates the reception He
will have from tne church at the time of tne
parousia of grace. In ch. xxv., 14-30, by
the parable of the talents, He illustrates
the principle on which awards will
be distributed at the parousia of judg-
ment. Then (xxv, 31) He returns to
the description of the iudgment scene
itself, which had been interrupted at
ch. xxiv., 32. That is indeed the end.
The only thing to follow is tbe everlasting
punishment and the life eternal (vv. 31-46.)

There are four indispensable conditions of
correct exegesis wnich mu»t be constantly
observed: 1. The meaning of word.-. 2.
Grammatical construction. 3. Logical con-
nection. 4. Analogical interpretation. I
submit whether the interpretation herein
outlined does not entirely satisfy the first
three of these conditions.

1. TUe meaning of words is not strained

2. Grammatical construction is not vio-
lated; 3. The logical connection is natural
and consistent throutrbout.

Is the fourth condition also satisfied? That
must depend upon whether the Scriptures
teach a dual parousia (ol grace and of judg-
ment) and a dual dispensation (of gentile
and Jew) as constituting the age.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

It may be said that this attempt at exegesis
lacks authority, as being outside of the cur-
rent lines of interpretation. But if it has (as
I believe) the authority of the divine word,
that is sanction enough, for there ia none
higher.

THE REV. DR. ALBERT EEDMAN.

CONTENDING FOB THE FAITH.

In the absence of the Rev. Dr. J. R. Graves,
of Memphis, who had been assigned to
speak upon the subject, "Palestine Restored
and Repeopled," the Rev. Dr. Albert Erd-
man, of Morristown, N. J., read the second
paper of the afternoon on the subject, "Con-
tending Earnestly for the Faith — tbe Apos-
tolic Faith and the Apostolic Christian."

"Beloved," wrote St. Jude, "while I was
giving all diligence to write unto you of our
common salvation I was constrained to
write unto you (at once), exhorting you to
contend earnestly for the faith which was
once (once for all) delivered to the saints"
(v. 3).

Tins brief letter of Jude of only twenty-
five verses is one of the latest, if not tne
latest, of the pastoral epistles. Though the
date can not be

DEFINITELY FIXED,

it was written probably after the destruction
of Jerusalem, and when most of the apostles
nad finished their work. It contains no less
than eleven references to St. Peter's second
epistle, and, like that apostle of our
Lord, warns saiuts against the
self-seeking licentiousness and apostacy
which together with a mocking skepticism
will characterize the last days, and which
were already sadly prevalent before the
close of the first century of the Christian era.

The writer, Jude, calls himself simply a
servant or "bondsman of Jesus Christ, and
brother of James," a beautiful modesty,
for, in fact, he was the Lord's own brother, a
eon of Joseph and Mary. Mere blood con-
nection is transcended by the grander rela-
tionship of faltn in the Lord Christ and de-
votion to His service.

No intimation is given as to what particular
people or church he was writing. The
epistle has therefore a universal bearing,
and belongs alike to us and the church of
to-day. We gladly so receive it, even
though it speaks so graphically of gross un-
godliness and sin, for it also bears the
singular ana most precious address, "To
them that are called, beloved in God the
father, and kept for Jesus Christ."

It seems St. Jude hud it iu mind to write
an epistle on the general subject of what he
calls "our common salvation,'' but owing to
the rapid and alarming growth of certain
kinds of error, he felt constrained to defer
the larger project lor a more immediate and

urgent necessity. I take it we all believe
his sudden change of purpose was the divine
constraint of the Holy Spirit And yet how
we would have prized a calm, studied

FINAL STATEMENT,

a summing up of the doctrines of grace and
salvation, held in common in Jude's day.

But the Holy Spirit did not deem it neces-
sary. He did deem it necessary that the
saints should be exhorted to stand fast and
to contend earnestly for the faith which had
been delivered to them.

There are tbose in our day who fancy it
would be well if we could have a further de-
liverance on doctrine, what men ought to
believe; if a system of moral and spiritual
truth could be given more adapted to our
times and circumstances, than it is thought
the Scriptures offer. Thte notion is not at all
uncommon, that the whole system of sorip-
tural truth needs reconstruction, or, at least,
restatement; and not a few are trying their
hand at it We are told that certain doc-
trines contained in the Bible, and which
were well enough adapted to, and did service
in the days of the primitive church, are no
longer needed, or, at least, require modifying
to modern ideas.

1 well remember the shock of surprise,
some three years ago, with which I read in
one of the prominent so-called religious
papers of New York City, that (I give the
substance of the article) the doctrine of our
Lord's premillennial advent, which the
writer admitted was undoubtedly held by
the early church, did well enough in times
of persecution, and sustained the faith of
God's people when the church was yet weak
and struggling against mighty toes; but now,
when the church has become strong and is
on its world conquering way. such a doc-
trine is no longer of any use, being un-
adapted to a

TEIUMPHANT CHUECH,

and therefore whatever in the Scriptures
seems to inculcate this doctrine must be in-
terpreted in the light of modern history I
With such a principle of interpretation the
devil couUl drive a coach and four through
any biblical doctrine whatsoever. It's as
foolish as King Jehoiakim's pen-knife and
fire-pot with Jeremiah's roll of prophecy
sigued and sealed with a "Thus saith Je-
hovah."

Now, it was against just such a faith-de-
stroying, God-dishonoring error that St.
Jude was sent to protest and warn. He
quotes the very words of Peter, "But ye, be-
loved, remember ye the words which have
been spoken before by the apostles of our
Lord Jesus uhrist. how that they said unto
you: In tne last time there shall be mockers
walking after their own ungodly lusts," and

THE PK0PHET1C CONFERENCE.

80 he exhorts them, ".But ye, Deloved, build-
ing up yourselves on your most holy faith,
praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves
in the iove of God, looking for the mercy of
our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."
(vs. 17-21.)

He was not permitted, nor was it neces-
sary, to write out an exposition of the doc-
trines of ''Our Common Salvation;" he sim-
ply reminds mem that "The faith," i. e., the
sum of what Christians are to believe, had
been "once for all" delivered to the saints,
and they must stand up for it like faithful
witnesses and true soldiers of Jesus Christ
They had received their orders; they had
only to obey. They had got their colors, and
they must defend them.

The key to this whole epistle, and the basis
of the thought we are seeking to enforce,
lies in the

SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT WOBD

"once" (hapax), or as it is more truly ren-
dered in the R. V., "once-for-ail." It is only
a little Greek particle, but yet, as used here
and elsewhere, of profoundest meaning. Its
use is an illustration of how carerully the
Holy Spirit guarded the very words, when
"holy men spake as they were moved by
Him," Instead of saying that the faith
spoken of was at some time past given to
the saints, as the ordinary reader of the
common version might and probably does
infer, the word emphasizes the fact that no
other faith will ever be given. It is the only
gift of the kind. It has been once-for-all
delivered to tne saints. No addition is to be
made to it, or alteration in it. It is the
foundation upon which the believer is built
up, and "the foundation of God standeth
sure." It is the "pillar and ground of the
truth." It is all summed up in Him who is
the Christ, the eternal Son of the Living
God.

St. Paul, writing to the Galatians, said:
"Though we or au angel from heaven should
preach unto you any doctrine other than
that which we preacned unto you. let him
be accursed." And he significantly adds:
"The gospel preached by me is not after
man, lor neither did I receive it from man, nor
win I taught it, but it came to me through
revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. i. 8-12).

Although Jude had no time or was not
permitted to write of "our common salva-
tion," it is exceedingly significant that
in this brief letter he refers to every
fundamental doctrine, which in our day is
assaulted, disputed, or denied.

In verse 4 he speaks of those, and warns
against them who "turn the grace of God
into lasciviousness," i. e. . because salvation
la tree and the grace of God

EXCEEDING LAKGE,

some take license from this to run into all
excesses and fleshly indulgences. They also
disregard the church and church ordinances,
being, as Jude says, "such as separate them-
selves, sensual, having not the spirit" (v. 19).
Again warning against such, Jude asserts the
headship and lordship of Christ, for they
deny, he says, "our only Master and Lord,
Jesus Christ." And this necessarily implies
the doctrine of the vicarious sacrihce of our
Lord, for He is made "head over ail things to
the church" i.Eph. i, 22), which He redeemed
with His own most precious blood.

The epistle also indorses the Scriptures as
the word of God, for it refers to scriptural
facts and revelations and reminds us of "the
words which have been spoken before by the
apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ" (verses 7,
14,17). Jude also teachea the doctrine of
the Trinity, since with special emphasis he
speaks of "God, the Father" of our "only
Master and Lord Jesus Christ," and of "pray-
ing in the Holy Spirit" (verses 1, 20, 21).

The doctrine of a personal devil and
of fallen angels is recognized as a
part of the primitive faith, for
the epistle speaks of Michael, the
archangel, disputing with "Diabolus," "the
devil," and of "Angels who kept not their
first estate," who are kept "in everlasting
bonds under darkness unto the judgment of
the great day. " (vs. 6 and 9.)

And so also the epistle teaches the
doctrine of future retribution and eternal
punishment, as the passage just quoted im-
plies, with the one immediately following,
in which the destruction of Sodom and Go-
morrah is set forth as an

EXAMPLE OP "SUFFERING

the vengeance of eternal fire;" and again
(verse 13), where mention is made of those
who are like "wandering stars, for whom
hath been reserved the blackness of dark-
ness forever." (vs. 7-13).

In the "faith once for all delivered to the
Baints" is also included the doctrine of a
bodily resurrection, as the judgments just
spoken of necessarily imply, and as is fur-
ther proved by the reference to "the body of
Moses" (v. y), as well as in the closing bene-
diction, invoking God's power, who "is able
to keep us from falling and to present us
faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceediug joy" (v. 2-1), which is singu-
larly like Paul's benediction UDon the Thes-
salonian Christians; "and the God of Peace
Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your
spirit, soul and body be preserved entire,
without blame, at the coming (parousia) of
our Lord Jesus Chris::." (I. Tness.
v. 23). And last, but not least,
St. Jude dwells with loving em-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

phasis on the ancient apostolic doctrine
of our Lord's second coming-. After quoting
the words of "Enoch, the seventh from
Adam," who Dropnesied the Lord's second
advent in judgment upon tbe ungodly, he
reminds the saints of the "words spoken
before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ, now they that they said, there should
be mockers in the last time, wbo should walk
after their own ungodly lusts," ana who,
according to Peter, from wnom he quotes,
will say, "Where is the promise of his com-
ing!" (vs. 14-18 cp. IL Pet. iii. 3-4). And
finally he exhorts them to be

BUILDING THEMSELVES UP

on their most holy faith, praying in tne Holy
Spirit, looking for the mercy of our Lord
Jesus Christ (which, as the context shows, is
to be fully manifested at His coming) unto
eternal life" (vs. 20-21).

Now, let it not be said that tbese are mere
inferences. It is unquestionable that all
these doctrines and kindred ones were held
ana taught by the apostles of Christ, and it
is equally demonstrable from J ude's woras,
his quotations, ana references, that he baa
in mind these vital doctrines of "the faith
once for all delivered to tne saints," and
whioh would all of them have received a
fuller exposition in an epistle had the Holy
Spirit aeemed it necessary. Neither let it
be inferred that Christianity— the gos-
pel is a mere Bet of aoctrines, that

the apostolic faith was a series of
abstract notions about God and man, Christ
and the church, time and eternity, heaven
and hell, ana that because once for all given
we are "cabinued, cribbed, confined" to a
mere creed, castiron, unchanging, and un-
changeable. There is unquestionably a
growth ana aevelopment of doctrines — a
philosophy of progress in theology, as in any
other science. But tiiat is one thing; it is
quite another thing to say that the growth
and development are in the truths revealed
on which the doctrines are founded. There
is no change in tbe facts, but in the fuller
apprehension and appropriation of them by

THE BELIEVING SOUL

and tbe church, in a aeeper sense of need
and profounder conviction of the truths in-
volved. A true science of theology no more
manufactures its facts tnan does the science
of geology. So far as eitber does this, it is a
fraud and a lie.

We say then, the faith delivered to the
saints — the "common salvation" — is founded
on facts.

Christianity has this peculiarity above ail
other religions whatsoever, that it presents
for our acceptance certain grand realities,
certain great bistoric facts, wnicb tbrough
their consequences ^o tbe believer, and the

uses and application made of them, cease to
be mere external fact3, but become the warp
and woof of a beautiful system of doctrine
and life, of faith and feeling, of char-
acter and service. The gospel
says Bernard is a life rather than
a science. It represents a person, rather
than a creed."

Tnese facts are five principally: 1. Je^us
tbe Christ is the eternal Son of God incar-
nate in human form, very God and very
man. 2. Jesus the Christ died on the cross
on Calvary for our sins, thus paying the
price of our redemption. 3. Jesus the Christ
rose again from the dead, for the justifica-
tion of every believer. 4. Jesus tne Christ
ascended on high to send aown the Holy
Spirit, to gather out of every nation a people
for His name, and to appear in the presence
of God for us, making intercession tor His
people, being in all things their Head and
Lord, 5. Jesus the Christ will come again
in visible majesty to gatber His own unto
Himself in resurrection power, to bring
Israel back to their own land, and to

PILL THE WHOLE EABTH

with His power. **like the days of heaven
upon earth."

These are the facts— the sublime realities
— of the Christian faith. And accordingly the
church, the people whom Christ redeemed
and sanctifies for His own peculiar pos-
session, the bride of His heart and the glory
of His ineffable name, as to origin is
heavenly, in character is heavenly, in destiny
is heavenly. Man did not originate the
church or the faith which she holds. It is
not the outgrowth or development of this
world; its spirit is not tbe spirit of this
world, and the hope of the church is not
earthly power or glory, but is set on
the grace which is to be realized at the
revelation of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Four of tbese great facts of the Christian
faith are matters of history, but what joy
fills the soul and what inspiration the life
that holds tbem! The fifth and last is yet to
come; but already we hear the roll of His
chariot wheels upon the mountains; already
the sheen of the insufferable glory illumines
the eye of faitb, and our hearts thrill with
Inexpressible longing. "Even so, come
quickly. Lord Jesua"

Such, though but faintly expressed, is the
faitb whicb once for all was delivered to tbe
saints. This is the charge committed to the
custody and defence of the men of God. For
it we are exhorted "earnestly to contend".
It was of this the great apostle to the gen-
tile wrote, when a prisoner in Rome, an old
man. wounded and scarre I, but a free man
in Christ Jesu< Likj tne errand bero tbat he

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

was, he exclaimed triumphantly, "I have
fought the good light, I have

FINISHED THE OOUBSE,

I have kept the faith, henceforth there ia
laid up for me the crown of righteousness
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, ahall
sriveme at that day, and not to me only, but
also to all them that hare loved His appear-
ing."

Brethren and friends, what sort of men
did this faith produce? What sort of person
was the primitive Christian? In considering
this question, briefly, we shall still further
understand what that faith really is. The
text answers the question — he was one who,
accepting the faith, believed it with all his
soul, and therefore was ready to contend for
it, to defend it, and testify of it, to die tor it.

What was the pattern of the life of the
apostolic Christians? If you will take the
book of the Acts of the Apostles, or the let-
ters of Paul and Peter and John, or better
etiil, that wonderful prayer of our Lord in
the seventeenth of John's gospel, the true
"Lord's Prayer," in which Jesus forecasts
the condition and character of His followers
as they ought to be through all succeeding
years, you will find three grand elements of
character, which at the same time mani-
fested themselves in a multitude of manly
graces and God-like excellencies, viz: They
were "in the world, but not of it;" they
were constantly looking for and watching
unto the earning of the .Lord Jesus; and they
were filled with a great missionary fire and
zeal. So Jesus prayed -for them and us.
(Johnxvii. 14-20-24).

1. Aa to the first maris, unworldliness.
We have such passages, words of St. Paul.
"Here we have

NO CONTINUING CITY,

but seek one to come." Our citizenship is
in the heavens, from whence also we look for
the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who shall change
the body of our humiliation that it may be
conformed to his body of glory." To the
worldly wise and proud Corinthian Chris-
tians he wrote, that they uae "moderation in
all things, for the time is short and the fash-
ion of this world passeth away." To Tim-
othy he writes: "No man that warreth en-
tangleth himself with the affairs of this
life." While John, writing to young men,
says: "Ye are strong and the word of God
abideth in you, and ye have overcome the
evil one;" and says to all: "Love not the
world, neither the things that are in the
world."

The very metaphors employed in Scripture
to designate and describe the Christian
show what sort of a man he is to be. He
ia "a pilgrim," "a stranger," and "so-
journer;" a sailor on the deep, greeting from

afar the headlands of the hills of glory; he
is a runner in the race, with eye on the goal;
a wrestler on tne sands of the arena, stripped
and eager, nis breath between his teeth, his
body under him; he is a watchman, awake
while others sleep, sober while others are
drunken and careless; he is a burning torch
held aloft to warn and guide the unwary: he
is a soldier on the march, in the enemy's
country, the color-bearer in the fight, the
tallest man in the regiment, and

THE MOST CONSPICUOUS.

and he must "keep" the standard with his
life; he ia a martyr, witnessing a good con-
fession, and like as not the crown he gets
will be burnished in the fire that shrivels up
hie flesh and leaves only a few ashes to be
swept away by the winds that fanned the
painful flames.

2. Equally prominent was that other char-
acteristic of the New Testament Christian.
He was constantly expecting and looking for
the coming of his Lord, the return of the
King in His beauty. It was the natural effect
as well as a helpful cause of the unworldly
spirit. Being wholly given up to Christ,
centering all in Him, remembering the
testimony of those who had seen Him go up
into Heaven from the hill-slope of Olivet,
with His last great commission ringing in
their hearts, liKe bells on the wide sea, they
could not but gaze often up-
ward, and amid toils and suffer-
ings manifold listen for the sound of his
coming again. It was the hope in their
hearts, it inspired their lives, it transfigured
the cross and shame and death itself. Ev-
ery conceivable motive in the whole round
of an exalted, splendid Christian manhood
was taken from and associated with this one
hope of the early Christian. We can under-
stand now why and how they made so much
of prayer, why like a fountain night and
day it rose to heaven; we can understand
their hymns of praise addressed to Christ
Jesus Lord. We can understand, too, how
short and clear and thrilling was their battle
cry, given them by the Master himself,
"Watch ye therefore, and what I say unto
you, I say unto all, Watch!" For thia they
took the

"SPOILING OF THEIR GOODS

joyfully." If a man is oh his way to meet
the King, to receive a palace and riches un-
told, nay, rather if the King is on his way to
meet him, to bring him into untold radiancy
and glory, ho won't be troubled much who
takes his rags!

3. What has already been said will easily
explain why the church of the apostolic days
and immediately after accomplished so much
for Christ and the nations as missionaries
and evangelists and teachers, witness-bearers

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

all Feelinar that the time was short, aud the
Master's great commission mast be fulfilled,
bo that He might be glorified, they went
everywhere preaching Jesus and the resur-
rection, Jesus aud the coming glory. No
wonder that in a brief lifetime they had
Bounded His precious name to the farthest
limits of the known world. Alas! how the
Church has fallen from her high estate and
illustrious calling. For though grand work
has been and is done for Christ and His
cause, yet how little does the Church take to
heart the millions of unevangelized ? How
little does she seem to understand God's pnr-
Dose. When God would draw out all the
fathomless love of a woman's heart He lays
a helpless babe on her oosom; to draw out
all the passionate, burning love of the Church
He lays on her heart the great crying, needy,
perishing world of souls! It's not only the
cause of the unconverted nations which we
plead, but also the cause of divine power
and truth which id hindered from de-
scending to the tabernacle with mortals by
low thoughts and worldly occupations. Hear
how Edward Irving pleads, as he calls it, for
the

PEBPETUITY OF THM MI8SIONABT

form of manhood." "Up, up with the statue
of this character; it is high as heaven; its
head is above the clouds which hide the face
of heaven from earth-born men. The mis-
sionary is the hollow of that trump which re-
aoundath the voice of God. Let us reverence
him. he is above us all. 1 wonder how any
one can be so impious toward God, so cruel
toward men, as to wish to obliterate one
feature ot his celestial character."

Such, my hearers, was the character of the
early Christian, at least, such is the model
presented in the word of God. Take your
Bibles and see for yourselves if such be not
the case. And now I ask, do you know of
any intimation in the book — in the book I
say — that all this was to be changed, and
that, as is sometimes said and unconsciously
held by multitudes, with the change of times
and circumstances, a different style of
Christian is needed ! What other pattern of
a Christian is there? What other model than
that which the Bible sets forth? Has the
truth of God changed? Has His purpose of
grace and redemption changed? Have hu-
man sin and £>uilt and sorrow changed?

Nay, brethren, the conditions of holiness,
the requirements ot a godly Christian exam-
ple do not change with time or circum-
stancs. Christian lite is not an isolated
thing. Gospel Christianity has this great and
blessed secret, that it is one and the same
continually through all the ages.

THE SOBIPTUBES,

which are God's thoughts in God's words,

are not a collection of mere historical records
and traditions, however authentic, but a
grand unity of history, and doctrine, and
prophecy — one liying whole, having but one
purpose, the eternal purpose of God in
Christ Jesus. That which prophets, priests,
kings spake of and waited for, that which
angels desire to look into, that which we be-
lieve and hope for, that which creation
groans and waits for, that which God has
promised, and Christ bought with his heart's
blood, is all one and the self same thing
"that in the dispensation of the fulness of
times, God might gather together in one, all
things in Christ, Doth which are in heaven
and which are on earth" (Eph. i. 10).

Men, brethren, it's a grand thing to be
a Christian. This is life — "life in-
deed"— to touch interests that run the
length of the eternities.

So soon as one is born again — from above —
is filled with the spirit, he becomes in every
sense a new creation; he steps into the line
of all the ages of God's elect; he becomes
himself a necessary factor in the eternal
purpose of Jehovah, This is our honor, this
our calling. "The faith once for all com-
mitted to tne saints" is in our hands. Let us
hold it, live it, "earnestly contend" for it

Let Dr. Guthrie's favorite lines be ours:

I live for those that love me.

For those that know me true.

For the heaven that smiles above me

And'waits my coming too.

For the cause that needs assistance.
For the wrongs that need resistance,
For the future in the distance.
For the good that I can do.

CANON A. R. FATJSSET, D. D.

A MESSAGE EBOM ENGLAND.

The evening patter was read by Professor
W. G. Morehead, of the linited Presbyterian
Seminary at Xenia, Ohio. Tne usual devo-
tional exercises preceded the reaaing of the
paper, William E. Blackstone making the
prayer. Secratary Needham read communi-
cations from several people expressing the
writers' deep interest in the conference,
These gentlemen were the Rev. Dr. A R.
Faussett, the commentator, Canon of iork,
England; Mr. G. A Pember, author of
"Earth's Earliest Ages;" Mr. James K
Mathieson, of the Mi Id may Conference, Lon-
don; the Rev. Dr. C. K. Turbine, of Jersey
City; the Rev. James C. Quinn, of Emerson,
Manitoba, and the Rev. Dr. George F. Pente-
cost, of Brooklyn.

Canon Faussett wrote as follows:

TO THE MEMBERS MET IN THE PBOPHETIOAL
CONVENTION AT CHICAGO, NOVEMBEE, 1886.

Beloved Bbethren in the Lobd. — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you from Him who

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

was, wiio is, and who is to come. Absent
from you in body, I feel as present with you
in spirit. We are indeed, however, locally
separated for a time, united in the one faith
of Jesus Christ, the one love,

THE ONE BLESSED HOPE.

I de not even despair of meeting you some-
time hereafter In the flesh, if God permit and
the opportunity be afforded me, in your
highly-favored land. Among the special
signs of our times, not the least remarkable
is the growing manifestation of the commun-
ion of saints. It is just when men's words
are "stout against Jehovah," and the world's
challenge is "Where is the God of Judg-
ment?" that "then they that fear Jehovah
speaE often one to another, and a book of
remembrance is written before Him for them
that think upon His name," and presently
follows "Behold, the day cometh," (Matt,
ii,, 17; iii., 13-16: iv., 1.)

The "gathering together" (episunagoge)
for mutual edification now is the earnest of
"the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and
our gathering together unto Him" (episun-
agoge found only in H. Tnes. ii. 1 and Hebr.
x. 25). The growing inquiry as to the
blessed hope and the consequent increase of
the knowledge of beliefs respecting it are
evidently fulfilling Daniel's prophecy as to
"the time of the end" — "many shall run to
and fro, and the knowledge (so the Hebrew)
snail be increased."

How shall the inquiry be conducted so as
to elicit real fruit to tne glory of God and
the edification of His cniidren? It" I venture
to suggest an answer it is wit'i a deep con-
sciousness of my own imperfection of vision
In

THE DEEP THINGS OE QOD.

First, then, let us searcn the word of
prophecy in the spirit of prayer for heavenly
illumination by God the Holy Ghost, and uos
suffer our imaginations or preconceived
theories to turn us aside from the straight
path. Let us not take one step in advance,
save as we are led on by the written word
and the Holy Spirit. Loving tolerance of
the opinions of others and a readiness to
weigh their arguments from SenDture in a
fair balance, and the maintenance of our
own views in an humble and un-
dogmatic spirit will best tend to
tne decision of controverted points and the
building up of one another in our most
noly faith.

In examining Scripture, my own plan has
been, first, to investigate the literal and
grammatical sense of each passage, then the
context, then the circumstance of time and
place, and the immediate aim of the sacred
writer; then the ultimate and far-reaching
meaning designed by the Holy Ghost, remem-

bering tnat "the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy;" finally, the spiritual
application to the present elect Church, and
each member of it Augustine well says:
"The literal sense of Scripture is the basis of
the Scripture, else the latter would be a
building resting on air." Another canon to
be observed is the promises so full and so
glorious to Israel throughout the Old Testa-
ment and in the Gospels, Acts, and especially
Bomans, xi, are to be interpreted in their
plain, literal sense. It is clearly erroneous to
interpret the curses pronounced against
Israel, if disobedient, in

THEIR LITEBAL SENSE,

and then to spiritualize the blessings fore-
told to Israel in the last days, and to
appropriate them to the present election
church; in fact, to Eeep the good all to our-
selves and to give them the evil.

The order of events is defined for us in
Isaiah lxi. 1-9, the passage which formed
our Lord's text in the sermon at Nazareth:
1. He declares His own credentials and pres-
ent mission. "The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon Me, because He hath annointed Me to
preach good tidings, to proclaim the accept-
able year of the Lord " Here He stopped in
the middle of a sentence, at the words wnich
mark the limit of our parenthetical dispen-
sation of the spiritual elect church. The
next event will be His personal coming to
complete the sentence by ushering in "the
day of vengeance of our God" upon apostate
Christendom, as is also foretold in IL Thess.
L 8: "In flaming fire taking vengeance on
they that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ." Next, He comes "to comfort
them that mourn in Zion, to give them
beauty for ashes;" as is also foretold in
Zech. xii. 10; "I will Dour upon the inhab-
itants of Jerusalem the'spirit of

. GBACE AND SUPPLICATION,

and they shall look upon Me whom they have
pierced and they shall mourn." "In that
day there shall be a fountain opened to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and un-
cleanness. Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh; then shall the Lord go foith and
fight against those nations that shall have
attacked Jerusalem, and His feet shall stand
upon the Mount of Olives, and the Lord my
God shall come and all His saints with
Thee." Thus shall be ushered in the mil-
lennial kingdom, wherein "the Jews shall be
named the priests of Jehovah" to the gentile
nations, and "they shall call Jerusalem the
throne of Jenovah, and all the nations shall
be gathered unto it" (Jor. iii. 17).

If, as post-millennarians thinK, a thousand
years must elapse before our Lord's coming,
the hope of His coming must practically
cease to be what Holy Scripture represents

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

it — the incentive to every Christian grace.
The early Christian fathers, Clement, Ig-
natius, Justin Martyr, and Irendus, looked
for the Lord's speedy return as the necessary
precursor of the millennial kingdom. Not
until the professing church lost her first love,
and became the harlot resting on the world-
power, did she cease to be the bride going
fortii to meet the bridegroom, and sought to
reign already on earth without waiting for
His advent.

So far from the world becom-
ing more and more Christ-like
as the age advances, its culture, science,
fashions, and spirit, are becoming more
earthy, and less like the blessed state fore-
told as about to

CHARACTERIZE THE MILLENIUM.

This may be a stumbling block to the post-
millehuarian's faith, but it is a strong
confirmation of the Dremillennarian's
expectation. For the fact exactly answers
to the nrophecy. The Lord foretold, "This
gospel shall be preached for a witness unto
all nations, and then shall the end come."
Not that all were to be converted, ana the
nations christianized before His coming, but
"God has visited the gentiles to take out of
them a people unto His name" (Acts xv. 14).
All scripture points to apostasy as about to
prevail till trie Lord shall come to sweep it
away by the brightness of His appearing.
(IL ThesI x II). The days before the flood are,
according to our Lord, the analogue to "the
last days." It was when the barrier between
the church and the world was broken down
by the intermarriage of the sons of God with
the daughters of men, the salt lost its savour
and was trodden under foot of men, and
universal corruption set in. Is not intense
worldliness the distinguishing feature
of our age? There is a consequent ten-
dency to relapse to heathenism, cultured and
refined, it is true, but still heathenism. If
you compare the black catalogue of Pagan
Sins in Romans i. with that of the "last
days" in IL Tim. iii., you would find five of
the latter

IDENTICAL IN THE GEEEK

with the former, and fiye more virtually the
same in both. "Disobedience" to parents is
prominent in each, and in combination with
"haughtiness and boastfumess" engenders
that lawlessness, foretold in Dan. vii. viii. xi.
and Motth. xxiv. 12, and IL Thes. ii., and
already potent on every side.

Spiritualism so called, which is really
necromancy and demon-consultation, i8 the
darkest feature of our times. St. Paul in II.
Tim. iii. foretells, that as the magician, Jan-
nese, and Jambres withstood Moses, so the
reprobates concerning the faiths with-
stood the truth. Already the beast God-op-

posed world is stripping Babylon, the harlot-
church, of its possessions, m fulfilment of
Rev. xvii. : When God shall Have thus fully
executed judgment on tier, then the three
froglike spirits of demons, working spiritual-
istic miracles, "shall gather the kings of tiie
earth to the war of that great day of the
Almighty God (Rev. xvi. 13-14). Then shall
the last Antichrist, denying the Father and
the Son, be revealed in full malignity.

But his reign is very brief. From the first
he is "the son of perdition," doomed to
immediate destruction. The darkest hours
shall usher in the bright and morning star.

Let us then gird up the loins ot our mind,
be sober, and hope to tlie end for the gracb
to be brought at the revelation ot Jesus
Christ.

The remarkable outpourings of the holy
spirit in connection with evangelistic efforts
on every side are hastening the completion
of tne elect church, and wnen thereby the
"fullness of the gentiles" shall have come
in, the Lord will come for His saints, and
subsequently come with His saints to reign
over Jerusalem and nations "in the regener-
ation."

Having this hope in Him, dear brethren,
lift ud your heads, for your redemption
draweth nigh.

Praying that your conference may be
blessed to j ourselves, and tnrough you to
the church and world, I am your faithful
and respectful brother in the common faith
and hope.

Andeew Robebt Fausset, D. D.,
Canon of York.

PROFESSOR W. G. MOREHEAD.

THE ANTICHBtST.

Prayer wasofferedby the Rev. Dr. West, of
St. Paul, and Professor w. G. Morehead, of
Xenia, Ohio, then addressed the conference
as follows upon the subject, "The Anti-
christ;"

That the Scriptures predict the appearing
of a powerful foe of the people and cause of
God can not be doubted. Enemies, great in
number and in might, there have been and
there are; for it seems to be the fortune of
truth ever to encounter the most determined
opposition. But that an evil power should
arise who should be pre-eminently the an-
tagonist of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose
awful acts of wickedness and heights of
blasphemy should surpass all others, everv
believing reader of the Bible well knowa

The voices of the prophets and apostles
unite in announcing the advent of this ad-
versary. Daniel speaks of it In language
which betokens the deep interest the spirit
of prophecy takes in the subject: "After
this l saw in the night visions, and, beholdl

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, ana
strong exceedingly; and it bad great iron
teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with the feet of it; and
it was diverse from all the beasts that were
before it; and it had ten horns. I consid-
ered the horns, and, behold, tbere came up
among: taem another little horn, before
wnich there were tbree oE the first horns
plucked ud by the roots; and behold, in this
horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and
a mouth speaking great things. I beheld
•bill tine thrones were placed, and one that was
Ancient of Days did sit; his raiment was
white as snow, and the hair of his head like
pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and
the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery
stream issued and came forth from before
him; thousand thousands ministered unto
him, and ten thousand times ten thousand
6tood before him; the judsrment was set, and
the books were opened. 1 beheld then, be-
cause or the voice of the great words which
the horn spake; I beheld even till the beast
was slain, and his body destroyed, and he
was griven to be burned with fire" (Dan.
vii. 7-11).

In terms as graphic and portentous as
those of Daniel, the Apostle Paul describes
a like adversary: "Let no man deceive you
by any means; for that, day shall not come,
except there come the faliing away first, and
the man of sin be revealed,

THE SON OF PERDITION,

he who opposeth and exalted himself against
all that is called God or that is worshiped
so that he sitteth in the temple of God, set-
ting himseif forth as God. Remember ye
not that, when I was yet witnyou, I loldyou
these things* And now ye Know that which
restrainetb, to the end that He may be re-
vealed in His own season. For the mystery
of lawlessness doth alreaay work; only there
is one that restraineth now, until He be
taken out of the way. And then shall be re-
vealed the lawless one. whom the Lord Jesus
shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and
bring to nought by the manifestation of His
noming; even He, wbose coming is accord-
ing the working of Satan with all power and
signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit
of unrighteousness in them that are perish-
ing;." (1L Thess. ii. 3-10j. .

A still more oircumstahtial accouut of a
like adversary is found in the book of Rev-
elation, an account whicn gathers into It-
self all that has been communicated on the
dark theme in the word of God. (Rev.
xiii., xvn., xix.)

What is thus minutely pictured in the in-
spired utterances of Daniel, Paul, and John
is foreshadowed by other prophets and
apostles. There are preintiinations of this

great evil power running: parallel with the
predictions and promises concerning; the
seed of the woman and the Messiah of the
chosen people. In every murderous op-
pressor and son of Belial that came or was
to come upon the field of history in opposi-
tion to the children of God inspired men
saw the precursors of the final enemy who
shall afflict and waste Jehovah's fieritasra
This is a characteristic feature of
prophecy; is woven into its or-
ganic structure. As the prophets saw in
Moses and Joshua, in David and Solomon,
the fore-intimations aDd types of that great
and final Savior and Conqueror to come, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and in the tneocracy of
Israel the shadow of the perfected Kingdom
of Uod, so in pre-eminently bad men, in Cain
andNimrod, in Pharaoh and Balaam, and
Antiochus Epiphanes, and in the persecuting:
kingdoms of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon,
they saw the image of the final enemy, the
picture of the last persecuting world-power.
The shadow was projected before. "Proph-
ecy," .

DELITZSCH SATS,

"is apotelesmatic." It fixes its gaze on
the end; it dips its brush in the colors
which pertain to the end. All good
tends toward and finds its climax
in Him who alone is the absolute
good. All evil likewise tends toward a cen-
tralization and culmination in some colossus
of sin and crime. And it would seem that
the Spirit of God in His delineations of the
course and progress of evil ever keeps look-
ing forward to its consummation in the last
and most frightful form which human apos-
tacy assumes, viz. : the Antichrist. This is
our theme — a forbidding one assuredly, but
one upon which the word of God has spoken
in the fullest and most emphatic manner.

It is scarcely needful to remarjt that upon
the general subject there has beun a very
whirl of theory, conjecture, arguuieDt, and
exposition. We have here the tbree great
.schools of interpreters represented,
the preterist, the presentist, and the futur-
ist; for the question of the Antichrist cor-
relates itself with the other questions wliich
arise in the held of propnecy — with the
church, Israel, the coming of the Lord, and
the establishment of the promised kingdom.
By some, Antichrist is identified with a per-
son or a system that long since appeared in
the world and passed away. By others, he is
now upon the stage of action awaiting the
doom his sins and crimes so justly rnejiU
Jiy others still, Antichrist is re-
garded as yet to come; that while
he has had and now has his forerunners
who prepare for him nis way, himself is still
to appear. It would require a volume of

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

considerable size merely to report the litera-
ture on the general topic

In such a maze ana labyrinth of conflicting
opinion it behooves the student of the pro-
phetic word to move with guarded steps and
earnest circumspection. His first and main
effort should be to grasp the mighty outlines
of the piophecles touching this adversary,
with no attempt to master the details.

HE SHOULD FIX A STEADY GAZE

upon the mountain ranges and lofty peaks,
leaving the while unscanned the intervening
valleys and profound abysses. His mainly
should be the survey of the continent, its
boundaries, and conformation, with no effort
to trace every stream and lake and water-
shed of the interior. The first instrument he
should employ is the telescope, iiot the
microscope. Adhering to the method of in-
vestigation thus indicated, let us (1) deter-
mine the import of the word.

The term Antichrist is a scriptural one;
four times it occurs in the New Testament,
(1. John ii. 18-22; iv. 3; II. John vii). In a
general epistle, written to no particular
church, but to a wide circle of churches, the
apostles make this remarkable statement:
"Little children, it is the last time; and as
we have heard that Antichrist shall come,
even now are there many Antichrists; where-
by we Know that it is the last time." It is
obvious from this language that the Chris-
tians of John's day were acrjuainted with the
coming of the Antichrist They

had "heard" about it It formed
part of the common instruction of be-
lievers. It was distinct and prominent in
the writings of the prophets, and it was
among the teachings of Christ, and those
sent to preach and teach in His name. Thus
Paul in writing to the Thessalonians of the
man of sin reminds them of his instruction
on the subject during his brief visit to them:
"Remember ye not that while I was yet with
you I told these things?" The apostles were
not dumb as to the last times. Eschatology
formed no small part of the message they
proclaimed. With the blessed gospel of the
grace of God which they preached they
intermingled solemn warnings of a future
apostacy and the

APPEASING OF THE ADVEBSABY

who shall meet his doom at the hands of
the Son of God Himself. They, therefore,
who earnestly give themselves lo such
studies for their own instruction and for
that of their fellows have for their encour-
agement aud comfort apostolic precedent
and authority.

In the word Antichrist there is a measure
of ambiguity, for the preposition "anti,"
when compounded with a substantive, in

the Greek language, may signify either "in-
stead of" or "against." There are those who
see in the word no more than a counterfeit
Christ. Thus, Mr. Greswell, whose learning and
impartiality none will dispute, conceives of
it: "Antisfcrist signifies neither more nor
less than another Christ; a pro-Christ; a
vice-Christ; an alter Christus; a pretender
to the name of Christ, who in every circum-
stance of personal distinction that can con-
tribute to determine the individuality of the
real Christ, appears to be, aud sets himself
upas the counterpart of the true." Thus
likewise a living writer, whose books are
largely read, expresses himself: "The name
itself means, not as is sometimes asserted,
an avowed antagonist of Christ, but one
professing to be a vice-Christ, a rival Christ,
one who would assume the character, oc-
cupy the place, and fulfill the functions of
Christ."

"Antichrist," however, designates more
than a pretender to the Messianic office.
There is another term in Greek, which means
a false Christ, viz: Pseudo-chnstos — a word
our Lord employs in Matt, xxiv., 24.
Huther's definition of "anti" compounded is
exact; it "denotes a. subject, whether person
or thing, opposing a subject of the same
kind." Thus, antistrategos is not only a vice
general, but one who opposes another gen-
eral; anti philosophos is a philosopher who
opposes other philosophers; just as anti-popo
with us is not only a rival pope, but the en-
emy of another pope, in the term Anti-
christ there is the idea both of

COUNTERFEITING AND ANTAGONIZING

Christ. In this sense it embodies an import-
ant truth. That hostility is really formida-
ble in which the adversary preserves the
semblance of the characteristic excellence
which he opposes.

But whatever meaning the etymology of
the word may yield, the fact is not to be ig-
nored that the Antichrist is described in
Scripture as the determined enemy of the
Savior. It is in accordance with the design
of John in his epistles to represent him as
the counterfeit of the Lord; for he there
deals rather with the spirit and principle
of the adversary than, with his character
and personality. But in the apocalypse the
same inspired writer exhibits the beast as
pre-eminently the foe of Christ, aa one
whose sole aim, purpose, and hope it i3 to
extinguish the name ana annihilate the per-
son of Christ. So, too, Paul describes him
naming him the antikeimenos, the opposer,
the antagonist of God A two-fold idea,
therefore, inheres in the name wnich (she
word of God gives to the adversary; he
counterfeits Christ — a Jblaspliemer; he fights
against Christ — a hostile power.

THE PROPHETIC COXFEKEN JE.

II. Identity of the prophecies of Daniel,
Paul, and John, that relate to the Anticnrist,
Reference la Had to Dan. vii. 2, Thess. iL,
and Rev. xiii. Among evangelical exposi-
tors the consensus is almost universal that
one and the same 'evil power is predicted by
alL The tremendous portrait is one, al-
though each account has features and* linea-
ments peculiar to itself. By bringing them
together the unity of the description and
the magnitude of the subject are apparent
The grounds for the identification of these
prophecies are moral and historical, ample,
and conclusive. The symbols employed by
Daniel and John are identical. In both it ia
a beasu

A BAPACIOUS WILD BEAST

that appears in the field of prophetic vision.
Daniel sees four beasts emerging from the
sea in succession; but it is on the fourth in
the series that interest and attention con-
centrate; the fourth that for s:«.-ige ferocity
surpasses the others. John's beast com-
bines in itself the characteristic features of
all that Daniel saw. It had the form of a
leopard, the feet of a bear, and the moutjh of
a lion. In both the beast arises from tne
Bea, and is a horrible nondescript, a fierce
monster with ten horns.

There is no mistaking: the significance of
the symbol. It is a pictorial representation
of the political sovereignty of the world. So
the prophets themselves interpret; the
"beast"' is a "king" and a "kingdom." He
has horns, and horns are the symbols of
power. He has diadems on nis Horns, and
diaaems are the badges of regal dominion.
Clearly it is the God-oppressing power of the
world that is meant Nor should the symbol
of a beast to represent imperial sovereignity
be thought arbitrary or grotesque. The
world powers themselves Pave furnished the
example. The dragon, the lion, the bear, and
the eagle are emblems emblazoned on the
escutcnons and stamped upon tne coins of
the nations of to-day.

L The moral features of the adversary in '
the three prophecies are identical. By all he
is invested with transcendent powers. The
little horn of Dan. vii., which masters the
great beast and becomes his governing ana
guiding mind, "has eyes liise the eyes of a
man." Predominant intellect, dazziing in-
telligence, power to know men and to sway
them, distinguish him. An so we are told

"HE UNDEBSTANPETH DABK SENTENCES;"

"he Bhall practice and prosper;" "and
thromjh his policy also he shall cause craft
to prosper in his hand," (Dan. viii. 23-25).
The beast of the Apocalypse la quite similar.
By his prime minister, the false propbet, "he
doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire
come down from heaven on tne earth in the

sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth," (Rev. xiii. 13, 14).

Tne man of sin of IL Thesa iL comes
"with all power and signs and lying won-
ders, and with all deceit of unrighteous-
uess" (9-10). He is supremely blasphemous.
"The king" of Daniel has "a mouth speak-
ing great things"— "speaking great words
aarainst the Most High." He stands up
against the Prince of princes, magnifies him-
self even to the Prince of the host; he exalts
himself above every e-od, nor reeards the
God of his fathers (Dan. vii. 8-25; viii,
11-25; xi. 36-37). To the beast of the Apoc.
there is given "a mouth speaking great
things and blasphemies; and he opened his
mouth in blasphemy against God, to blas-
pheme His name and His tabernacle and
them that dwell in heaven" (Rev. xiii, 5-6).
The man of sin "exalteth himself above all
that is called God or that is worshiped; so
that he sitteth in tae temple of God, setting
himself forth as God (IL Tness. iL 4).

He is intolerant, persecuting. "The king"
in Daniel wears out the saints of the Most
High,casts down some of the hosts of heaven
and tramples on them; destroys the mighty
and the holy people (vii. 25; viii 10-24}. Tne
man of sin is the lawless one who, impatient
of restraint, sets aside all authoritv, human
and divine, and opposes himself to all tnat
is called God or that is worshiped (iL 4-8).
To the beast of the Apocalypse is given pow-
er over all kindreds, and tongues, and na-
tions; power to

MAKE WAB WITH THE SAINTS

and to overcome ohem; and power to Kill ev-
ery one who re-fuses to worsnip him and to
receive his mark (Rev. xiii. 7-15).

2. The time-notes in the three prophecies
are idencicaL The adversary appears in
connection with apostacv. In Daniel the
king of fierce countenance makes his ap-
pearance when the transgressors are come
to the full (viii. 23). In IL Thessalonians
tbe coming of the man of sin occurs when
the falling away is at the flood, the hina-
rance being removed. In the Apocalypse
the beast presents himself when men have
renounced allegiance to God and pay hom-
age to the monster. Daniel's beast domi-
nates for "a time, times, and the dividing of
time," 1,260 days. John's beast continues
forty and two months, 1,260 days. Daniel's
vision has its fulfillment "at the time of tne
end." Paul's prediction synchronizes with
"the dav of the Eord," the time of the end.
John dates his prophecy by tne "hour," the
"day," the "judgment" of Almighty God —
the time of the una

3. The doom of the adversary In the three
prophecies is identicaL In Daniel the beast
is slain by one like unto the Son of Man who

100

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

comes in the clouds of heaven. In Thessa-
lonians the man of sin is brought to nought
by the outshining splendor of the coming of
the Lord Jesus. In the Apocalypse the beast
ib taken by the glorious Conqueror who
comes from heaven, whose name is the
word of God. In Daniel the beast is given to
the burning flame; in Thessalonians the man
of sin is consumed by the breath of the
Lord's mouth. In the Apocaypsel the beast
and the false prophet are cast alive into the
lake of fire! From all these marks of iden-
tity we conclude that "the willful king" of
Daniel, the lawless one of Paul, and

THE BEAST OF JOHN

are not three, but one, the three-fold
picture of the one great enemy of
God and all good — the Antichrist.

IIL Have the prophecies relating to the
Antichrist been fulfilled? Has there ap-
peared upon the field of history any person
or any system verifying the description?
Two schools of interpreters mike answer in
tne affirmative — the Preterist and the Pre-
sentist. The Preterist theory is based on
the plausible assumption that the apostles
expected the accomplishment of tne predic-
tions in their own lifetime, or at most in the
generation immediately succeedidar them;
in consequence, either they were in error, or
we must find the fulfilment in some person
or event lying near the apostles themselves.
And so the Roman Emperor Nero is pitched
upon as the Antichrist, and the fall of
Jerusalem as the advent of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this in the face of the
inspired declaration of the Apostle Paul
who solemnly tells the saints of Thessalonica
who tUought the day of Christ was already
come, that that day can not set in unless tne
apostacy first come and the check of hind-
rance which holds back the parousia of the
man of sin be removed! But let that pasa

There are insuperable difficulties in the
way of our accepting the Neronian theory.
Nero died Dy his own haud at the villa of his
freedman Phaon, four miles outside the walls
of Rome. Daniel, Paul, and John with one
voice testify that the Antichrist is destroyed
by the coming of the Lord. How does Nero's
suicide fulfill the reiterated promise and pre-
diction of the Holy Ghost? "A more notable
instance of inadequate interpretation can
not be imagined."

Daniel tells us that on the destruction of
his fourth beast and its little horn (tne Anti-
christ), "the kingdom and the dominion and
the greatness of the kingdom under the
whole heaven

SHALL BE GIVEN TO THE PEOPLE

of the saints of the Most Hign, whose king-
dom is an everlasting1 Kingdom, and all do-
minions shall serve and obey him." Jonn

tells us that when the beast and the false
prophet are cast into the laKe of Are, and
Satan is bound, the thousand years of bless-
edness ensue (Dan. vii. 27, Rev. xix. 20,
xx 1-6). This is the concur-

rent testimony of all the propUets,
of Joel, Isaiah, Zecharian, and of the
Savior Himself. The order, the temporal se-
quence, observed in all, is this: Th? enemy
and his desolating armies; the time of un-
precedented trouble and sorrow, the great
tribulation; and then the judgment of the
Lord which sweeps the earth clear of His
foes, and peace and blessedness succeed.
What followed the death of Nero and the de-
struction of Jerusalem? The millennium?
Centuries of persecution, the rise of the
papacy, the proscription of the gospel,
the chaining up of the Bible, the
corruption of Christianity, the inquisi-
tion and the Dragonades, and war and strife
and ignorance and crime have marked the
rolling years. If Nero was the Antichrist,
and the destruction of Jerusalem the Advent,
and ever since the everlasting kingdom has
been in the hands of the saints, and has had
undisputed and universal sway, then all we
have to say is that the magnificence of the
promise and the prophecy is lost in the pov-
erty of its fulfillment, "and Scripture is
wiped out as a definite testimony to any-
thing."

Finally, mere is an extraordinary an-
achronism in tnis Neronian theory. If we
are to believe the testimony of antiquitv,
Nero had been dead and Jerusalem de-
stroyed more than twenty-five years before
the book of Revelation was written.
Irenaeus, appointed Bishop of Lyons A D.
177, thus speaks: "For no long time ago
was it (the Revelation) seen, but almost

IN OUB OWN GENERATION.

at the end of the reign of Domitian" This
statement fixes the date of the boot at A D.
95 or 96; for Domitian was assassinated in
tne last year named. Nero died A D. 68 ,
Jerusalem was destroyed A D. 70. Let it
be remembered that Irenaeus lived near the
apostolic age, for he could not have been
born later than A D. 130; that he was the
disciple and friend of the saintly Polycarp
who had been the contemporary of
the Apostle John himself; that he
was the friend and successor of Pothinus,
whose ninety years of age takes us back to
the generation which saw the last of the
apostles; that his testimony is corroborated
by Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Victo-
rinus, Eusebius, and Jerome, and its validity
and force will be recognized. Not until this
testimony is set aside by competent author-
ity, far other than that of the notoriously
inaccurate EpipUunius, can sensible men

1HE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

101

bold that Nero was the Antichrist, or tnat the
fall of Jerusalem was the predicted coming
of the son of man.

The prevailing Protestant interpretation is
that the beast, the lawless one, is popery,
gathered up into the person of the Pope; or
that papal hierarohy, the head of which is
the papal chair. This was the opinion of
the reformers almost without exception. It
was held by some even in prereformation
times. And there is no little verisimilitude
in the view. The marks of correspondence
between tne proDhecies and the papacy
are extraordinary, almost conclusive.
In its marvelous origin ana history; in its
near relation to the old Ho in an Empire as its
heir and successor; in its wide departure
from the truth; in its idolatry, persecuting
Bpirit, daring assumptions, and blasphemous
pretensions, Romanism, it must be con-
fessed,

STBEKINGLY BE9EMBLES THE ANOTOHBIST.

.But wonderful as the parallelism between
the two is, and traceable to almost any
length, nevertheless the papacy does not hll
up and complete, as yet, the titanic portrait
of the great adversary which the spirit of
God has drawn for us in the word of truth.
Let us note very briefly some of the differ-
ences and discrepancies between them.

L Tne Antichrist is thoroughly atheistic.
Atheism is his characteristic feature. John
says: ''This is Antichrist, even he that de-
nieth the Father and the Son" (L John ii. 22).
"And the King * * * snail magnify him-
self above every god; neither snail he regard
the God of his fathers, nor any god; for he
shall magnify himself aoove all" (Dan. xi.
36-37). Tbe man of sin "opposeth and ex-
alteth himself above all that is called God or
that is worshiped, so that he sitteth in the
temple of God, setting himself forth as God"
(IL Thess. it 4). Bad as popery is, this
it has never yet done. As a system
it plants itself as a mediator between heaven
and earth; the priest stands between the
sinner and God, auricular confession be-
tween him and the footstool of mercy, p-n-
nance between him and godly sorrow, the
mass between huu and the rigbteousness of
Christ, indulgence between him and a self-
denying and earnest lite, tradition between
him and holy Scr.pture, and purgatory be-
tween him and the heavenly world.
And yet the Pope holds the

tiiree ecumenical creeds; acknowledges
botn the Father and tne Son. and owns nim-
self to be a worshiper and servant ot God.
He blenses the people, not in his own name,
but In the name of the Father, Son, and
Spirit So far from being: the antagonist of
God avowedly, as is the Antichrist, he

CLAIMS OF BE AN BUMBLE VASSAL

of the Divine Master, and proteoses to
identify himself witn His cause in the world
No Pope ever yet has really deified himself
and ventured to supersede God in His own
temple. Blasphemous titles may be given
Pirn; he has not assumed them. The adora-
tion paid him at his installation, when he is
carried into St. Peter's and seated on the high
alter by the Cardinals, is a species of idol airy
by a mere man; but it professes to be only
the adoration of Christ's presence and power
In him. The enormous authority he wields
he claims not as his own, but God's, vested
in him as the vicar of Christ on eartU In
his loftiest and most daring assumptions, ne
shows nimself only as God's viceroy. No
Pope has ever yet thrust God aside formally,
in nis impious atheism, and openly put him-
self in His place. We Know no*
what the Papal system^ may yet ar-
rive at; but this it has never done.
The Antichrist is something else and some-
thing worse than this. He stands in opposi-
tion to every god, true or false, and in self-
elevation above every god, true or false. He
will acknowledge no god; will allow no older
to acknowledge any god but himself. True,
Daniel says "a god whom his fathers knew
not he will increase witn glory." This strange
"god" whom "trie king" will thus honor I
am inclined to think is his own image, to
which the Faise PropUet gives breath so
that it both speaks and causes as many
as refuse to worsdip it and tne
.beast to be put to death (P,ev. xiii.
15). The Beast is the only god, and his
linagre by spoken word and unimpeachable
sign attests it. All these betokens a fright-
ful atheism — open, malignant and haughty
antagonism to God, and every object of di-
vine worship, something immeasurably
worse than even Popery.

2. The Antichrist is uniformly in the
Scriptures associated with the civil power,
imperial sovereignty, of which he is

THE BLASPHEMOUS HEAD,

and which he controls and uses for his own
diabolical ends. He is represented as
seining the political dominion of world,
and heading up and wheeling it into lino
in hostile array against God and His
Christ The papacy has never wielded such
power. Its temporal sovereignty has always
been a petty rule; and now it is stripped of
this semblance of civil authority, and tne
Pope sits in the Vatican a self-styled pris-
oner. To tlie end Antichrist stands at the
heaa of a revolted world.

3. Tde Antichrist asserts a supremacy un-
challenged and all but universal. In the
Apocalypse it is once and again declared
that all the world shall wonder af ler the

102

TEE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

Beast, that all who dwell on the earth shall
worship the Beast, aJl whose names
are not in the Book of Life. One
half of Christendom is outside
the pale of Rome and in antago-
nism to the claims of the papacy. Or, will
any one venture to say that all who belong
to the Greek and Protestant communions
are enrolled in the Book ot'L ife? Either we
must reduce the colossal proportions of the
inspired picture or abandon the theory that
the papacy is the Antichrist.

4. Two frightful alternatives will confront
men when the Antichrist is present: One
is, either men must worship the Beast or
die (Rev. xiii. 15). The other, either they
must worship God, utterly repudiating the
dia bolism of the beast, or be tormented
with Are and brimstone forever and ever.

Rev. xiv. 9-11.) Death in this world, or
damnation in thto next; that will be the dread
choice of men when the beast is here I Will
any one venture to say that this has its ful-
fillment in Romanism, in the past or as it
now exists?

5. All evangelical interpreters hold that
Babyion the Great is Romanism,

THE APOSTATE CHUKOH;

and yet hateful as Babylon is, she contains
to the close some genuine believers. Just
before the tremendous judgment breaks
down upon the unclean thing a voice from
heaven cries, "Come forth out of her my
people!" But among the worshipers of the
beast there is not a single saint His adher-
ents and followers are doomed, every one of
them. Babylon and the beast are two differ-
ent thinsrs.

6. The beast is distinguished from the har-
lot in Rev. xvii. Two significant symbols
are presented to us; a lewd woman seated
upon a scarlet-colored beast. The beast is
identified with that of chap. xiii. and Dan.
vii., for he has the same number of heads
and horns, the same extraordinary history.
But what is the woman? Who can doubt
but that she represents the false apostate
church? The revealing angel describes her
as the mystic Babylon, the mother of har-
lots. Everywhere in Scripture an impure
woman is the symbol of a system which,
professing to belong to God, apostatizes from
Him and becomes idolatrous; (Isa. i., 21;
Jer. Hi, 1, 6-7; Ezek xvi. ; Hoa ii. 5; lii. 1,
6, 8), etc. Babylon is a shameless
and seductive influence throned upon
the seven hills, and seated also on the beast
She compels him to support her, she guides
and uses him for the accomplishment of her
purposes. But it is her last, her fatal ride
which the prophet beholds, a ride to destruc-
tion and death ; "and the ten horns which
thou sa west and the beast, these shall hate

the harlot, and shall make her desolate and
naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her
with fire." Lex talionisl The harlot had in-
trigued and coquetted with the world-power,
had intoxicated and maddened it with the
wine of her fornication; then she had mount-
ed the huge beast and under whip and spur
had ridden to her

PLACE OF BAD PEE -EMINENCE.

God will put it into the hearts of the beast
and his ten confederate kings to hate and
spoil her, to tear her bedizened rags from
her loathsome body, her polluted flesh from
her putrid bones! It is a righteous retribu-
tion that overtakes Babylon. If the harlot
be Romanism, then the beast is not If the
harlot and the beast be the Papacy, then the
Papacy is its own executioner! Reduotio ad
absurdum! Nay, after Babylon is destroyed,
there remains the vast coalition of Anti-
chri8tian Dowersjwith the beast at its head
that proudly marches to the battle of the
great day of God Almighty, and is forever
overthrown by the personal return of the
Son of God Himself.

Two great forms of iniquity constitute the
burden of prophetic warning. Ecclesiastical
corruption and apostasy form the one; the
open revolt of the civil power against God is
the other. The first culminates in Babylon,
the blood-drunken harlot. The second finds
its horrible apotheosis in the beast, the Anti-
christ The first is already here, although
greater depths of wickedness will
yet be reached, no doubt The sec-
ond is not yet come; he is still
the coming prince — he is coming 1
Believing that the inspired account of the
great Adversary has not received its proper
fulfilment in any person or system that has
appeared in the field of history, we proceed
to inquire as to the origin and character of
the Antichrist.

1. The Antichrist is a person, an individual
man, the man of prophecy. Every quality,
attribute, marK, and sign which can indicate
personality are ascribed to him^with a pre-
cision and' definiteness of language that re-
fuses to be explained away. According to
Daniel, he is the "king" who overthrows
three other Kings.

OBTAINS THE SUPREMACY

over the "fourth kingdom," does according
to his will, suppresses every object of wor-
ship, exalts and magnifies himself over all.
speaks great words against the Most High,
persecutes the saints, and thinks to change
the times and the law. Whatever in human
speech betokens personality and personal
action is employed by the prophet to desig-
nate a man, a single individual. According
to Paul, he is the man of sin, the son of per-
dition— names which at once fasten on

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

l(Ju

him the idea of a person. "The
man of sin" — he whose inner element
and outer characteristic is sin and nothing
but sin; who has his being, plans, and ac-
tivity in Bin and in nothing else; who, as the
living embodiment of it, is known and recog-
nized as the Man of Sin. "The son of per-
dition"— he on whom perdition falls as his
due and his heritage; he whom John de-
scribes as ascending out of the abyss, and
who goeth into perdition. "Tne terse per-
sonal language of Paul fore-pictures one
man, one human being, as really as the
phrase "son of perdition' described from the
Lord's lips the fate of Judas the traitor."
(Eadie.)

The person so described is a man — anthro-
pos — a single man, and not a series or succes-
sion of men; not the personification of evil
influences, or the head of any human organi-
zation. This man, made of sin, is the personal
antagonist of Cnrist, is the counter-Christ
Both are individual persons, both come to
view, both are "revealed," both have a pa-
rousia, Tne One has life and giory as His
destiny, the other ruin and perdition This
man of sin stands in contrast with the
"apostacy." and yet is its final outcome. The
apostacy gathers itself at length into a
monstrous concentration of wickedness and
lawlessness which

EECEIVES THE OMINOUS TITLE

of the man of sin. Thus Irenaeus conceives
of him: "Summing up in himself a diabolical
apostacy."

Thus Justin Martyr views him, calling him
"The Man of the Apostacy" Thm likewise
witnesses the remarkable document, "The
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles": "For in
the last days the false prophets and the cor-
rupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep
Bhall he turned into wolves, and love shall
be turned into hate; for when lawlessness
increases they shall hate one another,
and shall persecute and shall deliver
up, and then shall appear the world-de-
ceiver as son of God, and he shall do signs
and wonders, and the earth shall be given
into his hands, and he shall commit iniqui-
ties which have never yet been done since
the beginning. Then all created men shall
come into the fire of trial, and many shall
stumble and perish." The closeness of this
statement to 2 Thess. ii. is almost verbal.
There is first the falling away, then the
eruption cf lawlessness, and then the pres-
ence of tne world-deceiver who appears as
son of God. The apostacy, as a fact or a
system, is not to be confused with the
man of sin, for it precedes him and la the
condition of his appearance. The Apoca-
lypse is even more explicit. In chapter
xix. the beast is distinguished from the

kings who are confederated with mm aud
from their armies. He is distinguished from
the false prophet, who acts as his great
lieutenant. The beast and the false prophet
are distinguished in their fate from their
armies, for they are cast alive into the lake
of fire while their armies are slain with the
sword. As Koch writes: "The beast is as
little an abstraction as the false prophet is.
Both are persons. This is clear from Rev.
xx. 10, wnere it is said that after the
thousand years the devil,

WHO IS A PEBSON

and not an abstraction, aroes to where the
beast and false prophet are — two other per-
sons who served him so well, but to their own
loss! It is said, moreover, that they are
tempted day and night, which no abstrac-
tion could be. So sure as Satan is a person,
so sure the beast, the Anti, is." The fathers
of the church were agreed in considering
the Anticnrist as a single human being, and
not a system of polity or malign influence.
It made no difference whether thoy were
advocates or opponents of chiliasm, it was
their unanimous persuasion that he will be
one man, and his part in the last
times will be the part of a
literal agent. Tne terse simplicity
and unambiguous unity of tne Biblical
description of him certainly tend to such a
conclusion. On their face these three great
prophecies of Daniel, Paul, and John an-
nounce the advent of one enemy, draw the
portrait of one single adversary, whose char-
acter.energy, and perdition stand unmatched
in the history of our race.

2. The Antichrist is the supreme head of
the world-power in its final and diabolical
form. This is evident from the composition
of John's great symbol Daniel's beasts
were successive empires — the Babylonian,
Medo-Persian, Graeco-Macedonian, and the
Roman. But the lion, the bear, the leopard,
and

THE NAMELESS TEN-HOKNED MONSTEB,

each distinct in Daniel, are ail united in one
in Rev. xiii. It is upon this God-opposing
power that the judgment of heaven falls.
The beast is cast into perdition, and all thi<»
world's kings, armies, and administrations
end forever. Precisely the same fate marks
the huge image or Dan. ii., for while the
blow falls on the feet and toes of tne statue,
the wnole image with all its component
parts — the iron, clay, brass, silver, and gold —
snare in the overwhelming destruction. It
is the world-sovereigntv as it presents itself
in the last times, and the beast is its embodi-
ment and consummation.

Moreover, John saw that one of the seven
heads of the beast was smitten unto death,
but that his deatn-wound was healed. The

104

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Banie feature in the beast's history appears
in Rev. xvii. 8, where we are informed that
the beast "was, and is not, and shall come;"
or as the Sinai Codex reads, "snail be present
again." No doubt it is the Roman empire
that is thus characterized, but the empire in
its last form. It has, according to the re-
vealing- angel, a most extraordinary history,
one which is divided into three stages. "It
was." In John's day it existed in the plenti-
tude of its resistless power, and the world
lay helpless at its feet. With beak of brass
and talons of steel the great eagle of Rome
had grappled and overcome the human race,
and the earth trembled when fronihis seven-
hilled eyrie he flapped his wings of thunder.
"It was."

There came a second stage, that of non-
existence. Beneath the deadlv sword-
strokes of the barbarians imperial Rome
sank and died. "It is not." From that time
onward until now a universal dominion
centering in one grand emperor there has
not been. Ambitious soldiers have once and
again attempted to found one homogeneous,
world-wide kingdom in the earth, but with-
out avail. Charlemagne tried it, the hrst
Napoleon likewise, but in vain. Still '"it is
not." A third stage arrives; and the world-
emuire, the

SOVEREIGN COLOSSUS,

re-appears. "It shall be present again."
"The deadly wound was healed" And at its
head stands the peerless man, the Satan-
inspired man, the man in military genius,
executive capacity, intellectual brilliancy,
and savage ferocity surpassing Alex-
ander of Macedon, Julius Ca33ar
of old Rome, Antiochus of

Syria, and Bonaparte of France. It is the
man of sin, the Antichrist, from whoin the
stupendous confederacy takes its name and
its laws, to whose will it buws, whoje sway
it gladly owns — the beast! It is the time of
ttie end; for the beast ascends out of the
abyss only to go into perdition. It was a
saying in the olden times that Rome would
endure to the end of world. The age ter-
minates indeed when tne beaso is here, and
when the mighty conqueror comes from
heaven and hurls him into the laKe of fire.

3. Tlie origin of the Antichrist is mysteri-
ous, apparently supernatural. Twice in the
Apoc. it is solemnly declared that he comes
out of the "bottomless pit" (xi. 7; xvii. 8).
In chapter xiii, 2 it is as solemnly assertea
that Satan gives him "his power, and his
throne, and great authority." In II. Thess.
it he is represented as having a parousia,
like our Lord, and his p'arousia is according
to the working of Satan with all power and
signs and lying wonders. Many of the fathers
believed he will be a Satanic incarnation.

Hyppolitus calls him "a son of the devil
a vessel of Satan." Irenasus speaks of him
as "taking on himself all the power and all
the delusion of the devil." Origen de-
scribes him as "the child of the devil and
the counterpart of Christ." Lactantius
shin&s he will be "a king begotten by an
evil spirit" Theodoret believes the devil
will be

"iNCABNATE IN THE ANTICHRIST,"

and Theophylact, that he will be a "man
who will carry Satan about with him."
Augustine says that he will be born as other
men, "but that the devil will descend on his
mother and till her totally, surround her
totally, hold her totally, and possess her
totally, within and without, and the thing that
shall be bgrne of her shall be altogether sin-
ful, altogether damned." Some thought he
will be Antiochus Epiphanes redivivus.
Many held, and not a few among the mod-
erns concur in the view, that he will be Nero,
who shall return to earth from the nether-
world. Assuredly there is something om-
inous in these terms — "he cometh up out of
the ahyss," "whose parousia is after the
working of Satan" — something altogether
aside from the ordinary way of men's ap-
pearing in the world. Nevertheless we can-
not believe they import the return to earth
of one who has long been dead, nor yet a
demoniacal incarnation. They mean, or
seem to mean, that, to accomplish
his fell purpose, Satan will transfer to
the Antichrist his power and throne, and
till him from crown to heel with his own
dreadful and apalling energy. As he en-
tered into the heart of Judas, the son of per-
dition, so he will take possession of the man
of sin, inspiring him with power, intensify-
ing his malignity, dowering him with super-
human craft and pride, till he deifies him-
self I

Nor is it necessary to believe that Anti-
christ will from the beginning of his career
display his devilish temper, or let out any of
the God-defyinsr spirit that is in him. The
Scripture intimates the exact contrary. He
is represented as being a consumate flat-
terer, a brilliant diplomatist, a superb strat-
egist, a sublime hypocrite. He will mask his
ulterior designs under specious pretences;
will pose as a humanitarian, the friend of
man, the deliverer of the oppressed, the
briuger-in of the Golden Age. Nothing less
than this will satisfy the descriptions of
him as "the deceiver" and the "liar;" as the
one who shall intoxicate men with a "strong
delusion," who shall fling over the world

A FATAL FASCINATION,

and utterly daze all with his majestic
"powers and signs and lying wonders;'' who
shall deceive, if it were possible, the very

THE PEOPUETIO CONFERENCE.

105

elect. His name implies this: He is the pro-
Christ, tne rival-Christ. He assumes and
presumes to be God, shows himself as God;
and he takes this blasphemous place and
name through the strange witchery of his
stupendous powers. We se,e the same
course taken by his proto-types and
precursors by Antiochus the Syrian King;
by Nero the persecutor; by the first Napoleon
who masked his Iron despotism under
specious pretences, proclaiming himself a
Catholic to the Pope, a Musselman to the
Moslems, and the Man of Destiny to Europe.
But a crisis arrives; the mask is flung aside,
and the Antichrist stands revealed as trie
consummate antagonist and supplanter of
everything divine. The occasion which ef-
fects this change in his career is,
I believe, the subiect of Rev.
xii. The objections which lie against
any interpretation of this most difficult por-
tion of tne Apocalypse are confessedly great,
perharjs unanswerable; nevertheless, I would
venture an opinion upon if.

Rev. xi. and xii., I believe, are both pro-
leptic. While they precede the description
of the beast the action predicted in them
falls in the time of the beast, and in that
stage of his career when he is doing his
worst on earth. In chapter xi. we encoun-
ter the beast for the first time
in the book; and he is found
making war with the two witnessei
These two witnesses, whoever they may be,
are associated with Israel and Jerusalem, as
verse eight clearly shows, and as Dan. vil.
and xi. manifestly prove. Their testimony
is essentially Jewish, their mission and min-
istry like that of Moses and Elijah. But

THE BEAST OVEKCOMES THEM,

and they are slain. Babylon the harlot, the
apostate church is already destroyed; and
now the two witnesses, whose presence was
a rebuke and whose word was a torment to
men, are out of the way, and the world re-
joices and makes merry. It is at this point,
I suppose, that the Antichrist ventures upon
his "divine treason," and his awful blas-
phemy culminates in his claiming for him-
self the place and worship of Almighty God —
now that he "'exalts himself," usurp? God's
honor, and seats himself in "the temple of
God, showing himself that he is God." But
an event of world-wide import transpires to
mar and blast his hellish triumph. Bocause
of what cakes place as represented in chapter
12 the Great Dragon (Satau) is cast down
to earth, and in his desperate rage and fury
turns to give his power and his
throne to the beast Everything for
the beast, now that the transcendent event
announced in the chapter has become a his-
torical fact. What is this event? The con-

version of Israeli This, upon which 60 much
else turns which destroys the ground of
Satan's accusation, which converts the Anti-
christ* from a crafty dissimulator into a
headlong: Dersecutor, which brings on tha
great tribulation, and at length the Advent;
this, I belieVe, is the supreme idea of Rev.
xii. I believe the sun-clothed woman about to
bring forth is the symbol of Israel's conver-
sion in the time of the end. The words of other
prophets confirm and explain the symbol.
Micah predicts the first coming of the Re-
deemer, announcing that He is to be born at
Bethlehem-Ephrata; then he foretells.

Israel's bejection
and restoration in these words: "Therefore
will he give them up, until the time that she
which travaileth hath brought forth; then
the residue of his brethren shall return with
(marg. R Y.) the children of Israel" (v. 2-3).
Isaiah, speaking of the same blessed event
says: "Before she travailed she brought
forth; before her pain came she was deliv-
ered of a man-child, shall a nation be born
in one day? For as soon as
Zion travailed she brought forth her
•children" (lxvL 7-8). It is the picture
of Israel's turning to God, the time when
Israel shall be saved. And when this glori-
ous event transpires the basis of Satan's ac-
cusation is forever destroyed. This national
conversion precipitates the crisis, for Israel's
unbelief is the vantage ground for the ac-
cuser. The moment it becomes a reality
the glad shout rinars through heaven: "Now
is come the salvation and the power and tha
kingdom of our God and the authority of
His . Christ, for the accu-er of
our brethren is cast down" (Rev.
xii. 10). Against Israel converted the
Antichrist turns his whole rage. Prior to
this, it seems, he had been going on with
craft and guile, deluding the worid with his
lying miracles, and exhioiting but little of
his real spirit. Now his wrath burstR forth
against God, against the woman and her
seed, against everything that is called God
or that is worshiped War is proclaimed;
the bugles of Antichrist summon his armies
to the conflict, and the earth trembles be-
neath the tread of marching squadrons.
The very atmosphere se^ms populous
with forces marching and counter-
marching tor the decisive battle; and the in-
visible worlds of being pulsate and grow
tremulous in sympathy with the contending
armies.

THH GREAT TRIBULATION,

of which the prophetic word has eo much to
say, begins its awful course. It is the time
of Jacob's trouble; the time of trouble such
as our planet has never witnessed before,
never will again: the time when if God did

106

THE PBOPHETIO CONFERENCE.

not graciously shorten the days for the elect's
sake no flesh could be saved It is then the
enormity of sin and crime, of wickedness
and blasphemy, unparalleled in thefcnnals
of the world, will be consummated. And
when myriads of martyrs hare laid
down their lives for the witness of Jesus,
and hope seems clean gone, and black
despair has settled down on the weltering
world, and the norrible triad — tne dragon,
the beast, and the false prophet — have the
poor race under their hellish feet, and God
seems to nave forgotten the earth; then,
flashing down from the opening skies, the
Blessed Deliverer comes, the Lord Jesus
Christ; and Antichrist with his "armor-
bearer," is oast alive into the lake of fire!
And the kingdom, the glorious kingdom, for
which we now long and pant and yearn, is
established forever!

4. When shall Antichrist appear? Not
until a something tnat now "restraineth" be
removed. Already in Paul's day the mystery
of lawlessness was working. Already the
germs of a wide defection were planted —
germs of continuous and unsuspected
growth, whose Huge development should be'
the revelation of the man of sin. The fatal
process marked by the apostle is this: The
mystery of lawlessness working forward
into apostacy, and apostacy culminating at
length in the Antichrist. But an unseen
power lays its hand upon the process.
There is a time appointed for his manifesta-
tion, a time neither to be antedated nor post-
poned. The restraining power, whatever it
is, is in Goa's hand, and not until Mis set
time is come can the malignant

UPBUBSTING OF GODLESSNESS

break upon the world. For the apostle as-
sures us that the check holds "until he who
restraineth now be taken out of the way."
That "until" is fraught with weighty conse-
quences, is filled with unspeakable destinies.
The generation, the century, the year
wrapped up in this "until" is hidden from
mortal eye. The Thessalonian 6amts knew
what it is; we have not the same knowledge,
and this fact should repress dogmatic asser-
tion.

To the query. What is the restraining
power, two answers are returned. One is,
that it is the Holy Spirit in the churoh, an
opinion which has a Scriptural basis, but
which does not fall within the limits of tue
present discussion. The other is, that it is the
fabric of human oolicy, the moral and civil
order of society, divinely constituted au-
thority, in short, in the state. This view
does not antagonize the other just men-
tioned; it is, in fact, its correlative and
counterpart. The name given to the Anti-
christ seems to justify this opinion. He

Is the "Lawless One" in whom all law is dis-
carded, all moral order is dethroned "When
the unseen yet withholding influence of the
civil power with its moral and divine order
of things is powei less to restrain increasing
lawlessness, then the end is near. Is come"
(Lutbardt). Upon the ruins of shattered
states and kingdoms the vast empire or Anti-
christ is built. The revolutionary condition
of societv out of which the Antichrist and
his dominion arise is clearly indi-
cated by Daniel, vii. 2, who says
that the four winds of heaven • brake
forth upon the great sea, and the beasts arose.
Out of the same unstable and agitated ele-
ment the beast ot the Apocalypse issues forth.
The sea, torn by the winds, is the graphic
image of nations and peoples in

COMMOTION AND BEVOLUTION.

And this disrupted state of human society
plainly nints at the withdrawal of the check,
the overthrow of the dam which holds back
the antichristian, flood. History affords at
least one illustrious example of the malignant
process through which the world will travel
to the man of sin — the French revolution.
There was first the preparatory stage, in
which widespread attacks were made
on religious faith and existing political
institutions; the revolution followed which
overthrew church and state, society and re-
ligion, royalty, nobility, nlergy. laws, cus-
toms, everything, and tuen out of this social
chaos came Napoleon and his empire, with
the subordinate and confederate kingdoms
of Westphalia, Naples, and Borne. We have
but to imagine this revolutionary condition
spread over the whole '"prophetic earth" to
have an exact picture of the times when the
hindrance is taken away, and Antichrist's
road is ready, and the great Kaiser comes!

Is this to be Khe final outcome of the
boasted progress and civilization of oar
modern era? The science, discoveries,
"culture;" the energy, activity, and splen-
did achievements of the age, are they all to
terminate in worldwide godlessness and the
man of sin? Pessimism, this view is called,
and pessimists, they who advocate it. One
whose love for men is deathless, whose
power is matchless, has said: "As it was in
the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of
the son of man." How was it in the days of
Noah? The whole world in revolt against
God, and true piety reduced to a family of
eight souls. Impossible to be realized in our
enlightened times, is it said? We have but
to remember that less than one hundred
years ago, in the most highly cultivated and
Intellectual country of Europe, in France,
society was so wrecked and chaotic, and

ATHEISM WAS EXALTED

to such a height of proud impiety, that the

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

107

world witnessed the audacious spectacle of
a prostitute enthroned on the high altar of
Notre Dame, saluted and worshiped under
the title of the "Goddess of Reason." We
have but to remember that at this very time
there resides in the city of Rome a man
whom one-half of Christendom itself honors
and adores as the vicar of Christ, the vice-
gerent of God, infallible, and sole possessor
or the keys of the kingdom of heaven — a man
who is borne alonar "in solemn procession on
the shoulders of consecrated priests, whilst
sacred incense fumes before him, and bless
peacocks' feathers full of eyes wave beside
his moving throne, and every mortal near
uncovers, kneels, and silently adores." We
have but to remember that even now there
exists a positivist calendar in which each
day is appointed for the "cultus" of some
man distinguished in art, literature, or
philosophy.

There are principles now at work in our
modern society which, if left |unchecked,

Notes— 1. That the Fathers regarded the Anti-
christ as a single person, and as associated with
Satan in some mysterious way, is susceptible of
demonstration. Besides those named in
the preceding essay, the following may be men-
tioned: Tertullian. Cyprian, Victorinus, Cyril of
Jerusalem, Jerome, Chrisostum. Hilary of Poic-
tiers, Ambrose, Ephrem Syrus, Andreas of
Caesarea, John Damascene, Abbot Joachim. The
same opinion is encountered in the following
writings: Epistle of Barnabas', Apostolic Consti-
tutions, second of the Clementine Homilies, D»-
ConsummaMone Mundi. Disputation of Archslaus
and Manes, Recognitions of Clement. The
"Noble Lesson" of tlie Waldenses, of the twelfth
century, contains the like belief of a future per-
sonal Antichrist.

2. What is meant by the Man of Sin sitting in
the "temple" o God? In Josephus, Philo, the
Septuagint, and the New Testament, a distinction
is made between hieron and naos. The former
[hieron) is the name commonly given to the
cluster of buildings on Mt. Moriah. The latter
{na<fs) designates the temple Droper, the sanc-
tuary where the Divine Presence dwelt. Into this
most sacred part of God's dwelling place does
this proud oppressor thrust himself as if he
were its divine occupant.

But what is meant by this naos. this "temple
of God?" The term mav be used figuratively for
the church (1 Cor. iii., 16, 17; vL, 19: Eph. ii..
21, 22). In these ethical passages, describing
spiritual privilege, blessing, and destiny the
body of Christ, the invisible church in dwelt by
the Spirit of God, is undoubtedly the subject.
But how the Antichrist who is a man and not an
abstraction, can in any proper sense be said
to take his seat in this temple does
not appear. Wherever the word naos is ap-
plied to a material structure in the New
Testament the reference uniformly is either to
the Temple at Jerusalem, or to some heathen
shrine, like the temple of Diana— never In a
single instance to a place of Christian worshin.
■uch as St. 1'eter's at Rome (Matt. xxiii., 16-17:

will soon make the advent of the Antichrist
not only possible, Put certain. The lawless
drift is already on us, precursor of worse to
come.

Who does not perceive that the forces
are already loose in the world that tend to
the disintegration of the whole social fabric?
Who does not perceive that the ax is al-
ready aimed at the chief hoops which hind
together the scaves of the civil polity? So-
cialism, nihilism, anarchy, naturalism, ma-
terialism, numanitariani8m, spiritualism —
restlessness and discontent everywhere — is
it any wonder that already men's hearts are
failing them for fear, and for looking for the
things about to come upon the earth? We
have only to suppose the portentous move-
ments of the time grow and erather head
until tne hindrance is gone, the barrier
thrown down, and then? Yes, what then?
Then cometh the Antichrist, the devastator
of the world!

The Lord help us to watch and be soberl

Luke 1, 9; Acts xix. 24, etc.) The Scripture
usage of the word would lead us to the conclusion
that either it is the Jewish Temple to be restored
in tne future and rededicated to God, or some
pre-eminently sacred place like it, in which the
Antichrist is to take his seat. The connection of
the Adversary with Israel in the last times, as
Daniel and John appear to indicate, seems to
favor this view. Time alone wili tell.

3. Is the Antichrist to be a Jew? So many
think, basing their opinion on Gen. xlix, 17;
Jer. vii. 16: Dan. xi. 47, 37. etc. These pas-
sages, however, are by no means decisive, and
may be satisfactorily explained as relating to
another subject altogether.

The argument that the Antichrist must be a
Jew in order to be received by the Jews has lit-
tle weight. History records one instance at
least when they hailed a great Gentile soldier as
their deliverer, and sang his praises in the
loftiest strains. In 1806 "Napoleon made over-
tures to the Jews, aDdtook them to some extent
under his protection. He invited them to hold
their Sanhedrim in Paris, and in March. 1807,
peventy-one doctors and leading men of the na-
tion assembled in that city and formed them-
selves into a national council, the like to which
had not been held for more than seventeen hun-
dred years— not indeed since the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus" (Pember, "The Great
Prophecies," p. 131. Drumont in his recent
book on the Jews in France alludes to the same
fact).

As Napoleon had vast designs touching the
founding of an Eastern empire, the part which
the Jews were to take in his schemes, and Jeru-
salem and Palestine likewise, may appear from
the following: "Bonaparte made an appeal to the
Asiatic and African Jews to rally to his banner,
and promised to give them the Holy Land, and
restore Jerusalem in its ancient splendor." Groetz
History of the Jews. Vol. XL. p. 236.

The Moniteur, published in Constantinople in
1799, says: "Bonaparto has caused a proclama-
tion to be published, in which he invites all the
Jews of Asia and of Africa to assemble them-
selves under his flag, in order to re-establish the
ancient city of Jerusalem. But it is not only to
give the Jews their Jerusalem that Bonaparte has
conquered Syria. He has larger designs. He
aims to conquer Constantinople!" Mon. 1799,
p. 187. The time was not yet come, and so Na-
poleon failed. One is coming, however, who will
not fail: under whom Israel will como into the
tribulation, and be saved at length by the per-
sonal appearing of the Lord Jesus.

FOURTH DAY.

THE EEV. DE. J. P. KENDALI*

THE JUDGMENT.

The conference, in the fourth day of its
session, had its nsual good attendance.
The morning meeting was opened by
the regular devotional exercises, tne Key. J.
Flint, of Helena, M. T., offering the prayer.
The first paper was read by the Bev. Dr. John
F. Kendall, of LaPorte, Ind., on cue subject,
"The Judgment." It was as follows:

Questions concerning what theologians
term the "final," or the "general judgment,"
often arise in, and often greatly perplex the
mind of the ordinary believer. It is the pur-
pose of this study to answer these questions;
and thereby give comfort to many a per-
plexed spirit.

1. Immediately after death, the soul is
placed at the bar of God and judged. "In-
dividuals are treated according to their de-
sert, and this is done immediately after
death." (Dr. Dick, Theology, p, 339.) "The
soul, at death, goes immediately to its place
of

ETERNAL HAPPINESS OB MISERY,

according to its moral character." (Ms.
Lects. of Dr. L. P. Hickok) Hence,

2. The sentence of God assigns the righte-
ous to heaven, and they enter at once on an
everlasting inheritance.

3. The same sentence assigns the wicked
to everlasting fire.

4. At the resurrection, both the righteous
and the wiclted are brought from their re-
spective abodes, when ttiey are judged a
second time, and are returned to the place
whence they were bronght, to remain for-
ever. "The judgment passed noon each in-
dividual at the termination of his life will
be solemnly ratified at the end of the world."
(Dr. Dick.) It thus appears, and this is
the accepted orthodox Tiew, that
the final judgment is merely con-
firmatory of that which has passed at death,
and not that there has been another chance.
This is no scheme of an "Eternal Hope."

A general judgment "seems necessary to
the display of the justice of God, to such a
manifestation of it, as will vindicate His
government from all the charges which im-

piety has brought against It." (Dr. Dick, u
339.)

1. "Such a judgment will be a more glori-
ous display of God's majesty and dominion.**

2. "The end of judgment will be more fully
answered by a public and general than only
by a particular and private judgment ''

3. "It is very agreeable to reason that the
irregularities which are so open and man-
ifest

IN THE WORLD

should, when the world comes to an end, be
publicly rectified by the supreme governor."
(Edward's works, vol. 4, pp. 205, 206.)

"There will be such a revelation of the
character of every man, to all around him, or
to all who know him, as shall render the
justice of the sentence, of condemnation or
acquittal, apparent. (Hodge, Theology, vol.
3, p. 849).

"At the juagment of the last day, the des-
tiny of the righteous and of the wicked shall
be unalterably determined" (Idem, p. 850).

"The grand end of the judgment is there-
fore to stop every mouth, satisfy every con-
science, and make every knee bow to God'«
authority, either willingly in love, or neces-
sarily in absolute conviction." (Dr. Hickok).

'Jlu' sum and substance of all reasons for a
general judgment, is, in some way, a vindi-
cation of God. "God would show Himself
holy and righteous in all His functiona of
sovereignty." (Dr. Hickok).

The marked absence of Scripture quota-
tions or even reference, is worthy of note, in
all these reasons for a general judgment.

That it may appear how unsatisfactory to
their own minds, are their supposed vindi-
cations of the divine dealings, I add one or
two quotations from themselves.

(Dr. Hodge, vol. 3, p. 849): "Every man
will see himself as he appears in the sight of
God. His memory will probably Drove au
Indelible register of all his sinful acts,
thoughts and feelings, His conscience will
be so enlightened as to recognize the

JUSTICE OF THE SENTENCE

which the righteous Judge shall pronounce
upon him." These things being so, we may
ask, what possible need of vindication can
there be?

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

109

Dr. Dick: "Among the multitude of the
condemned, however severe may be their
punishment, and however impatiently they
may bear it, there wild not be one who will
dare to accuse his Judge of injustice. In the
mind of every man a consciousness of guilt
will be deeply fixed; he will be compelled to
blame himself alone and to lustify the sen-
tence which has rendered him forever mis-
erable." "The declaration of the Judge con-
cerning those on His right hand that they are
righteous, and concerning those on His lett
hand that they are wicked, will be sufficient
to convince all in the immense assembly that
the sentence pronounced upon each in-
dividual is just."

Thus, while these writers maintain the
necessity of a general judgment for the
vindication of the Divine character, tney
themselves proceed to show that no such
vindication is necessary.

Dick; "The proceedings will take place in
the sight of angels and men." "Countless
millions will be assembled to hear their final
doom. All nations shall be gathered before
the Son of man."

Edwards: "in the great and general
judgment, all men shall together appear be-
l ore the judgment seat, to be judged." "The
v.bole world, both angels and men, being
present to behold."

Hodge: "The persons to be judged are
men and angela" "This judgment there-
fore is absolutely universal: it includes both
small and great, and all

THE GENERATIONS OF MEN."

Hickok: "Ail fallen angels are to be pub-
licly judged" "Also, all the human family."

On the disclosures of the judgment opini-
ens seriousiy differ. Thus Edwards: "The
works of both righteous and wicked will be
rehearsed." "The evil works of the wicked
shall then be brought forth to light." But
then he adds: "The good works of the saints
will also be brought forth as evidences of
their sincerity, and of their interest in the
righteousness of Christ As to their evil
works, they will not be brought forth against
theuion that day; for the euilt of them will
not lie upon them, they being clothed with
the righteousness of Jesus Christ."

On the other hand, Hickok, as we think,
well insists that "the sins of Christians will
be brought to light in the judgment," for
various reasons; and, as if answering this
thought of Edwards, on the ground that
"The grace of Christ in their final sanctitica-
tlon can not be fully exhibited without it."

If there is to be such a general judgment,
as is generally supposed, then there would
seem to bo no good reason to doubt that all
the deeds, both good and evil, of all who
nave lived, both good and evil, must then be

disclosed The physical phenomena of a
general judgment are a source of no little
trouble. Dr. Hodge avoids it, by utterly
ignoring questions which will force them-
selves upon the reader of Scripture. Dr.
Dick's troubles appear in the following quo-
tations: "The place where the judgment
will be held is this World; and, as it is saidv
that the saints shall be

CAUGHT UP IN THE CLOUDS

to meet the Lord in the air, it should seem
that the wicked should be left standing upon
the earth." "The saints being caught up
into the clouds by the ministry of angels to
meet the Lord in the air, and the wicked
being left on the earth, the judgment will
proceed."

And Dr. Edwards: "They shall all be
brought to appear Defore Christ, the godly
being placed ou the right hand, the wicked
on the left" "Besides the one standing ou
the right hand and the other on the left,
there seems to be this difference between
them, that when the dead in Christ shall be
raised they will all be caught up in the air,
where Christ shall be, and shall be there at
His right hand during the judgment, never-
more to set their feet on this earth. Whereas
the wicked shall be left standing on the
earth, there to abide the judgment" Ac-
cording to this representation the righteous
have been judged before the judgment be-
gins, for they have been assigned to the
right hand, where they remain "during the
judgment" while only the wicked really
"abide the judgment" Now, according to
the Scripture, upon which these writers de-
pend to prove their general judgment, via.:
Mat xxv., 31-46, the assemblage of
the universe is to be a promiscuous assem-
blage, whom after they "shall be gathered,"
the Son of man "shall separate one from an-
other." Whereasc, tuey both agree that the
separation taK.es place in the process of gath-
ering. But that certainly it does not The
result, according to their view, is a most sin-
gular

PHYSICAL PHENOMENON,

viz. : the saints "on His right hand in the
air," the lost "on the left standing upon the
earth." It is no quibble which makes these
suggestions. They deserve to be considered
One other declaration of Dr. Hodge de-
serves a moment's notice. "At the judgment
of the last day," he says, "the destiny of the
righteous and of tne wicKed shall be unal-
terably determined." By "destiny," he
must mean "ultimate fate." Webster de-
fines "determined," as, "ended, con-
cluded, decided, limited, fixed, settled,
resolved, directed." Which does Dr.
Hodge mean? In truth, his propo-
sition can in do wise be maintained. AH or-

110

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

thodox theologians agree, that for the be-
liever, "to die" is "to depart and be with
Christ," and for the unbeliever, it is to "go
away into everlasting punishment;" but the
"destiny" may be fixed long before that, and
so far as we have experience or knowledge,
is never fixed "at the -judgment." "He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,"
but "he that believeth not is condemned al-
ready." (John iii- 36-18.) The "destiny"
of every soul is "unalterably determined,"
on the moment of his final acceptance or re-
jection of Jesus Christ as a Savior.

What is the meaning of tne term judgment?
Webster answers: "Theologically." "Tne
final punishment of the wicKed; the last-
sentence." It should arrest our thought,
that, in Webster's mind, only the -'wicked"
have place in judgment

Cremer's answer (in Theological Lex, under
krisis): "Specially in judicial procedure and
primarily without particular regard to the

CHABACTEB OF THE DECISION."

"Then, of a definite acousation or prosecu-
tion, guilt, of some sort of being presup-
posed, by the judicial procedure. Tnis pre-
cise use of the term as equal to judicial proc-
ess, judgment directed against the eruilty,
and leading on to condemnation is compara-
tively rare in profane Greek, whereas it is
almost the only one in the New Testament"
And he oites (Matt. v. 2L22): "Whosoever
Bhall kill, or is 'angry with his brother with-
out a cause, shall be in danger of the judg-
ment,' and (Mark iii, 29) tne blasphemer
against the Holy Ghost, 'is in danger of
eternal judgment'" Further: "It is char-
acteristic of judicial process, especially
of the divine judgment to wliich
krisis mostly relates that it is directea
against the guilty." IJohn iv. 17, "Hemera,
kriseos. Mark v. 15; xi. 22-24; xii. 36 (and
others), Krisis denotes the final judgment of
the world, which is to bring destruction
upon the guilty." "In Rev. xiv. 7; xvi. 7;
xix. 2, the word likewise denotes the judg-
ment, tne act of judging, which discerns and
condemns the guilty." And again, under
Krima, "the decision of a judge, judgment
(Rev. xx, 4), the judgment concerning them
is given in what follows. * * x Else-
where in the New TeBtament throughout, as
in later Greek, tne word always denotes a
judgment unfavorable to those concerned, a
punitive judgment, involving punishment,
as a matter of course," and he cites (2 Peter
ii. 3), "whose judgment now of a long time
lingereth not," with Rom. iii. 8, "whose
judgment is just," and Rom. v. 16, "for the
judgment was by one to condemnation."
"For the cognizance of the judge," contin-
ues Creraer, "to say notuing of his judg-
ment, implies

A COMING SHOBT."

This is a very vital point in our
discussion. If the New Testament usage
of the term judgment implies guilt,
and has but one natural sequence,
condemnation, then we effect at once a very
large exclusion from the numbers of those
for whom a final judgment , is intended; no
righteous can be there, and such a thing as a
general judgment must be forever unknown.
It is easy to show by citation of numerous
passages that Cremer is right, both as the
term is used in reference to man and God.

1. The use of "judge" when applied to
man.

"Doth our law judge any man before it
hear him?" (John vii. 51.) Pilate said:
"Take Him yourselves and judge Him ac-
cording to your law. The Jews said unto him,
it is not lawful for us to put any man to
death (John xviii. 3l)," as if that were the
only possible sentence (see Acts xiii. 27-46;
xxiiL 3-6; xxiv. 6-21). Festus said to
Paul: "Let them go up to Jerusa-
lem, and there be judged. * * * Then
said Paul, I stand at Caesar's judgment seat
where I ought to be judged; to the Jews I
have done no wrong." (Actsxxv. 9, 10; xxvi.
6. See Rom. xiv. 3, 4, 10, 13, 22; James iv.
11, 12.) "The men of Nineveli, the Queen of
tne South, shall rise up in the judgment
with this generation and shall condemn it"
(Matt xii. 41, 42.) It is a remarkable fact
that in all those cases (few only are cited)
"judge" is use in trie sense of condemn, and
in some instances strikingly so.

2. The use of "judge" when applied to
God,

Luke xix. 22: "Out of thine own mouth
will I judge thee,

THOU WICKED SEBVANT."

Acts vii. 7: "The nation to whom they
shall be in bondage will I judge, saith God,"

Rom. ii. 12, 16: "As many as nave sinned
in the law shall be judged by tne law * * *
in the day when God shall judge the seorets
of men by Jesus Christ"

(IL Thess. ii. 12), "That they all might be
judged who * * # had pleasure in un-
righteousness. "

(Hebrews lx 27-28), "As it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this, judg-
ment, so Christ was once offered to bear the
sins of many; and unto them that look for
Him shall He appear * * * unto salva-
tion." Manifestly "judgment" and "salva-
tion"* stand over against each other. The
world was under judgment, and this meant
condemnation, for in judgment they were
"judged every man according to nis works. "
Justice is inexorable, and since all have
siuneci, no one who comes into judgment
caD escape. Hence the divine mery inter-

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE

111

posed, ana '"as" judgment was the original
doom, "so," that is "to meet this very ex-
igency of their case," to arrest judgment and
offer salvation, "Christ was offered."

"Tnose that look for Him" are of course,
believers, who though "by nature children
of wrath," have been "quickened together
with Christ," "raised up togetner ana made
to sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus" (Eph. ii. 5, 6), and that certainly is
far above fear of death and judgment For
such there remainetn

NO "FEABJUL looking
for of judgment and fiery indignation which
shall devour the adversaries" (Heb. x: 7.)
Not to quote a burdensome number of pass-
sages the reader will find tfte term "judge"
used in the sense of condemnation in John
hi: 17, 18; v. 22, 24. 27, 29, 30; xii. 31,47,
48; xvi. 8, 11 (see Greek and R. V.); also,
numerously in the Apocalypse, Rev. vi. 9,
10; xi. 18; xvi. 5, 7; xviii. 8. 10, 20; xix.
2, 11; xx 12, 13: James ii. 13.
"For judgment is without mercy
to him that showeth no mercy;
mercy glorieth against judgment" Very
striking are the passages, (Pet ii, 4-9). "God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast
them down to hell, ana delivered them into
chains of darkness to be reserved unto judg-
ment," and "the Lord knoweth how * * *
to reserve the unjust unto the day of judg-
ment to De punished," and (iii, 7), "the
heavens and the earth wnich are now, by the
same word are kept in store, reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdi-
tion of ungodly men.'' See also Jude 6 ana
15.

To sum up under the term krisis or judg-
ment, it occurs forty-eight times in the New
Testament. In forty-one instances it is
translated "judgment," three times "damna-
tion." In more than thirty places it may
refer to what we term the last judgment.
And in every one of these cases it does" not
appear that any but the guilty are involved
in the judgment, and in nearly every in-
stance, it is evident that the righteous are
positively excluded. In those instances in
which other than the last judgment is spoken
of, the judgment is still only ttiat of the un-
godly, and in no case can it be shown that
the godly are

BROUGHT INTO JUDGMENT.

And if we look at the close-related word
krima, which is also translated "judgment"
and "damnation,'' it is evident in every in-
stance, in which it can be applied to the last
judgment, that only the ungodly are in-
cluded, and judgment is to condemnation.
These facts are very striking, and throw a
flood of light upon the question of toe judg-

ment, which is such a terror to so many of
the Lord's people.

But then the question arises, what la to be
said of those texts, which, upon their faoe,
seem to teach that there is to be a general
Judgment, at' which ail shall be gathered,
such as. Acts xviL 31, "He hath appointed a
day in which He will judge the world;"
Matt, xxv: 32, "Before Him Bhall be gath-
ered all nations;" and especially 2 Cor. v.
10, "We must all appear before the juag-
ment seat of Christ" This first: When we
flna the true interpretation, tnese Scriptures
with the others, there will be no contradic-
tion

What, then, are all the facts concerning
tne believer? For 2 Cor. v. 10 refers to
him. It is said then, "We must all appear
before the judgment seat of Christ The
Greek for judgment seat is bema, ana
occurs twelve times in the New Testa-
ment It is derived from baivo, "to go, walk,
tread, step." The first definition, both in the
classical and

NEW TESTAMENT LEXICON,

is "a step." In this sense it is ysed but once,
via., in Acts viL 5, "gave him none inheri-
tance in it, not even 'a bema of a foot' " — a
step of a foot, a foot breadth, or A. V., "not
so much as to set his foot on."

The secondarv meaning is ap elevated
place ascended by steps, (a) A tribune, to
speak or read from. In this sense (Acts xii.
21), Herod "sat upon his throne, and made
an oration unto them." (b.) The tribunal
of a magistrate or ruler.

In this sense it is used of Pilate (Matt
xxvii. 19), "wnen he was set down on the
judgment seat;" (John xix 13), Pilate "sat
down on the judgment seat;" of Gallio
(Acts xviii. 12), "the Jews made insur-
rection against Paul, and brought
him to the judgment seat;'' (v. 16),
"he drave them from the judg-
ment seat;" v. 17, they beat Sosthenes "be-
fore the judgment seat;" of Festus (Acts
xxv. 6), "the next day, sitting on the judg-
ment seat, commanded Paul to be brought;"
v. 10, "I stand at Caesar's judgment seat;"
v. 17, "I sat on the judgment seat." The
other two instances of its use are in the con-
nection, "we shall all Btand" (Rom. xiv. 10);
"we must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ" (2 Cor. v. 10).

In ten of these twelve cases the Greek
word is rendered in the A V., "judgment
Beat," and the R. V. agrees in every instance.
In one case the wora, both in the A V. and
R. V., is rendered "throne," while even here
the R Y. gives the marginal reading, "judg-
ment seat" In every instance Alfora agrees
with the A T.

112

THE PEOPHETIO CONFERENCE.

IT IS WORTHY OF NOTE,

In this connection, that in not one instance
in which persons are represented as brought
before the juderment seat is any one of them
found guilty, or condemned, by the one who
occupies the bema. This, of itself, might
suggest the more consistent rendering of
Eotherham, in nine of the twelve instances,
"tribunal," while also, it should raise she
question against himself, why he did not so
render in the two cases which refer to Pilate.
Now, it is affirmed of the believer that he
must appear before the bema of Jesus Christ
For what purpose? Paul has answered:
"That every one may receive the things Gone
in his body, according to that he hath done,
whether it be good or bad." (2 Cor., v,, 1.)
All this said concerning those who "Know
(v., 1) that if our earthly house of this taber-
nacle were dissolved, we have a building of
God * * eternal in the heavens," i. e., be-
lievers and believers only. What does
it signify? Precisely what is set forth in
1 Cor., iii., 12-15. "Every man's work sha'l
be tried." "If any man's work abide * * *
he shall receive a reward." This is said only
of the believirfg man, for only such a one is
a "laborer together with God," v. 9, and of
the one thus tested, itis affirmed that though
his "work shall be burned," "he himself shall
be saved," v. 15. All works of the believer
are to be tried, that it be made manifest,
whether or not "they are wrought in God,"
(John iii. 21). For this trial all are gathered
before the bema,

THE UNGODLY

are not there, but there are all believers.
Some wiil receive great "reward" for efficient
service and many good works, some a less
reward, others less still, and some none at
all, their works being done only in the
energy bf the flesh, being counted utterly
worthless and cast into the fire; yet, by rea-
son of a true, though it may be feeble faith,
they do not miss salvation. And thus
it is that "every man's work shall be made
manifest," and its true value be determined.
But of "iuogment," of which we have seen
that it leads on to condemnation, into any
such scene the believer shall not come. This
is the very word of our Divine Lord: "He
that * * believeth * * hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into judgment,"
where the word is the very same which Paul
uses when he says after death, "judgment."

It is not difficult to show by irresistible
Scripture proof, that no believer shall ever
stand in other judgment than this. Because,

1. The general idea of the judgment sup-
poses that the sins of the believer are to be
brought there and judged. But this is cer-
tainly a mistake. For though "all we like
sheep have gone astray," "the Lord hath

laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all,"
(Isaiah iiii. 6), and He "bore our sins in His
own body on the tree," (1 Peterai 24). When
Christ thus bore our sins He "condemned
sin in the flesh" (Rom. viii., 3); He "put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. ix.,
26.) The believer's sins have therefore been
juaged and condemned already."

"Tny sin was judged in His flesh." For
"He died unto sin once" (Rom. vi., 10.*
"He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities" (Isaiau
liii. , 5.) Hence, so far as his sins are con-
cerned, the believer looKs back to his judg-
ment, and not forward.

2. The oneness of Christ and the believer
testifies to the same fact Every believer
can truly say, "I was crucified with Christ"
(Gal. it, 2CU I was "buried with Him by the
baptism unto death" (Rom. vi., 4,) hence
what Christ's death expressed it expressed
for me. "If one died for all, then all died"
(2 Cor. v., 14.) Under the old dispensation
the sins of the Jews were dealt with on the
day of atonement God dealt with the Pin
and sins of all time on Calvary. The awful
judgment of God against sin there awoke,
was there expressed, and there it smote; and
so far as His people are concerned that was
its final expression forever. The judgment
is passed, the sentenoe executed.

3. Expose the believer to be judged ac-
cording to his deeds, and you insure his con-
demnation "Enter not into judgment with
thy servant," prays the Psalmist (Pa cxliii.
2), "for in Thy sight shall no man living be
justified." No one with whom God enters
Into judgment can be saved. For justice is
inexorable. And not only have all sinned,
they continue to sin, and therefore, if sins
were brought into judgment, one's doom
would be inevitable. "No one will be safe
who i3 to have his

EIEBNAL DESTINY

determined by his own deeds." Albert
Barnes, Com. on Rev. xx 12.

There remains a further consideration of
most serious and solemn moment, viz:

4. To bring the believer into judgment
would make the judge the accused. The
judge is Christ "The Father judgeth no
man, but hath committed all judgment unto
the Son," and "hath given Him authority to
execute judgment also," (John v. 22, 27).
"It is He which was ordained of God to be
the judge of quick and dead" (Acts x 42).
But Christ, the judge, has stood for us. To
bring the believer into judgment, therefore,
would be to question the worth of what
Christ has done, to bring an accusation
against Him. It would bring Him down
from the place of judgment, strip from Him
the ermine of the judge, and place Him be

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

113

tors the bar as a culprit, lie died tor us, for
our Bins. Did He make sufficient propitia-
tion? Did His work meet the demand? If
so, If His offering was adequate to the pur-
pose, then the believer is justified, and how
can one be brought into judgment of whom
the divine testimony already is, "there is,
therefore, now no condemnation" (Rom. viii.
1): he is "justified from all things" (Acts
xi ii. 39).

And further, what greater insult could be
offered to Jesus, than to bring into judg-
ment, one for whom He has stood? Tojudjje
such would be Out to judg^ Himself. "Who
shall lav an>' thing to the charge

of god's elect?
Shall God that justifieth? Who is He that
condemneth? Is is Christ that died?" (Rom.
viii., 33, 31 )

The judgment must therefore deal with
Him before it can reach them.

Consider, too, the incongruity of Christ's
judging His own bride. Many of them will
nave been saints in heaven for thousands
of years, and now can such ever be put
on trial? No, all believers will be
gathered at the judgment seat of Christ for
one sole purpose, to receive the reward for
their works, each "according as his work
shall be" (R^v. xxii. 12). And a reward is
not a gift. The believer has received the
latter, "the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ" (Rom. vi. 23). The
former awaits *him at the bema. And it
Hhouid be noted for tne comfort of every be-
liever, that the bema is not set to determine
or even consider the question of salvation.
That is forever settled, when, as one "be-
lieveth," so he "hath everlasting life" (John
ill. 36). But it is set to determine the vaiue
of Christian service, and the reward there-
for. The judgment seat of Christ is not for
the judgment of the person, but of his works.
There is to be determined the value of a
"cup of cold water," given in the name of
Christ. "For God is not unrighteous to for-
get your work and

LABOB OF LOVE,

which ye have showed toward His
name, in that ye have ministered
to the saints and do minister."
(Heb. vi. 10). "Whatsoever good thing any
man doeth, he shall receive a reward." (Eon.
vi. 8). Oh, pity to him, who, though "he
himself snail be saved," shall yet "suffer
loss" (I Cor. iii. 15). at tne judgment qeat of
Christ, for such loss will be eternal. It is a
solemn thought that what we lose here, In
the matter of Christian service and good
works, eternity can never make good. The
voice of him who is barely "saved, .vet so as
by fire," will never sound so loud, his harp
will never be strung- so rapturously, nor his

pilm be waved so victoriously in heaven, as
will fall to the blesBed lot of him who has
"abundant entrance."

Oh, joy to him on whose labor, when
"the fire shall try every man's work
of what sort it is" (1 Cor. iii. 13),
there shall be no "smell of fire," but
all his work, either "gold, silver, or precious
stones," shall abide the test, and whose "re-
ward" shall be great It is surely worth an
effort to stand well at the judgment seat of
Cnrist.

The considerations above urged are op-
posed to the common idea of a general judg-
ment. What then, shall we say to Mac. xxv.
31-33? "When the Son of Man shuli come
in His glory * * * before Him shall be
gathered all nations, and He shall separata
them from one another * * * and He
shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the
goats on the left."

THIS PASSAGE

is constantly quoted and relied on in proof
of a general judgment, and is sup-
posed to be parallel with Rev.
xx. 11-15: "And I saw a great
white throne and Him that sat on it

* * * and I saw the dead, small and
creat, stand before God * * * and the
dead were judged out of those things wnich
were written in the books * * * and the
sea save up the dead which were in it, and
death and haoes delivered up the dead which
were in them," etc., etc. The sound of the
two italicized phrases in the last two quota-
tions, will easily mislead one who is careless
respecting details; when a careful considera-
tion of them will show that these passages
can not be parallel, and must therefore refer
to entirely different eventB. The following
facts stand in proof of the last statement:

1. The passage fiom Mattnew contains not
one word to indicate a resurrection; that
from Revelation plainly declares a resurrec-
tion, v. 13.

2. In Matthew the dealing is with
"nations." What nations? The answer is in
Mat. xxiv. : 14, "This Gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached in all the world, for
a witness unto all the nations.
Then, "When the Son of man shall come

* * * before him shall be gathered all the
nations" before specified. Thev come as
nations. In Revelation the dealing is with
individuals: "They were judged every man.
according to their woiks," (verse 13)
Coupied with this there follows a third fact,
viz :

3. Matthew evidently speaks of nations
living when "the Son of man" appears, as in
(Zech xiv, 2). Revelation specially desig-
nates the nations of the "dead"

4. In Matthew we find among the gathered

114

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

"nations" two distinct classes, viz. : "the
sheep" and "the goats;" and apart from
them, a third class, viz. : the "brethren,'-
(verses 40-45). The two former classes are
separated, on qne sole ground, viz. : their
treatment of the third class, tne brethren.
It were absurd to suppose that the
sheep were rewarded for what they had
done to themselves, or the goats pun-
ished for what they had

DONE TO THE SHEEP,

in the face of the distinct affirmation that
the one class is rewarded and the other pun-
ished for their treatment of a class entirely
distinct from either of themselves. Evi-
dently, then, to constitute them either
praiseworthy or biamewortny. they must
have known them as as the brethren of
Cnrist.

In Revelation we find but one class, no
s paration, but all "judged out of those
things which were written in the books"
(v. 12) (not "tne book") consigned to the
lake of fire, and among them are many who
never heard of Christ, and to whom the lan-
guage in Matthew could not apply.

Now, certainly, it is most remarkable and
unaccountable that if the church or believers
are to have a place in this stupendous scene,
not one word is said concerning them, and
the doom of the lost alone appears as the re-
sult of the grand assize.

Our study of these passages reveals, there-
fore, the following facts, viz: that there is
to be a judgment of the living nations, and a
judgment of the "great white throne," and
these are distinct and separate in time and
place.

Where, then, will be the church while
these judgments proceed? "With the Lord."
Their case is set forth in L Thess. iv, 16. 17.
"The Lord himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout * * * and the dead in Christ
•shall rise first; then we

WHICH ABE ALIVE

and remain shall be caught up * * * to
meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we
ever De with the Lord." This is the first
signal of Christ's second coming. Hence
these great events, which have so often been
regarded with nothing less than terror, by
the Lord's dear people, will not concern
them in the least, save as spectators, of what
their Lord and Master does.

One other inquiry, partly curious, will pre-
pare the way for the general conclusion.

When will the "judgment seat of Christ"
be set? We may not dogmatize, as we have
scarcely more than hints upon which to base
a conclusion. This much is sure, when the
Lord comes with a shout the dead saints will
be raised, the living saints will "all be
changed in a moment'' (1 Cor. xv. 51-52),

the corruptible will put on incorruption,
the mortal, immortality. This, of course,
marks the resurrection, -'sown in dishonor,
raised in glory," "sown in weakness, raised
in power," "sown a natural body, raised a
spiritual oody," (1 Cor. xv. 43-44). Now, in
the Revelation xxii. 12-we find Jesus say-
ing, "Behold, i come quickly, and My reward
is with Me, to give every man according as
his work shall be." See 1 Cor. iii. 13-14.
And in Luke xiv. 13-14, He says, "When
thou makest a feast, call the poor, * * *
the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, * * *
for thou shalt be recompensed at the resur-
rection of the just." These passages may in-
dicate that the time of the church's "reward"
is quickly to

SUCCEED THEIB EESUBEECTION.

Bunyan: "Now when the saints that sleep
shall be raised, thus incorruptible, powerful,
glorious, and spiritual, and also those that
then shall be found alive made like them;
then forthwith, before the unjuat are raised,
the saints shall appear before the judgment
seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, there to give
an account to their Lord, the judge of all
the things they have done, and to receive a
reward for their good according to their
labor."

It is evident .from all that has been said
that the only judgment of the believer is
that which attaches to his works, wherefor
he receives greater or less reward, or, may
be, none.

The final doom of the wicked is also ac-
cording to his works. (Rom. ii. 6; GaL vi. 7;
2 Pet. ii. 12-13; Rev. ii. 23; xi. 18; xx. 12).
There is, however, a world-wide distinction
in the two classes of works. "Ihen said
they unto Him, what shall we do that we
might work the works of God? Jesus ans-
wered and said unto them, this is tne work
of God, that ye believe on Him whom He
hath sent," (John vi. 28-29). Eject this
special "work of God" from the lives of the
ungodly, the "work of faith and labor of
love," (1 Thess. i. 3), and there is left but a
barvess of whirlwind from the sowing of the
wind.

To set down our general conclusion in a
word, the Scriptures teach that

THEEE ABE EOUB JUDGMENTS.

1. A judgment already passed of the sins
of the Lord's people. These nave been
judged, condemned, and the sentence upon
them executed in the person of our substi-
tute on Calvary; therefore, the believer
"shall not come into judgment" (John v. 24).

2. A coming tribunal of Christ, before
which all believers must stand, for the test-
ing of all their work and service. If any are
present, other than saints, they can be only
the angels of God.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

115

3. A coming tribunal of Christ, when He
sits upon "the throne of His glory" (Matt.
xxv. 31). Before Him, shall be gathered at
that tribunal, "all the nations," then living
for his final adjudication, concerning their
treatment of Him in the person of His
"brethren." Though they come as "nations."
sentence will be pronounced upon tnem as
individuals, according as tne desert of each
may appear.

4. A coming judgment of the ''Great White
Throne." This is the only proper judgment,
in the sense of the Scripture, viz: guilt hfiing
present and leading on to condemnation.
There are present at this scene only "the rest
of the dead" (Rev. xx. 5).

PKEVIOUSLY TO THIS,

the saints have beeu gathered in "the out-
resurrection, that from among the dead"
(Phil iii. 11), to be "forever with the Lord;"
and now the remaining dead are raised for
judgment. This is tue "day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men" (2 Pet. lit 7),
unto which the "unjust" have been reserved
"to be punished" (2 Pet. ii. 9). Tnen shall
the "Son of man," to whom all judgment is
committed, "execute judgment upon all
* * * that are ungodly" (Jude, 15).
Then, too. "when the Lord Jesus
shall be revealed from heaven, with
His mighty angels in flaming hre tak-
ing vengeance on them that know not God.
and that obey not the gospel of His Son, who
shall be punished with everlasting destruc-
tion from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of His power," "shall He come to
be glorified in His saints, and to be admired
in all them that believe * * * in that
day" (II Thess. i. 7-10). The saints will be
there, but neither as culprits nor accused.
"Then shall the rignteous shine forth as the
sun, in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt,
xiii. 43). and this will De tne "day of judg-
ment" of many Scriptures. Amen.

THE REV. DR. DINWIDDIE.

THE PBIESTHOOD OP OHEIST.

In tlie absence of the Rev. Dr. J. D. Herr,
of Milwaukee, who was to Have spoken on
the "Importance of Prophetic Study," the
Rev. Dr. William Dinwiddie, of Alexandria,
Ya., after pri.yer by the Bev. Dr. Burtou, of
Union City, Mien., and a solo bv Professor E.
C. Avis, of Tennessee, the singing evange-
list, addressed the conference on the subject,
"The Priesthood of Cnrist." The substance,
in a somewhat condensed form, of Dr. Din-
widdle's addreBs is as follows:

The Scripture which capitally sets forth
the priesthood of Christ is the epistle to the
Hebrews. Let us reverently follow the
puidance of the Holy Spirit in His teachings
to us on this great subject

There are two great aspects under which
it is presented to us, one as relates to God iu
Hebrew ii. 10; "For it became Him, for whom
are all things and by whom are all things, in
bringing many sous to glory, to maRe the
captain of tlieir salvation perfect through
sufferings." The other view of it is what
becomes us (Heb. viL 26-27): "For such an
high priest became us, who is holy, harm-
less, uudefiled, separate from sinners, and
made higher than the heavens. Wno needeth
not daily as those higii priests (viz: under
the law ) to offer up sacrifice, first tor Hia
own sins, and then for the people's; for this
He did once when He offered up Himself."

The marvel is that what became God in this
matter is the sufferings of Cnrist, His being
humbled even unto the dust of deatu;
ana what became us is His being holy,
harmless, undefiled. separate from sinners,
and made higher than the heavena To this
we shall recur.

The Spirit first dwells on his divine glory
in chapter L He is presented to us as the
Son of God, the appointed heir of all things,
the brightness of God's glory, and the ex-
press image of his substance, upholds all
things by the word of His power, who by
Himself made purification for our sins, who
is seated at the right hand of the majesty on
high,

BETTER THAN THE ANGELS,

who are commarided when He is brought
into the world to worship Him. They are
servants only; He is the Son. He is ad-
dressed also in these sublime words: "Thy
throne, 0 God, is forever and ever, a scepter
of righteousness is the scepter of thy king-
dom," Lastly, the dread name Jehovah
is eriven Him in this passage: "Thou, Lord,
iu the beginning hast laid the founda-
tion of the earth; and the heaven ■
are the works of Thine hands; tney shall
perisn, out Thou remaine&t; and they all
shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a
vesture shall Thou fold them up, and they
shall be changed,but Thou art the same, and
tny years shall not fail.''

What Higher testimony could De borne to
the divine glory of the Son?

Ahd now, even since His Uumiliation, He
holds His superiority over the angels, to
none of whom did God ever say at any time,
"Sit on my right hand, until I make thine
enemies thy footstool." They are only serv-
ants to the heirs of salvation, although we
not long ago used to ceacu our children to
say "I want to be an angel." What ignorance
of Christian position I

We are next brought, in cbapterllto behold
His glory as tho Son of man, to whom God
hath put in subjection "the world to come,"
that is, this habitable earth, as it

116

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Btaall be when everything in it Is
ordered according to God, when the world-
kingdom of our Lord snail hare come
and He

AND SHALL EEIGN FOB EVER AND EVER.

Made lower than the angels for the suffer-
ing of death. He is crowned with glory and
honor, that He by the grace of God should
taste death for every man, as ft is in the au-
thorized version, but rather, for everything,
or all things, for the universe. The efficacy
of Christ's death is not limited to tbe earth.
The purification of the heavenly things is
accomplished by it as Heb. ix. 23 asserts. "It
was, therefore, necessary that the patterns
of things in the Heavens Bhould be purifiea
with these (viz. : tbe Levitical offerings), but
the heavenly things themselves with better
sacrifices than these." His deatb, so far
reaching in its consequences, is rewarded by
His baving all things put in subjection under
His feet

The work given Him to do ia the
bringing of many sons unto glory;
not from tbe angels, for He
takes not hold ot tbem, but of men.
And in order to bring sinful men to glory in
fellowship Avith Him it became God, His
honor and character demandad that the
Captain of their salvation be made perfect
through sufferinga The Son of man must
be lifted up. It was not possible that the
oup His Father gave Him to drink should
pass from Him. And His death glorified
God. As He, to whom the future is as ttie past,
said a little before His deatb, "I have glori-
fied thee on the eartb, I have finisbed the
work Thou gavest Me to do." Then In Hisbwn
emniscient mind He was enduring the cros9,
despising its shame, for the joy set before
Him, the joy of bringing us, many sons with
Himself to glory. He stands in the midst of

THOSE SAVED RT HIM;

He that sanctifieth, and they who are
■anctlfied are all of one; He is
not asbamed to call them His brethern;
it is His first word to us since He rose from
the dead. "Go to my brethren," He is made
like unto them that He might be a mericful
and faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God to make expiation for the sins of His
people. He suffered being tempted that He
might be able to succor them that are
tempted. And what a mighty succor must
He briDg us, such a Savior sent to us from
such a God!

HIS SUPERIORITY TO MOSES.

The Spirit aa He presses tbe claims ot
the Lord on the Hebrews goes on to
■how His superiority to Moses. Moses
was faithful in all his house as a
servant, but Christ as a Son over His
own house. Again. He is the truo Joshui,

and under His captaincy we are on our way
to the rest that remaineth for the people of
God. Tbe Sabbath ia not now God's rest
"My Father is working hitherto, and I work,"
said Jesus, in the midst of a race of sinners
and of tbe whole creation groaning
under the burdens and misery of sin. Joshua
did not bring God's people into His rest, for
David long after Joshua spoke of it as still
future. And still it remaineth. But we are
on our way to it under the leadership of
Jesus, who will make manifest and bring into
full display that new creation of which He,
the second Adam, is the Head, in which old"
things are passed away and all things are
become new and all of God, and of which, if
any man be in Christ he forms a part This
is our destination, this is God's rest Are we
walking worthy of such a calling as that of

SHARING HIS GLORY?

On which of us does it seem possible, in the
most elevated moments of our life does it
seem possible, that Jesus could look and say
that we are glorious in His sight It is yet
matter of faith, not of sierht The
Sons of God are not yet mani-
fested, nor will be until He who
is our life shall appear and we shall appear
with Him in glory. And how does He fit us
for that glory? He sanctifies and cleanses
us with the washing of water by the word
that He may present us to 'Himself glorious,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing, but that we should be holy and with-
out blemish.

What a place in God's plans is given to His
word. By it believer? are born again, not of
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; by
feeding on its sincere milk, being born again,
they grow unto salvation; by His word Jesus
cleansed His disciples when with them,
through it He prays the Father to sanctify
them. And see how the Spirit speaks of it
here, "For tbe word of God is quiet and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to tbe dividing
asunder of the soul and the spirit, the
joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of tbe heart
Neither is there any creature that is not
manifest in His sight, but all things are
naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with
whom we have to do." The word of God.
when we honestly apply it, is the very
eyes of

GOD LOOKING INTO THE INMOST SOUL.

Putting ourselves under its light we know
that in us, that is, in our flesh, dwelleth no
good thing; looking around us, we know that
all that is in the world, "the lust of the flesh,
tbe lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," is
not of the Father, and we see the god of this
world going about as a roaring lion seeking

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

11"

whom Be may devour, and find our conflict
to be not against flesh, and blood, Dut against
principalities, against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against
wicked spirits in the heavenly places.
To the treacherous sin that dwelleth in us,
How fearful and seductive the opposition of
the world! How appalling the power and
malignity of Satan and the evil spirits in
league with him! In such a conflict how
pitifully weak and helpless are we!

But a gracious God and loving Father and
a sympathizing Savior know thoroughly and
have fully provided for all our needs. Under
the guidance of the Spirit we see our great
High Priest who has passed through the
heavens, Jesus, the Son of God We know
He is touched with the feeling of all our
weaKness, and we come boldly to the throne
ot grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need

But with such glories attaching to Him as
Son of God and Son of man, as we have been
seeking to contemplate under the guidance
ot the Spirit and in the divine word, yet
Christ

GLOBIFIED NOT HIMSELF

to be become a high priest, but God so glori-
fied Him, wiio said unto Him, "Thou art My
son: to-day have 1 begotten Thee. " This is
the personal glory. And He also sailh in
another place: "Thou art a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek." This is the
official glory. For this priesthood He was
perfected through those sufferings in which
He learned obedience, and became the au-
thor of not temporary deliverance, but of
eternal, salvation to all that ODey Him, and
has now entered within the veil as a fore-
runner for us, for within the veil, in the
holiest, is our present and our endles?
home.

The priesthood of Aaron and the sons of
Levi was but a foreshadowing of the priest-
hood of Christ, and every way yiferior.
The tribe of Levi In Abraham paid tithes
t.o Melchizedek, and Abraham being blessed
of Melchizedek was inferior to Him.
Aaron's priesthood was after the law ot a
carnal commandment; Christ's is after the
power of an endless life. Tho law made
nothing perfect. Hence the disannulling of
the commandment because of the weak-
ness and unprofitableness and the bringing
in of a better hope by which we through
Christ draw nigh to God.

There is no succession in the Melchizedek
priesthood of Christ. The sum of the SDir-
it's history of Melchizedek is "He liveth."
No account of his birth, his death, his
genealogy. There is no change record d in
his priesthood And so Christ, whose priest-
hood is after the order of Melchizedek is

able to save to the uttermost them that coma
to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth

TO MAKE INTEBOBSSION FOB THBM.

We nave had the Spirit's teaching as to
what became God in the priest-
hood of Christ. Now he gives
us what becomes us, a high priest
who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, and made higher than the
heaven=, who needeth not daily as those (the
Levitical) high priests to offer up sacrifice,
first for his own sins and then for the peo-
ple's; for this he did ones, when he offered
up himself. For the law maketh men high
priests which have infirmity, but the word
of the oath which was save the law, maketh
the Son, who is consecrated (perfected) for-
evermore.

It is a wonderful revelation that such a
high priest became us! The glory that is to
follow the sufferings of Christ is so high, so
pure, the glory of which we shara with Him,
for He says to the Father, "The glory which
Thou gavest me. I have given them!" So
great is the love wherewith God loved ua
even when we were dead in sins that it is
His purpose in the a?es to come to show the
exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us through Jesus Christ. To main-
tain us in such a glory, it becomes us to havo
an eternal Driest, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God
once, who has brought in everlasting right-
eousness, who is the Author of eternal
salvation to all that obey Him.

Results to Us— 1. Access to God This tha
Israelite under the law never had

IT WAS BAEBED BY THE VEIL.

by which the Holy Ghost signified that the
way into the holiest of all, that is the way
of acceBs to God, was not yet made manifest,
while the first tabernacle was yet standing.
At ChriBt's death the veil of the temple was
rent in twain from top to bottom. The way
of access to God is now perfectly open and
free, and the only place of Christian worship
is thine holiest. let many who profess
to worship stand afar off in the outer court,
will hardly look upon the brazen altar,
seldom if ever come to the golden altar to
make the sweet incense of thanksgiving and
praise ascend to God, and hardly dare think
of coming freely into the holiest. Liook at
the hymnoloery of Christendom! Even when
they profess to come to the throne of grace
to obtain mercy and find grace to help in
time of need, it is to Jesus they come instead
of to the God of all erace who Bits upon that
throne.

2. But our consciences also are purged
It would be intolerable to be brought mto
the holie-t If any stain of sin rested on tne
conscience. Did the blood of bulls and of

lib

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

goats, and. the ashes of the heiter
sanctify to the purifying of the flesh
bo that the Israelite with these offer-
ings and sprinklings could stand in peass
in God's place of worship and make his offer-
ings with joy? He did, so long as he be-
lieved that God, who made these provisions,
spoke truth in them. How much more then,

PLEADS THE SPIBIT.

shall the blood of Christ, who, through the
Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot
to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God? There can
not be a spot on my conscience as long as I
believe tnat God, who made this provision to
purge it, speaks the truth in this word about
it Ghrist Has entered into heaven itself, now
to appear in the presence for us, having
offered himself once. And this connects im-
mediately, in the mind of the spirit, with
His return. Unto them that look for
Him shall He come the second
time without sin unto salvation. And
bo whenever we remember His death in
the communion, the spirit again connects it
with His return by the precious words: "Till
He come."

3. But this condition of access ana perfect
cleansing is in perpetuity. By the one offer-
ing of Himself He hath perfected forever, in
perpetuity, without any interruption, them
that are sanctified. We are accepted in the
beloved, His own lips assure us that the
Father loves us as He loves Him. As He is,
so are we in this world. His priesthood
makes us priests. The only place of true
Christian worship is in the holiest, the only
character of such worship is priestly. All
believers of any and every degree are priests.
They can only offer true Christian worship
as priests, all of them, and all equally
priests. To set up a class or cast of men as
having in any degree nearer

OB EBEEB ACCESS TO GOD

than all other believers have is to deny the
very foundations of Christianity. It is to
leave the full revelation of Gods grace to
His children and go back to the A B C's of
elementary instruction, to the twilight of
Judaism instead of the sunlight of Christian
pi ace and privilege.

There is no simpler test of a false religion
of more easy application than this: Does
any rWigion put any set or class of men be-
tween God and other men? Then it is not
of God. How sad to apply this test to
Christendom now. Look at the Greek
Church, look at Romanism, look at all the
phases of ritualism in the Protestant world.
They are all practical denials of the whole
truth .of Christ's priesthood and one
perfect offering of Himself, of the
uivine purgation of conscience effected

for all believers by His blood, and of
our eternal redemption. And in contending
earnestly for the faith once delivered to the
saints, as our Brother Erdman so earnestly
exhorted us yesterday, at what point along
the line do we need more earnestly and ur-
gently to press the contest than in main-
taining the true Christian priesthood of all
believers equally?

Christ's Priesthood and Advocacy — The
perfect word distinguishes between the
priesthood of Christ and His advocacy, and
we lose much if we confound them. They
are both branches of His great and perfect
work in bringing us to His glory. Lat us
look at them in His word: 1 John 1-11,2
gives us tne advocacy of Christ. Those

PBECIOUS TWELVE LITTLE VEBSES

contain for us God's recipe to keep us from
sin.

uMy little children, these things I write
unto you in order that you may not sin." It
would keep us from sin if we kept these
things before us in their full light and power.
What things? That which was from the
beginning, which John had every oppor-
tunity to make himself a competent witness
about, he had heard, he had seen with his
eyes, he had looked upon, his hands had
handled of the word of life — that eternal
life which was with the Father and was per-
fectly exhibited to us in Christ — and this he
testified to us that we may iiave fellowship
with him and be as dear to Christ as "the
disciple whom he loved," rest our ivery
heads on his bosom; nay, more, have fellow-
ship with the Father Himself and His Son
Jesus Christ, share whatever the Father ana
Christ have with fullness of joy. Wha; a
contrast to the doubt, the grief, the weak-
ness, the misery of so many of God's chil-
dren. Whose fault is it? Not God's, for He
has had these things writtenjthat our joy
may be full. Ah! but He is light, and in Him
is no darkness at all. If we say we have fel-
lowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we
lie and do not the truth. If we say we have
no sin

WE DECEIVE OUB8ELVES,

and the truth is not in us. And if we say
we have not sinned we make God a liar, and
His word is not in us. But glorious provis-
ion for us. • If we confess our Bins He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Let
us see all the provision for us in practical
application. Jesus, our advocate when we
sin, applies it to us and uses it for us.
Look at Peter believing himself to be in-
capable of denying the Lord, though
clearly told of it by the Lord Himself. See
him through fear of man denying the Lore1
and calling God Himself to witness to the-*—

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

119

And see Jesus, before he denies Him, and
while He can not believe it possible, praying
for him that his faith should not fail. Ana
when the infuriated crowd with causeless
hatred instigated of Satan are surrounding
Christ ana clamoring tor His blood, see Him
with the divine calmness of His uncnanging
love having leisure to loot at guilty Peter
slunk away into some corner, in his con-
scious guilt, and by the look bringing His
own word in its searching power to break
Peter down in confession of bitter weeping,
and later on in deepest, thrice repeatea,
searching of his inmost soul to see ana judge
the roots of the sin in turn, and then the
Lord graciously cleanses, restores, and sets
hiin to feed His sheep ana Hie lambs. Sad to
say,

WE AT.T, NEED THIS ADVOOAOI.

But Is this what we look to God on the
throne of Hie grace for, when we come
boldly to that throne for mercy and grace to
help in time of need? No. They who come
thus are those who are working and suffer-
ing for Christ in conflict with the world, the
flesh, ana the aeviL They are looking at
God on the throne, and at His right hand
our high priest who by Himself made purifi-
cation for our sins before he took his seat
there. God and Christ are for us, no sin is
on our conscience, but we see our pitiful
weakness and neea in presence of our ana
God's enemies. Were our eyes fully enlight-
ened by the word there is not a moment of
our lite in this pilgrimage when we should
not feel our entire dependence on God for
neip and strength. And He never fails
to give it. For He pities us.
His mercy endureth forever. And in
His rich grace He is able and willing to do
exceedingly abundantly for us above all that
we ask or even think. Christ's advocacy
takes the poor crippled, bruised, maimea,
disarmea, ana broken spiritea soiaier of th )
cross who has deferied and dishonored his
captain, and can only parade about his
pains, his weaknesses, and his worthless-
ness. He heals him, invigorates him,
cleanses him, restores him, renews the cour-
age of his heart, ana sends him again to bat-
tle, clad in the complete armor of God,
while Christ's priesthood in this limited as-
pect of it puts into our hanCs and at
our disDOsal the whole treasury of Goa's
riches of Btrength and armor to contena
against His and our enemies.

OUTSIDE THE CAMP.

There is a solemn call to the Hebrews in
the last chapter to leave the camp and
to go forth unto Jesus bearing His
reproach. If the Spirit so callea out of effete
Judaism, how much more out of apostate
Christendom. Let any man live godly in Christ

Jesus ana he shall suffer persecution. Leo
any man bear a full testimony for all the truth
as it is in Jesus; let him "hold fast His word
and notaeny His name" and he will aoon fina
in this day that if he does not go forth out-
side the camp of Christendom to Christ bear-
ing His reproach, he will be thrust out. Like
the man whom the Lord healed, and who
gave his testimony simply that Christ must
be from God. They put him forth, but oniy
to have the Lord meet him outside and ruuk >
to him richer communications of His truth
and love. What rich reward the Lord stands
ready to give to all who faithfully witness for
Him! Ana he will set before us an open aoor
of testimony and service that no man will be
able to shut Gathered in this conference to
seek to recover to God's church truth lost
and buried under the rubbish of tradition
and superstition and formalism, we assur-
edly find we have to go outside the camp,
but may richest blessing result, as I doubt
not it will, not only to ourselves, but to all
God's chiiaren to the very ends of the earth;
ana may even those who, in their own ignor-
ance and to their own loss, ignore or oppose
the precious truth of the Lord's coming,
have their hearts opened in His long suffer-
ing goodness to the truth in all its sweetness
and comfort and power! The

KING OF P.IOHTEOUSNESS AfcD PEACE.

Our High Priest is also a king. King of
nations! King of kings and lord of lords!
The world kingdom of our Lord and of
His Christ shall come. Surely I come
quickly. While we look appalled on the
future of the unbelieving world, fast
rushing on to the apostasy, and tne awful
reign of the man of sin, so powerfully pre-
sentea to us in papers read before the con-
ference, if we hola fast to His truth and ao
not aeny His name, He will keep us from
that hour of aread and unparallelea tribula-
tion which shall come upon all them that
awell on the earth, and count as worthy to
stand before the Son of man.

PROFESSOR F. GODET.

FBOM A SWISS DIVINE.

At the opening of the afternoon meeting,
the Rev. .i.Halsted Carroll, D.D., of Stillwater,
Minn., presiding, and prayer being said by
Bishop Nicholson, in the usual devotional
exercises, th« following letter from Pro-
fessor F. Godet, of Neufchatei, Switzerland,
was read by the moderator, the Rev. Dr.
Carroll:

The Rev. N. West, D. D. — Very honored
and dear brother: I have preferred to give
you an exposition, brief as the subject Ad-
mits, and from which you may readily d«.aw
the answer to the questions you have ^_»o-
posea, rather than brokenly to replj to

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THE PKOPHETiC CONFERENCE.

them. I could have extended the labor
greatly, but I have chosen to condense it as
much as possible. Each line might indeed
be the text for an entire page. I send you
the result to which my study of the Script-
ures has led me. God has kindled a flame in
my heart and yours, but the fire of the Holy
Spirit does not consume the heart,
neither is it hindered from transmis-
sion to the nearts of my brethren. I thank
you for the confidence you have reposed in
me, so far as I deserve it, and ask a place

IN YOUB AFFECTION,

and intercession, in Christ May God bless
your reunion at Chicago, and be a living
power in your midsr. Faithfully yours,

F. Godet.
"The closing scenes in the existence on

EABTH, ACCOEDING TO THE PBOPHECIES: When

Moses was granted the favor of a vision of
God, he was not allowed, nor was he able, to
behold Hi-, face. "I will put thee in the
cleft of the rock, and cover thee with my
hand, and ray bacK thou shalt see, as I pass
by, but my face thou canst not see.'- So. by
means of the prophecies we may indeed ob-
serve, in advance the grand scenes that will
close the terrestial existence of man, while
yet we are unable to form to ourselves an
exact and perfectly clear idea of them, until
after their accomplishment. What I have
said is no reason tor discarding, as useless,
the study of this great subject. Scill less is
it my purpose to defend the spiritualist who
reduces the prophetic pictures tp facts al-
ready accomplished, or daily occurring,
or interprets the prophecies in a
merely ethical manner. It is very
evident that Jesus lias not thu3
intended it; for He has plainly said, "Heaven
and and earth shall pass away but my words
shall not pass away." Neither did the
Apostles of Jesus so interpret them; and
the Apostles of Jesus are not false propheta

Let us examine in the light of New Testa-
ment teachings:

L The state of things that will precede the
coming of Christ.

IL That coming icself.

Ill The state of things that will follow the
coming.

L The first advent of Christ in the flesu.
did not entirely accomplish the Messianic
prophecies of the Old Testament. The ful-
filled portion is a pledge of the second com-
ing of the Lord that will realize the same in
the most literal manner. The Lord Himself

ANNOUNCED HIS PEBSONAL BETUBN

when uttering, in presence of the Sanhedrin,
these words, ''Yerily, I say unto you, that
hereafter, ye shall see the Son of man seated
at the right Hand of power, and com ng
upon the clouds of heaven." The

history of the church, in its

totality, is that second coming
of the Son of man His glorious reappearing
will be His arrival. In what condition will
Jesus find the world at his arrival?

1. As to Christianity in ereneral, this is
what the Lord himself has told us in (Luke
xviii. 8), "Wnen the Son of Man cometh,
think ye that He will find the faith on the
earth?" Also (Luke xviL 26-30)., 'As it
was in the days of Noah, so shall
it be also in the days of the
Son of man," etc. A carnal security will
have taken possession of mankind, entirely
ruled by terrestrial thoughts. The majority
of men will have lost the sense of divine
things. St. Paul says the same tning In
other terms (LThess. v. 3), "When they shall
say peace and safety, then sudden destruc-
tion shall come upon them as travail upon
a woman with child;" besides, this menace
addressed by him to gentile Christianity
(Rom. xii. 22) "Behold, therefore, the good-
ness and severity of God; on them which fell,
severity. but toward the goodness,
if thou continue in His good
ness, otherwise thou also shalt be
cut off." What the feelings of the
faithful minority will be. at that time, the
Lord has expressed in these terms (Luke
xvii. 22), "The days will come when ye shall
desire to see one of the days of the Son of
man, and ye shall not see it."

2. As to the condition

OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

at that epoch, it is described in terms which
seem, to me, very clear. In the Book of
Revelation, chapter xi., it is said: "Measure
not the court which is without the temple,
for it is given to the gentiles; but. measure
the temple, the altar, and tuera tnat worship
therein." The rest of the chapter shows
what will be the condition of Israel at the
end of this age. The larger part of this peo-
ple will be carried away by gentile infidelity.
A select body of worshipers will, doubtless,
remain separate and faithful to the God of
•Abraham. In the second letter to the
Thessalonians a revolt Is foretold, called an
"apostasy,"' or "t ailing away." By this ex-
pression, the apostle intends to speak of
something known and expected, which
can only be the great defection pre-
dicted by Daniel, and ■ whicn, ac-
cording to the description of the prophet, is
to take place in Israel. Tne people so long-
faithful to the revelation of God committed
to them, will, even after their dispersion by
the Romans, finally shake off this yoke and,
adhering to the materialism that rules even
in the bosom of Christianity, will place them-
selves at the head of open warfare against
everything that is divine. Then the predio-

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

121

tion or Psalm IL will be fulfilled. "Why do
the nations assemble themselves, ana the
people imagine a vain thiner? Let us Dreak,"
saj they, "their bands asunder, and cast
away their curse from us." it is of God and
his anointed they speak thus.

Thus, from the bosom of this general
reoellion will arise that one in whose person

THE "MAN OF SIN"

will be concentrated, as St. Paul shows us in
liis second letter to the Thessalonians, chap-
ter second; the "Antichrist," of St. John in
his first letter, and in the Apocalypse.
This one will be the most com-
plete personification of evil in human-
ity. He will present himself as the incarna-
tion of the infinite principle which animates
the universe, and will make himself wor-
shipped as such. His personal will takes
the place of all other law, divine or human.
St Paul tells us in IL Thessalonians, that at
the moment when he was writing, there was
•even then a power that hindered the reve-
lation of this diabolical being, whose spirit
of revolt was already active. It appears to
me tbat this power can only be that of the
lioman Empire, and consequently the Anti-
christ can only be the false Jewish Messiah,
tlie authitesis of Jesus, the true Messiah.
This falsa Messiah, ever ready to appear,
was suppressed continually by the Eoman
arms, liio fall of the Eoman Empire is
tuerefore the precondition of his final ap-
pearance on the ttieaier of history; and, if
he haB not yet appeared, it is because the
Bocial state founded upon the Roman lnsti-
tions iB still uppermost, and opposes a bar-
rier to the revoluiionary torrent from which
this Antichrist will issue. The reign of this
wicked one is described in the Apocalypse,
chapter 13. According to chapter 11 of
this book, his residence will be in Jerusalem,
and this will be the realization of

THE CABNAL ME8SIANIBM

which has always formed the basis of Jew-
ish thought The Batanic rule will De sud-
denly overthrown, as soon as it reaches the
summit of its power (this is doubtless the
import of number S1^), by the glorious ap-
pearing of the Lord.

IL The seventeenth chapter of Luke repre-
sents this event as niaKiuer itself known sud-
denly, and at once, and in a manner rapid as
the lightning, over the whole earth. This
will be the blow of red-hot iron that will
make the flesh of sickened humansty quiver,
in order to awaken again the powers of life.
8t Paul, in Thes«alenians, second chapter,
shows us the antichnstlan power crushed by
the breath of the .Lord, at His appearance,
and in the Apocolypse, Chapter 19,
we see Messiah himself, as a conqueror, at
the head of celeBtial armies, iisp«rsing the

troops of infidel humanity united against
Him. The army that comes with the Lord,
in this moment of triumph, is not composed
solely of elect angels. It comprises also, on
the one side, the risen saints, who descend
again with Christ, glorified from the height
of heaven; and, on the other, Christians still
living, at that moment, who will then be
transfigured and lifted to meet the .Lord in
the air, in order Lo reappear with Him. This
is what St Paul teaches in L These, iv. 15-
16. So also we read of the faithful raised in
L Cor. xv. 23, and of the living transfigured
in vss. 51-52. Tnen, doubtless, the physical
phenomena, described in Luke xxi. 25-26,
"the signs in the sun, moon, and stars,"
and "the shaking of the powers of heaven;"

THE BENEWINQ OF NATUBE,

which Paul describes in Romans viii. 20-23,
or as Jesus calls it, the "palingenesis," or
"regeneration" (see Matth. xviiii. 28)— all,
the times of resurrection, redemption, and
restitution begun.

IIL The state of things that will follow the
coming. This will be. in fine, the realization
of the thought of God when He first placed
man upon the earth, a thought whose accom-
plishment man himself has thus far hindered;
upon the earth renewed, a sanctified human-
ity, aispiaying, to the honor of God, all the
admirable faculties with which He has en-
dowed it, and employing, in this purpose, all
the powers of nature. ThTs will be the reiarn
of Christ in the bosom of humanity brought
back to God by His glorious appearing. The
loner sigh, "Thy kingdom come!" will then
be stilled. The number oi 1,000 years is the
indication of a period which nothing exte-
rior comes to limit (Apoc. xx. 4). That will
be the complete era of Christian civilization.
This period will be, on the one hand, a time
of judgment, as it seems to me from Apoc.
xx 4, and 1 Cor. xv. 24-26. "Then comes
the end when He shall deliver up ("shall
have delivered up" is a false reading) the
kingdom to God, even the Father, when
He shall have put down all rule, and
all authority, and power. * * * The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
Between the time of the return of Christ and
the end when

HE SHALL 8UBBENDEB THE KINGDOM

to the Father, there will be a time of judg-
ment, during which He will put down all
the forces hostile to God." and finally, the
last, that of death, in taking from it all its
previous suoils, and depriving it of its power
to make any more. Thai point of time is the
universal resurrection which will close the
reign of "the one thousand years," and will
precede the submission of the Son to the
Father. Then, the destiny of our present

122

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

earth will be actually achieved. From God
a new abode will descend, "the tabernacle of
God with men" (Apoc. xxi. 3), and, as St.
Paul says, "God will be all in all" (L Cor. xv.
28), manifesting Himself in each faithful
one. as directly as He is manifested in Ciirist
Himself. "Heirs of God," says Paul, "and
co-heritors with Christ." Every element of
gloom Having been cut away by the
judgments, there remains in this
state of things only the divine
light, resplendent with an infinite
diversity in these innumerable prisms.

The role of the Jewish people: It only
remains to me to say a word in reference to
the role of the Jewish people in these last
scenes. We left them, at the moment of the
general apostacy, making for themselves a
ruler in the person of the Antichrist. But
we saw, also (Rev. xi. 1), that a remnant of
faithful worshipers survive, even at that
very time, as always, in the bosom of this
people. At Jerusalem, the capital of Israel,
externally restored, and where the

ANTICHEIST HAS HIS THRONE,

two powerful witnesses arise. They suc-
cumb, bodily, but their death is the occasion
of tne conversion of that portion of the peo-
ple dwelling then in the Holy City (Apoo.
xi. 13). This conversion is foilowed, doubt-
less, bv the conversion of other Israelites
still scattered in gentile countries, whether
before or after the coming of
Christ. Paul declares it positively in
Rom. xi. 25-26, and he dates from
this event an entirely new age in
in the religious life of gentile Christianity.
The nations who were hitherto only exter-
nally converted, from being spiritually dead
will become alive. This will be as "life out
from the dead" (Rom. xi., 15). We see
from this that converted Israel, durinsr the
rein of the 1,000 years, will be ttie center of
spiritual life in the whole world.

From these grand events, the time of
whose accomplishment God has reserved for
Himself, it does not follow that we ought
now to cross our arms in idleness and let
hinsrs take their course. St. Paul expects
himself to magnify his ministry among the
gentiles In order to provoKe to jealousy the
Jews, his own flesh, ''if Dy any means he
might save some" (Rom. xt, 13-14). Every
livinsr Christian has charge of souls. Let ua
act like St. Paul. Let us seek to save as
many of them as possible! Up! with loins
giraed and lamps trimmed and burning! If
the Lord does not knocK at the door of the
world during: our life, He will knock at ours
at our own death. Let us be ready quickly
to open unto Him. F. Godet.

Neuchalet, Oct. 24.

THE REV. DR. NATHANIEL WEST.

PROPHECY AND ISRAEL.

The Rev. Dr. Nathaniel West, of the First
Presbyterian Church, of St Paul, Minn.,
then delivered the following address on
"Prophecy and Irael:"

I speak to you of "Prophecy and Israel."
We can not interpret aright the fortunes of
Israel, the gentiles, and the church of God,
apart from a clear understanding of the
nature, structure, and development, not
only of prophecy, but also of history, as un-
veiled in the sacred page. A predetermined
plan lies at the foundation of the whole
evolution of the kingdom of God, in which
Israel appears an abiding factor. The for-
tunes of the chosen people decide the for-
tunes of the world History itself is Messi-
anic. Events do not come to pass because
predicted, but are predicted because ordained
to come to pass. Great historic crises are
the occasions of prophecy, from the fall of
man down to the final consummation of the
kingdom of God. Therafore is prophecy not
the result of any private interpretation of
the mind of God, but an

INSPIRATION PROM THE HOLY GHOST,

just because history is not man's invention.
(2 Pet, i. 20, Acts xv. 18, Eccl. iii. 14 15).
The fortunes of Israel are, have been, and
will be precisely what God intends, and has
revealed, nor can human bermeneutics oreals
the Scripture or divert God's purpose from
its course. First, middle, and last, "salva-
tion is from the Jews," eminent at each great
epoch-making node of evolution in the
kingdom of God, and this, not by any merely
natural lav/, but by the free grace and com-
passion of God. They alone of all nations
are charged with this mission to the world.
At the end of the Mosaic age Israel formed
the historic basis of the New Testament
"church." At the end of this present age
Israel shall form the historic basis of the
New Testament 'kingdom" in its outward
visible giory. Israel stands in prophecy, as
in history, the elect agent of salvation, in a
national sense, as truly as does Messiah in a
parsonal sense, each a "Son of God,''
and is identified so ciosely with Mes-
siah Himself, both in suffering and
glory, as the "Servant of Jehovah,"
that it is sometimes hard to tell
which of the two is meant The pre-exist-
ence of Levi, in the loins of Abraham, was
not more real than the pre-existence of
Christ in the loins of Israel, whose crowning
glory Paul declares to be this, that "of them,
as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is
over all, God blessed forever," (Bom ix. 5). a
consideration he urges with great effect,
when solving what we are pleaBed to call to-
day,

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

123

"THE JEWISH PEOBLEM.".

Israel and Messiah, though historically sepa-
rated now, are indiBBolvably united, as medi-
ators and bringers of salvation to the world;
the one nationally, the other personally,
alike in their humiliation and glory. Not
Greece or Rome but Israel, not Alexander or
Caesar but Clirist, are to bless mankind.
Israel's history was the mirror in whicb Mes-
siah learned to see his own face and discern
His own relation to the world. And, just*
because of this ordained connection in the
one redeeming: worn, "that generation
shall not pass away," an expres-
sion on which, until modern
criticism narrowed its aouble meaning, the
whole Christian church, as Dorner remarks,
"rested, for eighteen centuries, her belief in
the persistent continuity of that 'race' (Matt
xxiv. 34) down to the second coming of
Christ. "

THE EVOLUTION OF THE KINGDOM.

It is no objection to this, that Israel has
already been in ttie held, bringing salvation
to the gentiles, at the first coming of ChriBt.
Another more glorious calling of the nations
still lies in the future, in which Israel shall
shine again, as the national leader and light
of the world. On this one fact depends the
future realization of unfulfilled prophecy.
According to the world-embracing plan of
God, the kingdom of God is evolved from the
purpose of God, and, by this purpose, tne
times and the seasons, tbe ages and ends, are
fore- appointed, run on, and expire. The
"kingdom" is more than the "church," aa
Professor Cunningham has lucidly shown.
It is a vastly larger idea

EVEEMOKE, ONE GBEAT MOVEMENT

in history emerges from another,
the kingdom one in its es-
sence all the way, but many in
its forms; in substance eternal, in stages of
development limited and temporal; or, as
Kitto most aptly expresses it, "essentially
one, circumstantially many;" ever widening
in its circle, ever rising in its progress; ebb-
ing now, and flowing now, like the ocean
tides; advancing and retreating like the
waves that break upon the shore, yet des-
tined to its highest water-mark; each suc-
ceeding form grander, purer than the one
preceding; and yet corrupted by failure on
man's part, with renewal by progress on
God's part; one dispensation giving way to
another; each stadium a mirror of the
other, vet in various deerrea, and all a pledge
of one most glorious accomplishment; the
whole pushed outward from within, yet grow-
ing by accretion; stepping onward and up-
ward, through judgments and mercies; ruled
by laws and shaped by catastrophes; per-
sistent amid dissolutions ami reconstruc-

tions; each throb of the mighty motion
answering, from age to age, to the pulse-beat
of the one eternal purpose of God, and climb-
ing to its orown of absolute perfection and
glory everlasting. A divine causality per-
vades all. Israel, already in the front in
centuries gone by, shall yet be in the front
again. The '-first" made "last" by unbelief,
shall yet become the "last" made "first" by-
faith. The poating elder son who, in the
parable, now stands sulky in the field, shall
yet come in

AND "DANCE" WITH JOX

in the coming kingdom of God, while won-
dering nations will admire and learn his
step and waltz with gladness and adore

The unveiling of this divine plan, in
prophecy, is governed by a law, in deference
to which the "seer" often sees the near and
far horizons of the future melting into one,
and Israel, the central figure, bringing salva-
tion to the world Events and scenes, or-
dained to occur far apart, seem to lie close
together like mountains in the distant land-
scape, or side by side like double stars upon
the sky, though parted by deeps of infinite
blue. The prophetic expression is so
framed as to oover a whole series of
historic sequences or separate ful-
filments. It compasses the whole
future painted in one blowing scene, tne
realization of whose events require in his-
tory a progressive order and a temporal suc-
cession. "Time and spaoe"' botu disappear
beneath the great description. Only by a
later revelation of the same events more
sharply defined and combined with others
previously unnamed, and by what all his-
tory has already registered, can this law be
detected. Only thus can we properly adjust
the seasons and the times, the ages and tde
ends, and place the future in its true rela-
tions. Oniv thus can we distinguish the ab-
solute from the relative end, the near

FBOM THE FAB HOEIZON,

the first from the second coming of Messiah,
measure the true radius of vision, and catch
the scope and harmony of prophecy and his-
tory. Much of what appears due at the first
coming will be found to belong to the sec-
ond, and much of what seems due at
the second will be seen to belong
to an epoch, or age, later on.
In the words of one who has a right to
speak on this subject, "The later books of
the Bible must be the key of the earlier, the
presupposition being the unity of revelation.
What is indeterminate and ganeral in Che
Old Testament must ue adjusted by tho
Mew. Ine future in prophecy is often pre-
sented in a complex way, and looking to the
last end, without specification of the iudi-

124

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

vidual events or intervals between. Tne
"here and beyond" are viewed on one plane,
in a divine light, even as we see the stars in
the sky, their remoteness from each other
unaiecernable. In the Old Testament the
work of God is contemplated as a whole,
without marking- off the final judgment
from the special intervening judgments, the
absolute end from the previous relative
ends. The fulfilment of prophecy, ''per
partes," has its ground, not only in its com-
plex and apotelesmatic character, but also
herein, tnat it often treats of one subject by
a general or collective name, under which,
however, a series of individual events, sep-
arate in time and space, are comprehended
The subject is a genus, while the predicate
contains tne species which must be dis-
tributed. Thus, the "seed of Abraham"
means Israel collectivelv

AND CHEI8T INDIVIDUALLY."

(Deiitzsch).

This law throws a great light upon the true
understanding of the prophetic word.

Partial fulfillments, predictions accom-
plished in part, require for ther unfulfilled re-
siduum a larger answering event than has
yet occurred, while a true interpretation
waits on history to satisfy its wants. Pente-
cost did not exhaust the prophecy of Joel;
nor Maccabean times the prophecy of Daniel;
nor Jerusalem's destruction the prediction of
our Lord. Israel's history did not fill full the
grandeur destined for it, nor did the coming
of the Redeemer to Zion 1800 years ago ex-
hauBt the content of Isaiah's oracle. Thus
has prophecy what Lord Bacon chose to call
a "gerniinant accomplishment;" or, as Bishop
Hurd would eay au ''overflow;" or, more
beautifully still, as Deiitzsch saya, "Propbecy
has wings given her of God, bv which she
flies over from one event to another still more
distant in the same expression." We speak
of a "leap," a "spring," a "double prophecy,"
of "intervals" and "gaps." What we mean
is that prophecy has a precursive fulfill-
ment in history, and that events, seen in
perspective, at the end of tne nearer age,
are types of similar but far more glorious
ones, occurring at the end of tne age next
following, or even farther on.

"ALL PBOPHECY IS COMPLBX

andapotelesmatic" (Deiitzsch). it looks al-
ways to the ultimate end, and covers all In-
termediate fulfillments; a law unmodified
even Dy prophetic chronology. In the Jight
of this law (first fully explained by Yelthu-
sen), as well as by express delineations, we
learn that "Israel" does not mean the New
Testament Chureh, nor "Canaan" Christen-
dom. In the light of this law, as by other
means, we learn that the whole stretch of
New Testament times is but the evolution of

Old Testament eschatology, or what should
"coma to pass in the afterness of the days,"
each end unfolding itself into a new age,
preconditioned by an advent of the Son of
God, and Israel in the front In the light
of this law, as by other means, we discern
the characteristic difference between our
present "times of the gentiles" and the
future "times of Israel" in the kingdom when
the "seasons of reviving" and the "times of
re-erection" shall 'come from the presence
of the Liord" revealed to Israel once more; .
millennial times, when, after judgment
upon our present age, national and universal
Christianity as such, shall come to all the
world with the national recognition of Mes-
siah by the Jewish race. Such is the divine
Dlan, luminous as sunlight in the
bright, prophetic word, clear as crys-
tal in the thought of Christ., and brilliant in
the splendors of the last Apocalypse. Never
can the New Testament "Basileia" come, in
all its earthly glory, apart from Israel's
national conversion, and never can that
great event occur apart from Christ's ap-
pearing (Acts iii. 19-2i, Rom. xi. 26. Rev.
xn. 40, xv, 3-4, xix 11-21).

OPPOSITE SYSTEM OP INTEBPBETATION.

I am reminded that two different systems of
interpretation contend for the mastery here.
Tne "spiritualizing" or "figurative" concep-
tion of Old Testament piopnecy concerning
Israel, starts with the idea that Israel, as
such, has been nationally oast away forever,
and that the Gentile Church, or New Testa-
ment Cnurch,has "taken Isreal's place in the
kingdom of God." According to this, all the
prophecies concerning Isreal have found
their fulfilment in Christianity. A future
for Isreal, as a nation converted to Christ, i»
a fanatical dream. Their only future is that
of individual union to, and absorotion by
the church, in some one or other of its ex-
isting denominational forma Opposed to
this, is the "realistic" explanation. It owes
its name to the fact that it takes the

PBEDICTIONS AND PEOMISES,

concerning Israel, in a literal sense, and not
as mere metaphors, or abstract spiritual
truths clothed in the perishable literary en-
velope'of oriental imagery or Jewish drap-
ery. It doe*, indeed, apply the prophecies to
the church of the New Testament, yet only
so far as Israel and the church have any-
thing spiritually in common, while what be-
longs to Israel, in its solidarity or national-
ity as a separate and chosen people, pre-
served for a glorious destiny, it allows to
stand unevaporated in the alembic of a one-
sided exegesis. It asserts the historical sense
of prophecy, in reference to Israel's future
as well as Israel's past, and the mother-right

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

125

of a grauimatico-historical exegesis to dom-
inate dogmatics, I adopt tins latter mode of
interpretation with all my heart.

For 300 years — here and there an •xception
— the ruling faith of the early church held to
a eriorlous visible kingdom of God on earth,
with Jerusalem as its central seat, the other
side of this present age, and this side the final
regenesis of all things; a kingdom intro-
duced by the second coming of the Son of
man, as all the prophets, Christ, and His
apostles, had foretold. Had it held fast to
this apostolic faith

IT HAD NOT LOST THE SET

to the understanding of the Old Testament
predictions concerning Israel, nor the key to
the true interpretation of our Lord's Olivet
discourse, nor of John's Apocalypse, Israel
in relation to the Church, and the gentiles is
that key. It is not possible, it is not con-
ceivable, that either our Lord or the Holy
Ghost, in their final unveiling of the future
of the kingdom of God on earth could either
forget or omit to repeat what is so clearly
foretold in all preceding prophecy, concern-
ing the still unfulfilled destiny of
the chosen people. A prevailing change
of interpretation, however, marks the
fourth century, an exposition of pro-
phecy gigantically fatal to the truth,
the spreading leaven of which had
already begun to corrupt the church. Not
merely to a carnal conception of the coming
kingdom, a |gross judaiziug on the part of
some ignorant men. blind to the spiritual
nature of the kingdom, was this revolution
of sentiment due. Far beyond that, it was
debtor to a sublimated Heathenizing exegesis
in the Gentile church itself.

Five adverse influences contributed to
effectuate this result; (1) the temporal su-
premacy of Christianity in the Roman Em-
pire, through a union of church and state,
consequent upon the accession of Constan-
tine

TO THE IMPERIAL PURPLE,

and whereby the predictions oonoerning
Israel's future were appropriated and ap-
plied to the church of the fourth century,
then free from the martyr flame; (2) the
false interpretation of the Apocalypse,
whereby the end of that book was
made its beginning, the sun-clothed
daughter of Zion regarded as the Christian
Church of the present time (Rev. Xii. 1-6),
and Israel's conversion when Michael stands
up for Israel's deliverance, turned into the
victory of Constantine at 8axa Rubra and the
Milviau Bridge (Rev. xii. 7-11. Dan. xii. 1-3);
(3) the influence of Alexandrian philosophi-
cal speculation upon the exosition of the
Scriptures; (4) the increasing pride of Ro-
man hierarchical pretension, and (5) the

contempt of the Jew known to be under the
curse, swept from his home, and hated by
mankind. Blighted by such Influences, the
former orthodox martyr-faith became heret-
ical and the present heretical faith of the
State Church became orthodox. And boast-
ing gentile Rome defended it, with almost;
unbroken continuity, down to the time of
the great Reformation.

The magic by which Israel was ousted from
his place in the coming glory of the kingdom
was twofold, viz: (1) by changing the

SUBJECT OF THE PROPHECY,

and (2) by changing the content of the
prophecy. In place of "Israel" the "church"
was substituted, through a spiritualizing
obliteration of the line between what is com-
mon to both, and peculiar to each. Instead
of a literal interpretation of the '"blessings"
promised to Israel, a figurative one was
devised. The "curses," however, by a sad
inconseqence, were allowed to remain lit-
eral, while the blessings promised to the
same subject, Israel, were passed kindly over
to the church 1 It is with a sacred indigna-
tion that gifted scholar. Da Costa, asKs,
"Who has given us the right, while contem-
plating the literal judgments on the Hebrews,
suddenly to alter the principle of interpre-
tation, where the curse is changed into a
blessing? Who has given us the right, oy
arbitrary exegesis, to apply the promises to
the Christian church of the gentiles, when
the judgments evidently could not have been
intended for them?" Nor ia there a truer
word than what that devout and princely
critic, Michael Baumgarten, has spoken,
when he says, "The devioes by which the
promises concerning the Kingdom and the
people are explained away as referring onlv
to a merely spiritual kingdom of saints, were
entirely, unknown to the apostles." Thus
was Israel spoiled and robbed, in tne name
of hermeneutics, under the delusion of a
fourth century millennium, with an unbap-
tized heathen on the throne 1 Yea, more,
with a half-Arian "Eusebius,

ENTERTAINING THE IMPERIAL, TABLE

with discussions whether the dining-hall of
the emperor, the second Solomon, might not,
after all, be the New Jerusalem of John's
Apocalypse!" (Harnack. ) It is Alexandria
and Origen, Rome, and Constantme. post-
Niceue fathers, mediaeval doctors, a State
chuich, and a boasting gentile Christendom
of later times, Jacob nas to thank tor the
cloud that blotted his hope from tue creed of
the uchurcb." Nor was it possible that God's
chosen people could ever come to their rigut,
in the faith of the church, save by a reyers .1
of the false view and a return to the true in*
terpretation of Old Testament prophecy; an
event first occurring under the labor of a

126

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Spener, Orusius, Bengel, and their Bcnool,
in the age next following the grand but
partial dogmatics that sprang from tne re-
formation. By the forces then set at work,
we, of to-day, are animated and sustained.

THE JEWISH PKOBLEM.

To warn against this foreseen perversion
of the oracles concerning Israel, Paul wrote
the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of
nis epistles to the Romans. They are a
philosophy of history, and theodicy too, a
vindication of the depths of God's unsearch-
able judgments in tne national rejection of
Israel, one calling of the gentiles, the future
recall of Israel to faith in Christ, and the
transcendant effect of that event upon the
world, at tne Lord's appearing, and under
tiie power of a second Pentecost. He treads
in the steps of all the prophets. The doc-
trinal part of that epistle had closed with
tne eighth chapter. The problem now to be
solved was this: Why, if the promises were
made to Abraham and his seed, has the
twelve-tribed Israel historically failed of
salvation and the gospel gone to the gen-
tiles? Is God's covenant a failure, as to the
land, the people, and the kingdom? Paul
regards Israel's detection as complete, and
Jerusalem's doom as impending. He as-
sumes, as already accomplished, the judg-
ment on the nation, and the sad dispersion
the Savior had foretold. For him, Israel,

NOW. HAS NO PABT,

nationally, in the kingdom of God, but is
outcast and crucified among the nations, yea
buried in the grave. The burning question
is whether the present relation of Israel to
tne kingdom of God is to be perpetual?

Is the covenant of promise made with
Abraham a conditional one, like the covenant
of the law superadded under Moses, or is it
absolutely and forever unconditional, and of
sovereign grace, and free compassion — a
covenant that even Israel's national
apostasy can not invalidate1? Are the Jews
the children of Moses, or the seed of Abra-
ham? In tneir "casting away," is it indi-
vidually, or nationally, God deals with tHem?
And is It only for a time, or always? Have
they stumbled forever?

The subblime answer to this, is the cele-
brated "Three Chapters." And how grand
the solution of the great "mystery I" Paul
tellsthe gentile Roman Church; he speaks to
"Rome," and says: (1) That, because the
promises were made to faith, and the right-
eousness of faith, and not to legal works,
therefore believing Israel is the true Israel
and inheritor of God's grace, and unbeliev-
ing Israel, to whom (jurist crucified

WAS A STUMBLING STONE,

has been nationally cast away. The mys-
tery el Israel's rejection is explained by

Israel's unbelief. (2) That this hurling off of
Israel from their city, temple, land, and all
their privileges as God's chosen people; this
taking the kingdom from tnem in ms spirit-
ual power, and giving it to a nation bringing
lortn the fruits thereof, is only temporary.
Israel, though punished for apostasy, is not
cast off forever from God's covenant. Even
in their unbelief tney are yet "His people."
and in their misery still "beloved for the
fathers' sakes. God's covenant with Abra-
ham is all of grace, and therefore uncondi-
tional. The superadded Sinaitie legislation
was designed to show the impotence of legal
works and drive to Christ True, indeed,
Israel, as a nation, brought the Savior to the
cross and killed the Prince of life,
whom God raised up. An "elec-
tion" found the great salva-
tion, but "the rest (the nation) were blinded."
Still, notwitnstanding this, Israel's national
rejection is only temporary, and the ordi-
nances of heaven shall sooner fail than Israel
cease to be a nation before God (Jer. xxxL
35-40). Its historic mission as the bringer of

SALVATION TO ALL NATIONS

in their national capacity, is not annulled
but only in abeyance. It yet shall be re-
sumed. Israel, as such, can never be amal-
gamated or lose his right of primogeniture in
tbe kingdom of God. Tne temporary abcis-
eion of the native branches from their "own
olive tree" is measured by the limit of the
"Times of the Gentiles," when Jerusalem
shall cease to be trodden under foot of the .
gentiles, as is now the case. Then, "all Is-
rael." Israel in their solidarity, acting na-
tionally as one man, shall be saved. (3) That
to be "ignorant of this mystery" and
its relation to the coming kingdom
of God on earth, will breed "con-
ceit" in the church, a conceit begot-
ten of false wisdom, pride, and gentile
boasting, sucn a conceit as will interpret
Goa's word to mean precisely what it does
not, viz., that the church, as now existing,
has actually "taken the place of Israel," and
forever; so that, hereafter. Israel has no
otner future than Ishmael or Ham, and
Jerusalem none other than Paris or Berlin,
Rome or Athens, Chicago or New York, in
tne fcine'dom of God, nor as much. The
oaor of this conceit was already in the air
wnen Paul wrote to seven-hilled Rome his
celeDrated "Tnree Chapters." Its begin-
nings already floated in

THOSE CLASSIC GENTILE CITIES

of tne Roman world, where the church had
been planted; omen of that spreading dark-
ness of understanding whereby, soon, all
Christendom would appropriate to itself the
prophecies concerning Israels distinctive
future, and tell the world that these are now

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

127

accomplished in the Christian Church.
It is the very apostle who pleads and proves
triumphantly that gentile believers are
Abraham's spiritual seed, just as Jawish be-
lievers are the same spiritual seed, who also
lifts his burning prote6t against the wrong
conclusions men will draw from that great
truth. (4) He assures Rome and, through her
all Christendom, that the time will come
when history will strike the hour for Israel's
recovery, and that the effect of Israel's
reception into the kingdom ot God will be to
the nations their national salvation; yea,
more, that the time ol this event will be just
what Christ (Luke xiii. 35) and Peter (Acts
lii. 19-21) said it should be, the time of
Messiah's second coming; the time when
"the Redeemer shall come to Zion and shall
turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom. xi.
26. Isa. lix. 20) — a set of decisive texts
evaded by a hundred exegetes who can not
(square them with a post-millennial advent
speculation. He assumes

THE LITEBAL BEALIT'i

of the prophetic word concerning Israel, and
sums It up in one free quotation. He nails
his argument, then rivets it, by appeal to the
unconditional free covenant of God with
Abraham, expounded by Isaiah, Jeremiah,
and the other prophets, and all it secures for
Abraham's believing seed according to the
flesh, and protests tnat nothing, not even
Israel's own apostasy, shall be able to annul
that pact, or any way frustrate that promise
of compassion and immeasurable grace.
•'For the gifts and calling of God" to that
peopie, "are not to be repented of." (Rom.
xi. 29). Tne gift of the "land," yea, the
rift or the "world," the calling to a mission,
and a mediatorship. to the nations, and a
princely and a priestly throne. These are
absolutely irretractabie. Here, he rests his
argument. God's covenant is an impenitent
oovenaut. God's purpose is an impenitent
purpose. (5) He appeals to Rome, an
omen wonderful in view of her
oncoming boast of supremacy as the "Mother
Cnurch," her self-exaltation, pride, idolatry,
and Pharisaic formalism, and, through her,
to all gentile Christendom as a unit, "Roast
not against the branches I" Think not that
you

HAVE TAKEN ISBAEL S PLACE!

"Blindness in part" may happen to you too!
"Be not wise in your own conceitl" Take
no comfort from the thought that "the
branches were broken oft that you might be
grafted in!" That judgment came to them
"because of unbelief, and thou standest by
faith." Beware! "Be not high-minded, but
fear. For, if God spared not the natural
branches, take heed that He also spare not
thee!" You may become a "Babylon the

Great!" "Contrary to nature," your oleaster
twigs were inserted in an olive not your
own. Much more then, "conformably to
nature," God may graff the native twigs
again into their "own oiive." Down to the
dust with your lofty head ! Your proud sta-
tistics, and your mighty empire do not show
you clean from deep corruption.

Your carnal caricature of the kingdom of
God before the time. Israel still a beggar at
your gate, may be crushed beneath a stroke
of judgment heavy as the doom that fell
upon Jerusalem With all your ethnic ex-
pansion nineteen centuries Bhall flee away,
and not a nation on earth acknowledge
Christ as king! A thousand millions, then,
win not have heard His name! And, in your
bosom, lawlessness and unbelief will lift
their horrid fronts, and fit you for the wine-
press of God's wrath! For tne same crimes
for which Jerusalem was struck you may be
stricken too when the mountain-stone shall

SMITE YOUB CHRISTIAN "TOES."

If, at Messiah's first coming, the Holy City
was "trodden down of the gentiles," and
Rome arose the central seat of gentile
Christendom, it may happen that, when He
comes again, Rome shall go down,
and Jerusalem "arise and shine," a
"crown of "glory in the hand of the
Lord, and a royal diadem in
the hand of her God!" (See Rev., chap. 17
and 18, Isa., ehap. 60-62.) So does the great
"apostle of the gentiles, and speaking to the
gentiles, forewarn them of their coming
unora, and bund his argument — an argument
that glows ana burns in the pages of John's
Apocalypse.

Grand Result ot Israel's Conversion — And
what the effect upon the world of Israel's
national recall to the blessings of the cove-
nant? It is no less than "Life out from the
dead!" "If the fall of them be the riches of
the world, and the diminishing of them the
riches of the gentiles, how much more will
their fullness bring a richer and a greater
blessing?" There is a climax here. The
argument is "a minore ad majus." Israel
"diminished" to twelve apostles and 120
disciples has brought

BICONCIEIATION TO THE WOBIiD,

given us Christendom, and peopled heaven
with unnumbered souls. What, then, will
Israel, recruited or "filled" to tho "fulness"
of "all Israel," converted to Chriot, not
bring? Other nations have only, a church-
historical mission. Israel alone is the
bringer of salvation to the world. What
this greater blessing is we are at no loss to
see. It is not merely the "summum
gaudium" of the church > crowned with
charismatic girts. It is "life out from the
dead!" It is the beginning of the world's

128

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

glorification; life, in its fullest, widest, deep-
est, broadest sense. It is no less than a
resurrection from the dead. A remarkable
parallel— wonderful to the last degree, is
Paul's argument. He draws a parallel be-
tween the two great stages of individual
salvation, and the two great stages of the
world's salvation. The analogy is most
striking between Christ's work and Israel's
mission. The la<v of development is
identical in both cases, the phe-
nomena are analagons. the stages an-
swering, one to the other, as face to face in
water. In the case of individual salvation,
Paul argues Rom. v. 10 , that "If when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to Goa by
the death of His Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life," i.
e., by His resurrection. On the ground of
that face, Christ said of the reconciled be-
liever,

"I WILL BAISE HIM UP

at the last day." John vi. 54. The death
of Christ brings reconciliation to men, ana
the resurrection of Christ brings life and re-
demption from the power of deatn in the
judgment day. In (Rom. xi. 15), when speak-
ing of the salvation of the world, through
Israel, Paul argues, "If the casting away of
Israel be the reconciling of the world, what
shail the receiving," or opposite of that, "be,
but life from the dead?" i. e., "life proceed-
ing out from the dead," as in the case of the
resurrection of Christ Just as Christ's resur-
rection brought new life to men, so Israel's
resurrection shall bring new life to the na-
tion?, or the world. It is simply the further
development of tne same great thought in
Peter's Pentecostal discourse, concerning
the "ames of requickening from the pres-
ence of the Lord," (Acts lii. 19-21). Dehtzscb,
Ilofmann, Luthardt, Volck, Meyer, Koch,
and Christiani, have all triumphantly ex-
pounded it. Who does not see the corre-
spondence ot the national to the individual
stages of salvation? Ot Israel's mission na-
tionally to Christ's personally? If, when the
nations were enemies to God Reoonciilia-
tion by the gospel came to them through
Israel's deatn, or casting away, much more,
being reconciled, they shall be saved by Is-
rael's life, in the hour of national judgment,
at the end or* this age. It is the climax of
tne apostle's argument, the whole eloquence
of his deep Insight into the ways of God. The
necessity for Israel's resignation is grouned,
not only in God's covenant with that people,
but in the oondition of Christendom at the
end of this age, even after the erospel has
gone to the nations. The blessing that then
will come to the world

WILL BE MOKE ANP GEEATER

than the "reconciliation" through death. It

will be "life" through the resurrection,,
"life proceeding out of the dead;" the com-
ing of the "first resurrection," and the visi-
ble kingdom of glory on earth, yet not with-
out a preceding "tribulation" nnparaleiled
since the world begun. (Dan. xii. 1-3.) The
discussion Rom. v. 10 relates to individ-
uals; that in Rom. vi. 10 to nations,
and predicts the era o! universal
and national Christianity as such.
The tvo great stages of salvation are, first,
reconciliation through death, and last, life
throusru resurrection, both individually and
nationally, each marked by the Lord's ap-
pearing; in the first; case, in humiliation;
and, in the last, case, in glory, each marked,
in the first case, by Israel's humiliation and
death, and, in the last, by Israel's resurrec-
tion and life. It is a wonderful argument.
As Christ's death and resurrection deter-
mine the fortunes of His people, so Israel's
death and resurrection decide the fate of
the world.

"Life out from the dead!" It is the be-
ginning of the world's glorification at
Christ's second coming. Not, indeed, in the
sense of annihilating the material theater
on which the development of the kingdom
of God has hitherto moved; not in the sense
of an absolutely "new heaven and earth,"
which occurs later on,

AS THE CEOWNINO EVOLUTION,

but as the commencement of that
outbursting power of "Life" which,
carreering through a millennial age, ends at
last in the final regenesis of all things. It is
"life from the dead" in a spiritual sense, life
in a national sense, life in a literal resurrec-
tion sense, life for the sleeping saints of Goa
of both dispensations, and restored Israel in
the front of all Such honor does God put
on His own covenant. Then, "at that time,"
when the "voice" shall thunder over Israel's
valley of dry bones, the "voice" of the Son of
God, and the "Spirit" shall "come from the
four winds and breathe on the slain," Israel
shall rise (Ezek. xxxvli. 7-9)! Then, "at
that time," when "Michael stands up," Dan-
iel's "people shall be delivered, as many as
are within the Book," and, beside these,
"many shall awake from among the sleepers
of the earth dust" and be assigned to glory
everlasting: (Dan. xii. 1-3). Then, "at that
time," this thrilling word shall be fulfilled,
"Thy dead ones shall live; my dead body
(Israel) shall arise. Awate! Sing! ye
dwellers in the dust! for thy dew is as
the dew of herbs, and the earth shall oast
forth the dead!" (Isa. xxvL 19). Then, at
that time, "the face of the covering oast
over all peoples, and the veil that is spread
over all nations," — the mortuary pall of
unbelief

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

129

AND SPIRITUAL DEATH,—

"snail be taken away from off all the earth,"
— not in a '"second death," — but "in Yictory."
(Isa. xxv. 7; Hos, xiii. 14; 1 Cor, xv. 54 55).
"Israel shall bud and blossom and fill the
face of the world with fruit." (Isa. xxvii. 6).
Jerusalem, the "beloved city," (Rev. xx. 9),
shall arise and shine under a new "sunrise,"
(Isa. Ix. 1), and become a glory tu the
nations, and "the glory of the grentiles shall
be unto her as a flowing" stream." (Isa. lxvL
12, lx. 10-22). A second deluge snail occur,
— a deluge of salvation, "fox the earth shall
• be filled with the knowledge of the glory of
the Lord, as the waters cover the great
deep." (Hab. it 14; Isp. xi. 9, and lxvi. 19).
Then, the era of national Christianity, as
such, shall have come, when the colossus of
gentile politics ana power has falien, and
Israel's King is enthroned as the "only
potentate," "King of Kings," as "King of
Nation," amid wonders of judgment and
mercy unknown before; that blessed
time when "the root of Jesse shall
stand for an ensign of the peoples,
and to Him the nations shall
seek and glory shall be His resting place"
(Isa. xi. 10), "the place of His throne," "the
plice of the soles of His feet" |(Ezek. xiiv. 7);
when "reigning in Mount Zion and in Jerusa-
lem, glory snail be in presence of His ancient
ones" (Isa. xxiv. 23), "the Lord reigning over
them in Mount Z on, from thenceforth, even
forever!" (Micah iv. 7. Then, in that day of

EFFULGENT MANIFESTATION:
Arabia's desert ranger

To Christ ? hall bow the knee.
And Ethiopia's stranger

His Glory come and see.

With anthems of devotion
Ships from the isles shall meet.

And pour the wealth of ocean
In tribute at His feet.

Kings shall fall down before Him
And gold and incense bring.

All nations shall adore Him,
His praise all people sing.

For He shali have dominion
O'er river, sea, and shore,
Far as the eagle's pinion
Or dove's light wing can soar.
"Blessed be the Lord God. the God of Is-
rael, who only doeth wondrous thingsl And
blessed be His glorious name forever! And
let tne whole earth be rilled with His erlory!
Amen and amen! May Joseph soon reveal
himself to "his brethren!' "

THE JUBILEE ON EARTH.

Thus have I endeavored to allow the
Scriptures to interpret themselves, and
thrown back the Pauline argument into the
bosom of the prophecies whence it sprang.

Ana, uoing so, what we and is this, that the
whole choir of prophets and apostles, led by
Christ Himself, sing in unanimous chorus
the coming of the kingdom in its earthly
splendor only with the coming of the King
Himself the second time, and with Israel's
rehabilitation. What wonders will not tnat
great event reveal! Great scholars have
dwelt upon it with deltent. "The confessors
of Jehovah," says Deiitzsch, "shall b .: waked
from their graves, and form wich the faith-
ful living a glorious church. Here is the
predicted first resurrection." So Weber, life-
long student of Israel's faith and hope, says:
"The Jewish Christian Churcti shall again
revive. From the dispersion shall the living
and from their graves shall the dead be
brought back to enjoy together in
the Holy Land the promised

glory of the Messianic age." And
Dr. Fuller, with wnom that accomplished
exegete. Professor Volck. of Dorpat. agrees,
adds, in his able comment on Dan. xii. 1-3:
"Not merely those who survive the great
tribulation shall be delivered, but also many
from

THE SLEEPERS IN THE DUST

shall be awakened in order to enjoy the re-
demption." So have Davidson, Bleek, Hit-
zig. Drechsler, Kiesselbach. Dasshsel, Weber,
Nagelsbach, Hofmann, Van Oosterzee, and
others spoken; men of the most divergent
theological views. And that illustrious
scholar — the only man ever pensioned by the
Britisn Government for his scholarship— Dr.
S. P. Tregelles,' says, in his book on Daniel:
"It is at the coming of che Lord Jesus that
Israal is delivered. It is then, also, that the
first resurrection takes place. And here be-
longs that promise, 'Israel shall bud and
blossom and fill the face of the world with
fruit' " (Isa. xxvii. 27-6).

I have said that the New Testament King-
dom of God, on earth, can not come in the
shape foretold, until after Israel's conver-
sion, and the coming of the Redeemer to
Zion, and that this was the confidence of the
early church. Is there anything in the
Scriptures, outside the Pauline argument,
to confirm this view? Not to enter upon the
superabundant wealth of Old Testament
prophecy, the New Testament itself presents
no other conception of the future. The faith
of those who waited for the "consolation of
Israel." as Isaiah had predicted, grasped,
not only an inward spiritual salvation, but
also an outward temporal deliverance, in
connection with the coming glory of Israel,
and the safe possession of their promised
land, under their Messiah's reiern. To
Joseph, the angel of the Lord announced,
that the Virgin's

130

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

CHILD SHOULD BE CALLED "JESUS,

for he shall save his people from their sins."
(Matt. 1. 21). To Mary it was said "The Lord
God shall give to Him trie throne of His father
David, and He shall reign over the house of
Jacob, forever, and of His Kingdom there
shall be no end." (Luke i. 32-33). And
Mary Herself sings, in her sublime '-mag-
nificat." "My soul doth magnify the
Lord, and my spirit both rejoiced in God
my Savior. * * * He nath holpsn
His servant Israel, in remembrance of His
mercy; as he spake to our fathers, to Abra-
ham and His seed forever," (i. 54 55).
Zachriah, in his "beneuictus," celebrates
not only present help for Israel, through "a
horn of salvation raised up in the house of
David," but a srrander coming time of re-
demption from all external foes, even "that
we, being delivered from our enemies, and
from the hand of them that hate us, might
serve Hiin, without fear, in holiness and
righteousness, all the days of our life,"
(i. 67-75) Does this look like a carnal con-
ception of the kingdom? It is the farthest
possible from it. Does it throw the king-
dom, promised by tne prophets, into
super-earthly sphere? There is nothing
clearer than that the Messianic hope looked
to this earth itself as the sphere of the Mes-
sianic royalty, in days to come, and Israel as
the central people. When old Simeon took
the infant in his arms, his swan-like song ex-
tols the child, not only as "a light to lighten
the gentiles," but beyond that,

"THE GLOBY OF HIS PEOPLE I8BABL"

(ii., 32). Not once in Luke, not once in all the
Gospels, not once in Acts, not oace in all the
epistles, nor once in the Apocalypse, does
"Israel" mean the gentile church Not once
in sixty times throughout tue whole New
Testament, does it mean aught else than
Abraham's seed, believing or unbelieving. If
we gentiles who believe are called the true
seed of Abraham and the true circumcision,
it is only in the sense in which a David and
Isaiah, a Simeon and Anna, were the same—
a spiritual sense. But this does not obliterate
the great antithesis, nor vacate the oath and
covenant of God to the literal Abratiam and
his literal seed. A foreign grafted branch
does not annihilate the tree.

In the parable of the nobleman who "went;
into a far country" to be invested with his
royalty and then return to reign, destroying
all his enemies, our Lord set right the false
impression his triumphant march from Jeri-
cho had made upon the people, wlio "thought
that the kingdom of God should immediately
appear." He tells them it will not ap-
pear until the nobleman's "return."
Plainer words we could not ask (Lake xix.
13). Israel's Kingdom, the Kingdom of God,

the kingdom of the heavens, can not come
in its outward glorious form, until the pres-
ent sojourn of Christ in heaven is ended
(Actsiii. 19-21; Rom. xi. 26-27; Dan. vii.
13-14; Matt. xxvi. 24) And, as that prom-
ised glorv on the eartn is the millennial age,
Christ's coming must pieceoe that blessed-
ness. It was expected to attend His first
appearing. He tells them that it can only
follow on his second coming. Again, iu
language

PLAIN ENOUGH FOB WANDEREBS,

He assures the twelve Apostles that not be-
fore but only during the "Regeneration" —
bv which tie means the "Times of Restitu-
tion" (Acts iii. 21). an;l at His own return
from heaven — will Israel's kinsrdom come,
and they themselves sic on their thrones.
"Verily, I say to you, that, in the Palingene-
sis, when the Son of man shall sit on the
turone of His glory, ye who have followed
Me inow) shall also sit upon twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Yea,
more. "And every one" — Jew or

gentile, who so follows me —

"shall receive a hundred fold, with
persecutions, now, in this present time, and
in the coming age, shall inherit everlasting
life." (Matt xix. 28-29, Mark x. 30, Luke
xviii. 29). And when the mother of James
and John, ambitious for her sons' pre-emi-
nence, petitioned Him, "Command that
these, my two sons, may sit, one at Thv
right hand, and one at Thy left, in Thy
kingdom," our Lord arrests her motherly
but ill-informed anxiety by saying: 1. That
the kingdom can not come, save only after
Buffering, and they who share such honors
must be first baptized with blood. 2. That
the dispositton of such dignities is reserved
for God, the Father, not for Him; and 3.
That unlike the gentile polity, he who would
be the first must be a servant like the Lord
Himself, and least of all. (Matt. xx. 20-29).
His words are no repulsion of her hope as to
the coming kingdom itself, but a checK to
her ambition, and instruction for her igno-
rance of what must intervene. Not only so
In the strile among them, which of them

SHOULD BE ACCOUNTED GREATE-T."

He not only chides again their pres-
ent wish, but turns their vision to
tiie future full of hope, and says:
"Ye are they which have continues with
me, in my temptations. And I appoint unto
you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed
unto me; that ye may eat, and drink, at my
table, in my kingdom, and sit on thrones,
juoging the twelve tribes of Israel" (.Luke
xxi. 30). Aud, it is John, himself, who, years
afterward, when wrapt in holy vision of the
"Palingenesis," says, "I saw thrones, and
they eat upon them, and the right of judging

THU PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

131

was given to thein; * * * and they lived
and reigned with Christ a thousand years"
(Rev. xx. 4). Not in heaven, but on the
earth (Rev. ♦ v. 10). A kingdom coming
oniv after "heaven opened." the King Him-
self descending (Kev. xix. 1 1)

Just before His death our Lord predicted
Israel's present blindness, and their ultimate
ci nvorsion. "Behold, your house, (no longer
my Father's house1) (John ii. 16), is left unto
you desolate; verily, I Bay unto you, ye shall
see me no more, until the time come when
;*• shall say, blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord" (Matt, xxin. 39, Luke xiii.
35). A ray of hope gleams through the awful
darkness of the curse. Plainly, three periods
are mentioned here: (1) That of tneir then
present beholding of Jesus with bodily
Bight, a beholding soon, alas, to fade awayl

(2) A DAY <JF FUTURE BEHOLDING

and believing welcome to their long-rejected
King. 3. An interval of non- beholding, of
blindness spiritual, and full of sadness fof
the Nation. As surely as tu »y saw Him and
rejected Him at first, so surely shall they see
Him once again, in penitence and faith, and
hail Him with hos.innas. Not less clearly
did He predict the present dispersion of the
Jews, their future redemption, and the res-
toration of Jerusalem. "Tney shall fall by
the edge of the sword, and shall be led away
captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall
be trodden down ot the gentiles, until the
times of the gentiles be fulfilled. * * * And
then shall they see the Son of man coming,
in a cloud, with power and great glory. And
when these things begin to come to pass, lift
up yonr heads for your redemption draw-
eth nigh" (Luke xxi. 24-28). Down to the
coming of the Son of man, the
Jews shall be dispersed, and uncon-
verted, as a people — a state of things impos-
sible in a millennial age. So long as .the
metallic image the Chaldean monarch saw
snail stand, an image of the genttle politics
and power on Israel's neck, and gentile feet
upon their ruined city; so long as Israel's
last oppressor rages undestroyed, the final
Antichrist; so long the promised kingdom
can not come. The "redemption" of the
"converts from transgression" coutempo-
rates with the finai rescue of the Holy City
from the tread of gentile hoofs. Israel shall
be regathered to their land Jerusalem shall
be redeemed. A Jewish-Christian church
and nation shall ba born. The kingdom then
will come.

AND, AFTEB HIS BESUBBEOTHN.

eix weeks having been devoted to special
lessons in the things pertaining to the king-
dom, was the Jewish hope of Israel's restora-
tion quenched? So far from this, the disci-
ples ask Him, Baying, "Lord, wilt Thou, at

this time, lestore the kingdom to Israel?"
To Pilate's question, "Art Thou a king?-' He
had answered yes, but said His kingdom was
of heavenly origin. In three different lan-
guages his title, "King of the Jews," was
written on His cross. And now
tnat, by His resurrection. He

has shown His majesty, they ask
"Wilt thou, now, restore the kingdom!" The
kingdom David spoxe about, and Isaiah,
Daniel, and Ezekiel have foretold? Wilt
thou, now? Had He answered "Yes," He
would have deceived their faith. Had he
answered "No," He would have denied their
hope. He. does neither. They ask not shall
the kingdom be restored? The prophets and
Himself had settled that. But is it now, "at
this time," to be re-erected? Are the times
of the restoring and reviving now? He re-
strains their curiosity, and points them to
the work that first must intervene in gentile
lands, the preaching of the gospel, ubegin-
ning at Jerusalem" (Acts. 1, 6-8 Luke
24-47;. What inference could be more clear
than this, that, when this gentile mission is
accomplished — not the world's conversion —
but the witness of the gospel to all nations,
then the end of this age shall come, and the
times of Israel in the kingdom be inaugu-
rated? (Matt. 24-14. Rom 11-25).
And when the

ADVENT OF THE HOLY GHOST

was a living fact already, and not a thing
still future, Peter, in that Pentecostal
time lifts up his voice, and calls
on Israel, as a unit, as a nation,
to repent, alleging as the prophets all de-
clare, that Israel's repentance brings Messiah
back again, and restores the kingdom. He
appeals to them by every designation, per-
sonal and national, oovenant and the oratio,
(1) to change their minds and wheel about,
in reference to their slain Messiah, and be
forgiven, in order that their risen king may
be returned from heaven, and (2), that Mes-
siah's sojourn there is temporary, lasting
only as long as Israel's impenitence, and
punishment endure. (3) That the prom-
ised "seasons of reviving" and the "times
of re-erection," forespoken by the prophets,
shall attend His second coming, as the
prophets all declare. LiKe two great clocks
that strike the same hour, one a moment
just before the other, so these two marvel-
lous events shall synchronize. Israel's re-
pentance, and Messiah's reappearing in His
glory. (Actaiii., 19-21. Rom. ii., 20). Be-
tween the departure of their King and the
outpouring of tho Uoiy spirit; oniy ten
short days interveue. Shall the interval bo-
tween the next great Pentecost and His
coming back, be a iocger or a shorter time.

132

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM CAME

at once, with Israel's "remnant" then, con-
verted from on high. Will not the outward
glorious Kinsrdoni come when Israel's rem-
nant is a -'nation," turned to Christ? The
"Apocalypse of Jesus Christ" to John is in
perfect harmony with all that we have said.
A word is all that can be given to this most
wondrous book. It is a "Book of the End-
Tirue," its fundamental note beinsr found in
chapter i., verse 7, "Behold! He cometh
' with the clouds; and every eye shall see
Him; and they also which pierced Him, and
all the kindreds of the earth shall wail be-
cause of Him. . Even so. Amen!" Its last
note is the same. "Even so, come Lord Je-
sus!" (Rev. xx. 20). It is a book which
follows the universal law of prophecy, and
is not onlv thus "applicable" to the time
when it was written, and to the sreneral
course of history, but is to be "interpeted"
of the scenes and events that attend the
second coming- of the Lord — a book for all
ages, past, present, and to come.
The sealing vision (chapter vii.) re-
fers to Israel of the End-Time, pre-
served from harm amid the storms of
trumpet judgments soon to break. Chapter
xi. , the "crux interpretum," is a vision of
Jerusalem in the end-time during the great
tribulation under the last Antichrist. The
144,000 are the "our brethren" of chapter
xii., the same as the "my brethren" of Matt
xxv. 40, and the "your Brethren" of Isa.
lxvi. 5, and are seen

ON THE EARTHLY MOUNT ZION,

with the Lamb, in chapter xiv. 1-5, after the
trumpet-storms are over. They are the
same company as the sun-clothed woman, or
Daughter of Zion, in chapter xii. 1-6, the
Jewish-Christian church of the end-time,
and the same company as the cithara-players
on the glassy 6ea in chapter xv. 1-4, cele-
brating there their final victory and blend-
ing it, in memory, with their first deliver-
ance, singing "the song of Moses, the servant
of God, and of the Lamb" (Deut. xxxii.
36-43. Isa. xxvi. 1-21, Horn xi. 26-27).
In chapter xix. the "beast," the last
Antichrist is destroyed, Israel's last op-
pressor. In chapter xx. 1-6 Satan
is bound, the blood-witness of Jesus
share in the "first resurrection," and the
kingdom of "the 1,000 years," the millen-
nial age, begins. It is enough! All Old and
New Testament prophecy is organized into
unity in this book. What we read elsewhere
we read here, only in symbolic dress — the
gathering of the nations for the final strug-
gle; the srathering in Palestine: Jerusalem
and Zion, being the central point of Israel's
last suffering and glory; the desert shelter
during the tribulation; the appearing ot the

Lord Himself for Israel's deliverance and
His judgment on His enemies; the close con-
nection between Israel's conversion and the
conversion of the nations; the deliverance
on Mount Zion;

THE FIRST RESURRECTION;

the holiness of Israel in the last days; the
erection of the glorious kingdom of Christ,
on earth, with the "beloved city" as its mid-
dle point; and the greaf interval, the millen-
nial aire, consequent upon the appearing of
the Kintr from the "opened heaven," this in-
terval followed by the iuagment of fire upon
Gog, the last resurrection, and the new
heaven and earth. So does all
prophecy, old and new, combine
to one result, viz., the assertion of the
preservation of Israel as a separate people
in the midst, of the nations, so that, con-
verted to trie Lord, ano re-established in
their land, they may accomplish their divine
mission to the world, when erentile times
are ended, and take their place in the glori-
ous kingdom of God on earth. Jerusalem,
recovered from the dust, shall, by reason of
the revealed presence of the "Glory," the
personal "Epiphany" of Christ, become the
sustaining center of the millennial "king-
dom under the whole heaven " — her
name "Jehovah-Shammah!" — "the Lord is
There!" The heaven for height, the abyss
for depth, the earth for breadth, and the
mind of God for greatness, nor is there a
higher, deeper, broader, greater delusion
anywhere in the world than this, that the
millennial age precedes the second advent,
or that the Gentile church has taken Israel's
place in the kingdom of God on earth I'
The popular idea that the world
will be converted before Christ comes
is a fiction. It has no warrant
in the word of God,

NOR IN THE CBEEDS

of Christendom, whatever it may find in
post-millenial speeches, resolutions, com-
mentaries, and dogmatics, jjuther, Calvin,
and Knox, all repudiated it, the first calling
it "a falsehood forged by Satan to blind men
to the truth;" the second saying "there is
no reason to expect it:" the third adding,
"it will never be done till the righteous King
Himself shall appear." And so does all
prophecy, old and new, support Paul's
grand argument, that Israel's mightiest mis-
sion is yet future, and the world's conver-
sion its most glorious result, at the second
coming of the Lord

The Spiritualizing Interpretation. — Justice
to God's word, and those who share
in such anticipations, requires me,
to refer onoe more to that spiritualising in-
terpretation to which 1 have already alluded.
Is it likely that such a mode of exposition,

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

133

bo prevailing: and full of years, has brought
to light absolutely nothing only error? As-
suredly not Extremes mast be avoided.
We may not hold a realism tbat restores the
"beggarly elements'' of a Jewish pupilage,
a carnal cult that perished in the death of
Christ. The prophetic coloring-, in which the
worship of the future is described, must be
modified bv the better coloring the cross
supplies, while still we must remember that
the "vanishing away" does not destroy the
covenanted right of Israel

OB DIVOBCE THE "PEOPLE"

from the "land." To conclude, from tho
restoration of the Jews to the re-establish-
ment of bloody sacrifices is as bad a logic as
to conclude from the abolition of the sacri-
fices to the non-restoration of the Jews.
Prophecy is not a ceremonial institution.
Israel is more than . typical, even a
standing factor and the sustaining center in
the evolution of the Kingdom at its budding
nodes. It will not do. therefore, to press
realism so far as that while doing justice to
Israel's hope, the "Church," shall thereby
suffer and become tbe loser or be robbed of
her true nature, mission, and relation to the
world. No. It is certainly true that along-
side the fact of Israel's hope there remains
th6 equal fact of Israel's temporary rejection,
and that, pending this interval of punish-
ment and expectation, cue vineyard of the
Kindorn, in its spiritual power, has passed to
the gentilea We dare not deny this. The
nations have received the message of
"reconciliation"' in large measure through
Israel's national decease, and are now the
broad field where the kingdom is domiciled
in mystery, but still witrout a central local
Beat. God. in mercy, has "visited the gen-
tiles," individually, "to take out of them a
people for His name." Acts 15:14. It is no
less true that "through our mercy" Israel is
to "obtain mercy." (Rom. xi. 14 30 32.)

WE ARE DEBTOES TO THAT PEOPLE

in the deepest sense, and our imperative
duty, togive tbem the goepel, is designed to
hasten tne coming of the Lord. It is decreed
of God that Israel's conversion, tbrough tbe
missionary activity of the churcb (Rom. xi.
30-31), and some new Elias (Rev. xi. 5) shall
occur immediately in connection with the
coming of Christ from heaven (Acts iii. 19-
21), the Redeemer's coming to Zion (Rom. xi.
26), the fulness of the gentiles (Rom. xl. 25),
the destruction of Antichrist (II. Tnesa ii.
8; Rev. xix. 11-15), a mighty outpouring of
the Spirit of God (Z±ob. xii. 10-14), and the
resurrection of the just (I. Cor. xv. 23; Dan.
xii. 1-3; Rev. xx. 5-6; Isa. xxvi. 19-21);
events all so closely connected tbat for us
they are practically contemporaneous,
crowded into one transcendent epoch of

mercy and judgment, the open door to a new
and better age; and to us an epoch not dis-
tant, if. as great scholars are thinking, tho
downfall of the Turkish empire will close
the "Times of the Gentiles," and be the oc-
casion of Israel's repossession of their lost
inheritance.

Our duty is clear; even to give the goSDel
to the whole world, Jew and gentile, with
unremitting zeal, and "provoke Israel to
jealousy" (Rom. xi. 25, 11). Grafted into
Israel's "root," we share the "fatness" of
the root and the glory of the fruit. Israel's
spiritual gods nave become ours. Nor is
there anything more precious, in all their
blessings, than the Dossession by us of the
"lively oracles" committed to their care and

THE "SPIBIT OF ALL GBACE"

so richly promised to them. Nothing can
compare with the salvation that is in Jesus
Christ — salvation from sin. the law, death,
the grave, and bell, to the Jew first, and also
to the Greek, unto all and upon all them
that believe, for there is no difference.
Spiritualism has its rights as well as real-
ism, the inward essence as well as the out-
ward form, and the first pre-eminent in every
case. No conflict should be between them.
Realism should not be conceived of, as if the
Old Testament predictions did not, at the
same time, forecast the abolition of the
"middle wall" and the formation of the
"church," the one spiritual body of which
Christ is tbe head. True, indeed, it was a
"mystery" veiled in all tae prophets, but yet
it still is there, and uncovered, now, in all its
preciousness (Rom. xvi. 25; Eph. i. 10; ii. 12;
iii. 4-9. Col. i. 26>. What we are required
to do, if just to God's word, is clearly to dis-
criminate between "Israel after the flesh"
and "Israel after the Spirit," the "Jew out-
wardly" and the "Jew inwardly," both the
natural seed of Abraham — the one believing,
the other not — and those gentile believers
who are Abraham's spiritual seed, by virtue
of their possession of his faith — in short, be-
tween "the Israel of God," who are one
class, and the gentile "uncircumcision," who
believe, and are another clas.s, and con-
trasted with "the Israel of God," in the ex-
pression, "the many as walk according to
this rule," in Gal. vi. 16.

WHAT IS COMMON

to believing Jews and gentiles, we must not
forget. What is peculiar to Israel, as a na-
tion, we must equally remember. Observing
tnis distinction — of the first importance —
spiritualism claims, and must receive, our
heartiest support. It is the essence of the
blessed gospel, the very life of our souls.

But. now. when the prophecy does not sim-
ply predict the inward salvation that renews,
and sanctifies, and saves the soul, and fills it

134

TEE PEOPHETIG CONFERENCE

with the hope of heaven, but describes de-
cided facts roretold of Israel's mediatorship
and mission to the nations; and, when,
under New Testament light, it discriminates
between "Israel," as such, "the "church,"
and "gentiles," or the "nations," it will not
do to take from Israel the rignts devised to
tnem in perpetuity and secured bv uncon-
ditional covenant and restrict them to the
"onurch" or abolish Israel's nationality.
'Jer. xxxi. 36.) The covenant on which they
stand is not the Sinaitic legislation, but the
covenant with Abraham. (Gal. iii. 17.) The
gospel is a part of that covenant, and power-
less to annul one single promise, temporal or
spiritual, of its own indenture. The Jews are

NOT CHTLDBEN OP MOSES,

but of Abraham, and "Jesus Christ was a
minister of ttie circumcision for the truth of
God to confirm" — not some, but all — "the
promises made to the fathers." (Rom. xv.
8.) Luke i. 72-75: Ana this includes
Israel's mission to tUe "gentiles," Before,
now, and hereafter. (Rom. xv. 9-12. Isa.
xi. 10-16; lx 1-22; Ixvi. 5-13). Israel's primo-
gentiure, calling, gifts, and throne. (Jer. iii.
16, Matth. xix 28.)

This makes plain sailing for ahomiletic ap-
plication of prophecy on the one hand, and
a true grammatico-historical interpretation
on the other. Preach spiritual and srlorious
sermons if you will, and may with truth,
from Ezekiel's valley of dry bones, or ZecU-
ariah's day of penitential sorrow for the
Jew, or Isaiah's new sunrise over Jerusalem,
or David's set time to favor Zion. Make the
Old Testament language a divine terminol-
ogy in which to shadow forth spiritual truth,
now applicable to the church, but do not
claim that this is its "interpretation," or
that Israel's distinctive future as a nation is
abolished because the Christian church ex-
ists. This will never do.

When, in that sublime overture of tUe
Messiah, by Isaiah, the prophet bursts

INTO A STEEAM OB" CONSOLATION,

saying, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
saith your God; speak ye comfortingly to
Jerusalem" (Isa. xL 1), and closes the
oratorio with the words, "As one whom his
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,
and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem" (Isa.
ixvi. 13), and all this in a vision "concern-
ing Judah and Jerusalem" (Isa. i. 1). Wliat
he means is that, through God's compassion,
the mourning captives shall leave the place
where they hang their harps on tne willows,
and return to the very city whence they
were cast out. "Spiritualize" it, if you wilL
"Apply," if you choose, to yourself, what is
common to you and to Israel, God's com-
forting words in times of affliction. "Ap-
ply" it to tue "uhurcb," If you desire. But

do not seek "renovare dolorem" by telling us
that God did not mean to deliver the faint-
ing exiles out of the literal Babylon,
and restore the outcasts, literally,
to the literal Jerusalem, whence
they were literally ejected! And when or-
dained to a richer fulfillment in years to
come, and backed by another special predic-
tion and promise that, in the days of the
Messiah, the Lord shall "set His hand a?ain,
the second time, to recover the remnant of
His people, and assemble the outcasts of
Israel, and gather tUe dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth," etc.,
(Isa. xi. ll-16),"apply" it — if, indeed, you so
can amuse yourselt — to God's deliverance of
His elect, who are gentiles, in all parts of the
eartd, and

CALL THB BOUND WOBLD "BABYLON,"

if you desire, but in the name ot all that is
good, outside an insane asylum, do not tell
us that the "second time" means the return
from Babylonian exile itself, and that
the original march to Canaan was the
"first time," tne exodus from Egypt a
"gathering" and "return" of "outcasts" to a
land they never had seen, and from which
they were never expelled! Call Canaan the
".church," if you will, and Jerusalem the
"church," and Zion the "church," and Israel
the "church," and Jacob the "church," or,
if you prefer it, "Christendom," but again,
in the name of all that is sune,
leave us our senses, and allow us
to believe that God, the almighty,
unwearied, unfainting, and everlasting God
has linguistic power enough left to say juss
what he means, and in terms, too, that a
child can understand! I insist on the words
of Deiitzsch, "Application is not interpreta-
tion. Anwendungist nicht Ausllegung!"

How far sotenology and eschatology are to
be distingugihed, and how far Israel's place
in history is stipulated for in the plan of
God we are bound to know. The
spiritualizing gentile may as little
dissolve God's kingdom into mere
"inwardness,"

AS THE CAKNALIZING JEW

may petrify it into mere "outwardness.'* It
nas an earthly and material, as well as heav-
enly and spiritual, side. It has a body as
well as a soui, and will have a fixed and cen-
tral seat, as well as lasting name. Herein
we agree with that deep word of CEtinger,
"Corporeity is tne end of the ways of God"
The world's transfiguration must come, nor
may we disturb the modalities of either the
catastrophe or the evolution by our inter-
pretation, but leave them just as God Him-
self has predetermined them. The time
is passed for us to teach, as did Origen
and his school, that "the divine promises

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

135

pertain to nothing earthly," and that "spir-
itual blessings alone are of any Importance."
Christianity does not abolish nationality any
more than it abolishes husband ana wife, or
the distinctions of sex, save in the spiritual
"image" of God, and in "the children of the
resurrection." Throughout the whole Soript-
ure the antithesis between "Israel" and the
'•nations" is unclouded and unconfounded It
makes tne Apocalypse of John just what it
is, a beacon's blaze, and, apart from this dis-
tinction, it is dark and undecipherable as a
sphinx. The work of Lemisch, uttered long
ago, that *'the Apocalypse is a hieroglyph
whose Chamoollion has not yet appeared," is
true no longer. "Israel" is that Interpreter!
What elsewhere is uttered to the ear in
terms of unadorned and naKed prophecy, is
here offered to the eye in gorgeous images of
terror and of glory. It is Israol to the front
in the final development of the kingdom of
God!

THE FINAL STRUGGLE — VICTORY !

No obscurity need overhang the necessity
for Israel's historicmission in the future. It
is God's appointment, and that is enough for
us. The foretold conaition at Christendom
at the end of our age will justify it. We
glean a light already from the prophe-
cies, and our Savior's words in
reference to the closing of the gen-
tile times, as also from Paul's
words in reference to the "Fullness
of the gentiles." A certain time has been
measured off for the proclamation of
the gospel as a testimony to the nations,
after which judgment comes. The gentiles
will not be cast out of their possession, but
there shall be a "falling away" from tbe
truth of Christ, under the careering "spirit
of the age," and a "man of sin," an "Anti-
christ," be revealed, in whom the whole
God-opposed energy of these closins: times
shall be concentrated Our Lord Himself,
His apostles, and the prophets have all told
us this. In language too plain to be misun-
derstood we are apprized that when these
two concurrent and contradictory facts ap-
pear in history, viz: the wide extension of
missions and increasing lawlessness and
unbelief in Christendom, the "end" of this
age is near. And

WARS, CALAMITIES, AND EARTHQUAKES

will attend the evil days (Matt. xxiv. 7-14V
Out of this "falling away" troublous
times shall come. The true church
will then have no quiet resting-
place among the nations, and tne Lord will
stoop to her deliverance and lift her to Him-
self. But the kingdom of God on earth is
not abolished by the judgment Israel, per-
force, must be summoned as a last reserve,
and, purged by conflict, be carried into vic-

tory. The church will share in this. It is
the way of God, both sovereign and un-
searchable, the wisdom of His undireotad and
uncounselled mind (Rom xi. 34, Isa. xl. 12-
17), and they who are "expecting Jehovah"
shall not be disappointed (Isa. xi. 31). In
that eventful hour, when the last 'adver-
sary" of Israel "invades the lane like a
flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a
standard against him, and the Redeemer
snail come to Ziou, clothed with the gar-
ments of vengeance, and clad with zeal as a
cloak" (Isa. lix. 16-21, Rev. xix. 11-16).
Then, "smiting through kings, in the day of
his wrath" (Psalm ex. 5), "cue judgment
shall sit," (Dan. vii. 26), and

THE COLOSSUS OF GENTILE POWER

go down and "become as the

chaff of the summer threshing floor," (Dan.
2, 36), and the sovereignty be transferred to
Israel's King and His saints. "The kingdom,
and dominion, and the greatness of the
kingdom, under the whole heaven, shall be
given to the people of the saint3 of the Most
High, whose kingdom is an everlasting king-
dom, and all dominions shall serve and obey
Him" (Dan. 7, 27, Rev. 15. 4).

"And the seventh Angel sounded! And
there were great voices in heaven, saying.
The kingdoms of this world are become the
kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, and He
shall reign forever and ever!" (Rev. li. 15).
The Lord hasten it, in His time!

IMPORTANT EXiJOKETICAL PAPERS.

THE VOICE OF EUROPEAN PROFESSOR&

The following important letters from old-
world professors, in audition to that of Pro-
fessor Godet's, were laid before the con-
ference by Dr. West, who had with much
pains secured and prepared them in trans-
lated form for this occasion (see note p. 215):

Barpewisch, Oldenburg, Oct. 3. — The
Rev. N. West, D. D., St. Paul, Minn. My es-
teemed brother in (Jhrist: I thank you very
much for your valuable letter, in which you
allude so Eindly to my book on the "Millen-
nial Kingdom." It is a great encouragement
to me to learn that my labor has been of any
benefit to you and assisted your progress in
the perception of the truth contained in the
prophetic word. With this letter I venture
to send you two productions of mine, neither
of which have as yet gone to America.
From these you will learn what answer I
would give to several of the important ques-
tions you ask With all my heart I wish you
the Lord's blessing for the approaching con-
ference in Chicago. May it t-erve to
disseminate a better understanding of
prophecy in vour far circles of Chris-
tian life and civilization. Though
absent from you in body, I shall be with you

136

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

in spirit, beholding1 your joy and sharing in
the same, while offering with yon, and for
you, my prayer. My answers to the four
questions you have submitted you are at lib-
erty to communicate to the conference, if
deemed desirable. These answers are:

L In view of the predictions found in the
Scriptures,

IT IS AN EEROB TO SUPPOSE

that the world, in consequence of any in-
creasing progress in the propagation
of the Christian faith, will thereby
be transformed into the promised
kingdom of God on earth. On the
contrary, at the very time when the gospel is
preached as a testimony in the world, a
''falling away" from the Christian faiih will
prevail, as even already we see it
in the principal countries of Christen-
dom, and this will continue as the
gospel advances until, in the closing scenes
of our age, out of this apostasy, the Anti-
christ, the "man of sin," predicted in IL
Thessal. ii. 1-12, is revealed, whom the Lord
Himself consumes with His'judicial breath,
and destroys with the brightness of His pres-
ence. Then, upon the ruins of the Anti-
christian kingdom, the kingdom of right-
eousness and peace, will arise.

2. As to the outlook in Europe and the
East. In Europe, the two great enemies of
the gospel are constantly gaining in power,
viz., (1) a superstitious extra-belief (aber-
glaube) on the one side, as in popery, and (2)
a positive and demonic unbelief (unglaube),
or infidelity, on the other, whose extreme is
represented by socialism. Nevertheless it
remains true, as our Lord predicted, that,
Bide by side

WITH THE TAKES AND WEEDS,

the wheat ripens also. In the

Orient, the steadily delapsing progress of
the Turkish Empire, seems to indicate the
nearness of a great convulsion The impor-
tant question that is now forced upon us is
whether, if this empire — of which Palestine
is a province — siiould perish, the "times of
the gentiles" within which "Jerusalem is
trodden down of the gentiles," according to
our Lord's word, shall reach their consum-
mation; and whether, when Turkish tenure
is gone, this city will again be taken posses-
sion of by the Jewish people. See Luke xxl
24; xiii. 35. This would be a graud prog-
nostic of the nearness of our Lord's advent
and of the coming Kingdom of glory on earth.

3. Not by means of the coming of th'e
Lord, nor ' as a consequence thereof
will the Jewish people who shall
nave returned to their fatherland,
be converted, but oloBely before that com-
ing, and not alone by our mercy, but by a
n«w Elias (MaL iv. 5, Mark ix. 12). There-

after this people will have to experience the
enmity of the Antichrist they make for
themselves, and who will set up the horror
of desolation in the holy placa. Protected
against him, in a refuge where God shall
lead them, as once before,

GOD'S SEALED AND CHOSEN ONE3

shall be sheltered during the storms and
judgments of the last great tribulation, with
all the faithful everywhere, and be led, a
last, by their returning Lord into the king
dom of His peace.

4. The coming of the Lord is the
one great hope of the faithful This
coming can be accelerated by the
promotion of missions, for only
then the Lord returns, when the gos-
pel of the kingdom has been preached (in all
the world as a testimony to all nations Matt,
xxiv. 1-4. Rev. x. 7-11, xiv. 6). The hope of
our Lord's return is, moreover, a great in-
centive to holiness, for whoever entertains
and cherishes such a hope will "purify him-
self, even as Christ is pune," that he may be
counted worthy to escape whatever comes to
pass" in those awful future scenes, "and to
stand before the Son of man" (Luke xxi. 36).

Again, dear brother, wishing you much
blessing for the coming conference and its
deliberations, 1 abide yours, in the unity of
faith. A. Koch.

Rev. N. West, D. D.— My Esteemed
Brother in Cbrist: Your welcome let-
ter has reached me. After having ac-
accomplished my day's work I make use of
the evening hour of leisure to reply to the
same, and take up the questions which so
deeply touch the Christian hope, and to
which I have turned my at ention for many
years, and to which I yet devote my thoughts
with much partiality. 1 still believe that the
answers to these questions, which I have al-
ready given in my book, "Cniliaeuius," to be
correct and correspondent with the holy
word of God in his Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments.

Answering your inquiries in succession I
deem it pre-eminently: 1. A necessary part
of the hope of the New Testament Church
that the Lord will again reveal Himself, and
in per-onai visible glory, to establish
His Kingdom • on earth. While the
life of the children of God is at
present "hid with Christ in God" it
is, nevertheless, destined one day to be
apocalypsed outwardly in glory with Christ
at the "manifestation of the Sons of God,"
and rhat on the earth.

2. This kingdom of glory is inconceivable
before the coming of the Lord. The Old and
New Testament alike teach us this. In the
Old Testament the time of the kingdom of

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

137

glory on earth is pre-conditioned by the
revelation of Jehovah

AS JUDGE OVER THE WORLD,

or gentile power, and as the Redeemer of
His people from its might. This time is
called the "Day of the Lord, "Yom Yehovah."
What, however, in the Old Testament is
called the "Day of the Lord," or revelation
of Jehovah at the close of the present aeon,
this, in the New Testament is called the reve-
lation, or "Apocalypse of Jesus Christ," in
which, as the "Maleach Habberith," or
"Angel of the Covenant," the Lord Himself,
who has once come to His people,
will come again in another ,-fui-
ness of time." (Does not this account
for a great part of the angelology of
the Apocalypse, where the Lord Himself is
personated by an angel, as, for instance, in
the case of the rainbow-crowned and solar-
faced angel (Rev. x. 1), the sealing angel
(Rev. vii. 2), the cloud-seated and golden-
crowned augel (Rev. xiv. 14. Compare Matt,
xxiv. 30-31, N. W.).

3. The advent of the Lord will occur, not
before, but in connection with the "national
conversion" of Israel. For this conversion
it is our imperative duty to pray. Impossi-
ble that we can pray, with intelligent full-
ness of petition, "Thy kingdom come! Thy
will be done on earth, as in heaven!" with-
out thinking of Israel who must yet learn to
cry "Blessed be He that cometh in the name
of the Lord!" And this is Israel's prepara-
tion for the appearing of their long-rejected
King. Only, I would not like to speak of

"NATIONAL RESTORATION," FIRST,

inasmuch as merely human hopes and ex-
pectations could easily be brought
into this connection, but I would
rather express myself tnus, viz. : that
Israel, one day will, peniteEtiy and bellev-
ingly, looK upon Him they have pierced, in
order to take their national place in the
kingdom of Gad on etrth as a converted
people.

4. Since the ascension of the Lord we
stand in the "Last Days" waiting ior His
coming again, according to the woids of the
angel--. For this return, also, tbe cnurch is
bound to pray; yet not forget that the
Father has reserved to Himself the deter-
mination of the "times and the seasons,"
yea, of the very "hour." We are bound,
also, to observe the "signs of the tunes."
which are to instruct us how near we are to
that moment when we shall "lift our heads.
for our redemption draweth nigh." And,
finally, we must keep ourselves from losing
interest in the work which the present time
devolves upon the Church, and avoid all
sentimental expectations of the future.

t>. The opinion that the millennium has

already gone by I regard as entirely adverse
to the sacred Scripture, and I think I have
easily proven it, in my work on Chiliasm.
We may, in truth, apply what the prophets
have said in regard to Israel's future, to the
Christian church of the present time, for ail
believers are, indeed,

"the people of god."
But, on the other hand, we must never for-
get that the fulfillment of the Old Testament
promises, as this lies before us, now, in the
Christian church, is only spiritual and pre-
liminary to a greater fulfillment yet future,
embracing Israel's inheritance. That perfect
fulfillment, lor tbis world's history, will
come only with the coming of Christ To
acquire a complete picture of the future,
promised in prophecy, we must combine the
first and second comings of Jesus. The
millennial age, which commences with
the yet future "ADOcalypse of Jesus
Christ," closes with the last judgment of the
world, and with the creation of a "new
heaven and a new earth," into which the re-
deemed will pass over, and find their eternal
home.

Accept so much, my dear brother, in re-
sponse to your welcome communication. I
Bhall rejoice if, in any way, to 3'ou, or your
dear brethren, these few words shall be of
any service. May the Holy Spirit guide your
deliberations! Let us remain united in the
prayer, "Come, Lord Ji.sus!" and, mean-
while, work, yea labor, for Him with all our
might as long as He lets us live. With a
brotherly greeting, yours, ever, in Christ,
Volck, Professor.

University of Dorpat. Russia, Oct. 14, 1886.

FROM PR- FRANZ DELITZSCH.

My Dear Brother in Christ: * * * We
are agreed in this, that the temporal history
of the world closes with a time of complete
victory and glory for the church. The
prophets can not be understood apart from
this supposition. It is true, as you intimate,
that the prophetic word of the Old Testa-
ment does not separate the "Here'' from the
"Beyond," "Time" from "Eternity," and
that to acquire a Christian hope a spiritual
transformation is needed. But, on tbe other
hand, there are predictions of the "Last
Things," for example, of the return of Israel
to their fatherland, as also of their rehabili-
tation, and of the future blesseduess and
peace of that land, whose spiritual inter-
pretation would be a distortion (Verdrehunp)
of their original meaning, a flat negation ol
what is said. If we admit that the gospel
will finally subdue the hearts of men, and
that even the Jewish stony heart will nieib,
then we admit, thereby, that history will
run out into a relative victory of the good
over the evil. I say relative, for the ultimate

138

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

separation only comes as the consequence of
the final judgment of the world.

The New Testament Apocalpse represents
the '"Eschata" in their tuture successive
temporal order and relations. It is, in this
respect, the key to the •

ENTIRE PROPHETIC WORD;

for example, in the beautiful prediction (Isa.
xxiv.-xxvii.) "libelluB apocalypticus." which
lifts itself up even to the destruction of
death through victory. The triumph and
the glory of that time form the millennial
age. 1 believe in the literal reality of this
apocalyptic picture without pressing slav-
ishly the letter. (See 1 Cor. xiii. 12. ) 1 am,
therefore, a Chiliast. but the "Damnamus"
in the seventeenth article of the Augustana
does not Hit me!

According to Apoc. xix. 11. etc., the par-
ousia ot our Lord precedes the millennium
(xx. 1-6). He comes and destroys the Anti-
christ (Apoc, xix 19-20; xiii. 1-6-7; 2 Thess.
ii. 8; Isa. xi. 4). Then Satan is bouna and a
Sabbath-time, a "Sabbatismos" (Heb. iv. 9),
begins which is the prelude to a blest eter-
nity. But even this blessed time of peace is
Interrupted and declines. Once again the
power of the wicKed one rages against the
Kingdom of Christ on earth, and now, finally,
all temporal history closes with the- judg-
ment of fire upon Gog, and with the general
resurrection. At this point the Apocalypse
says nothing of the parousia of the .Lord, but
we know that the final advent of the Lord,
as judge of the world, connects itself with
what we read in Apoc. xx 9-15.

You refer me to Apoc. xx. 4-6.

IT MUST BE CONFESSEP

that upon a comparison of this passage with
the words in Isa xxiv. 23, "The -Lord of
hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jeru-
salem, and in presence of His ancient ones
shall be glory;" and also with Isa. xi. 10, "It
shall come to pass, in that day, that the root
of Jesse, which standeth firm for an ensign
of the peoples, even unto him shall the
nations seek, and glory shall be his resting
place" — it is presupposed that the Lord will
descend from heaven and show Himselt in
"glory," and that he will wield His sceptre
over the earth, as declared in Psal. ex 2-3,
(and where else, than in the holy city?) and,
according to the Apocalypse, be surrounded
by the risen martyrs of the Antichristian
time of persecution, whom He ihas counted
worthy of a part in the "first
resurrection," (Rev. xx. 5, Isa. xxvi. 19), and
who sit with Him as His assessors; while, on
the other hand, the "rest of the dead ones
live not again until the thousand years are
finished." (Apoc. xx. 6; compare Isa.
xxvi. 14).
It does, indeed, seem so. But Is it con-

ceivable that the glorified Lord will per
manently dwell upon the old unglorified
earth? Is it conceivable that the Risen One
will continuously associate Himself with
men who still have "flesh and blood." which
"can not inherit

THE KINGPOM OP GOD?"

Bengel could not conceive of that, and as
little could Jacob Bohm, the Teutonicus
Pbilosopbus, whose tendency was realisuc
and whose mind was also given to mvstery.
I nave always preferred the exegesis of Ben-
gel, according to which (Apoc. xx 4) "they
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand
years," indicates a reigning of ascended
risen saints who rule, with Christ, from
heaven. The view that our Savior will set
His throne in the Jerusalem of the old un-
glorified earth, and rule from there. Beems
to me a crass Chiliasm. And, although 1 am
a friend of Israel, yet ChriBC, exalted to the
right hand of God, i« to me so much a super-
natural son of man that I believe in no re-
production of the Old Testament eartnly
national theocracy.

Perhaps, dear brother, you may receive
but little or no advantage from these lines,
sketched by one who is already overbur-
dened. Yet, it you will con-
tinue to ask of me I am
ready to answer, although it may
be not entirely as you might desire. For,
we know in part, and prophesy in part, but
when that whicli is perfect is come, that
which is in part shall be done away. "For
now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then,
face to face. Now. I know in part, but then
shall I Know even as also I have been
known," (L Cor. xiii. 9-10-12. ITathfully
Yours. Franz Delitzsch.
University of Leipzig, Germany. Oct. 10, 1886.

The following notes were appended to Pro-
fessor Delitzsch's letter:

[Note A — The seventeenth article of
the Augustana — i. e., of the Augsburg Con-
fession— is, "Damnamus et alios, qui nunc
spargunt Judaicas opiniones, viz., quod, ante
resurrectionem mortuorum, pii regnum
mundi occupaturi sint, ubique oppressis
impiis," i. e. . "We condemn others, also, who
are now spreading abroad Jewisn notnons, to
wit, that, prior to the resurrection of the
dead, the righteous shall possess the king-
dom, the wicKed being everywhere put
underfoot." Of course, this "Damnamus1'
does "not hit" the gifted author at Leipzig,
nor any premillennarian.anywhere.Lutheran
or Reformed. The "Damnamus" is a dear
blow at post-millennialism of every kind, be
it coarse or fine, be it Jewish or Whitbyan.
Melanchthon, in "Yariatio," tells us it was
levelled at the Anabaptists and Munster
men, who believed that, by revolutionary

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

139

means, the kingdom sijouid be sec up in this
present age, i. e., "before the resurrection."
It strikes also the later "Fifth Monarchy
men," in Cromwell's time. It "hits" every
theory that makes

THE PBOMISED KINGDOM

of glory, on earth, come "before"
the coming |of Christ, at which time the
"resurrection from the dead" occurs. Says Dr.
Koch: "Even the finer form of false Chiliasm,
according to which church action is gradu-
ally and {peacefully to sanctify and trans-
form the world into the glorious kingdom of
God 'before' the ^second coming of Christ is
condemned, not only by the Augustana, but
by the Apocalypse and the whole word of
God. According to the Apocalypse and our
.Lord's Olivet discourse, wickedness and law-
lessness do not decline in the course of his-
tory, but rather ascend to their fearful Anti-
christian height, while on the other hand the
church is tried and purified." Lange as
pointedly says: "The Ausrustana negatives
the assumption of a millennium before the
parousia." Richter adds: "There is not a
syllable in it against a true, but only against
a false Chiliasm." Steffann, in his book,
"Das Ende," avers: "Not those who
reject a millennial kingdom, but we who
teach it as coining after tne resurrection,
stand noon the Augsburg confession." "What
that article condemns," says Rlnck, "was a
demonic caricature of the hope of the oldest
of the church lathers." "With deep insight,"
says Eoraid, "the reformers saw through the
fundamental falsehood of the false Chili-
asm, which held a millennium could come

BEFOKE THE BESUBBECTION."

A careful study of the reformed symbols and
of the Westminster standards of faith in the
light of history, will show tttat all these
creeds struck at the false Chiliasm only to
protect the true. — N. W.]

Note B— The view of Dr. Delitysch is that
of Auberlen, viz. that the Risen Bride is re-
tired into the seclusion of heaven, and from
there rules, with Christ, over the earth dur-
ing the millennial age. It was Bengel's,
indeed, but based by him upon the doctrine
of a double millennium, or two millennia,
which, by reason of the absence of the
article in Apoc. XX 2. he thought
he saw In John's description: (1) the
first millennium being that of the
imprisonment of Satan, reaching from the
overthrow of Antichrist to the destruction of
Gog; (2) the second millennium being that of
the reign of tho risen martyrs in heaven,
reaching from the unchaining of Satan to
the general resurrection. But, for this doubles
millennium Delitzscu assures us properly
there is "no Scripture proof." (Eibi — piopih —
Theoiogie p 137). The venerable and be-

loved author of the above letter will agree
with us, moreover that, so far as conceiv-
ability is 'concerned, the difficulty of con-
ceiving "how" a thintr can be, though a
hindrance to understanding: and a barrier to
faith In some respects, is no bar to the fact
itself, for mystery meets us everywhere.
(John iii. 4, 9. iv. 9. vi. 42-52; I Cor. xv. 35).
"How can these things be?" "How are the
dead raised, and with what body do they
come?" Theurer has most aptly said, "It is
not always true that what is most con-
ceivable is most probable. The fulfillment
alone will bring us the surprising solution"

EKBAID FINDS NO DIFFICULTY

Here, but Holds that "just as, after his resur-
rection, the risen Lord remained forty days
on the earth, the Glorified one among the un-
glonfied, so shall the church, triumphant,
rule over the earth throughout the long
period designated by the mystic number, the
thousand years." He supports this by refer-
ence to the visit of Moses and Elias on the
mount, and the many who rose at the first
coming of Christ ana went into the Holy
City and appeared to many." (Luke ix. 28-
31. Matt, xxvii. 52-53). And hiichter has
said, "The risen saints are not to be secluded
in heaven and hid in God, but openly
apocalypsed at the manifestation of
the sons of God, in their glory, when eartb
begins to put ou her pristine beauty for then
heaven is on earth, and earth has become
heaven. As certainly as Christ, the Risen
one, was among the not giorified during
forty days, so certainly shall the many who
are risen with Him be, liko Him, among
those not raised. Jerusalem shall again be
the central seat and city of the kingdom of
Christ during the thousand years, as so otten
promised in the Old Testament. The Apoca-
lypse presupposes the prophecies of the Old
Testament concerning the glory of Israel
and Jerusalem in the last time."

There is another view, as to the habitat of
the bride, in her glory, viz. : that during the
one thousand years Christ and His glorified
ohurcn will dwell in the high pavillion-
cloud, the Shekinah-glory in the heavens
shining over Jerusalem below, as Isaiah is
thought to intimate (Isa. iv. 3-6); Christ and
His bride descending to earth, first of all, at
the close of this period, on the new heaven
and earth, described by John (Rev. xxi. 1-2).
This view has a number of advocates.

THE THXBD VIEW IS

that the habitat of the bride, or risen saints,
is on the old earth, but glorified or transfig-
ured in part, as was the Mount of Transfig-
uration, by means of the glory of Christ.
Ann yet more, there will be a physical trans-
figuration of Jerusalem and the Holy Land,
both becoming as Eden. Jerusalem will be

140

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

enlarged, broadened, and adorned, as Isaiah
and Ezekiel depict it, and Justin and lren-
aeus both held. Luthardt informs us that
this view has the suffrages of the preponder-
ating number of special investlgatora
Kiiefoth and Keil would, identify the millen-
ium and the new heaven and earth, but this
involves us in self-contradictions, and con-
tradictions of Scripture as great as doe3 the
view of Ausrustine, or of Hengstenberg. or
the Preterists, or Whitby, who regard the
miilenium as past, or present now, or
yet to come before the resurrection.
Against all such preadvent miilennialism,
that of Whitley, Brown, Glagow, and others,
the "Damnamus" of the Augustaua is lev-
eled as are, impliedly, all the reformed sym-
bols.

With the protest of Dr. Delitzsch against a
reproduction of the Jewish Old Testament,
earthly and national theocracy, we all most
cordially sympathize. But the difficulty felt
bv Dr. Delitzsch seems to rest upon the as-
sumption of the unglonfied condition of the
whole earth during the 1,000 years. It is
true that the "new heaven and earth'' (Rev.
xxi. 1) come

ONLY AFTEB THE JUDGMENT

by fire on Gog, which itself follows the mil-
lennium. But it is equally true that Isaiah
perspectively covers tlie whole millennial
age, and the New Jerusalem state, by this
one designation, "new heavens and earth,"
(lxv. 17). It Is the manner of the prophets
to first strike the ultimate end, in a general
expression covering the nearer end, and
then, coming bapk to a point this side of it,
travel up to that end, and vice versa (Isa. xl.
1-11, xi. 1-16). We see this especially m tlie
Apocalypse. And it is no less true that Paul
and Peter both assure us that a cosmical re-
generation becrins at the eecond coming of
Christ (Rom, viii. 21; IL Pet liL 13. If we
take the "conflagration" as the analogue of
the "deluge," as Peter, building on Isaiah
does (IL Peter iii. 4-7), all is clear. This
would remove the difficulty felt by Bengel,
and others of nis school, and
to whicb Dr. Delitzsch alludes, as
to the Habitat of the bride. Dusterdiech, re-
ferring to this, says: "Correctly do the Chil-
iasts interpret Apoaxx., 1-6, when they reject
the fond and favorite 'recapitulation theory'
and allow tne 1,000 years' kingdom to re-
main in the piace where it is found in the
apocalyptic picture of the whole end, as Jus-
tin and Irenaeus did. Both these [fathers
take the 1,000 years in their literal sense.
And more correctly do they interpret than
Auberlen who, from the assumption that the
not yet glorified earth can not be the abodo
of the glorified church, concludes that be-

lievers who como forth with Christ from
their invisibilitv in heaven shall be

CLOTHED WITH GLOBIFIED BODIES

and then return with Christ to heaven, from
there to rule over the earth; thus disregard-
ing the contradiction of this view in Apoc.
xx., 9,# And more correctly have the old
Chiliasts viewed the chronological matter of
the 1.000 years than Bengel, who thought
he discovered two perioas of 1,000 years
each, the one beginning with the destruction
of the beast and binding of Satan, the other
with the letting loose of Satan and ending
with the end of the world."

It is true, indeed — and we feel it bo — that
we "prophesy in part" and "know in part"
now, and much of the future lies in shadow.
An inspired apostle could say this. And
where God has not spoken man may not
speculate. Our intellectual mirror is not
brighter than the gospel, or prophetic
"glass," into which we look even
now, as into a "riddle," en ainigmati
(I. Cor. xiii. 12). But yet some

splendors 'of the coming age are shimmering
there, like some bright sea of glory in the
distance; some grand outlines of "the glory
ready to be apoclypsed in the last time." (L
Peter i. 5). Von Hof mann,

THAT EPOCH-MAKING SOHOLAB,

has clearly shown that Canaan, after which,
made heavenly, the patriarchs sighed, will
be physically transfigured at the coming of
Christ, and Koch has triumphantly defended
Hof mann's exegosis agamst Keil's great effort
to disparage it, as also against Strobel's later
strictures. It is bound up with our Lord's
answer to the Sadduoees, out of Moses, in
proof or a literal resurrection of the dead,
and has the closest connection with the
promise of "the land" to Abraham himself
and to his seed forever. (Exod. iii. 2, 6, 8;
vi. 4, 8. Acts vii. 5. Matt xxii. 23-33. )i
Lange insists upon "a gradual cos-
mical process of regeneration" be-
ginning at the advent, when the
glorifying spirit of God passes over, in His
energy, at the resurrection, from the spirit-
ual to the material side of the Kingdom on
earth, a process whose completion is
crowned by the last mundane catastrophe,
and issues in the "new heaven and earth,"
at the close of the 1000 years. Christlieb
calls it "a grand and gradual progressive
process of the world's renewal! ultimating
in the new heaven and earth, it being God's
will that His glory should dwell in the whole
creation." Professor Yolck, like Hof mann,
Koch, and many others, rejects Keil's view,
and teaches "a glorification of Palestine be-
fore the final judgment, the prelude of a
future perfect transfiguration of the whole

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

141

earth." "The earth, not. heaven," says Lut-
hardt, "is the abode of

THE GLORIFIED CHUECH.

There shall not be one part of the church,
the gentile part, glorified in heaven, and
another part, the Jewish part, glorified on
earth. The church shall be one, with the
Lord, returned to earth, and in her midst,
as the sun and temple in the new Jerusalem.
They who suffer with Christ here, shall reign
with Him, upon the scene of their sufferings.
The distinction still obtains between the
glorified church gathered around her Lord,
in her glorified place on earth, ana the outer
unglorified humanity still liable to sin and
death, yet freed from Satanic dominion, and
subject to the dominion of Christ
and His church. Before her the
nations shall bow in obedient recog-
nition of the authority of Christ, during tne
millennial age; one of the great world -aeons
which j belong to the kingdom of God." In
like manner, Rothe says, "The apostles
describe the coming kingdom on earth as a
Sabbatism, a glorious rest for the people of
God. James calls it a Easileia God has
promised to the poor, rich in faith. Paul
loves to picture it as "a reignmg together
with Christ" in the resurrection. The Apoca-
lypse exhibits co-regency as the chief
element of blessedness in the Cniliastic king-
dom. The redeemed reign with Christ on
His throne, have power over the nations,
and participate in judgment of the enemies
of their Lord."
The support this view has received

FBOM SO MANY PBINCELT SCHOLABS

will justify, without trespass, in a theme so
full of interest, a few words more from its
defenders. That incisive exegete, Professor
Schmid, of Tubingen, says "The judgment at
the second coming of Christ must oe distin-
guished from the one at the close of the
1,000 years. By means of the former, the
"regeneration," (Matt. xix. 28), is brought
about, which coincides with the commence-
ment of the coming age, and the "redemp-
tion" of the creature in the sense of Rom,
viii. 18-23, and the "restitution," Acts iii.
19-21, and "resurrection" unto life, the
righteous shining in the kingdom, (Luke,
xiv. 14, Matt. xiii. 43, Dan. xii. 1-3, L Cor. xv.
40-57)." Stockmayer holds the same
view, and, tenderly as beautifully says,
"To see Jesus and behold His face — face to
face — is the longing of all believing soula A
day is coming when this longing shall be
stilled, in a way surpassing all human
thought, the day of the wedding of the
Lamb in glory, the ceremonial day of the
Bridegroom with His loved and loving bride.
Tho attainment of this end has for its pre-
supposition the glorification of the bride

through her resurrection and the transfigur-
ation of the living saints. But the Lord
comes, not onlv as a Bridegroom, but as a
Warrior— King, the King of Kings— to over-
throw the whole anti-Christian power of the
world, and

ESTABLISH HIS VISIBLE KINGDOM

on the earth, in which the risen saints shall
reigu with Him, 1,000 years, as priests of
God and of Christ." Orelli, who has written
so well on Messianic prophecy, has argued
conclusively— as also Kuenen, who saw the
matter, did— that Ezekiel's last eight chap-
ters can not refer to the restoration of Israel
from Babylonish captivity, nor to our pres-
ent church-historical period, nor to the eter-
nal state, but to a period intervening De-
tween the church-historical and the ultimate
goal. And Eofmann holds that Jerusalem, the
"Beloved City," Jerusalem made glo-
rious at the coming of Christ, and
increasingly glorified, passes over into the
new heaven and earth at the close of the
one ^thousand years. Still further,

Volck has ably shown that this intervening
age, described so gloriously by Ezekiel, cor-
responds to the one thousand years in the
Apocalypse of John, and identical with the
"multitude of days" in lsa. xxiv. 21-23, and
the "many days" in Ezek. xxxviii. 8, bounded
by precisely the same events, viz., the judg-
ment on the Antichnstian and Satanic pow-
ers at the beginning, and the judgment on
Gog at the end, Israel's glory iying between.
He says: "Ezekiel's prophecy differs from
pre-exile prophecy in this, that while the
glance of the latter reaches, as in lsa lxv. 17,
to the nearest impending catastrophe behind
which the glory centers, Ezekiel's glance
not only reaches as far, but overshoots that
entrance and stretches to a greater catastro-
phe

AND A KICHEB GL0BY

still more distant; so that what in pre-exile
prophecy appear as the end of the world-
course, appears in Ezekiel as the beginning
of a new and final age. Ezekiel's prophecy
throws great,light ou|the partial obscurity in
Isaiah's prediction (lsa lxv. 17, etc.), in so
far as that oracle does not clearly show us
the mode of transition from one phase of the
complex end to the other, in the distant per-
spective, the mode of transition from the
millennial age and Israel's glory, to the final
and entire new heaven and earth, or the
New Jerusalem in eternal glory. For since
the judgment on Gog comes "after" Israel's
re-establishment (Ezuk xxxvii. 1-28),
and "many days after" the judg-
ment on the Dations which pre-
cedes that establishment (Ezek xxxviii.
i. 8), and so, lies on the other
side of the world's course to which Israel be-

142

THE PROPHETIC CONEEBENCE.

longs, we are obliged to recogniza ihe judg-
men on Gog as the mode of transition from
the millennial age to the final new heaven
and earth. That is the end of the Jlav
Tamim of Isa. xxiv. 30. And just as Ezekiel's
Apocalypse was a further development of all
pre-exile prophecy, so John's Apocalypse is a
further and final development of all Old and
New Testament prophecy preceding. It
separates the ages and the ends by a clear
and

INDUBITABLE MOHI.

(Apoc. xx, 1-15). Keil's and Kliefoth'a
identification of these two different ages
cannot be maintained, and we must hold to
the view of Hofmann and others, as above
stated. Heaven and earth are ever coming
nearer, and one day will unite, God "all in
all." Lister, Fellow of the Koyal Geological
Society of Great Britain, in his "Physico-
Prophetical Essays," has endeavored to show
the geological changes and convulsions that,
according to the prophets will occur at the
second coming of Christ, and make for the
transformation of the Holy Land What he
teaches is in perfect harmony with what the
venerable author of the above letter so
beautifully says on Psal. Jxviii, 16, viz, that
in the day of future glorification the material
will correspond to tne spiritual, the outer
reflect the inner, the phenomenal, the essen-
tial: "die Aussere dem Innern, die Erschein-
ung dem Wesen und Werthe, gleichl"

It will not be deemed out of place to say
here that the millennial state is only a transi-
tion state, not the highest manifestation of
the Spirit's energy and glory. So the early
church fathers conceived it. Even for the
risen saints an advancing splendor is re-
served They "shine," indeed, but their
glory, even then, is progressive. Bindemann
has called attention

TO THE PBOFOUND THOUGHT

of that great man, lien as us, who said that
they who are counted worthy to attain to
the resurrection of the just do not, at once,
even in their transfiguration, reach the ulti-
mate perfection of glory, or the eternal com-
pletion of their likeness to God, but gradu-
ally, by beholding the face of Jesus, though
already changed into his likeness, yet in-
crease more and more therein, as they gaze
and take on the splendor of His image. It is
a deep thoughtl It is a holy thought!
Is it not a true thought? — "qui
digni fueiint, paulutim assuescunt
capere Deum, * * * creB-

centes ex visione Domini I" Even the
righteous, ruisea from their graves, are un-
able, at once, to assume the overpowering
and insufferable splendor* of God!

The passages referring to the renovation
and transformation of the Holy Land are:

Joel iii. 16-21, ii. 18-21-27; Amos ix. 11-15;
Micah, iv. 1-4, vii. 11-20; Isa ii-2; xxiv. 19-
25, xxxiv. 4, xxxv. 1-10, xl. 4. lvii. 16, Hi.
1, liv. 11-17, lx. 1-22, ixii. 3-5, 11-12, lxv.
17-25, lxvi. 22; Ezeh. xxxvL 34-36, xL 2,
xlvii. 1, and the last 8 chapters; Jer. xxxi.
35-40; Zech. xiv. 4-11; Bom. via. 18-23; IL
Pet iii. 13; Heb. xi. 16, etc.

BISHOP W. R. NICHOLSON.

MESSIAH'S SINGLY GLOBX.

In the devotional exercises opening the
evening the Bev. Dr. J. S. Kennedy, of
Abingdon, Ya., led in prayer. The following
address was delivered by Bishop VV. B.
Nicholson, pastor of Immanuel Reformed
Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, his subject
being "Messiah's Kingly Glory."

Messiah is King. Of all creation He is
King, for He is the Eternal Son, the Logos of
God, God Of human hearts He is king, for
He is Jesus; that is to say, Jehovah the
Savior. Of all the interests of His mediator-
ship betwixt God and man He is king, for, in
view of His sin-expiating sufferings as
godman and His triumph in resurrection,
the Father gave to Him "all power in heaven
and in earth;" gave it to Him in the sense
(for it already belonged to Him as God) of
His using it for

ADMINISTEBING THE SALVATION

so meritoriously wrought out, and for
grounding the aesurance to His people. "JjO,
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world" So Messiah is King. Nevertheless,
in neither of these senses, nor in all of them
comlined, is he king as Messiah. Messiah
or Christ is a kingly title with a definite
sense, and used distinctively.

Let us define the Messiauio kinghood.

His sovereignty as God Messiah has al-
ways had; whereas his sovereignty as the
Messiah has ever been a subject of the
Father's promise and is still in the future.
His reigning in the hearts of His people and
His wielding: all power in heaven and
on earth in the interests of His church
are exerciBes now going on; whereas His
reigning as the Christ will have been intro-
duced only subsequently to certain events
that are yet to occur. Messiah, or Christ, is
God-king appointed to an earthly throne. He
will come to His kindom only in pursuance
of the fact that He became the Son of man
in a lineage of human royalty. Successor
He is to a man-predecessor. His throne He
will tase as man, though it be as God-man.
His Kingdom as the Christ is not that He iB
God, but that, being God, He reigns
in a man's position and a man's
surroundings. This makes the

Christship a most distinctive form of
kinghood. The Queen of England is also

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE

143

the Em press -Queen of India, but not that by
reason of this. Messiah, King on

HIS EARTHLY XHBONE,

is also 'King of the universe: but not by
reason of this. The Christ he could not be,
indeed, according as Christ is depicted in
the Scriptures, without being God Victoria
was long Queen oZ England before she was
Empress of India; on the contrary, the
Cdrist-klng is the Christ-king by reason of
being God as well as man. On the other
hand, God incarnate, the Savior, He
might have been without being Christ
the King. Deity, however, did mot so
will it. Son of God and Son of man, he is
also Son of David; this last-mensioned son-
snip being the focus, as it were, in which
concenter the other two. In this Davidic
sonship he takes the kingdom that has de-
scended to him, the earthly throne that he
has iuherited, reigning thereon in all essen-
tial attributes of our manhood, vet robed in
the majesty of hie Godhood This His Da-
vidic heirship will have been made available
by reason of His accomplished atonement
for the sins of men, and as a priest, as well
as a king. He will sit on the tnrone of His
glory. A theocracy, then, the kingdom
of the Christ will be; a divine-human mon-
archy, wherein, as well as the Savior and the
supreme object of worship, the world's su-
preme civil ruler He will be. Men shall see
the King in His beauty: evangelist divine,
society's rejenerator, creation's master,
"glorious in holiness, fearful in praises,

DOING WONDEES. "

This is King Messiah as the Scriptures por-
tray Him. And this is the gospel of the
kingdom, and, we may add, the kingdom of
the gospel. We have the gospel of
sin-expiation in the blood of Jesus, the
gospel of repentance and faith, of pardon
and personal acceptance, the gospel of the
believer being after death with Jesus. But,
precious beyond telling as all that is, it
cornea short of the gospel of the kingdom.
All that is essential to it, preparatory to it,
but not the whole of it. The gospel of the
kingdom is the good news of perfected sal-
vation actually attained at the time of the
kingdom; of justification by faith in the
blood that savetb, and sanctification, and
glorification, all completely applied; of the
glorified joint heirs with Christ to regal au-
thority and magnificence; of the human race,
as such, delivered from sin, renewed, made
holy to God, advanced; of earth, the
home of the race, purified, renovated, illum-
inated; the good news of all this to be
secured under a King, whose face and form,
feelings and actions are chose of a man,
whose love is uniailiner, and wisdom omnis-
cient, and power almighty, whose effulgence

fills the world, "The same yesterday, to-day,
and forever." This gospel of the kingdom is
the sum total of the word of God, and the
sum total of the gospel of the kingdom is
this

KINGDOM OF THE GOSPEL

The Messianic kinerhood, then, is but
another name for glory; spiritual, in-
tellectual, social, material, human,
divine glory. The kingdom of

this king will be mankind's one eternal hal-
lelujah to God and the Lamb.

But 1 must defend my definition of Mes-
siah's kingdom, else some will charge me
with dreaming. Is the Christ, the anointed
one, just as I have described him? "To the
law and to the testimony." Our time will
suffice for no more than a glance. Even so,
however, we may become assured of some
prominent proofs; just as the eye, in the
first flash of vision, may detect in a land-
scape, and make sure of, hills and valleys,
woods and waters, although it will have
passed unnoticed many features of the
scene.

A preliminary word as to the phraseology
of the subject. The natural universal sov-
ereignty of God is by no means ignored in
His word, but for by far the most part the
references are not to it The expressions so
often occurring, "the kingdom," "Thy king-
dom," "My kingdom," wnen not referring
to any then existing kingdom among men,
designate, in almost every instance, a king-
dom promised; and what kingdom
was ever promised but that of
the Christ? Again, "kingdom of heaven,"
"kingdom of God," especially the latter,
are of frequent occurrence; and these two
are one. Matthew saya that Jesus preached

"THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

is at hand" (iv, 17), while Mark saya he
preached "The kingdom ot God is at hand"
(.1, 15). Kingdom of heaven and Kinguom of
God, then, are one and the same kingdom;
one that was said to be "at hand'' — about to
appear, but not as yet come; and what king-
dom were the Jewisn people looking for but
that of the Christ? The three phrases,
"kingdom of heaven," "kingdom of God,"
"kingdom of Christ," are one. Moreover,
when Jesus said, before Pilate (John, xviii,
3G), "I am a King," he added, "To this
end was 1 born, and to this end came
I into the world, that I might Dear witness
to the truth." He came, then, to proclaim
his own kingdom. And yet, as we have seen,
it was the kingdom of God he preached
"I must preach the kingdom of God," he
said, "for therefore am I sent" (Luke iv. 43).
He was sent to preach the kingdom of God,
while yet he preached hia own kingkom. The
kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. the

144

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

kingdom of Christ . all three are one. This
consideration will help us forward in our ar-
gument.

Now. how do the Scriptures set forth the
kingdom of the Christ? The Spirit of
God in Isaiah said that a child should be
born whose name should be The Mighty God.
and yet that He should have His govern-
ment on

THE THRONE OF DAVID,

to establish the kingdom of David with judg-
ment and justice even for ever (viiii. 6-7.).
Weigh the words well. Messiah should sit
on the throne of David, and the indentical
kingdom of David is the one he should
establish forever. How exoress, how
definite. Equally express is the spirit in
Jeremiah Nay, that prophet in one place
(Jer. xxx. 9), goes even so far as to give to
Messiah, with reference to the time
of his actually reigning, the very name,
"David, their king;" precisely as
successive Roman emperors were called
Caesar. Accordingly, in the annunciation to
Mary, after saying to ner that her son should
be called Jesus, and also the Son of the
Highest, Gabriel said: "The Lord God shall
giue unto Him the throne of His father,
David, and He shall reign over the house of
Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there
shall be no end," (Luke i. 32-33). Seven
centuries had passed since Isaiah had uttered
his sublime oracle; but this idea, so
definitely stated, of Messiah's succcs-
sorship to David m the kingdom of
Israel was # spanning the centuries, as
with the rainbow's beauty and distinctive-
ness, and was the foremost thought of the
angelic messenger from heaven. Indeed it
is the favorite thought of heaven; for the
message out of the opened heavens to the
shepherds was this: "To you is born this
day in the city of David a Savior. Christ tho
Lord." Thus, on

THE NIGHT OF HIS BIRTH,

and out of the sky, emphasis was given to
His Davidic royalty, and then the angels
sang, "Glory to God in the Highest"

These are but specimen passages from the
word of God. Could you, with your
most skilful pen, put in more
positive language that which they
state? That tne Christ, although "the
mighty God," "the Son of the Highest,"
should succeed to David's throne precisely
as a son succeeds to his father; that he
should succeed to it as being so identically
David's throne, that He would have as the
inherited subjects of His kingdom "the house
of Jacob," or, as elsewhere expressed. Judah
and Israel — the self-same people whom David
ruled; tnat, therefore. He should be a visible
king reigning on earth; this is what these

Scriptures so plainly declare. Their
grammatical sense, by universal con-
cession, points in but one direction. Yes,
but. after all, may they not be figurative?
The throne of David — may it not stand for
Christ's reign in the heart, or in the church,
or in the third heaven? If so, how is it in-
dicated? If the Holy Spirit had meant His
words to be taken according to their normal
sense, how more effectively might Ho have
secured His purpose? Do you object that it
strikes you as incongruous that the Son of
God should be a visible king on earth? So
Celsus, the infidel philosopher of

THE SECONDCENTURX,

thought it a shocking thing that the Son
of God should be born of a woman. So
the modern infidel scouts the truth that
Jesus was virgin-born. Did not the prophe-
sies of the first coming of the Christ realize
in fulfillment their normal meaning? But is
any ono of the prophesies of the coming
kingdom so improbable in itself as was that
of the virgin-mothernood of Mary? And the
idea of inheriting — of what is it a figure? If
the Christ get'not from David what David
had — an eartbly throne — does He get from
David what David never had — uhe reigning
in the Human heart, or the headship over all
things to the church, or the seat of power
in the third heaven?

But consider thia The Jews, including
tne Lord's disciples, did believe that Messiah
should succeed to the veritable kingdom of
David, and be a visible King on an earthly
throne. All the world admits it. Now Jesus
commissioned 'His disciples to preach the
Kingdom of God (ljUKe ix. 2) without even
saying a word to set them right in their
understanding of the kingdom. He never
told them to preach something different
from wnat had already been their belief.
This alone, if there were notning more to be
said, proves the unfigurativeness of the
prophecies

WE ARE CONSIDERING.

Furthermore,over and over it is declared that
the saints shall share with Christ in the rul-
ing power of His kingdom. They shall sit
with Me, says Jesus, on My throne (Rev. iii.
21). If they, mere men, shall occudv the
Messianic throne, then is it a human throne
— verily David's own.

Besides, in view of the overthrow of
David's kingdom, God said that He would
build it again. "In that day will I raise up
the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and
close up the breaches thereof; and I will
raise up his ruins, and I will build it
as in the days of old" (Amos
ix. 11). The very thing that had
fallen, will He raise up. Yea, He will build
it again "as in the days of old." Here ther»

Rt. Rev. W. R. NICHOLSON, D. D.,

BISHOP KEF. EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

145

is no possibility of a figure. And for what
will He build up that fallen kingdom but for
a King in the Davidic lineage? Accordingly
Isaiah eaith, "The Lord will have mercy on
Ja«:ob, and will yet choose Israel, and set
them in their own land," (xiv, 1), and Amos
Faith, "They shall no more be pulled up out
of their land" (ix, 15). Without the restora-
tion of that people the kingdom of David
could not possibly re-appear. And what do
we see? Here to-aay are the Jews iu peren-
nial preservation; a people rooted up
out of their land, scattered throughout
the nations for long- ages, without a govern-
ment.

WITHOUT A COUNTRY,

peeled and slaughtered, the hundredth part
of whose sufferings had sufficed to obliterate
any otherpeople from the face of the earth,
yet kept by the power of God, the standing
miracle of the age?. And for what? Is not
God's providence harmonizing; with God's
prophecy? Although they have Deen a most
rebellious people, yet will He not break His
covenant with them (Lev. xxvi. 44). I will
not cast off Israel for all that they
nave aone, saith the Lord, for as
surely as the nun shines, and the
moon and the stars give light
by night, the seed of Israel shall not cease
from being a nation before me forever (Jer.
xxxi. 35-37(. Thus the rehabilitation of
Davia's own identical Kingdom will be a
fact, and Messiah will be its king.

If now we would gain for this truth a re-
dundancy of confirmation, let us glance at
the famous covenant of God with David, of
which we read so much; the fountain head
of the Davidic royalty of the Christ. It Is
contained in the seventh chapter of Second
Samuel and the seventeenth of First
Chronicloa The prophet Nathan, was
sent to David to say, "The Lord telleth
thee that He will make thee a house. I will
set up tby seed after thee, which shall pro-
ceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish
His kingdom and the throne of His Kingdom
forever. I will be

HIS FATHER,

and He shall be my Son. And thine house
and thy kingdom shall be establisned for-
ever." You will notice that God said to
David, Thv bou«e, tny kingdom; ana that it
shoiilk he perpetuated by transmission from
himself; that Disown seed, that should come
out of his bowels, should succeed to the
Kingdom. Now that seed is Messiah.
The apostle in the Hebrews quotes
from this covenant, and applies it to Christ
(l 51. Peter, in the Acts, does the same, and
says it means that Christ should sit on Da-
vid's throne (li. 30). And so did David Him-
self respond to the communication. "O

Lord God," he said (I read in Bishop riore-
ley's translation). "0 Lord Goa. Thou hast
spoken of Thy servant's house for a great
while to come, and nast regarded me in the
arrangement about the Alan that is to be
from above, O Goo Jehovah." Or, as
some translate, -'the Aaam from above,
God Jehovah" Certain it is that tne
future personage of the covenant with
David Is Messian. So the Apostles under-
stood It. So David understood it.

One sentence, indeed, as it stands in our
English version, has involved this covenant
in confusion. "If He (David's seed) commit
iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of
men." How can the Messiah be regarded as

COMMITTING INIQUITY?

Bishop Horsiey gives it thus; "When guilt is
laid upon him, I will chasten him with the
rod of men." Dr. Adam Clarke reads it: "In
hie sufferings for iniquity, 1 will chasten,"
etc. Here, then, is the doctrine of the
atonement: Chastened with the rod due
to men because of guilt laid upon
nim. The application to Messiah is perfect.
Tne subject matter of this covenant is the
perpetuity of tne kingdom of David; of the
self-same kingdom that was in existence at
the time the covenant was made. And yet
the subject-matter of it is the perpetuity or
the kingdom of the Christ. And further, the
subject matter of it is the perpetuity of the
kinf doin of God the Father; for a part of the
covenant is in these words of the Father: "I
will settle nim (the Messiah) in Mine hou-e
and- in My kingdom forever" (L Chr. xvii.
14). The kingdom of David, the
kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of
God is one and the same kingdom. And
this kingdom is to be forever perpetuated
by transmission from David; but not by an
endless process of transmission, for the
succession is to terminate in the Christ as
being a successor never failing. "Once
have I sworn by my holiness," says God, re-
ferring to this covenant, "that 1 will not lie
to David. His seed shall endure forever,
and nis throne as the sun before Me"
(Ps. ixxxix. 35-IJ6). Is it possible to

CONSIDER THE COVENANT

with David and doubt that tbi
same royal house that God founded
in his person is to reappear and be con
tinued in the person of the Savior of th»
world? We do Know that Messiah is iJrinc»
of the House of David, and that His dis-
tinctive kinghood is the outcome of David'*
Kingnood.

Wnere, then, is this kingdom? It is not
yet It will be Inaugurated at Christ's
second coining. For while, in His earlier
ministiy, the l^ord Jesus offered to the Jew-

146

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

ish people the kingdom of heaven as nigh at
hand, yet, at a later date, and De-
cause of their rejecting Him, His preach-
ing of the kingdom underwent a
remarkable change. It was no

longer nigh at hand; it had been
postponed; then It was that,

because the people thought the kingdom of
God should immediately appear, he told
them of the nobleman's going into a far
country to receive a kingdom for himself,
self and to return (Luke xvix, 11) To this
fact of the postponement he recurred again
and again. And yet aid he not say: "The
kingdom of God cometh not with observa-
tion, for, behold, the kingdom of Goa is
within you?" (Luke xa, 20-21.) "Within
you," however, is not to be taken in the
sense of piety, for then the expression
would not have suited the Pharisees, to whom
he said it The kingdom cometh not bo as
to be observed in its approach. They
shall not say, Lo here! or Lo there! for,
behold at once

TBE KINGDOM

is among you So suddenly shall its splen-
dors break upon the world, even as a thief
In the night Again, He said to the Phari-
seea "If I cast out devils by the spirit of
God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto
you" (Matt xii., 28V The word for "come,"
however, is not the word usually so trans-
lated, but means reaching toward, and is ex-
plained by what he instructed the seventy,
whom he sent before him. to say to the same
Pharisees, t&at. notwithstanding their re-
jection of the message sent them, they
might be sure that the kingdom of
God is come nigh to them Luke x. 9-11) He
said, also, "The kingdom of Heaven is like a
sower," "like a grain of mustard seed," "like
leaven," etc., and is understood by many to
mean that the Kingdom ,of heaven is present
in this dispensation. On the contrary, those
parables have to do with the qualifications
for the kingdom, teaching certain truths
pertaining to it, illustrating them by the
whole series of circumstances detailed in
each parable. As, in that of the sower, for
instance, the truth that such alone will be
ready to enter the kingdom who so receive
the word of God as to bring forth the
fruit thereof, and the truth that a large
number of those to whom the gospel is
preached, not so receiving it, shall not enter
the Kingdom. It is not the

PEESENCE OF THE KINGDOM

that is taught, but our present duties with
reference to it Still, has not Paul positively
said of all converted persons, that "the
Father did translate them into the kinsrdora
of the Son of His love" (Col. i. 13)? fes, but
juat as positively he has said, that "whom

God justified He also glorified" (Rom. viii.
30). Now has every justified believer been
already glorified? We see that the vivid
present is substituted for the future. No»
the kingdom of God is not now. "When the
Son of man," said Jesus, "shall come in His
glory, and all the holy angels with Him,
then shall He sit on the throne of His glory"
(Matt xxv. 31). Then, and not till then;
for the nobleman did not begin to exercise
his functions as King till after his return
fromthe far country, but did exercise them
instantly at his return.

The present time, tnen, is an interreg-
num in the Kingdom. Certain writers have
sought to identify the Davidic throne
with that of England But, besides many
other proofs of the falsity of that notion, tne
truth that the recovery of the down-fallen
throne is inseparably united to the future
coming of the Christ is demonstration
enough. But the fact of the interregnum —
will it not make against the Davidic same-
ness of the kingdom at the coming of the
King? No more than the intervening of

CEOM WELL'S PBOTSCTOBATE

between the First and Second Charles of
England invalidated the succession of the
Second to the First Still, this weary
interval of so many centuries — is faith
able to leap the cnasm and seize the
future? See ! So much as a thousand years
rolled away after the covenant with David
before any part of it relating to the recovery
of the ruined throne hao come to pass; but
there did come to pass the most important
part of it, and Dy tar the most incredible.
The man from aDove — the Adam, God Jeho-
vah—did actually appear. A virgin did con-
ceive, and bear a son A child, a wonarouB
child! Gethsemane, Calvary, r esurrection, the
nobleman gone for nis Kingdom! Thig
the fulfillment in part already historical
is the acorn centaining the oak. He will
come. Prom the Mount of Olives He went
away, and on the Mount of Olives, saith
Zechanah, His feet shall stand in that day.
Our faith does jump this weary Interval, and
sees the same Jesus that was taken up into
heaven coming in like manner as He went
into heaven (Ac. i., 11.)

And so a theocracy will the Davidic King-
dom be at the .bora's coming. In fact, the
theocracy was instituted at Sinai, and with
it the kingdom of David was subsequently
identified. The Lord God of Israel had His
royal palace, and in It His divine glory, and
also, emblematically.

ALL APARTMENTS

complete of His domestication among tnem.
Nothing was to be done, no laws made, no
enterprises undertaKen, without tne autnor-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

147

lty of tiie resident King. And, correspond-
ency to the sisrnet ring: of royalty among
men. He made known His will in the flashing
of Oi'im and Tnummim on the L>reast> of the
High Priest, the minister of State. Now, of
the very house and Kingdom emphasized as
David's God said, my House, my kingdom,
ll Chr. xvii 14); tnus grounding the King-
dom of David upon a theocratic basis, it is
this theocratic character of the kingdom
that justifies the Godman's inheriting
of it; as inheriting the royalty of
David, He also inherits Che theocracy whereon
it stood. But in Hini the theocratic charac-
ter will have to take a more perfect form.
He. and not the Son of Jesse, will be the
Tneocrat under the Father: ana, therefore,
while, as occupying David's throne,He will be
as human, and as visible as was David, yet
will He wield its power with the very hand
of God. God in human form, on his earthly
throne, and as well mankind's oivii
as religious ruler, "He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people, and God Him-
self shall be with tnem, and be their God"
(tie v. xxi. 3).

Will any one meet the idea of this sublime
consummation with the words carnal,

OF THE EAETH, EABTHY?

What, can not God decide whether or no a
thing is carnal? And this word of His con-
cerning the kingdom can you chauire for the
better? Oh, but Jesus 6aid. "My Kingdom
is not of this world" (John xviii. 36). Yes,
and He also said of His apostles, "They are
not of the world" (John xvii. 14). Were the
apostles, then, not on the earth, not
visible, and not holy men? Not of
the world, Jesus said. He did not
say not in the world Did not the
Son of God inherit his humanity,
yet without sin, from his mother? Wherein
is his becoming man less degrading than,
being man. is his visible reign among men?
Solomon succeeded to David; but ne erected
a new and more gorgeous throne, built anew
palace, instituted a different train or attend-
ants, and varied in many features of admin-
istration. Was his kingdom, therefore, not
the same as his father's? And may not the
Christ's kingdom be Duvidic, even though it
be not a copy of David's imperfectious,
and be not fashioned according to
this present evil world? The truth
is that, while his kingdom ehall
emerge into view out of a royal lineage of
earth, at the same time it shall be seen to
have come from out of the heavens. It is as
well God-derived and heavenly in origin as
man-descended and of

A SUBLUNABT SPHEEE.

While being in tne earth, it will yet be the

kingdom of heaven; or, as it always is in the
Greek, the kingdom of the heavens.

And now we may see the greatness of the
kingly glory of Messiah. Even if we
aid not know many ot the con-
stituents of this glory, we could still be
independently sure of its magnificence
and its preoiousness. For the kingdom of
the Christ will be the reward of his God-
manhood. He will come, not as at the first
advent, as a sin-bearer, hut without sin unto
salvation (Heb. ix, 28); that is, unto per-
fected salvation, unto the ultimate results
of His work. Hence his session at the right
hand of the Majesty on high is but precedent
to his inauguration as Messiah the kin°-
(Heb. xii. 2; Ps. ex 1). It is the joy thai;
was set before Him in all ilia work and
shame in the expiation at sin wrought once
for all; the proportionate requital of that wail
of agony on the cross, "My God, my God
why hast thou forsaken me?" Now, what
might fittingly reward such an one for such
a work— for that work of redemption, in
comparison with which creation itself is out
as the glow-worm to the sun in the heavens
—who could adequately depict? Thus as
seen from Gethsemane and Cavalry, and had
we not one word to certify us of the make-
up of its glory, the coming kingdom must
needs be thought to surpass

OOE UTMOST IMAGININGS.

But we do know something of its glory.
First, itself essential glory is our authorized
conception of this prince of the House
of David. The Brightness of the
Father, the Lord of Creation, the Ruler
of hearts, the man sinless and spotless, one
with the constitution of our nature, over-
flowing with our sympathies; He, seated in
the midst of mankind, reigning- before their
eyes, reigning audibly— the priest on his
throne, administering his salvation, making
his subjects willing- in the day of his power-
in mightiness absolute, in wisdom omnis-
cient, in love divine— wearing the one crown
of the world's monarchy, the supreme re-
ligious satisfaction of men; He— oh, this
King in his beauty and his majesty 1 There
is no glory Dy reason of the glory that ex-
ceiletb.

Secondly, in his associate ruiers He will
be glorious. The saints of all the ages down
to His second coining shall be exalted to
kinghood with Him. "Joint-heirs with
Christ," says Paul (Rom. viii. 17). "Heirs of
the kingdom," says James, "which God
hath promised to them that love Him" ii. (5).
"Shall sit with Me on My throne," "Shall
have power over and rule the nations," says
Jesus (Rev. iii. 21 ii. 20-27). Isaiah says, "A
king shali reign in righteousness, and
princes shall rule In judgment" xxxii. (1).

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THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

"The saints." says Daniel, "shall possess the
kingdom, and the

GBEATNESS OP THE KINGDOM

under the whole heaven" vii. (22-27). Even
the poor and the beggar among His saints, as
Hannah sang, will He lift up from the dust
and the dunghill, to set them among princes,
and to maUe them inherit the throne of
glory (I. Sam. li. 8). For, just as in the an-
cient theocracy, although God had the
supremacy, there were other rulers or
juagres appointed under him for administer-
ing the laws, so will Christ have His asso-
ciate princes in the government.

This implies the resurrection of the saints
at the coming ot the Lord, for "flesh
and blood can not inherit the king-
aom of God." Mortal man could not
carry the weight of partnership with Christ
in his sovereignty. Accordingly we read,
"The dead In Christ shall rise first. Then we
which are alive ana remain shall be cauarht
up together with them in the clouas, to meet
the Lord In the air." And so, fitted for their
high destiny, they shall come back to the
earth with Him, and "shall be forever with
the Lord."

Priests, too, on their thrones shall those
glorified rulers be. Every Christian now is a
priest, officiating in the service of God.
Every prince then will be a priest, blending
the princely and priestly in discharg-
ing his functions of sovereignty. And
while herein they shall be reflec-
tions of the King, devoutlv will they feel His
supremacy; that "He is anointed with

THE OIL OF GLADNESS

above His fellows" (Heb., i, 9;; for they will
"fall down before Him and cast their crowns
before the throne, and their united attesta-
tions, as the sound of many waters, will bo,
"Thou hast made us unto our God kiners and
priests, and we shall reign on the earth"
(Rev., iv, 10; v, 10).

How spiendid will be that court of the
King — Enoch, Abraham, David, Elijah, Elisha,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, John, Pecer, Paul,
and all the myriads out of the ages
whom we can not name, ail, as
Jesus says, "shining as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father" (Mat. xiii. 43).
Yet, liKe diamonds in the sunlight, the
brighter they shine as suns, the more will
He, the central sun, refulgent be.

Thirdly, in the subjects of His kingdom He
is glorious. Over Judah and Israel, re-
gathered and restored, as king of the House
of David He must needs reign. But what of
other peoples? In fact, under the sway of
the King, all mankind shall become Israel.
It is alone by being grafted into the Abra-
hamic covenant, that any gentile believer
is ever saved. "Christ hath redeemed

us from the curse of the law, being
madg a curse for us, that the blessing of
Abraham might come on the gentiles through
Jesus Christ," and "if we are Christ's, then
are we Abraham's seed, and heirs according
to the promise" (Gal. iii. 13, 14, 29).

ALL GENTILE BELIEVEBS

then are engrafted seed of Abraham; are
themselves Israel by adoption. And, since
the Davidic covenant is the outcome of the
Abranamic, so therefore are the3' also heirs
according to the promise. This is why the
risen gentil6 saints, equally with the risen
saints of natural Israel, snal) be sharers with
Christ in the power of the kingdom. And,
as gentile believers are adopted children of
Abraham, so it is that all gentile peoples
then in the flesh shall become Israel, and be
embraced within the Dividic subjects of the
kingdom. Wherefore, ou and on evermore
shall be f ulOlliug that promise to Abraham,
"I will make thy seed as the dust of the
earth, as the sand of the sea, as the stars
that cannot be numbered for multitude."
(Gen. xiii. 16; xv. 5; xxxii, 12).

4. Even an ocular demonstration of
His glory has .been vouchsafed us. A real
exhibition of His kingdom we nave
in the scene of the transfiguration. Peter
calls it "the power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ," and says he was aa eye-wit-
ness of his majesty and glory (2 Pet. i. 16-
18). Jesus himself, referring to it by anti-
cipation a few days before its occurrence,
said: "There be some standing here which
shall not taste of death till they see the Son
of man coming in his kingdom" (Matt. xvi.
28). It was therefore an earnest of the
kingdom;

A TOKEN

that more is yet to come of the same Kind.
And of what kind was it? Transfigured was
the King; "His face did shine as the
sun, and his raiment was white
as the light" (Mat xvii. 2). And
associated with him were Moses and Elijah,
both shining in the glory of the King, talk-
ing with Him; Moses, who had died, aa rep-
resenting the risen saints, Elijah, who was
translated, as representing those that shall
be caught up to meet the Lord. And Peter
and James and John were there, renresenta-
tive oi Israel in the flesh; witnessing the
wonderful scene, transported with the
heavenly splendor, foreshowing how the
subjects of the kingdom shall be
affected by the sight of the
Kins' and His companion princes. And
over all the father's voice coming
out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased," thus echoinar tne
words He spake in the covenant with David,
"My hoase, my kingdom." Oh, verily, th»

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

119

kingdom of the Christ on David's throne will
be the kingdom of heaven on earth.

5. In the results of His kingdom He is
glorioua

There will be a world-wide experience of
the gospel salvation. True, "the Lord Jesus
shall be revealed from heaven in flaming
fire, taking vengeance in them that know
not God and

OBEY NOT THE G08PBI."

(IL Thess. i. 7-8). That day shall burn
as an oven (Mai. iv.), and the conflagration
foretold by Peter shall do its work of ven-
geance (2 Pet. iii). But, besides the uni-
form teaching of all Scripture, both Peter
himself and Isaiah explain [see note] that,
terrible as shall be that lire, yet the earth
will remain, and Israel will remain, and
other peoples will remain. Nay, in words of
the Divine oracles, it is even then that "the
world shall be established, that it shall n|>t
be moved, the earth shall be glad, the field
be joyful, the trees of the wood rejoice, the
floods clap their hands, the hills be joyful
together" (Pss. xcvi., xcv.ii.). And then it is

♦Note referred to above.

[Isaiah and Peter are speaking of the same
time and the same series of events. The new
heavens and the new earr.h, (Isa, lxv. 17; lxyi- 22;
IL Peter iii. 13)

THE TF.KKIBLE FIEE

preceding, (Isa. lxvL 15-17; II. Peter iii. 7-10-
12). . Now the prophet declares that after the de-
vastation bv the fire there will still be nations in
the flesh, (Ixvi. 19-24), Eviaently, therefore, the
apostle's language is to be interpreted in the
light of the prophet; especially so, since the
apostle expressly refers to the prophet (II. Peter
iii. 13) and quotes from him the promise of the
new heavens and tne new earth. But the apostle
himself throws arouud his language certain plainly
intimated limitations. At the same time that he
speaks of the burning of the earth at the coming
of the Lord he also speaks of the earth having
perished by means of the deluge (6). If, how-
ever, after having perished in the deluge, the
earth stil) remained, so may it remain after the
stupendous conflagration shall have visited it.
Again, he speaks of the object of the fire as being,
not the sweeping away of all mankind, but "the
perdition of ungodly men" (7) : which perdition
might be inflicted upon certain multi-
tudes, while yet other multitudes might be
spared. Andtnis if just what Isaiah asserts will
be the fact (Ixvi. 19). Finally the apostle locates
the conflagratiou at the coming of the Lord (10);
at which time, however, in common with the
other apostles and the Christians of his day, he
believed that that the Davidic kingdom would
be rebuilt. Prodigious, then, as may be the con-
flagration that he so terribly depicts, he does not
mean to be understood as saying that it will burn
up all men and all things in the earth.

[See propositions 149-150 in the Theocratic
Kingdom, bv the liev. George N. II. Peters.]

that even they who through all the centuries
have persisted as a people in their enmity to
the gospel, and who, like Shylock, have
never ceased to say, "I hate him because he
is a Christian," that even Judah and Israel
"shall teach no more every man his neigh-
bor, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall
all know Me, from the least of them to the
greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember
their sin no more." (Jer. xxxi, 34). Not
oniy this, but the Holy Spirit "shall be
poured out upon all flesh." (Joel ii. 28).
Not Israel alone, but, according to James in
the Acts (xv. 16, 17, as the result of "the re-
building of David's kingdom, the residue of
men will seek after the Lord, even all the
gentiles upon whom the Lord's name is
called." The fruit of the Spirit shall All
the

FACE OF THE WORLP.

Again, there will be a renovation of physi-
cal nature. For creation, says Paul, is groan-
ing in pain for redemption along with man,
and shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the freedom of the glory of
the children of God (Rom. viii. 19-22). "New
heavens and a new earth." The light of
the moon shall be as the light of the
sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold,
as the light of seven days" (Isa. xxx. 26).
"Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-
tree., nstead of the brier the myrtle-tree"
(Isa. iv. 13). The wilderness shall be glad,
and deserts rejoice and biossom like the
rose (Isa. xxxv. 1). The ground shall yield
its increase (Ps. lxvii. 6); as if its present
fertility were no fertility at all "I will an-
swer the heavens, sa:th the Lord, and they
shall answer the earth; and the earth sh'all
answer the corn, and the wine, and the oil;
and they shall answer iezrael" (the seed of
God) (Hosea n. 21-22). Mountains shall
drop down wine, hills flow with milk, the
plowman overtake the reaper, the treader of
grapes him that soweth seed (Joel
iii. 18. Amos ix. 13). The ani-
mals too, — even the beasts of the field, the
fowls of heaven, and the creeping things of
the ground shall be under a covenant bond
of the kingdom (Hos. ii. 18); the wolf and
the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf
and the young lion, all dwelling together,
and a little child leading them: and children
playing on

THE HOLE OF THE ASP

and on the cockatrice's deu (Isa. xi. 6-9).
Thus the curse removed from even the hated
serpent:

"The mother sees.
And smiles to see, her infant's playful band
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue,"

150

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And health shall bloam on every cheek.
The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick
(Isa. xxxii. 24). The leaves of the tree of
life shall be for the healing of nations (Rev.
xxii. 2), and as the days of a tree shall be the
days of the people of the King: (Isa lxv. 22).
In a thousand ways has sin turned nature
into a minister of calamity against us; but
the curse shall bo lifted, and earth, regener-
ated, be ushered into the perfect service of
the subjects of the King.

And again, what exuberant blessed-
ness of mankind as a body politic. The
government over them one: perfect in its
unity, grand in its massiveness. Divine, yet
human; committing no iniquity, making no
mistakes, purely good. The king, the
princes, and the subjects bound together in
perfected redemption. And, according to
the prophets, a mighty increase of popula-
tion (Isa. xlix. 19-20, Jer. xxx. 18-20); yet
no national jealousy, no cause of war, no
civil disturbance. Swords beaten into plow-
shares, spears into pruning-hooks (Isa. ii. 4).
Old men and old women, every man with

BIS STAFF IN HIS HAND

for very age, dwelling in Jerusalem, and
the streets full of boys and girls playing
therein (Zech. viii. 4-5). Riches increased;
multitudes of camels, dromedaries of Midian
and EDhah, flocks of Kedar, rams of
Nebaioth, gold, incense, precious woods
(Isa. ix). Satan-bound (Rev. xx 3). All
things used as consecrated to God (Isa xxiii.
18; Zech. xiv. 20). Knowledge universally
diffused (Isa. xxxii. 4). The forfeited unity
of language restored (Zeph. iii. 9). Angels ef
God, ascending and descending, in communi-
cation with men (John i. 51). Sorrow and
signing fled away, joy.and gladness prevail-
ing, thanksgiving and the voice of melody
(Isa. xxxv. 10-51-3. The image of God, re-
flected in the myriads of millions of mankind,
oversprerdwg the world with a moral giory,
like dewdrops sparkling in the rays of the
sun. And over them all the Christ, the Son
of God, the Son of man, the Son of .David,
reigning in Mount Zion from henceforth,
even for ever (Micah. iiii. 7).

We are not to suppose that these several
classes of results of Messiah's kinghood
shall, in their totality, be effected instantan-
eously. The prophecies imply that there
shall be a thousand years of the purifying
process. Some sin, some death, there will be
during that millennium (Isa. lxv., Zech. xiv.,
Rev. xx. 14).

Especially at its dose, Satan being loosed
for

A LITTLE SEASON,

one prodigious outbreak of rebellion will
burst forth on the part of the yet unsaved
(Rev. xx. 8-9). Unly for a little season, how-

ever; the final winding up of sin's history in
connection with our earth. For "fire shall
come down from God out of heaven and de-
vour them," and the devil that deceived
them shall be cast into the lake of fire (Rev.
xx. 9-10). And then, death, the last enemy,
having been destroyed, and all thingB sub-
dued unto Christ (L Cor. xv. 25-26, Rev. xx.
14), it will have become absolutely
true that the ''knowledge of the Lord
covereth the earth as the waters cover the
Bea." Then will the dominion of the world
have been delivered up to the Father, pre-
cisely in that it will have been delivered up
to His Christ; for, as we have all along
seen, the Kingdom of the Onrist is ex-
pressly the Kingdom of the Father. For
that passage in L Cor. xv. 25-28 does not
teach the giving up of the distinctive king-
dom of the Christ. In Rev. xi. 15 we have
substantially the same teaching as in that
Corinthian text: "The kingdom (mark
the singular number) of the

world is become the kingdom
of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall
reign unto the ages of the ages." It Is the
dominion of the world that is delivered up,
and is delivered up at one and the same mo-
ment to both

THE FATHEK AND HIS CHRIST

Of Messiah's kingdom the angel said, "There
shall be no end" (Luke l 33). Darnel says,
"It shall not pass away" (vii. 14); "His asso-
ciate princes are expressly declared to
Dossess the Kingdom forever, oven forever
and ever" (Dan. vii. 18); and they possess it
only as joint heirs with him. The statement
that "then shall the Son also Himself
be subject to the Facher" means simply
that then, also, then as now, even after all
things have been subdued to him, he shall be
subject to the Father. Accordingly, the
Father saith to the Son, in express allusion
to His Davidic royalty, "Thy throne O God,
is for ever and ever" (Ps. xiv., Heb. i. 8, 9).
All antagonisms will have ceased; the God-
head. Father, Son, and Spirit, will be all in
all, and the Christ on David's throne, in joint
heirship with His glorified brethren, the
princes of the kingdom, and over happy sub-
jects countless as the sands of the sea,
shall reign "unto the ages of the ages."

Glory is it? What else is glory? Poets
have dreamed of a golden age. Politicians
Duild their Utopias Social agitators are
ever trying to make a paradise out of this
present disordered world. But, all the same,
nistory's stern recorder, Time, but chronicles
wickedness, turbulence, misery. A candle's
flame burns dull and dim in the

FLOOD-LIGHT OF NOONDAY.

and all unsanctified imaginings of political

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151

regeneration are only abortions whenloofced
at in the glory of Messiah's reign, wherein
the will of God shall be done on earth as
angels do it in heaven. And, best of all, the
kingdom is a certainty.

Glory to God in the highest the angels sang
when the Christ, David's son and heir, was
born. Glory to God in the highest will be
the heavenly musio of the King and princes
m David's kingdom. Glory to God in the
highest the chorns of mankind when the
moon shall be confounded and the sun
ashamed in the light of the Lord of Hosts
relgninp in Jerusalem and before His an-
cients gloriously (lea. xxiv., 23). And we in
this dreary interregnum — we who are

never so disenchanted of worldli-
ness and so enchanted of godli-
ness and watchfulness and diligence and
communion with God, as when intelligently
sympathizing with the kingdom of heaven
on earth— do we not feel, "blessed is the
people that know the joyful sound; they
shall walk, O Lord, in tUe lisrht ot thy counte-
nance (Pa Ixxxix 15-3-35-36)? Oh, be this
the jubilant Te Deum of our lives, "Thou art
the king of glory, O Cnrist!'! "Thou arc able
to present us faultless before the presence of
Thy glory with exceeding joy. To Thee, the
only wise God our Savior, be glory ana
majesty, dominion and power, both now and
ever. Amen."

FIFTH

THE REV. DR. J. D. HEER.

IMPOBTANCE OP PB0PHET1C STUDY.

The opening paper of the morning meet-
ing of the fifth and last day's session of the
conference was read by the Rev. Dr. J. D.
Herr, of the Grand Avenue Baptist Church,
Milwaukee. After tne usual devotional ex-
ercises, prayer being offered by the Eev. J. M.
Orrock, of Boston, Dr. Herr read as follows
on the subject, "Importance of Prophetic
Study:"

God's word, in God's order, with God's em-
phasis, should be the watchword and spirit-
ual war-cry of every diligent student of its
inspired pages. The Bible is not a book of
hobbies. It never emphasizes one trutn at
the expense of another. Neither does it deal
in fragmentary truth. The booii is a grand
mosaic, divinely perfect in all its parts, and
perfect in its divine completeness. The va-
rious truths contained in

THIS WONDEEFUL BOOK

are set fortn in the measure of their im-
portance, and it behooves every careful
student, not only to study God's truth in
God's order, but also to observe closely the
emphasis He places thereon. It is the most
glaring lack of wisdom to select one or two
passages of Scripture and isolate them from
all the rest in order to prove any favorite
dogma of - our own. In the Bible there
may be seeming parodoxes, but there
can be no contradictions. Truth must
never be diverted from its legitimate
trend, no more than the currents
of a river from their natural channela
Truth lies not in eddies, but in the onflow, in
the massive bed of thought Hewn out of the
eternal word. God's order must therefore be
closely followed, even though it De at the
expense of preconceived opinions or the
prejudices of faulty education. Not only
must God's truth be taken in God's order,
but also with God's emphasis. There are
portions of the Bible upon which the Holy
Spirit dwells with peculiar force; thus ele-
vating such passages above the mountain
peaks of thought around them in order that
they may catch the eye, excite the intellect,
and touch the heart of tne devout student
of the word The first advent of our Lord

DAY.

runs like a golden thread* from the Garden of
Eden to the manger at Bethlehem. Each
succeeding prophet threw more emphasis
upon

THE WEIGHTY FACT

until Judean plains trembled with the thrill-
ing glory of angelic testimony. Tne trend of
thougnt upon this overwhelming sub-
ject accumulated in power and volume
until the voice of the wilderness crier
heralded the presence of the long-expected
Messiah. The importance, therefore, of ac-
cepting the emphasis placed upon the vari-
ous lines of God's word by the Holy Spirit
can not well be overestimated by careful and
diligent searchers after truth.

This emphasis is also seen in the large
amount of Scripture sometimes given to a
single theme. We judge wisely when we es-
timate the importance of a subject by the
amount of space it occupies in the Book of
God. The prophetical writings both of the
Old and New Testaments constitute the ma-
jor portion of the Bibie. If We enumerate
the books directly prophetical, together with
tne multitudinous passages touching on
prophecy in other books, especially in the
Psalms of David, and remember also the ad-
umbrations of things to come contained
within the character of much Scripture his-
tory, as well as in the ceremonial law, and
also in the tabernacle service, we are forced
to the conclusion that prophetic study ranks
high in importance in the estimation of the
Holy Spirit, and should also in the unpreju-
diced Christian mind.

Notwithstanding these plain facts, a
strange hesitancy, and 1 might almost say
timidity, has obtained

FOB MANY YEAES

among students of the Bible in relation t o
the earnest and persistent study of prophecy.
This may be accounted for in various ways.
Tne main reason perhaps, being the wild and
unscriptural fancies springing from the
brains of tneorists and superficial thinners.
Tne failures and follies of speculative
writers upon prophecy have characterized
every age of eclesiastical history. Just as
men nave wandered from the fundamental
doctrines of the word of God, and "given

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

153

heed to se ucing spirits and doctriues of
demons," so men through all asres have
studied prophecy, not with a humble desire
to find out the mind of God, but to build up
some baseless fabric of their own fancy.
These abnormal conditions of doctrine and
prophetical research should in no possible
way deter the faithful study and calm inquiry
of an intelligent Christian mind. It was
by "books" that Daniel understood the
number of years that spanned the Babylon-
ish captivity. As a scholar and statesman he
stood peerless in pre-eminence over all
others of his day. His life was so thoroughly
saturated with divine impulses as to carry
him beyond the reach of adverse criticism.
Yet he did not think it unwise or unprofit-
able even up to old age to search with pro-
found dilgence

THE KEALM OF PROPHECY.

God had made him a prince among proph-
ets, yet he did not fail to devote himself to
ttie study of "books," ana especially of those
containing the prophecies of Jeremiah, in
order that he might eolve to his own satisfac-
tion the exact period when the Babylonish
captivity should terminate. The effect of
his Btudy upon himself was a prostration in
prayer and supplication before God, and a
quickening of the spiritual pulses of his soul.
Thud the reflex influence upon his life was
most healthful, and brought him, a profound
worshiper, to the feet of the Lord God Al-
mighty.

The same may oe said ot Simeon
and Anna, who were found daily in
the Temple waiting for the "Consolation
of Israel." Evidently they had been diligent
students of the prophetic Scriptures, and
God honored them with an actual vision of
His long promised Son, in the person of "the
holy child Jesus." Surely, then, we should
not lightly esteem the importance of
prophetic study and cast aside carelessly
1 that portion of the Word upon which God
has placed such peculiar emphasis. The
BiDle declares, and the history of nations
and men corroborate the declaration, that
the only safe pathways toward the future are
along the inspired lines or prophecy. This is
the massive telescope with lens sufficiently
powerful to give the earnest observer an out-
line

. OP FUTUBE EVENTS

and in profound humility bring him a willing
worshiper to tde feet of our adorable JLord.
Upon the threshold of thought before us the
question comes: In what attitude should we
assume the study of prophecy? The Bible is
the infallible word of God. Therefore, to be
rightly understood it requires an infallible
interpreter. In the wondrous economy of
grace such a teacher has been provided. The

to the

word

Christ

mission of the Holy Spirit
earnest student of God's
Is clearly set forth by
Himself. He declares the Spirit "will guide
into all truth." "He shall receive of Mine,"
says Jesus, "and shall show unto you," "He
shall show you things to come," "He shall
abide with you and shall be m you." Thus
provision is made for the devout etudent to
secure a correct knowledge of God's inten-
tion toward man. "What things eye saw
not and ear heard not, and in man's heart
came not up, as many things as God pre-
pared for those loving Him, to us, notwith-
standing God revealed through the Spirit,
for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the
deep things of God." This same divine
teacher instructed men of former ages:
"For the prophecy came not in olden times
by the will of man; but holy men of God
spake, as moved bv tQe Holy Ghost" Only
holy men were permitted to know sufficient
of the mind of God in relation to future
events, to be made mouthpieces to the
nations

THIS SPIEIT OF PEOPHEOI

rested without measure upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. His emphatic corroborations of the
testimony given in former time-! by holy
men. together with the wonderful prophetic
utleiances falling from his own lips, were
all promptings of the same Spirit
This line of thought runs through all the
revelations of Paul to the churcnes, and also
inspires the tomrues of Peter, Jude, and
John as they voice the prophetic teacnings
of the Holy Spirit These thoughts crystalize
into the fact that all true conceptions of
future events came only to holy men who
were in full sympathy with God, and only So
them as they were enlightened and prompted
by the Holy Spirit If then all true propbeoy
be the direct product of the Holy Spirit then
is it the province of the Holy Spirit alone to
interpret prophecy. The Bible does not cater
to the peculiar and favorite theories of men.
No matter how intelligent and scholarly the
student of prophecy may be, he wlil be
wholly unfit to comprehend the mind of God
in relation to the future unless he assumes
the proper attitude of a devout inquirer after
truth. Scholarship may understand the writ-
ten word, but only the man taught and in-
dwelt by the Holy Spirit can properly grasp
the incarnate word. It is as true to-day as
in former times that "the secret of the Lord
is for them that fear Him, and He makes
them know His covenant" "If perchance,"
says Christ, "any one be willing

to do ais WILL,
he shall understand about the teaching
whether it is of God, or I from myself am
talking." Under these flashing lights of

154

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Scripture prophetic study assumes an im-
portance and dignity worthy the profound-
est scholar as he bows to the leadersnip of
the fioly Spirit The student of prophecy
requires more thorough equipment tnan can
be secured by efficient scholarshio or biblical
criticism. The hignest gifts and attainments
must be sanctified and subordinated to the
teachings of the divine Interpreter. When
any man or any church assumes the preroga-
ative of the Holy Spirit and becomes his own
interpreter the result will always be disas-
trous. The dogma of infallibility promul-
gated by the Roman Catholic Cnurch
was the logical sequence of her sac-
religious assumption of the interpreta-
tion of the word of God. By so doiner sbe
ignores the office work of the Holy Spirit
and opens up pathways to ulitmate and
overwhelming ruin. With these thoughts in
view permit me to notice some reasons why
more attention snou'd be paid to a calm and
prayerful study of tbis important subject

Anything relating to the mission and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ should
be of interest to His professed follow-
ers. All prophecy, from Eden to the close
of Revelation; relates directly or indirectly to
the Divine Redeemer. To this fact the Lord
Jesus not only assented, but emphatically
gave utterance. He said to the Jews,

'•SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES,

for they are they wnich testify of Me." To
the two disciples wfiom He met on their
eventful journey He says: "O thoughtless
and slow in jour neart to repose faith in all
things which the prophets spake! And be-
ginning at Moses and from all the prophets
He thorougbly explained to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself."
What Christ was to the prophecies relating
to His first advent. He is to the yet unful-
filled prophecies concerning His second ad-
vent. The testimony or Jesus is the spirit of
propbecy. No one tneref ore who is interested
in the past nistory and ultimate triumpbs of
the Son of God can afford to ignore the study
of prophecy. The unfolding of Christ as the
World's Redeemer and our personal Savior
is the foundation of all true spiritual
knowledge. Upon this rock we are priv-
ileged to stand, and direct our vision
toward tbe ultimate fulfillment, of
God's mighty purposes concerning -His
illustrious Son. The dignity of our calling
as Christians embraces all the truths wrapped
up in the wonderful events of the future.
God never would have spread before us tbe
sublime map of proDbeoy ii He did not
greatly desire us to carefully study its mar-
velous f eaturea He never would have traced
the exalted pathway of His son through the
long aiales of the future did he not

CORDIALLY AND LOVINGLY

invite us with the eye of faith and pro-
foundest research to follow. The invitation
of Jesus to follow him not only relates to
our moral uprightness and spiritual conse-
cration, but to the unfoldments of His future
achievements as our glorious King. He has
already displayed Himself to us as our
Prophet and Priest, but we look for the con-
summation of His matchless character, as
the future will soon unfold His regal
splendor as our King. This is the sheet
anchor holding our faith and hope amid the
skepticism and prevailing unbelief of the
day. Just as God invited Abraham in respect
to Canaan to "Arise, walk through the land,
in the length of it, and in the breadtb of it,
for I will surely give it thee." So he invites
those who througb faith are to inherit the
kingdom with His Son — to study the maps of
prophecy lying before them in His holy
word. When we accept this loving invita-
tion and take a holy excursion through the
wondrous land of propnetio promise, we
find revealed to our enraptured vision glori-
ous doctrines, precious promises, practical
precepts, and the highest incentives to holy
living. We also find that the full-tuned
harp of prophecy fills the entire temple of
revelation with awful and entrancing mel-
ody. So deep are its tones and far-reaching
its

DIVINE HARMONIES

that we listen with ever-increasing rever-
ence. As we gaze upon that majestic harp
we are reminded tbat it was tuned by Je-
hovah Himself, to proclaim the magnificent
triumphs of His only Degotten Son. The
strings of tbat harp have been touched by
holy men of ancient days; by mighty kings
who sat on Judah's throne; by inspired
apostles as they were indwelt by the Holy
Gnost and by some of the tallest angels
who walk the guardways of eter-
nity. Wo are reminded also that
its sweetest and most entrancing melodies
have been awakened by the touch of His
fingers whose peerless achievements are yet
to fill the universe with the jubilant an-
them of eternal thanksgiving. Shall we then
aepreciate such exalted companionship and
rob ourselves of such spiritual enjoyment
simply on tbe ground of an unwarranted
prejudice against the study of prophetic
truth?

It is only through prophecy we learn the
true destiny of this present world. The his-
tory of trie world as chronicled by eminent
men of all ages is full of profoundest inter-
est. The development, reign, and ultimate
overthrow of vast empires, the rise of mighty
warriors and able statesmen, the

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155

TRANSMISSION OF POWEB

from one nationality to another, the heredi-
tary impulse to conquer and annex territory
manifested by all nations, together with the
solemn yet awful trend toward an evadeless
crisis are to the student who puts his finerers
on the feverish pulse of the world profoundly
interesting. Watching the kaleidoscope of
passing events we dare not forget
that history is the dial-plate upon
which the finger of God indicates the
epochs of prophecy. It is God alone
who "changeth the times and seasons;
He removeth kings and setteth up kings; He
givetb wisdom to the wise, and knowelge to
them that have understanding; He reveal-
eth the deep and secret things; He knoweth
what is in tne darkness, and the light dwell-
eth with Him. " The march of the centuries
is toward a legitimate future. Each revolu-
tion assists in advancing the world in its
prophetic destiny. All things keep step
along the lines of God's eternal purposes,
and the Christian who fails to read history
Dy the lamp of prophecy will find no other
light to illumine the deep mysteries sur-
rounding this earthly planet. It is impos-
sible to close our eyes to the fact that dream-
ers and theorists, together with speculative
teachers, have prophesied concerning events
in the future pathway of this globe and its
inhaDitants. Scientists have attempted to
demonstrate

THE PECULIAB METHODS

Dy which the present world is to be destroyed,
together with the heavenly bodies beyond us.
Yet ;no theory has ever been promulged
receiving a hearty and unhesitating approval
jrom intelligent thinkers. We are forced,
therefore, to the conclusion that
all speculative theories of the
future. drawn from other sources
than the word of God, are only conjectures
and can not be relied upon with any degree
of certainty. In the Bible alone do we find
the sure word of prophecy: "Whereunto ye
do well to take heed as unto a light that
ehineth in a dark place, until the day dawn,
and the day-star arise in your hearts."

The certainty of prophecy should prompt
us to careful study. Much of the prophecy
of past ages has orystalized into history.
The wonderful statements of the Bible stand
or fall as the verdict of history is written.
Prophecy is peculiar to the Bible, and dis-
tinguishes it from all other systems of faith.
False religions deal very little with future
events. Mahomet, in his public life, ex-
pressly disclaimed reliance on prophetic tes-
timony. He was much too sagacions to lay
the writings of the Koran open to the cer-
tain and unrelenting detection of history.
What Mahomet and all other false systems of

religion failed to do has been unhe-utatmgly
and grandly assumed by the inspired word.

THE BIBLE CHALLENGES HISTOBT

to detect a flaw in its marvelous assertions
concerning the future.

If history to-day does not corroborate
the "sure word of prophecy," so far as
prophecy has become history, then the Bible
is not the infallible word of God, and we
have been following a cunningly devised
iable. Eighteen hundred years have elapsed
since the last book on prophecy was written
and during that long period the leading
events of history have proven in a marvel-
ous manner that "holy men of old spake,
moved by the Holy Ghost." If the Bible will
not stand the test of history then it dare not
lay claims co divine inspiration. One hun-
dred and nine predictions concerning Christ's
first advent were literally fulfilled. If the
famous doctors of Jewish law had been as
faithful in tne study of prophecy as they
were in tithing "mint, annise, and cum-
min," they might have been daily in the
temple with old Simeon and Anna the
prophetess, waiting for the consolation of
Jsrael. The earth on which we live bears the
footprints of prophecy through all ages.
Nations, cities, temples, and individuals have
met their doom through the lips of inspired
men, and the records of such
doom are so plainly written on
the brow of history as to be beyond any

CAVIL OF SKEPTIC

The literal fulfillment of predictions which
have passed into history should be to all an
earnest for the future unfolding of those
declarations yet lying in the womb of com-
ing events.

The very certainty of prophecy should in-
duce to its faithful study. "Hath He said
and shall He not do it?" "These are the
true sayings of God," declared the angel
who opened the prophetic vision to John
upon Patmos. The more fully we can be-
come penetrated with the conv:ction of the
certainty of prophecy the higher will be our
elevation and enrichment. Nothing is so
stimulating to the devout mind as to mark
the footprints of God along the highways of
the centuries and the distant uplands of
coming ages. Th9 Bible does not place any
premium upon that mental indolence which
ignores the major part of its wonderful
teachings. The objection urged . that it re-
quires too careful and abstruse study co pen-
etrate the mines of God's wondrous pur-
poses,and gather the hidden jewels therein, is
not in harmony with tne dignified relation-
ship and high calling of the child of God

The importance of prophetic study is also
seen in its practical effects on Christian life.
Christian conduct is not moulded and regu

156

THE PEOPHETIO CONFERENCE.

lated by mere ordinances and precepts. The
law is "holy, just and good," but

WE ABE TOLD

that by it "no flesh can be justified before
God.'' The Gospel points to redemption,
not through ordinances, but through Christ
It unvails the sublime and precious truth,
that "God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself, not imputing their tres-
passes unto them." They who hear and
heed the Gospel are set free; chains of preju-
dice and condemnation fail from the soul,
and the light and liberty of the sons of God
are realized. The soul thus disenthralled
requires teaching in order properly to under-
stand what is the "good, acceptable and per-
fect will of God." He must not only know
what he is saved from, but what he is saved
for. What are God's present and future pur-
poses concerning me? Am I to go on to
know the Lord? Or am I simply to stop
at the initial step of salvation from
sin and fail to inquire what
God's will is in relation to myself person-
ally? Am I to be satisfied by the "glittering
generalities" and intangible conceptions of
heaven as they come to me through the va-
rious avenues of theoretical Christian
thought? Has Jesus Christ placed in my
lips the wonderful petition, "Thy kingdom
come," and given me no knowledge what
that kingdom is to be? Has he excited in
my breast a Pope which is only to be fed by
speculative fancy ana strengthened through
the fertile

BESOUBCES OF IMAGINATION?

We all know that the tenor and drift of
Christian life and conduct are controlled by
the actual and real hopes animating the
soul. Hope, to have a purifying tendency
upon the human heart, must have a tangible
and well-defined objective point. This ob-
jective point, to be correct, must be clearly
taught in the word of God If our lives are
not governed by the true hope set before us
in the gospel, then some lower hope is con-
trolling us and the highest practical ben-
efits are not reached. There are three
steps in the onward grasp of hope
and these three embrace the full ordered
life of a child of God upon earth. Paul
enumerates them in such concise manner
as to startle us with the overwhelming
thought. He. says: "The grace of God that
bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all
men" — here we have the new birth— "teach-
ing us that denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world" — here we
have the Christian life— "looking for that
blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the
great God, our Savior Jesus Christ." Here

we have the true Christian hope. John cli-
maxes this thought, and shows that

THE TBUE OUTGROWTH

of Gospel hope is a symmetrical Christian
character. "Beloved now are we, the soni
of God'' It is not yet manifested what we
shaJi be. We know that if He shall be mani-
fested we shall be like him, for we 3hall see
Him even as He is; and every one that haa
this hope set on Him purifyeth himself even
as He is pure." "Wherefore, beloved, see-
ing that ye look for such things, be diligent,
that ye may be found of Him in peace, with-
out spot, and blameless.

But what is this hope, purifying and animat-
ing the Christian? Here again we see the
importance of prophetic study, for proph-
ecy alone reveals the ultimate triumphs
of the Redeemer's kingdom and comes to the
relief of an Intelligent faith. A zeal worthy
in its activities, yet lacking true Scriptural
knowledge, nas loudly proclaimed the disen-
thralldom of earth from satanic power sim-
ply through the reformatory efforts devised
and executed by organized societies. We
are urged to believe that the world, through
these multiplied appliances of reform, will
be compelled to submit to the higher laws of
morality, and thus gradually assume the
universal and glorious millennium reign.
Beautiful as this theory is, it can not bo sus-
tained by the actual condition of things ex-
isting at

THE PRESENT TIME.

According to the most reliable statistics
the world is advancing much more rapidly
in population than the church in proportion
to numbers. The prospect of a speedy
change in this direction, when we study
the moral conditions of society,
is neither flattering nor even
hopeful. From the plain teachings of the
Bible we are led to believe that a day of
universal peace and blessedness is yet to
dawn upon this oppressed and groaning
earth. How God shall usher in this day of
gladness and joy can only be understood by
careful study of prophetic scriptures. If
the popular theory prevailing so extensively,
that the present methods or promulgation of
gospel truth would finally usher in the mil-
lennium, then surely we ougnt to have some
tokens of it ere this. But where are such
tokens to be found? Not among the mil-
sionaries in foreign fields, where sometimes
a vear is spent in securing one convert to
Christianity. Not in the wide extension of
infidelity gradually but surely darkening the
nations ot the earth. Not in the abundance
of iniquity

ROLLING IN TIDAL WAVES

over the habitations of earth and causingr
the love of many to wax cold. Not in the

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

157

advance of civilization, which carries oft-
times as much moral evil to heathen nations
as good. Not in all these things do
we see one token that would cause
us to believe that the gospel as now
promulged Is to convert the world and
bring in the reign of peace and righteous-
' ne8s a thousand years. We would not depre-
ciate the progress of society and the march
of intellect — the advance of science and the
spread of modern ideas — the establishment
of missions among the heathen and the
planting of churches and Sunday schools In
aestitute places; these are all proper and right,
and should be nurtured, fostered, sustained,
nda carefully protected in every pos&ible way;
but each and all of these ao not in any way
argue in favor of the gospel converting the
whole world. They are all necessary in
holding the ground for truth and righteous-
ness, and every honest, earnest heart should
assist in promoting these holy interests. No
hand should be idle, no purse should be
closed, no tongue should be silent, when
fields are white for the harvest. These are
royal avenues through which the Hosts of
God can march in obedience to the divine
mandate. But it is not by these means
alone that Satan's kingdom is to be over-
thrown and the world delivered from

HIS HATEFUL SEBVITUDE,

but by the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven.
This is the one grand event placed before us
in "the sure word of prophecy." Here we
can rest our faith and plant our hope amid
the sad disasters and spiritual depressions
constantly surrounding the walls of Zion.
No seeming defeat ot moral reform, no beat-
ing bacK; of the armies of truth, no attempt
to overthrow the bulwarks of Christianity,
shakes our confidence 'or paralyzes our ag-
gressive efforts. Beyond and above all these
is seen the outshining of His power, and we
wait in earnest expectancy and Humble pa-*
tience lor the appearing of the great God
and Savior Jesus Christ Here we find the
objective point of ail prophecy. This is the
star outshining in splendor ttie one followed
by Eastern magi, and destined eventually to
fill the universe with its effulgent rays. This
is the true hope which gilds the darkest
cloud with beams of holy light and comes to
the relief of a calm and intelligent faith in
the word of God.

With such a faith we can stand in the
watch-tower and look through the lattice of
prophecv for the coming of the royal bride-
groom.

THE REV. G. H. N. PETERS.

ESSENTIAL BELATIONSHIP OF THE COVENANTS.

The devotional exercises of the afternoon
meeting were conducted by B. F. Jacobs, of
Chicago, prayer being offered by Professor
Blanchard, of Wheaton College. The Rev.
G. H. N. Peters, of Springfield, Ohio, read
the following paper on the nubject, "The
Essential Relationship of the Covenants and
the Supernatural to the Kingdom:"

It is desirable that in every assembly of
this kind, intended for the advancement of
Bible doctrine, the Abrahamic and Davidio
covenants should be prominently presented.
My heart has been deeply moved by the ref-
erence made to these covenants in the papers
given by the brethren. These fundamental
revelations of the divine will form the basis
of our faith, firmly establish our hope, and
direct us to our glorious inheritance. They
are both the pledges and the guides to the
glory that shall be revealed, giving to us the
central points around which succeeding rev-
elations cluster, which must, of necessity,
correspond in their teaching. No one can
possibly have a clear understanding of "the
salvation" unless he comprehends the cove-
nant", which embrace, in an epitomized but
distinctive manner, the substance of the
divine plan designed for completed redemp-
tion from the entailed curse. If we ever
have the

UN8PEAKABLE HAPPINESS

to realize in our own experience what it is
to be heirs of (iod and joint heirs with tbs

153

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

Christ, we inherit the promises made to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and corroborated
in "the sure mercies" covenanted to David.
Blessed, indeed, is he who receives the cove-
nanted blessings through the supernatural
power ol the covenanted seed and son of
David; for that contains perfected salva-
tion. A correct Knowledge of these cove-
nants ana their fundamental relationship to
tne unity of revelation and the final out-
come of the divine purpose, with faith in
God's abilty to fulfil tnem, is to be so rooted
and grounded in the truth that, in view of
its certainty, the future is realistic to our
nope, imparting the needed comfort and
support

These covenants are confirmed by oath,
distinguishing them above ah otner an-
nouncements, as if purposely to rebuke the
prevailing unbelief in them, and to give be-
lievers the strongest possible assurance of
their ultimate realization. The fulfilment is
unfailing; for, however conditionality may
apply to individuals in the acceptance
of conditions in order to experience
the same, the covenants themselves are
unconditional as the oath of God attesta No
matter, therefore, how long the purpose of
God may be postponed, we have the abso-
lute assurance given that these promises
shall be verified. More than this, the oath
of confirmation covers all the blessings
enumerated in both covenants. Hence, we
are not at liberty to accept of some and re-
ject as unworthy of credence others, as the
unbelief of many at the present day evi-
dences. Now multitudes profess to receive
these covenants, Put only such portions as
their own judgment considers reasonable.
Thus, for example, the entire Davidic cov-
enant is practically rejected, with the single
exception of the Messian's promised descent
from David. Tfie perpetuity and confirma-
tion of tne covenant, as a whole, is utterly
ignored. The treatment received by the
Abrahamic covenant is similar; while the
blessing through Abraham to the families of
the earth in his seed is partly acknowledged,
yet the personalitv of the promises to him
and his seed pertaining to inheritance, the

GREATNESS OF THE NATION,

and the multitude of his seed, the land of
Canaan as "an everlasting possession," etc..
are entirely rejected as unreasonable, or con-
ditional, or to De spiritualized away from
their grammatical meaning, notwithstand-
ing the repeated confirmatory predictions of
the prophets, the teachings of Jesus and His
apostles (which to preserve unity must also
be spiritualised by them). We insist upon
it that the oath confirms not merely a por-
tion of these covenants, but the whole. The
Inspired faith of the prophets informs us that

the sun may refuse to shine, the moon and
stars may depart, the sea may no longer roll
its waves, day and night may not alternate,
the ordinances of heaven may be repealed
(Jer. xxxiii. 17-26, Isa. liv. 9, Jer. xxxi. 35,
36, Psi. lxxxix. 36, 37, eta), but the prom-
ises of God snail not fail in their accomplish-
ment ; yea, a greater than these nas de-
clared (Matt v. 17, 18): "Think not that I
am come to destroy the law or the prophets;
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For
verily I say unto you, 'Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one title shall in no wise pass
from the law 'till all be fulfilled." The
belief of many to-day is that the
mission of the Christ was not absolutely
to destroy the law and the prophets,
but so to change and modify them that a
sort of fulfilment may be predicted of them
to save their credit Men may ridicule our
faith which accepts of all these promises,
because standing related in the same oath-
bound covenanted purpose of God, but we
stand firm in the same, seeing that God's
word and honor are pledged, most solemnly
and sacredly, to a full realization of nos
merely one, but all. We earnestly protest
against that destructive process which either
denies or fritters away promises of God per-
taining to salvation, substantiated to us for
acceptance by the oath of the Almighty and
by the covenant name of Jehovan expressive
of His unchangeableness,and hence indicative
of the certainty of ultimate execution — for
(Psalms xxxiii. 11) "the counsel of the Lord
standeth forever."

A question of practical importance must
first be decided, the answer to which will
materially affect our reception and under-
standing of the covenants. It is this: Are
we to

RECEIVE THE PROMISES

contained in them in their plain grammatical
meaning, or are we at liberty after such a
meaning is ascertained to engraft upon it
another and different import under the pip i
of a higher spirituality? Pre-millen:iri>i->,
of course, Deing firmly attached to the reten-
tion of the clear, unmistakable grammatic ,i
Interpretation — of which Lutner said: "Tin;
Christian should direct his efforts toward
understanding the so-called literal sense of
Scripture, which alone is tbe subsfinee of
faith and of Christian theology; which alone
will sustain him in the hour of trouole and
temptation, and which will triumph over
sin, death and the gates of hell, to the praise
and glory of God," — accept of the covenant
promises just as they are written, as shown
In the able paper presented to this confer-
ence by Professor Lummis.. That they are
right, prudent and wise in so doing will be
apparent in answering some questions that.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

159

the subject suggests. If one Darty gives a
promiBe of value to another party, is it not
nnlverBally conceded that if such a promise
ia to be understood it must De interpreted
according to the plain grammatical meaning
contained in the language. Are the
covenants an exception, bo that
some spiritual, mystical or typical
meaning is to be sought out before they can
be comprehended? Is it reasonable to sup-
pose that God will attest by oath a sense
which all admit is containea in these cov-
enants, and yet that this meaning is to De
discarded for one that i3 inferred? Is it in
the nature of a covenant that embraces the
vital interests of the Messiah, of believers,
of the race, and the world, that it should be
so constructed that, instead of conveying a
decisive meaning clearly expressed In its
wording, it presents a hidden or typical one
which requires the revolution of centuries
to develoD through such men a* Origen,
Agustine, Swedenborg, and others? Would
God, who said (Matt. vii. 9) "What man is
there of you whom, if his sou ask bread, will
be give him a stone?" give a grammatical
signification, accessible to all who read,
that is

DECEPTIVE AND MISLEADING.

that fosters a faith which can never be at-
tained, and that leads to hopes which can
never be realized? Such questions might be
multiplied, all indicating that God could not
in justice to Himself, and did not in mercy
to man, present covenants which in their
grammatical sense would be delusive. Men,
and even learned men, tell us that if we
trust in the evident sense contained In the
laws of language in the words that we are
deceived, in gross error, satisfied with
"husks" and heretical. The word of God
speaks for itself, and is not dependant upon
the dicta of men. It expressly cautions us
ngainst any alteration of its meaning, and
predicts that such changes will be made that
at the second advent of Jesns but little
faith in the recorded promises of God will
exist — a lack of faith brought about by the
prevailing spiritualistic and typical theories
with their multitudinous interpretations.
Three facts alone are sufficient to set aside
those speculations so dishonoring to God's
word, and to indicate the correctness of our
position. One is, that our opponents can
not, and do not, make the whole of these
covenants spiritual or typical, for in them
thpy fully admit the grammatical sense per-
taining to the 6eed, and correctly apply it to
Jesua Why admit that part is thus
lo be received and the remainder
with other and Giffering senses? The reply
is, that they are forced to 9uch a partial
recognition because of the initiatory prepa-

ration for the realization of the covenants in
the first advent of Abraham's seed and Da-
vid's Son, but they reject the other state-
ments, because no fulfillment of the gram-
matical sense down to the present day jus-
tifies their reason or faith to accept of them.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, tney
virtually assume the judgship of what is
worthy of their belief. Another is that God
has impressed the grammatical sense of the
covenants to De the true one, by literally
fulfilling a portion of them in the meaning
expressed, A sufficiency is found in the

HISTOBY OP THE MESSIAH,

in His descent and mission, to show us than
the covenants contain a substantial verified
grammatical sense. Hence we justly feel
that it would evidence unbelief, should we
change such a spnse for something else. The
third is, tnat God anpeals to these covenants
as to promises readily comprehended. Tnig
He could not do if the language in them was
Rusceptible of meanings differing from the
plain text, thus maKing them not subjects
easy to understand, but intricate, conjec-
tural, and mysterious.

Taking it for granted that every prophetic
student is ramiliar with the engagements
included in the two covenants (the Abra-
hamic in Gen. xit 1-3-7, xiii. 14-17, xv. 4-
21, xvii. 4-16, xxii. 15-18; the Davidic in
IL Sam!., vii. 10-16; 1 Chron., xvii. 11-14)
and their reference to the Jewish
nation, believers and the Messiah as
plainly given by the prophets, Jesus,
and apostles, attention is directed to
the demands that these promises
make upon our faith. We freely admit that,
owiDg to tne present non-fulfillment of much
that is recorded, we accept of them simply
because God has granted them and most sa-
credly attested to their faithfulness by oath.
We are not concerned respecting the diffi-
culties of accomplishment, which cause the
multitude to engraft other meanings
upon these promises. For we hold that
He who gave them has already evi-
denced in creation and in the provisionary
arrangements for redemption, a power ade-
quate to meet every emergency that may
arise, and to crush all opposition that may
be formed, seeing (Psl. lxxxix. 34) "My
covenant will I not break, or alter the thing
that has trone out of My lips." While it is
true to-day as in the days of the ancients
that "the just live by faith," it is also true
that such faith is greatlj sustained by con-
templating the confirmatory statements of
inspired writers, showing that our accept-
ance of the plain surface meaning is un-
doubtedly the correct one; and then by
regarding the attested provision for their

160

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

fulfilment. This is the more necessary,
sinoe our

FAITH IS DENOUNCED

as "carnal." "extravagant," and "fanatical"
by many who only receive these covenants
as perpetual after changing tbeir gram-
matical meeting and substituting some other
as more suitable, thus virtually doing what
God Himself declares He will never do, viz. :
"alter the thing tnat has gone out of My
lips." We thank God that in an age abound-
ing with unbelief in His promises. He gives
us an abundance of testimony by which not
only our own belief is supported, but we are
able to be (I. Pet. iii. 15) "ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh
you a reason of the hope that is in you." As
illustrative that our confidence is intelligently
placed, taKe the inheriting of the land as
given personally to the patriarchs and to the
seed. In view of our inheriting the prom-
ises with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the
Divine Spirit gives us a varied-array of evi-
dence to show us that our comprehension of
tne Word accords fully with the Durposa of
God. First, we are divinely assured that
Abrabam, Isaac, and Jacob did not person-
ally inherit the land (Acts vii. 5), and that
they diea as "pilgrims and strangers," "not
having received the promises" (Heb. ix. 8, 9,
xi. 13-40). Next, seeing that this, owing to
God's faithfulne-s, necessitates the resurrec-
tion. Jesus Himself teaches us (Luke xx. 37;
Matt. xxii. 31; Mark xii. 26) that the cov-
enanted memorial ("the Lord God of your
fathers, the God ot Abraham, the God of Isaac,
the God of Jacob * * * this is My
name forever, and this is My
memorial unto all generations) implies
the resurrection of the dead, for it is based
upon the majestic attributes of a God, who
(Mat. iii., 6) changes not, who (Numb,
xxiii. , 19) "is not a man chat He should lie,
neither the Son of man that He should re-
pent;" who (Jer xxxii., 17, Matt, xix., 26,
Luke i., 37 and xviii., 27, Dan. iv, 35) does
not allow His power to be limited by unbe-
lief, because (Job xxiii., 13) "He is in one
mind, and who can turn Him? and what His
soul desireth, even that He aoeth;'' "For
(Isa. xiv, 27/ the Lord of Hosts purposed,
and who shall disannul it?" Would to God
that an Abrahamic faith would more and
more

CHABACTEEIZE BELIEVERS;

such a faith as caused Abraham to believe,
as in Isaac's case (Heb. xi., 17-19), that the
Almighty would be faithful in fulfilling His
promises even if such a fulfillment re-
quired as an essential a resurrection from
the grave. . Next observe that as all believ-
ers are engrafted by taitn and thus become
the children of Abraham, obtaining a per-

sonal interest in the covenanted promise of
inheriting, the Scriptures in all their teacn-
ings corroborate tne indisputable! sense of
the covenant by asserting that this earth,
delivered from the curse and renewed un-
der the all-providing creative hand of Him
who will (Rev. xxi., 5) "make all things
new,"shall be "the everlasting possession" of
the redeemed, verifying the declaration of
Jesus (Matt, v, 5), "Blessed are the meek;
for they shall inherit the earth" (Compare
Psa. xxxvii.). Witn neuoaus (Ag. Her.
ch. xxxii.) relying upon the covenant and
God's faithfulness, we say: "It is fitting
that the just, rising at the appearance of
God, should in the renewed state receive the
promise of inberitance wnich God cov-
enanted to the Fathers, and should reign in
it.'' This and this alone makes the Bible
a unit in promise, beginning with the
earthly paradise forfeited and ending with
the same regained; thus enforcing as vital a
perfect redemption from the curse, restoring
that which was lost with added beauty,
glory and blessedness. The consciousness
that tiie living God is the Holy One
wno engaged himself must, in the
very nature of the case, in-
spire faith and hope both in the
patriarchs and in us that the future fulfill-
ment thus presented will be performed.
Abraham's faith is greater than ours, how-
ever impressed to loot forward to "the day
of the Christ," because the promises were
given purposely in a form to test bis trust iu
God's ability and faithfulness, which the act-
ual presence and oath of the great Promiser
materially aided to enliven. Our faith, in-
deed, like his, is tested by our utter inability
to explain just how tbis and that promise is
to be accomplished, leaving the Supernatural
to fulfill His own engagements; but unbelief
in us is inexcusable, seeing that to

THE WOBD OF GOD

as given to the patriarchs we have added
revelations with promises, added dispensa-
tions with their redemptive developments,
and added means culminating in the Person
of the Messiah, designed expressly for a ver-
ification of these promises. The nast non-
fulfillment has nothing whatever to do with
the validity or the stabilitv of covenant en-
gagements. This stumbling-block to the
multitude, causing either a rejection or mod-
ification of them, has no effect upon the in-
telligent believer, because the same Script-
ures clearly teach not only the postpone-
ment, but also give the reasons why the long
delay occurs, and exhort to patient waiting.
Thus, likewise, we might take the seed, di-
rectly referred to the Christ (Gal. iii.. 18) and
trace the partial fulfillment, the develop-
ments, the promises attached to Him, all ev-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

1U1

idencing an omnipotence in Providence that
is irresistable, a covenanted result in contin-
uous prospect that must, in view of the
means provided, manifest itself according to
the will declared to Abraham ana David; and
also the loving personal interest that God
takes in the unfolding of His purpose so that
honor, praise and glory may ever be ascribed,
to Him by the inheritors of His marvelous
grace. In brief, the entire analogy of Script-
ure and of faith evidences by a progressive
testimony, bound together in a unity of de-
sign, such a harmonious plan, founded on
the everlasting covenants, that we would be
faithless not to accept of their promises as
unchanging and irrevocable, "ordered in all
things and sure" (IL Sani'l xxiii., 5). Let me
appeal to your own experience, brethren, is
it not true, that whenever in your per-
sonal study of the Scriptures they were
read in the light afforded by cove-
nant promises the result has been
increased knowledge of redemptive mercy
ana grace, increased faith and hope, warm-
ing the heart witb anticipated deliverance?
Our belief is finally established in these
covenants by considering the means already
provided tor their ultimate fulfillment. We
freely admit that which our opponents allege
as a serious and even fatal objection, via.,
that to have our faith and nope in such
promises realized there must be, of neces-
sity, a direct and special intervention of,
and power exerted by, the supernatural
Why this shrinking back from this proffered
aid, when the natural, as Paul testifies, must
ever remain under its present

GROANING BONDAGE!

without its assistance? Why, especially, do
those who professedly accept of these cov-
enants, object to our reliance upon, and our
trust in, the supernatural to fulfill them,
when the covenants themselves are the most
sacredly specified utterances of the super-
natural, hedged in by supernatural acts, and
culminating in the supernatural birth and
person of the seed, David's Son and Lord?
From tne day these covenants were given
down to the present, the Lord God of the
Fathers has warned us to put our trust only
in Him for tneir realization. Ponder over
the promises, their greatness, and compre-
hensiveness, and it must be admitted that
they can never, never be experienced by
either the patriarchs or by believers, unless
God aids immediately by His omnipotence.
The germal promises covenanted, as ex-
plained, enlarged, and enforced by the
prophets and and apostles, fully corroborate
this position. Thus, for example, they in-
clude, as the attestation of inspired men
proves, tne personal coming of Abraham's
ana David's seed to inherit; the resurrection

from the dead; the inheriting of a renewed
earth; the effectual removal of the curse hl
"the times of the restitution of all things-**
the glorious theocratic reign of the seed and
His co-heirs; the perpetual deliverance from
sufferings, sickness, sorrow, tears, and death;
the removal of the bondage under whict
nature labors with groanings; the restora-
tion of all forfeited blessings with in-
creased exaltation and happiness; and ail
these, as well as other promises still unful-
filled, embrace such radical and grand
changes that the Bible uniformly, from
beginning to ending, teaches that the
personal Intervention of Him. is.
whom all power is lodged, can
alone produce Results so far-reaching and
magnificent. The Messiah is the peaceful
instrumentality provided to bring about
these astounding manifestations in heaven
and earth, in nature and the creature, in the
saints and the race, in the Holy Spirit and
the Christ. Our faith grasping the things re-
corded of, and pertaining to. Him as the

MIGHTY RESTORER,

makes him pre-eminently "our hope" (L
Tim. i., 1), and His second coming, "the
blessed hope" (Tit ii., 13). Let us briefly
contemplate a few particulars associated
with our Messiah, and requisite to perform
covenant purposes. It will cheer our heart*
and urge us to increased "love for iiis ap-
pearing." The Old and New Testaments
unite in the declaration that the mission of
Jesus is to fulfill the covenants and related
promises. The simple question for us to
answer is this: As the supernatural is In-
dispensibly necessary to accomplish their re-
alization, does this Jesus possess the required
supernatural power? The answer to this it
overwhelmingly in the affirmative, leaving
no apology for unbelief. The covenants^
supernaturally given in the preparatory ful-
fillment evidence with a distinctness and
force that can not be resisted, without the
grossest disbelief, the possession of all power
in the seed. It is impossible to be a believer
either in the covenants or the Messiah, a*
the ordained Covenant- Fulfiiler, without
conceding this much. The conception of the
seed was supernatural; the life and the
works were supernatural; the death, resur-
rection, and ascension were supernatural
Eliminate these from Jesus and we have no
longer a Savior able to save, a Restorer with
strength to restore, and hope perishes under
the heaviness and bondage of an entailed
curse. When the Christ came at tne first
advent it was absolutely necessary that He
should exhibit the actual possession of the
needed power to consummate covenanted
redemption. Thank God this, that is fool-
ishness to unbelief but wisdom to the wise.

162

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

He did, and constantly appealed to ita pos-
session and manifestation as decided nroof
that He was the appointed seed, the Messiah
with adequate authority and might to
fulfill. The union of the supernatural
with Him is His distinguishing excellency,
and in His appeals forms the crowning char-
acteristic invitinsr to belief. Behold His
works! Is death to be removed to make in-
heriting possible? He has abundantly shown
that he nas authority over

DEATH A>D THE GEAVE.

Is nature to be fashioned anew to effect its
deliverance? He has sufficiently manifested
his ability to control nature. Is glorification
to be realized in order to enhance the
blessedness of the inheritance? He has ex-
hibited His astounding transformation
power. Is Satan, the god of this world, to be
eventually cast oat and bound? He has
proven His foreshadowing might and pur-
pose over him. Are sickness and sorrow and
tears to be banished; are blindness, lame-
ness, deafness, and dumbness to be removed;
are hunger, thirst, and famine to be ex-
pelled; are all the evils incident to a curse
pressing so hard upon animate and in-
animate creation to be repealed? He in the
numerous attested miracles of healing, the
removal of grief-producing causes, feeding,
dominion over creatures, etc., has unmistak-
ably testified to His amazing ability to com-
plete redemption as covenanted. This ex-
traordinary demonstration of the super-
natural in Jesus is full of comfort and joy,
for it points us on to the future when this
same Jesus of supernatural origin and glori-
fied in the supernatural shall return unto
salvation; and then, as a thousand
promises declare, shall exert His om-
nipotence in order to verify the truthfulness
and faithfulness of covenants given
specially under the auspices of a faithful
God. This is the most, reasonable and God-
honoring faith, seeing that it makes the
supernatural and miraculous indispensable
adjuncts to the grand consummation in-
tended. Hence, as various writers have cor-
rectly pointed out, the miracles of Jesus are
called "signs;" signs of divine power lodged
in Him to be used in securing the goal in-
tended; signs of that future exertion of
might to subserve the covenanted salvation;
signs of the potent strength that
will be exerted in re-creation: signs
of that dominion that shall be
enforced in behalf of the highest
welfare and happiness of man and the race;
signs of that

POWERFUL WILL.

•*Working, whereby He is able to subdue all
things to Himself1 (Phil. iii. 21); signs that
(Col. i. 16) "by Him were all things created,

that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones
or dominions, principalities or powers, all
things were created by Him and for Him;
and He is before all, and by Him all things
consist." Surely when such a mighty One
challenges our acceptance ot these signs as
tokening: the intended faithfulness, it indi-
cates a deliberate, if not sinful, lack of faith
if we refuse to make the designed applica-
tion. In this day of unbelief and lowering
of the majesty of Jesus, these words (Jno. x.
25) of His are significant: "The works that
I do in My Father's name, they bear witness
of Me;" (Jno. xiv. 10-11) "Believest thou not
that I am in the Father, and the Father ia
Me? the words that 1 speak unto you I speali
not of Myself; but the Father that dwelleth
in Me, He doeth the works. Believe Me, thai
I am in the Father and the Father in Me; or
else believe Me for the very worlds sake."
Yes, blessed Jesus, our hearts respond, we
believe in Thee; we believe in Thy works
of mercy and grace, stamping Thee as "the
Anointed," "the Faithful Witness," "the
Mighty God.,' and "Immanuel," who will
come again to perfect salvation, of which
Thou hast given us abundant assurances to
impart confidence and patient trust The
supernatural is essential in bestowing the
plan of redemption, in providing the means
requisite to its completeness, in givine the
evidenca of its existence and interest, and
in bringing forth the glorious consumma-
tion.

The splendid prospect that the future pre-
sents under the guidance and controlling in-
fluence of the supernatural, may be illus-
trated by a reference to the person of the
Redeemer. To obtain a correct view the
Abrahamic and Davidic covenants — both
everlasting — must be linked together, eeeing;
(as the primitive branch so logically held)
that the latter embraces the kingly instru-
mentality by which the former is to be
eventually realized. This combination gives
us at once a supernatural King, so
majestic that he is the "Kinar of
Kings." The germal theocratic idea
is already given in the Abrahamic
eoveuant in the declaration, that God will be
a god to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This
was developed in the establishment of a the-
ocracy in which God Himself is the head.
Foreseeing the withdrawal of the

THEOCBATIC GOVERNMENT

on account of the sins of the Jewish nation
the Davidic covenant is purposely given so
that we might have implicit confidence in
God's theocratic purpose. Hence it is, to
complete assurance, also attested (Psalm
exxxii., 11: Ixxxix.. 35; Actsjii., 30) by oath.
David, by inspiration, directly foretold the

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163

overthrow of the theocracy, but expresses
His unalterable faith in the realization of the
covenant in the future. He describes this
promised Seed who shall occupy the theo-
cratic throne as "higher than the kings of
the earth," as infinitely superior to Solomon,
giving- Him exaltation, authority, dominion,
immortality, and perpetuity of reign that
would be folly to ascribe to a mere mortal
King. In David's last words (IL Saul, xxiii.,
5), filled with trust and foreseeing the great
salvation attached to the relgh of tbis seed,
he emphatically says: "He hath made with
me an everlasting covenant ordered in all
tbings and sure; for this is all my salvatioa
and all my desire." Having already briefly
looked at this King, and seen that the super-
natural abided with Him, we are ready and
willing to indorse and emulate David'3 faith
ana hope. We unhesitatingly accept of the
claims put forth by tbis covenanted seed as
required for salvation and attested to by
earnests. We deeply feel that while tbe hu-
man is essential to redemption and the ex-
altation of humanity, the divine incorporated
with it in the person of Jesus is likewise
necessary, and the union of the two in Him
forms the perfect Redeemer needed b} sin and
curse, by sinner and saint, by the dead and
the living, by the race and the earth, impart-
ing the most precious hope of God again
dwelling with men, and being, in the theo-
cratice sense, their God (Rev. xxi., 3), who
gives the required validity, efficacy, and re-
alization to His word. We do not see how
anyone who receives the Scriptures in hum-
ble faith and has tested them by the most
satisfactory of proofs, a personal reception
of the Cnrist, can possibly object to such a
vital and indispensibie union of tbe human
and supernatural in Jesus; now he can turn
away from His oneness with the Father (John
xv., 30), His claim of equal power with the
Father (John v., 23), His declaration that the
fulness of the Godhead bodily dwelleth in
Him. (Col. ii. 9), hence makinsr Himself
equal with God, (Jno. v. 18; x. 36;xix7).
This, this is the Savior that man, the raca
and the earth burdened under an all-per-
vading and

SORROW-PRODUCING CURSE

requires. His ability shines forth in the say-
ing, "all things that the Father hath are
■mine;" (Jno. xvi. 15). His pre-eminent dig-
nity and power to save appears in His being
"the brightness of the Father's erlory, and
the express image of His person. ( Heb. 1. 3)
So that it is true that He is the "Alpha and
Omega, tne beginning and the ending,"
(Rev. i. 8), and that it is a certainty that He
is the One of whom Isaiah (liv. 5) predicts:
Tby Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the
■God of the whole earth shall He be called."

Such a view of "the Coming One" is amply
sufficient to establish the dignity, power,
riches, honor, blessing, and glory, consti-
tuting Him "tne All in fti air." and nence
leaving us inexcusable to reject or alter His
covenant promises. How can we be faith-
less when this divine, human, this God-man
bas even sealed this covenant with His own
precious blood, causing it to be possible, by
the remission of our sins in His atoning
blood, and the obtaining of tho=e accounted
worthy to inherit, to make these promises
realities. Yan Oosterzee (uh. Dog. vol. 2. p.
471), utters a pregnant truth when he so
aptly remarks: "We have learned to recog-
nize the covenant of God with Abraham as
the foundation of the entire revelation of
salvation." Let us pray that every bencver
may attain to such learning, for then (Eph.
i. 18) "the eyes of our understanding will be
enlightened that we may know what is the
hope of His callin?, and what the riches of
the glory of His inheritance in the saints."
Misled by the word "new," which is em-
ployed in the Scriptures in the sense of "re-
newed" as in new moon, new heart, new
creature, new heavens and earth, etc., many
fail to grasp the weight and deep significance
in the memorable words (Math. xxvi. 28),
"this is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the remission of
sins." (LuKe xxii. 20). "This cup is the new
testament in my blood, which is shed for
many." Now what is, as Paul (Heb. xiii. 20)
calls it, thie "everlasting covenant" ratified
by His blood? Tbe answer trom
hundreds of passages, the argument
especially of Gal 3, Eph. 2, and of
Hebrews, the general analogy and unity of
Scripture, unmistakably teaches that it is
the Abrahamic, for that contains the prom-
ises we inherit with Him, provided wo
through this blood become the children of
Abraham, and thus come into covenanted
relationship, by which we become heir3 with
the

PATRIARCHS AND CO-HEIRS

with tbe seed. If that covenant were dis-
annulled, then there would be no salvation;
if that covenant ever fails, then the blood of
Jesus has lost its claimed sealing efficacious-
ness; if that covenant is not ratified by His
blood, then the blessing of Abraham can not
come upon us gentiles through Jesus, the
Christ, that we might become Abraham's
seed and heirs according to the promise (Gal.
3), and we can never hope to enter with the
patriarchs the covenanted inheritance. We,
however, have faith in that costly blood!
Realizing its exceeding preciousnes' now in
the spirit-imparted self-consciousness of sin
forgiven, we possess the earnest that the
promises of Gou contained iu the covenants.

164

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

and which we acquire by union with the
Christ and adoption as Abraham's children,
are not disannulled (Gal. iii. 17), can not
possibly fail, but are confirmed of God in the
Christ (Gal. iii. 15>, who thus becomes the
surety ot "'the promise of eternal inherit-
ance." What a pledge of faithfulness and
covenanted love, mercy, and grace is given
in the shed blood of 'the agent appointea to
bring to pass the accomplishment, seeing,
also, that in all this His own inheritance and
glory is involved. Hence, Paul, grounded in
the covenants and believing in the Second
Advent as the predicted period of realization,
says (I Cor. xi. 20), in immediate connection
with the ratification of the covenant in Jesus'
blood: "For as often as ye eat this bread and
drink this cup ye do show the Lord's death
till He come." Hence the precious testimony
of the venerable Dr. Bonar on this point in
his letter read by the secretary. In the
divine procedure this death is a prerequisite
to a restoring to us the once forfeited but
now covenanted blessings of anEdenic state.
The resurrection associated with it is also
vital, not only in showing us that the keys of
death hang at His girdle, but in constituting
Him the immortal, glorified eon of David,
thus meeting the very conditions im-
posed by the covenant His ascension
and exaltation are not merely
an assurance of the acceptance of His work
as in accordance with the Divine will, but
they confirm the proposed work of the fu-
ture. How then, in view of all these things,
can we refuse to receive all the promises of
God as written? It is faithless to set aside a
nart as

UNWORTHY OF BELIEF,

to limit a portion as demanded by so-called
progress, to modify and change the plain
grammatical sense to suit our reason and
ideas of the fitness of things, tor it is God
that promises and God that fulfills. Breth-
ren, is it not as true to-day as it was in the
days of Christ and the apostles that salvation
is of the Jews, ana is not, therefore. Paul's
warning (Rom. xi. 20), to the gentiles not to
be "high minded" fairly applicable to the
general unbelief of Jewish covenanted prom-
ises? Lst us constantiv keep in mind as a
caution and help, that no portion of these
covenants in their preparatory fulfillment
ment were ever realized as the natural wis-
dom of man conceived, or in accord with the
expectations and anticipations of the multi-
tude, and this, as predicted, will be repeated.
Now combine the covenants and associated
promises with this divine-human, supernat-
ural King, and behold, the untold riches as-
cribed to Him, the splendor of. the saints'
deBtiny, the exaltation of the Jewish Nation,
the blessinge bestowed upon the race and

the deliverance given to creation. We have
a veritable theocratic King, God, himself,
tcondescending to be an earthly ruler, this
giving us a perfect, infallible head, and se-
curing stability and perpetuity to His kine-
dom. God manifested, in the person ot One
related to humanity, seated on the theo-
cratic throne, restored with the grandeur due
to so sublimft a personage, the human and
the divine united in identical rule, secured
one determining will, a bulwark of suprem-
acy, strength of execution, unitv of purpose,.
the endless majestic relationship of headship
over the race as the Second Adam, the filling
and lighting- up in glorification of the darkly
glimmering chasm between the finite and.
the infinite, world-wide dominion, the high-
est possible spirituality and personal access
so that we may behold the King in HiB
beauty and royalty. We see the
divine and political, the civil ana
the religious, the church ana the
State, the natural and the spiritual
harmoniously combined, as of necessity they
must be under such a rule that is truly the-
ocratic, thus giving: us God's own judgment
of what constitutes the highest possible form
of government; thus showing us that God's
instructive

CONCEPTION OF GOVERNMENT

is not a failure, but will inevitably result ira
universal empire, thus evidencing that all
things, without exception, will indeed be
consecrated to the praise of God, and thus
happily exemplifying that He is a priest for-
ever as well as a King — a King-priest, who
reigns over a redeemed and '4a willing peo-
ple," in whose behalf He will forever dispel
the evils, clashing interests, jealousies, and
wars of gentile domination. By faith we
behold the theocratic relationship and bless-
ings of the elect Jewish nation augmented
in the regeneration and times of refreshing,
when regrafted into its own olive tree by
this "King of the Jews," thus constituting it
"the holy nation," forming the nucleus of
•'the greatness of the kingdom under the
whole heaven," introduced by the change of
princes and leading to the heartfelt allegi-
ance of the nations. By faith we see the
marriage of the Lamb with the festal robes
and supper, the victory over sin and death*
the redemption of the body, the manifesta-
tion of the sons of God, the blessed meaning
of adoption displayed in Christ-liKe fashion-
ing, the kingship and priesthood of the
saints, the overthrow of all enemies and the
destruction of the works of the devil, the
vindication of justice and mercy, holiness
characteristic of the great and minute, the
Holy Spirit so marvelously poured out that
the supernatural abides continuously with
power; the withdrawal of the glass through.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

165

which we see darkly the new heavens and
the new earth in which dwelleth righteous-
ness, the perpetual wiping away of tears by
the sympathizing hand of Omnipotence, the
joyfulness in glory, the splendor and associ-
ation of angels, the mighty increase ot the
Kingdom, the creation under the plastic
band of this Ruler lavish with gifts and fat-
ness, so that even the creature basks In the
sunshine of renovation, and the new Jerusa-
lem with God and the Lamb as its
highest excellency, bestowing the priceless
legacy of eternal fellowship with the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit

Is it not then true (Col. i. 27), "Christ in
us the hope of glory V" Is it not then a most
prominent truth that the

SECOND COMING OF JESUS

unto salvation is "the blessed hope?" And
is it not then pre-eminently true that our
nope is (Jer. xvii. 13; Acts xxviii. 20) "the
hope of Israel," "the hope of the promise
made of God unto our fathers, unto which
promise our twelve tribes, instantlv serving
tiod day and night, hope to come," so that
when the long-delayed, long-desired "day ot
the Lord Jesus, the Christ," shall come
(Isa. xxv. 9), "It shall be said in that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him,
and He will save us; this is the Lord; we
have waited for Him, we will be glad and re-
joice in His salvation." O, come, speedily
come, thou covenant-keeping God!

Blessed are the covenants; blessed are the
oaths of the Almighty attesting the 6am?;
blessed are tne provisionary means instituted
toward fulfillment; blessed are the evidences
of God's faithfulness and ability to verify
them; blessed is the sealing blood; blessed is
the all-powerful Agent ordained to perform
the sublime work; and blessed, beyond de-
scription, is every one who shall have the
unspeakable happiness of experiencing in
his own person the transforming and glorify-
ing hand of the covenant-fulfilling God!
And let all true and enlightened believers
say, "Amen !"

BESOLUTIONS ADOPTED

The concluding meeting of the conference,
showing no decrease in good attendance, was
presided over Dy Bishop Nicholson. Frayer
was said by the Rev. Mr. Osier, of Provi-
dence. To confute all misrepresentations
which might prevail concerning the purport
and purpose of the conference, this bodv, on
motion of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, adopted the
following declaration of principles, the iden-
tical platform adopted, for similar reasons,
by the New York conference eight years
before. These resolutions express, in brief,
the views of the large body of ministers who

participated in, or were present to sympa-
thize witn, the proceedings.

1. We affirm our belief in the supreme and
absolute authority on the written WoTdof
God on all questions of doctrine and duty.

2. The prophetic words of the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures, concerning the first coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, were literally ful-
filled in His birth, life, death, resurrection
and ascension; and so the prophetic words of
both the Old and the New Testaments con-
cerning His second cpming will be literally
fulfilled in His visible bodily return to this
earth in like manner as he went up into
Heaven; and

THIS QliOBIOUS EPIPHANY

of the great God, our Savior Jesus Christ, is
the blessed hope of the believer and of the
Church during this entire dispensation.

3. This second coming of the Lord Jesus is
everywhere in the Scriptures represented as
imminent, and may occur at any moment;
yet the precise day and hour thereof is un-
known to man, and only known to God.

4. Tne Scriptures nowhere teach that the
whole world will be converted to God, and
that there will be a reign or universal
righteousness and peace before the return of
the blessed Lord; but that only at and by
His coming in power and glory will the
prophecies concerning the progress of evil
and the development of Antichrist, the times
ef the gentiles, and the ingathering of
Israel, ihe resurrection of the dead in Christ,
the transfiguration of His living saints, re-
ceive their fulfillment, and the period of
millennial blessedness its inauguration.

5. The duty of, the church during the
absence of the bridegroom is to watch and
pray, to work and wait, to go Into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creat-
ure, and thus hasten the coming of the day
of God; and to His last promise, "surely I
come quickly,'' to respond, in joyous hope,
"even so; come Lord Jesus."

C. That the doctrine of our Lords pre-
milleunial advent, instead of paralyzing
evangelistic and missionary effort, is one of
the mightiest incentives to earnestness in
preaching the Gospel to every creature, until
He comes.

The conference then

ADOPTED THE FOLLOWIXO:

1. Resolved. That our thanks are extended
o the committee wno have called us to-
gether for the interesting and profitable ar-
rangement ot subjects presented at this con-
ference, and especially to the -secretary for
his indefatigable labors In respect to the de-
tails of this instructive and satisfactory
meeting. The thanks of this conference are
tendered to Mr. John Morrison, Chairman
of the R. R. Committee, and the brethren

166

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

associated with Jiim in their labors of love so
helplul to the committee.

2. That we request the following brethren
to act as an interim committee, with author-
ity to act m our stead, in regard to any un-
finished business connected with this meet-
ing1, aua also to call a future meeting; of this
conference when it may be deemed ex-
pedient: The Rev. Dr. James H. Brooks, SSt
Louis; Bishop W. R. Nicholson, Philadelphia;
Professor W. G. Moorhead, Xenia, Ohio; the
Rev. Br. A- J. Gordon, Boston; the Rev. S. H,
Kellogg, Toronto, Ont. ; the Rev. Dr. E. P.
Goodwin, Chicago; the Rev. W. J. Erdman,
Boston; and George C. NeedUam, Boston.

TfiE REV. A. J. PRO ST, D. D.

"Condition of tlie Cnurch and World at
Christ's Second Advent; or. Are the Church
and World to Grow Better or Worse Until He
Come?"

This question divides Christendom, nom-
inal or real, into two classes. Postmillen-
nialists hold that the church and the world
are growing morally better, and that they
will continue to improve until our Lord re-
turns. Premillenialists maintain that tho
church and the world are destined

TO GROW MORALLY WORSE

until the end of the age. One class believes
tnat the condition of the church and the
world at Christ's second advent will be the
culmination of millennial glorv; whiie the
other class as firmly believe that this dis-
pensation will end in diabolical wickedness
and well-nigh universal apostasy amid the
crash of Apocalyptic thunder and the un-
paralleled iudgments of God. One division of
Christendom is looking for a millennium
without a personal, visible Christ; the other
division is loosing for His coming to intro-
duce that erolden age. This question admits
of no concessions, no compromises. If one
division of Christendom is right the other di-
vision is wrong. Oar appeal is
to the infallible word of God.
If the condition of the church
and the world at Christ's second advent is
shown by the sacred writers to be deplorable
beyond conception, then the church and the
world are to grow morally worse until He
come.

I am fully aware that the mere suggestion
of such a question is enough to rouse an em-
phatic protest both from the nominal church
and the world. So accustomed are they to
boast of the progress of the age, the advance-
ment of Bcience,and the spread of the gospel
among all nations, that a proposition ex-
pressing the conviction that the church and
the world are to grow morally worse instead

of better, culminating in the downfall of all
human institutions and the complete over-
throw of the great world-powers, is likely to
evoke 'the severest criticism from both the
secular and the religious world. This propo-
sition Implies so much of rebuke that this
proud, vaulting, God-denying, God-defying
age will hardly tolerate it for a moment Wo
Bhall endeavor to show that the sacred writ-
ers in the Old and New Testament scriptures
foretold this state of moral declension and
religious apostasy. With unerring wisdom,
through divine inspirations, they predicted
that this dispensation, like all that had pre-
ceded it, would close in utter failure of
man's hopes to redeem the world by the
preaching of the gospel, and that

THE IMPENDING JUDGMENTS OF GOD

would fall upon a faithless church and a guilty
world and thus close the scene. iDark and
gloomy as this prediction may be, it becomes
us to pause and consider this greatest and
gravest question of the age. So much has
been said by optimistic writers concerning
the glorv of the nineteenth century and the
coming era, is it not time to listen to the
otlier side?

1. What do past dispensations teach
regarding man's faithfulness and responsi-
bility. Both the human and divine nature
being the same in all ages, past dis-
pensations will throw light upon the
present and the future. In every dispensa-
tion God is sovereign and man is free, and
therefore the success or failure of a redemp-
tive scheme is less or more contingent upon
man's faithfulness and responsibility. The
principles of divine government being the
same in all ages, human nature being the
same in all dispensations, we may derive
much knowledge of the present tendency
and tlie final outcome of this dispensation,
by brii fly considering those that are pasc.
We shall not only find them analogous buB*
identical in their underlying principles.

(n) The paradisaical dispensation.
Never dispensation began with better
oppotunities and more favorable

prospects. Paradise, the garden

of the Lord, the favored spot;
Adorn and Eve, Gods image and master-
piece, the favored occupants; angels for com-
panions, the triune God for counselor and
guide, the "Tree of Life" for symbol and
pledge of immortality; with natures immac-
ulate, if not holy; temptation the least pos-
sible, reward the greatest conceivable, yet
how did the Eden dispensation terminate?
Man ruined, lost, driven out of paradise by
his Maker, bis entrance barred by cherubic
sword melting into flame. Notwithstand-
ing the

1 i i E PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

iti7

■UNSULLIED MORAL BEAUTY,

the majesty and the glory with which that
dispensation beg-arj, it ended in universal
apostasy and the consequent judgment of
Almighty God.

(b) The antediluvian dispensation. Adam
and Eve in God-made vestments of sacrifice,
outside the gates of paradise, stand at the
head of a new disDensation. Cain and Abel
represent the good and evil principles of the
new era.

1. Good and evil foims of worship. Abel
presents a sin offering, Cain a thank offering;
one a sacrifice, the other a curse; one of
faith, the other of works; one wins God's
respect, the other His frown.

2. Good and evil results of such worship.
Jealousy, hatred, murder, eternal death.

3. Good and evil alliances, sons
of God in alliance with the
daughters of men. Sethites and Cainites
in wedlock. "Every imagination of the
thoughts of man's heart was only evil con-
tinually. "All flesh was corrupt before
God," "the whole earth was filled with vio-
lence."

4. Good and evil, in judgment by God's
saints Abel, Seth. Enoch, and Noah, con-
demned the world. Perchance thev were
called pessimists, bigots, fanatics. Enoch,
a premillennialist, who prophesied that the
Lord would come with 10,000 of His saints
to execute judgment upon a guilty world,
walked so near heaven's sate that God
reached out and took him in— first of the
translation saints. Noah, a preacher of
righteousness representative of the resur-
rection saints, is hid in the pavilion of the
Almighty till the indignation is overpast.

We have it on the authority of Jesus Christ
that, "As the days of Noah were, so shall
also the coming of the Son of man be. For,
as in the days that were before the flood,
they were eating and drinkinjr, marrying
ana giv ng in marriage, until the day Noah
entered the Ark, and knew not till the 11 )od
came and took them all away. So shall also
the coming of the Son of man be." Here is
not only analogy, but identity in the ending
of dispensations.

(c.) The Patriarchal dispensation teachas %
similar lesson. Noah and his family stand be-
Bide God's altar at the head of a new dispensa-
tion. All God's waves and billows bad passed
over him unharmed. Good and evil are to
have a new trial. We have neither time nor
space to even summarize the underlying
principles of this di-peusation. Wo are to
deal with the outcome of dispensation-, the
condition of things at the close of the present
age. Two things claim attention, however,
on this point. (1) The Patriarchal dispensa-
tion closed with the world lying In wicked-

ness and God's chosen people in bondage.
(2) The Lord Jesus represents the conditioa
of the church and the world at the end of
this age as far worse tnan that of

EGYPTIAN BONDAGE.

"As it was in the days of Lot, they did eat,
they drank, they bought, they sold, they
planted, they builded. But the same day
that Lot went out of Sodom it rained tira
and brimstone from heaven and destroyed
them all. Even thus shall it be in the day
when the Son of man is revealed." No
method of exegesis can overthrow the fact
that our Lord, in speaking of the condition
of the world at His second advent, purposely
selected the darkest period in both the Ante-
diluvian and Patriarchal dispensations, as
representing the corning apostasy and the
retributive judgments of God. If the world
is to grow better until Christ returns,
if millennial glory is to flood the
earth for a thousand years before His advent,
then he should have said: "As it was in tne
days of paradise before sin entered, so shall it
be in the day when the Son of man coineth."
Or as it was in the days of Solomon, when
peace spread her banners over all the king-
dom; or, as it was in the days of Joshua,
when all opposing kings were trodden in the
dust, "so shall it be when the Son of man
cometh."

{d\ The Mosaic dispensation is not less ex-
plicit in regard to man's responsibility and
faithfulness.

Let an inspired apostle speak of the exalted
privileges of the Hebrew nation. "Who are
Israelites: to whom pertaineth the adoption
and the srlory, and the covenaut, and the
giving of the law, and the service of God,
and the promises? Whose are the fathers, of
whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came,
who is over all. God-blessed forever?" What
mighty deliverance from the bondage of a
former dispensation, what revelations on
Sinai, what magnificent ritual, what divinely
appointed sacrifice, what unearthly glory of
tabernacle and temple, what prophets,
priests, and king". What nation so exalted
to heaven in privilege. And yet what idola-
try and spiritual whoredom— what reoellioa
and hardness of heart. What wailing in
Babylon. What judicial blindness tor ajres.
What a Bethlehem, Gethsemane, and Cal-
vary. What invocations: "His blood be
upon us and our children." How has that
imprecation been answered? "Without a
king, and without a prince, and without a
sacrifice, and without an image, and without
an ephod, and without a teraphim." Thu*
. ended the Mosaic also asatii ■..

APOSTAbY AND JUDGMENT.

It may be replied that the Christian dispensa-
tion will not thus terminate, since it is th*

168

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

•dispensation of the Spirit Every dispensa-
tion has been blessed with the Holy Spirit
Eighty- eight times is the Holy Spirit men-
tioned in trie Old Testament, so that "God is
210 respecter of persons; but in every na-
tion, he that feareth Him and worketh right-
eousness is accepted with Him. " Privilege,
responsibility, apostasy, judgment, are the
characteristics of all dispensations.

II. What do the great world powers teach
concerning the condition of things at
Christ's second advent?

Daniel's exposition of the king's vision of
empire forever settles two things: (1.) That
four universal monarchies in a divided form
would not run their entire course until
Christ comes to grind them to powder and
set up a stone kinerdom on the RocK of Ages
which should fill the whole earth.

(2.) That these kingdoms were to deterio-
rate until the end. The gold of absolute
monarchy, the silver of monarchical oli-
garchy, the brazen aristocracy, and the iron
©f democratic imperialism, were to end in
iron mixed with clay. What a de-
cadence « of world power — from the
precious metals of gold and silver to
the worthless pottery of iron and clay!
There is not a government on earth to-day
•within the limits of the old Roman Empire,
lhat is not made of Roman iron and clay.
Rome still rules the world by her iron laws,
partly strong and partly brittle, by the ever
changing will of the people. The condition
<of the world at Christ's second advent has
Seen predicted by the nature of these fot r
Srreat gentile world-powers, which run their
course until He come whose right it is to
rule. The golden age of human government
is past; we are already in the iron and the
clay, of the earth earthy. Suddenly, with
sne awful crash, the stone kingdom is to de-
stroy these gentile powers, and, mountain
like, stand upon the granite of the globe
lorever. Instead of human government be-
coming ideally perfect for one thousand
jears before He comes, it is to grow weaker
and worse until

HE BEIGNS ON THE EARTH.

ILL What do the eschatological parables of
Christ teach regarding the church and the
world at the end of the age? The parable of
the sower does not teach that the trodden
ground, the stony ground, and the thorny
ground will all become good ground, yield-
ing thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold when our
Lord returns; on the other hand, ttie good
ground is all oversown with tares according
%o the next parable, and both
wheat and tares are to grow together
until the harvest which is

at the end of the age. But the final state is
sven worse, for it is a law of tares to out-

root and outgrow wheat Let anyone sow
wheat and weeds and thistles on the same
soil, and it is easy to see that the wheat will
soon be almost wholly exterminated.
Thorns and thistles will thrive without cul-
tivation; wheat will not. The parable of the
sheep and goats informs us that there will
be whole nations on the earth at the time of
Christ's second advent who have not minis-
tered to Christ or to His brethren. The par-
able of the treasure hid in the field shows
that it is the treasure and not the whole
field that will be taten out of the world.
The parable of the pearl shows that not the
whole world, but a single pearl will be taken
when Christ returns. The parable of the
net teaches not that all the fish of the sea
wiil be gathered, but only some of every
kind, the good saved and the bad cast away.
"So shall it be at the end of the age; the
angels shall come forth and sever the wicked
from among the just." Thus the eschatolog-
ical parables of Christ all teach thati this dis-
pensation will end in vast and overwhelm-
ing wickedness.

IV. What do the eschatological prophecies
of Christ and the apostles teach in regard to
the fiual state of the church and the world?

There is not a prophecy in the Biple which
teaches us that the last days are to be char-
acterized by tne universal

RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL;

on the other hand, many passages inform us
of a well nigh universal rejection of the
gospel. "When the Son of man cometh. shall
He find f aitn on the earth?" If Christ is to
find a millennium on the earth, then He
should have said, "When the Son of man
cometh, shall He find unbelief on the earth?"

No possible exegesis can set aside the fact
that Christ predicted almost universal unbe-
lief at the time of His second advent

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in
the latter times some shall depart from the
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and
doctrines of demons; speaking lies in hypoc-
risy; having their conscience seared with a
hot iron."

"This know also, that in the last days per-
ilous times shall come. For men shall be
lovers of their own selveE — covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natu-
ral affection, truce-breaJters, false accusers,
incontinent, • fierce, despisers of those that
are good, traitors, heady, hisfh-minded, lov-
ers of pleasure more than lovers of God:
Having the form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof."

Such is an inspired description of the state
of the church and the world wheu Christ
comes to set up His visible kingdom at
the end of the age.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

1G9

At the very time of His appearing not one
of the nations of the earth wili be converted
to God. "Behold, He cometh with clouds,
and every eye shall see Him. and thev also
which pierced Him, and all kindreds of the
earth shall wail because of Him" (Rev. i. 7).
If the whole world is to be in the full blaze
of a millennial glory wtei Christ appears
with his saints, why should all kindreds of
the earth wail because of Him? Christ also
eays; ''And then shall appear the sign of the
Son of man in heaven, and then snail the
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see
the Son of man coming in the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory (Matt.
xxiv. 30). Why should all the tribes of the
earth mourn if they nave all been converted
to God a thousand years before His appear-
ing? If the Jews have all been born of the
Spirit

WHEN OHKIST RETURNS.

why does Zachariah (xii., 10-14) say, "and
they shall look upon Me whom they have
pierced, ana they shall mourn for him as
one mourneth for his only son, and shall be
in bitterness for him as one that is in bitter-
ness for his first born." Why will the Jews
mourn, every family apart, and their wives
apart, if they have all accepted Him
as their Messiah? These predictions show
that the state of the church and
the world at Christ's second advent
will be that of mourning and wailing. Sup-
pose the world improve, as it certainly will-
outwardly in science, art, education, dis-
covery, invention, commerce, and in certain
worldly reforms; he is short-sighted, indeed,
who does not see how superficial and deceit-
ful is all such progress, how stimulating to
all human pride, and therefore exalting
human wisdom, whereas it is the wisdom of
God that the world by wisdom shall not
know God. And it is a fact of nistory that
religious decline is the inevitable prelude to
national ruin. Science, art, literature, juris-
prudence have not the power to make a
state strong if its religion is corrupt, its
morals base and God ignored. The time of
Christ's second advent will be a period of
abounding apostasy and unbelief ; a time of
revolutionary troubles and political agita-
tions uud sufferings; a time when an awaken-
ing cry Will go forth announcing His near,
nese, and yet a time when there shall be
great skepticism and indiflerence on the
suDject by the nominal church. While Bel-
shazzar was feasting with a thousand of his
lords, and drinking wine from the vessels of
God's sanctuary, while music and revelry
were holding high carnival, the Medes and
Persians had silently entered the city of
Babylon. That night the king saw the hand-

writing on the wall, and that niaht was Bel-
shazzar,

KING OF THE CHALDEANS,

slain. These also are days of the world's
feasting and merriment, the captivity of
God's people forgotten, the vessels of God's
temple dishonored Already God's finger is
writing on the walls of the temples of
earthly glory, "Mene, Mene, Tekel. TeHel."
Such, according to the eschatological
prophecies of Christ and his apostles, is to
be the condition of the church and the
world at the time of Christ's second advent
Not only will men not receive the truth and
thus become really better, but they are rep-
resented as becoming so filled with them-
selves, their ease, and their comforts, that
sudden destruction will overtake them at
the very moment they are crying "peace
and safety." We have no hesitation in say-
insr if there is to be a millennium before the
second advent of our Lord, then the
prophetic Scriptures are false from begin-
ning to end, since they predict the exact
opposite. If the world should be converted
by the pleaching of the gospel, and all
should know the Lord from the least to the
greatest 1,000 years before his return, then
the prophets of the Old and New Testaments
have prophesied falsely, their moral char-
acters are impeached, their inspiration is a
false assumption, and the Bible has no
claims upon our reason or faith. If
Christ and his apostles foretold
aposta?y, and unparalleled wickedness
as characteristic of the last "times, such
must be the condition of the church and the
world, or Christ and His apostle3

DECEIVED US.

V. What do the letters to the seven churches
of Asia teach concerning the final state of
this dispensation? There is the highest
exegetical authority for believing that the
seven churches of Asia represent seven suc-
cessive pajres of church history, and that the
Laodicean Church accurately portrays the
condition of nominal Christendom at the
end of this dispensation. I am aware that I
touch the most sensitive nerve of post-mil-
lennialists, nevertheless final and well nigh
universal apostasy of Christendom is re-
peatedly foretold in the Scriptures. Tnis
dispensation, like all that have preceded it,
will end in the most fearful apostasy this
world has ever known, to be immediately
followed by the overwhelming judgments of
God Paul speaks of tnis "falling away,"
"Let no man deceive you by any means;"for
that uay shall not come except there come a
falling away first, and that man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition" (II. Thess.
2-3). "For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine; but after

170

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

their own lusts shall they heap to them-
selves teachers having itching ears; and they
shall turn away their ears froru the truth
and shall be turned unto fables" (II Tim. iv.
3-4). "Knowing this first, that there shall
come in the last days scoffers walking after
their own lusts, and. saying: Where is the
promise of his coming? For since the fath-
ers fell asleep, all things continue as they
wero from the

BEGINNING OF THE CREATION"

(II Pet. ni. 3-4). Christ warned us that
"many false prophets shall rise, and shall de-
ceive many. And because iniqaity shall
abound, the love of many shall wax cold"
(Matt. xxiv. 11-12). Iu the Laodicean age of
the church we find indifference and lune-
warmness, a most nauseating condition,
with Christ standing outside his own pro-
fessed church knocking for admission, while
those within say. "I am rich and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing;" but
they know not that they are wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
At this stage, nearly all Christendom will be
leavened with false doctrine; it is already
rapidly working. The nominal Christian
world will be one vast mass of baptized pro-
fession, "a corrupt, mysterious mixture, a
spiritual malformation, a masterpiece of
Satan, the corruption of the truth of God,
and the destroyer of the souls of men, a trap,
a snare, a stumbling block, the darkest moral
blot in the universe of God. It is
the corruption of the very best thing,
and, therefore, the worst kind of
corruptiona It is that thing which Satan
has made of rjrofessinsr Christianity. It is
worse by tar than Judaism, worse by far
than all the darkest forms of paganism, be-
cause it has had higher light and richer priv-
ileges, made the very highest profession, and
occupied the loftiest platform. Finaliv. it is
that awful apostasy for which is reserved
the very heaviest judgments of God,

THE MOST BITTEE DKEOS

in the cup of His righteous wrath." Few
persons realize what nominal Christendom is
to-day, and the inevitable doom which
awaits it But our Lord gave abundant
warnings of the degeneracy of the professing
church, and the Spirit of God testified against
early corruption— the first workings of the
mystery of iniquity— and fortold the failure
and abuses which shall ripen into complete
apostasy, and which shall call down the
judgments of God on Christendom. The
great At>ostle also warned the charch if she
did not continue in the goodness of God, she
should also be cut off.

On the day of Pentecost, the church was
Christendom, and Christendom was the
church — they were identical. Are they so

to-day? Has the church continued in the
goodness of God? Has not every dispensa-
tion, so far as man's responsibility is
concerned, been a failure? Under the
Christian dispensation, mau's privileges and
responsibilities are as high as heaven, yet he
himself will sink to hell through faithless-
ness. The Loadicean age of lukewarmnes3
is upon us. Christ, the judge, stands at the
door, while "spiritual declension and indif-
ferentism are widespread, inveterate and in-
creasing."

VI. What does the coming Antichrist fore-
shadow as to the condition of the world at
the close of this dispensation? John tells us
that "the spirit of Antichrist" was "already
iu the world" in his day. He also says "even
now have there arisen

MANY ANTICHRISTS

whereby we know that it is the last hour."
But there is an Antichrist to come; he is the
corning man of sin. A brief glance at hia
character and work will tell us the condition
of the church and the world at the close of
this age.

1. His character is sufficiently Indicated
by his names. He is called "The Beast,''
"The King of Fierce Countenance," "The
Little Horn," "The Prince that shall come,"
"Lucifer," "The Man of Sin," "The Son of
Perdition." The draaron is anti-God, the
beast is Antichrist, and his false prophet is
anti-Holy Ghost. Such his character.

2. His work is plainly foretold in
the word of God. "He speaks great
words against the Most High" (Dan.
vii. 25). "He opens his mouth in
blasphemy against God to blaspheme His
name, and His tabernacle, and them that
dwell in heaven" (Rev. xiii. 6). "He makes
war with the saints and overcomes them"
(Rev. xiii. 7). "He causes the sacrifice and
oblation to cease" (Dan. ix. 27).

3. 'I he reign of Antichrist will be at its
height when Christ comes in Dower and
great glory; hence the condition of the
church and the world at Christ's second ad-
vent can not be that of the universal recep-
tion of the gospel and millennial glory. For
He. "shall prevail until the Ancient of days
came, and judgment is given to the saints of
the Most High; and the time came that the
saints uossessed the kingdom" (Dan. vii. 22).
"And then shall that wicked

BE KEVEALED,

whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit
of His mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of His cominar" (IL Thess. ii. 8).
One thing is certain,if Christ does not destroy
Antichrist until the close of the millennium,
then the reign of the dragon, the Antichrist,
and the false prophet ta^es place during
the millennium! Strange millennium that I

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

171

But Satan is bound during the millennium,
and the Antichrist and false prophet are
cast into the lake of fire before the millen-
nium, hence Christ couia not destroy Anti-
christ by the brightness of his ap-
pearing after the millennium. The
irresistible alternative remains that
the whole world will wonder after the beast,
and they will be under his sway when Christ
appears with his 6aints. Such will be tUe
condition of things at Christ's second ad-
vent.

VIL What do the Apocalyptic judgments
teach concerning the condition of the church
and the world at Christ's second advent?

The church proper will be taken away be-
fore the 6eals are broken, the trumpets
sound, or the bowls of God's wrath are
poured out upon the earth. From the close
of the Laodicean age, in Revelation, third
chapter, the church is not mentioned until
the last chapter of the Apocalypse.

The nominal church, with a baptized pro-
fession, and a form of godliness, will pass
into, if not through, the great tribulation
period, and with the whole world will drink
of the cup of the fierceness of the wrath of
God Almighty. If any one desires to know
the condition of

THE NOMINAL CHURCH

and the world at Christ's second advent, let
him read with blanched cheek ana bated
breath from the fifth to the twentieth chap-
ter of Revelation. With God's own hand the
portrait is drawn. The hand that was nailed
to the cross breaks the seven jiftigment seals
and all nature trembles, all mountains from
their firm base are moved, all islands
flee, all seas disturbed, the sun is black, the
moon if blood, all nations in the wineDress
of the wrath of God.

The seven judgment trumpets sound and
"there followed hail and fire mingled with
blood," burning mountains cast into the sea,
waters of wormwood, heavens darkened,
bottomless pit opened, the seven thunders
rolled a universal elemental war, "the great
day of his wrath is come and who shall be
able to stand?" The seven judgment bowls
are pourea out upon the earth, all nature
reels with si'sms of wee, the earth quakes in
all her parts, and the cities of the nations
fall — Rome falls, Chicago falls, God has
arisen to shake terribly the earth. Satan's
wrath is great, his time is short, the nations
blaspheme, the squadrons are gathering in
the valley of Armageddon. God aud anti-
God, Christ and anti-Christ have come, — it is
"the battle of the great day of God Almighty. "
The beast and the false prophet are cast into
the lake of fire, Satan is bound for a thou-
sand years, and the millennium has becun.
Such, my brethren will be the condition of

church nominal and the world when Christ
comes with all His saints to take to himsell
his

GREAT POWER AND REIQN.

This dispensation, iike those that have
preceded it, will certainly end in the un-
paralleled judgments of God. Already are
we entering the penumbra of that awful
eclipse; already men's "hearts are failing
them for fear, and for looking after those
things which are coming on the earth."

But we are intormed by our post-millen-
nial brethren that "the earth shall be full of
the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters
cover the sea;" they forget, however, that
this very passage is preceded by the words:
"He shall smite the earth with the rod of His
mouth, and with the breatn of His lips shall
He slay the wicked" (isa. xi. 9-4). They
tell us that "the wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad, and the desert shall re-
joice and blossom as the rose;" but they for-
get that the context informs us, "Behold
your God shall come with vengeance; even
God with a recompense He will come and
save you" (Isa. xxxv. 1-4). We are re-
minded also that God has said to His Son:
"Ask of me, and I shall give Thee the heathen
for Thine inheritance,and the uttermost part3
of the earth for Thy possession;" hut they
ignore the fact that this world-wide salva-
tion of the heathen does not take place until
"The Kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against Hia
anointed, saying, 'Let us break their
bands asunder and cast away their cords
from us. Thou shalt break them with a rod
of iron (the kings of the earth, not the
heathen). Thou shalt dash them in pieces
like

A potter's vessel;"
and hence he says: "Be wise now therefore,
O ye kings; be instructed ye judges of the
earth" (Ps. ii., 2-3-8-9-10). Is not this a
plain allusion to the battle of the great day
of God Almighty. But we are again tola
that "the God of heaven shall set up a
kingdom that shall never be destroyed."
Very true, but not till the stone cut out
of the mountain without hands shall smite
the great world-kingdoms and they become
"like the chaff of the summer-thrashing
floor." Then' shall the stone-kingdom "be-
come a great mountain and fill the whole
earth." They tell us that all nations are to
be converted by the present system of mis-
sions, and that "the kingdom and dominion
and the greatne-s of the kingdom under the
whole heaven shall De given to the saints of
the Most High;" but they are to recall the
fact that this does not take place until the
Ancient of days "shall come and a fiery

172

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

stream issued before Him, thousand thou-
sands ministered unto Him- and ten thousand
times ten thousand stand before Him,
the judgment was set and the books
were opened. 1 beheld even till
the beast was slain, and his body destroyed
and given to the burning flame" (Dan. vii.,
27. 9, 10, 11). How often in missionary ad-
dresses we hear it said "this gospel must be
preached until the kingdoms of this world
are become the kingdoms of our Lord aud His
Christ," but they seem to forget that
there is no such command or assurance iu
the Bible, while we are informed that this
transfer of kin°ly dominion will not take
place till "the time of the dead, that they
snould be judged," etc. (Rev. xi. 15-18).
Thus we might multiply passages showing
that the conversion of the world takes place
after the

PERSONAL, VISIBLE RETURN

of our Lord. There is not a passage in the
Bible wnich teaches that the nations are to
be converted during the present dispensa-
tion. The Holy Spirit carefully guarded
every sacred writer from so much as hinting
such a thing; on the other hand He directed
mat whenever the conversion of the world
was mentioned the immediate context should
contain some allusion to his premillennial
advent, and to the pouring out of his judg-
ments upon an apostate church, or the Anr.i-
christian world powers.

VIIL What do the "signs of the times"
teach in regard to this solemn subject?

"Ye can discern the face of the sky, can ye
not discern the signs of the times?"

We have pursued thus far seven lines of
argument, any one of which is sufficient to
establish the fact that the condition of the
church and the world at Christ's second ad-
vent will be deplorable beyond description,
while the cumulative weight of these seven
independent propositions seems to us con-
vincing and overwhelming. If, then, the
condition of the church and the world at the
close of this dispensation ia to be that of
well nigh universal apostasy and judgment,
does it not follow that the nominal church
and the world are certain to srrow worse and
worse. What do "the signs of the times"
indicate in regard to this question? Do they
point in the direction of the foregoing argu-
ments?

1. What is the religious condition of the
world to-day, after eighteen nundred a ears
of gospel preaching? There are in the world
to-day 856,0u0,000 heathen, 170,000,-
000 Mohammedans, 190,000,000 Ro-
man ' Catholic. 84,000,000 Greek
Catholics; 8,000,000 Jews, and 116,000.000
Proiestants. Out of the 390.000,000
nominal Christian population, about one-

half are Roman Catholics; one-quarter Greek
Catholic0, and

ONE- QUARTER PROTESTANTS.

There are only 30,000,000 Protestant
church members in the world, and about
86,000,000 Protestant non-church members.
About 1,000,000 of the 30.000,000 Protest-
ant communicants are in unevangelio com-
munions, leaving 29,000,000 in evangelic
communiona Such is the religious popula-
tion of the world to-day. Protestants regard
the 1.300,000,000 outside themselves as
without God and without hope in the world,
with perhaps few exceptions among the
Catholics. But what of the 116,000.000
Protestants? This includes the Protestant
population, not the church membership
merely, much less the regenerated church
membership. Does any one believe that
more than one-half of Protestant church
members have ever been born of God? Is
there any evidence that more than one in a
thousand Roman or Greek Catholics know
anything of experimental religion? Are
there 15,000,000 persons in tne world to-
day who give any token by their fruits that
they are saved? God alone must judge.
But Christ also told his disciples how
to judge of these things: "By
their fruits ye shall know them."
Brethren in the ministry, have you never
been pained — nay, overwhelmed — to think
how many members in all our Protestant as
well as Catholic churches are goin^ down to
hell? How many ministers of the gospel
will Anally say, "Have we not prophesied in
Thy name, and in Thy name done many
wonderful works? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you; depart from
me, ye that work iniquity." There are more
unconverted persons in the world to-day
tnan ever before. So long as

sinners increase:
far more rapidly than saints, will some one
tell how long it will take to convert the
world? At the rate of advancement for the
last eighteen hundred years the endless
cycles of eternity would not be sufficient to
furnish the requisite ages for the conversion
of the world, whereas the evangelization of
the world might be accomplished in a very
few years. If Cnrist is not to return until
this world is converted by the preachinar ot
the gospel He will never return until eter-
nal ages roll away. "Dark picture, this."
you say. True, but you erave me a dark
subject "Evil seducers shall wax worse
and worse." Every sinner is an evil seducer,
and so long as sinners by far outnumber the
saints, and multiply with greater rapidity,
it is easy to see that the world s growing
religiously worse Instead of better.

The Eden dispensation jjrow worse Instead

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

173

of better, and ended in death. The Antedi-
luvian dispensation increased in wickedness
to its close; the patriarchal dispensation
waxed worse and worse; the Mosaic dispen-
sation murdered its own Messiah saying;
"His blood be upon us and our children."
The Christian dispensation has more light
than all that have preceded it, yet when that
light becomes darkness by apostasy, how
great will be that darkness! This dispen-
sation is destined to grow worse and worse;
a remnant will be saved out of it — and only
a remnant. Take our own fair land, where
Christianity has had the best possible oppor-
tunity for development, and what do "the
signs of

THE TIMES" INDICATE?

There are millions on millions more un-
converted people in these United States to-
day than ever before, and they are increas-
ing more rapidly than Protestants and
CatholicB combined. In the year 1800 there
were in the United States 4,836,000 non-
church members; in 1850, there were 19,-
047,012;. in 1870, there were 27,284,704;
while in 1880, there were in this country
84,000,000 non-churoh members, and only
10,000,000 Protestants and 6,000,000
Catholics. The non-ohurch member-
ship class is more than twice
as large as the Protestant and Catholio
combined, and that class is increasing
far more rapidly than all religious denomi-
nations put together. Reduce the church
membership clas3 down to those who give
any evikence of regeneration, and the out-
look is still more apalling. The same ie true
of the foreign field. The Rev. James John-
ston, in a work entitled, "A Century of Pro-
testant Missions," which will be published in
England this month, estimates that while
3,000,000 converts have been added to tne
churcli, there are now 200,000,000 more
lieathen in the world than there were
when Protestant missions began, a hundred
years ago. There are only 1.650,000 heathen
converted in the whole world to-day — leav-
ing over 854,000,000 unconverted heathen.

"The signs of the times" in regard to the
progress of Christianity in the United States
and the world at large is ominous. It Is
precisely as our Lord predicted of the last
days, "And because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax. cold," the worid
more wicked, the church more oold. Instead
of the church converting the world, the
world is

CONVERTING THE CHUECH.

An eminent American writer has said:
"When we Burvey the charateristics of our
times, the unrighteousness, the avarice,
the lustfu'ness, the untruthfulness, the
hypocrisy, the impiety, the crime, the

hollow-heartedness, and the untold
hidden iniquities which prevail,

in all circies of church 'business and State;
when we consider the wickednesses which
are perpetrated by peODle who call them-
selves Christians, and the shameless, world-
liness ^of professors of religion, and the
wreck of all distinctive doctrinal belief, and
the prostitutions of tae House of God, and
the sacred desk itself, to vanity, politics,
selfishness, sensuality, and base trickery in
the name of Jesus; when we look at the in-
subornation which is left to run riot in the
great ma]orlty oi so-called Christian families,
and the secret vices and concealed blood-
guilty crimes of so-called Christian husbands
and wives, and of the utter moral emptiness,
headiness, and incontinence of the most of
the busiest and noisiest modern religionists;
when we contemplate the goings forth of sin
in these days, like Death on the pale horse
with hell following in its train, and come to
count up the names of those in our congre-
gations whom we can confidently set down
as true and thorough saints of God — we are
sometimes tempted, with the Psalmist, to
say, ' All men are liars,' and to doubt
whether God has not resigned His dominion
over mankind, and abandoned them to
be drifted by the whirlwinds of their own
passions to irremedial ruin." When
we consider that four-fifths of our
population seldom, if ever, frequent the

HOUSE OF GOD

on the Sabbath day, that over 95 per cent of
the younar men of our land oeiong to no
religious organization whatever, leaving less
than 5 per cent of our young men who even
profess the Christian religion; when we con-
sider that the greatest of all curses, the sum
of all villainies, which sends fifty thousand
men to a drunkard's grave, and a drunkard's
hell every year, is actually upheld by the
suffrages of the church, Catholio and Prot-
estant; when we consider that "the vicious
class are Christian born, that this Christen-
dom has authorized by law and sanction of
the State, the creation of this frightful pest
gang; that it has provided for its creation;
that it is here not in opposition to, but of her
will; that by formal and deliberate legisla-
tion, brought about by Christian votes, she
has opened in all her towns and cities,
slaughter-houses of men, women, and chil-
dren, and of all virtue, and employs a million
minions to do this dreadful work; that she
has done this, and continues to doit wi:u
her eyes open, and with full knowledge and
purpo-e; that she has prepared, and planned,
ana deliberated in government chambers, for
the production of these classes;" when we
consider these gigantic evils in the very
heart of Christendom, we are not only led

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THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

to believe that Satan is the god
of this world, and that the whole
world iieth in the wicked one, but we are
impelled to say, "Come out of her my peo-
ple, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and
that ye receive not of her plagues. For her
sins have

REACHED UNTO HEAVEN

and God hath remernoered her iniquities."
A 6hiD recently sailed from Boston to the
Congo region of Africa. It had on board one
hundred thousand gallons of rum, and one
missionary. How long will it take such a
Christendom as we have described to con-
vert the world?

But is there not more consecrated wealth
in the church to-day tiian ever before? Yes,
and more unconsecrated wealth; more
temperance in the church, and more in-
temperance in the world; a more wholesale
condemnation of the liquor traffic, and more
liquor made and sold than ever before; more
evangelism, and more diabolism; more
theism, and more atheism; more religion,
and more religiosity; more piety, and more
impiety; more of the spirit of godliness, and
more who have the form of godliness with-
out the power ttiereof ; more zeal without
knowledge, and more knowledge without
zeal; never so many who honor the Christ-
ian name, and never so many who disgrace
it; never was the churcn so alive to missions,
never was the mystery of iniquity so full of
amazing energy; never so much of the spirit
of Christ, and of Antichrist

What do "the signs of the times" teach in
regard to the leaven of false doctrine in the
church and out of it?

Two-thirds of nominal Christendom is one
vast overshadowing hierarchy, a system of
Mariolatry, if not of idolatry, with a false
ritualism, and a crossly materialistic sacra-
men tariauism, while the remaining third of
the professed church is sadly

COMPROMISED RY RATIONALISM

in its theology, and humanitarianism in its
Christology. Outside the church and within,
spiritualism enrolls its millions; annihila-
cionism and second probationlsm, a kind of
"incipient, theological dry rot," boast their
thousands. Hundreds of whom stand in so-
called orthodox Dulpits, and openly proclaim
these false doctrines, or secretly entertain
them. The latter day delusions are sapping
the very life of multitudes of professedly
Christian people.

Both the church and the world are rapidly
beooming ripe for Antichrist

The leaven of false doctrine and hypocrisy
is spreading world-wide, and the indications
are that it is to wax worse and worse. There
is not so much as a hint in the word of God
that the world is to grow morally better

until Christ comes, and that tne millen-
nium will be ushered in by the
preaching of tne gospel In this dis-
pensation, nor do "the signs of the
times" indicate any such religious progress
to-day. it is very doubtful if tne gospel is
so universally Dreached to-day as it was
during the first century of the Christian era,
cr it there are as many regenerated persons
in proportion to the population of the world.
Both post and premillenniahsts have com-
mitted the great error of spending ages to
educate and Cnristianize a part of the world
instead of evangelizing the whoie world.
Deep are the shadows that gather about the
church and the world to-day. What mean
these forebodings of the near and solemn
future? What mean these great upheavals
and

CONVULSIONS OF SOCIETY?

What mean these seethinsr, surging, riot-
ous masses of the dangerous classes of the
ground tier? What mean these armies
marching and countermarching with banners
on which are emblazoned dynamite, anaron-
ism, communism, nihilism? What means this
ominous tramp of gathering legions? What
mean these lowering clouds, darli and tem-
pestuoue, all around the horizon? What
mean these earthquakes in divers places?
What means the fig tree when it putteth
forth leaves? During the great eclipse in
1806, a certain Legislature in New England
was in session. All at once noon be-
came night Darkness terrified the
members. One man arose, and

moved to "adjourn for the day of judgment
has come." The Governor arose and said:
"Gentlemen, either the dav of judgment has
come or it has not If it has not come we
have no need to fear; if it has come I desire
to be found at the post of duty. Bring
lights! Bring lights." So, my brethren, in
these dark and degenerate days, when gross
darkness seems settling down upon the peo-
ple, bring the "sure word of prophecy
wnereunto ye do well that ye take heed as
unto a light that shineth in a dark place
until the day dawn and the day star arise in
your hearts."

2. What is the moral condition of tne
church and the world to-day? We believe it
to be growing worse and worse. The condi-
tion of wheat and tares is always worse and
worse. If tne religious condition is such as
I have endeavored to show, then by neces-
sity tne moral conditiou is still lower. Take
the two

OLDEST INSTITUTIONS

in the world — the SaDbath and the family
These two institutions are the foundation of
all good society. Tbey epitomize the two
tables of the law. No one will question that

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

175

the Sabbath is more and more disregarded
and desecrated all over the Cnristian world,
with its Sunday trains, Sundav papers, Sun-
day beer gardens, Sundav theaters, and Sun-
day trade; and as for the marriage relation, it
is rapidly becoming more like the davs be-
fore the flood when men "took to themselves
wives of all which they chose." In the State
of Massachusetts the number of divorces in
proportion to marriages is one to fifteen; in
Vermont, one to thirteen; in Rhode Island
and Connecticut, one to nine; in England,
one to 300; in Belgium, one to 200; in
France, not allowed until recently. Will
some one tell us how the moral condition of
Christendom is growing better when the
two oldest and most sacred moral institu-
tions in the world are errowing into a condi-
tion woree and worse? If reverence for
God and the family relation, 'the two founda-
tion-stones of all morality, are settling
lower and lower, as the "signs of the times''
most abundantly prove, how is the morality
of society becoming higher and higher?
How long will it take to usher in the mil-
lennium at this rate of progpess? There
never will be a millennium on this earth
until Christ returns the second time without
sin unto salvation. "Even so come Lord
Jesus. Come quickly."

We are also living in a boastful age. On
great anniversary occasions it is quite com-
mon to hear representatives of

BELIGI0US DENOMINATIONS

boasting with the materialist and the dema-
gogue of the progress of the age, its increased
morality and its unparalleled social and
religious advancement. Let us for a moment
longer look at the morality of the two fore-
most Christian nations on the globe, Great
Britain and the United States. A recent
writer in the Christian at Work has the fol-
lowing significant paragraph: He says, "It
ought to humble our national pride and
boastfuiness to make solemn note of the fact
that the United States leads all other coun-
tries in the commission of crime. Carefully
collected statistics force upon us the re-
luctant conclusion that we are the most
violent and bloodthirsty people. Here is
evidence from 'Dr Mulhalt's Statistical Dic-
tionary' in regard to the proportion of
murders to the population: England, 237
murders to 10,000.000 of population; Bel-
gium, 240; France. 205; Scandinavia, 260;
Germany, 279; Ireland, 294; Austria, 310;
Russia, 325; Italy, 504; Spain, 533; the
United States, 850, murders for
every 10,000,000 of people or
4.510 murders every year! From
these figures it appears that nearly four
times as many murders are committed
among the same number of people here as in

England; while in Italy once prominent as
the land of assassins, and in Spain equally
notorious for bloody affrays ending in death,
fewer persons are now slain with malice pre-
pense, in the ratio of population than in our
self-lauded Christian .and Protestant coun-
try. And at the same time the mania for
suicide as fearful as it is common. As an
illustration of this mania it may be men-
tioned tnat the other day a boy of twelve
years of age hung himself becouse he had
been chastised by his mother, while an old
man of seventy-five ended his life because
he had been harshly addressed. Does any
one ask the cause of this awful record of
murder and suicide? The answer is we think
three-fold; viz., infidel doctrines, cheap ficti-
tious sentimental literature and the decad-
ence of family training. This state of things
is shocking beyond expression. It reveals
glimpses like

LUEID FLASHES OF LIGHTNING

over a rock-bound and storm-beaten coast,
of wild dangers and unspeakable miseries."
When we consider that most of
these tragedies occur in cities, and that one-
fifth of our population reside in the great
commercial centers, which are fast becoming
plague- spots of moral and political leprosy,
the hotbeds of lawlessness and crime our
outlook for the futnre as a Nation is appall-
ing. Sucn is the social morality of boasting
Protesting America! How is it in England,
Protestant England, who site as a queen and
no widow upon her emerald throne? In
answer to the question. "Are we better than
we should be?" a recent number of the Pall
Mull Gazette gives us what it styles a pictorial
view of English morals.

It is well known that the hideous revela-
tion of social evil In the foremost nation of
Christendom during the past year has
shocked the civilized and the uncivilized
world! The number of indecent assaults in
England and Wales in the year 1861 were
280; in 1881 they were 270; in 18S4, 510.
The apprehensions for drunkenness and on
charges of being drunk and dis-
orderly for England and Walas in
1861 were 82.196; in 1884 they num-
bered 198,274, the increase being steady
and far more ra{»id than the population.
Had the increase only kept pace with the
natural growth of population, the figures for
1884 would have baen 108,000 instead of
198,274. The people of the United King-
dom paid for drink in 1861 nearly £95,-
000,000. In 1876 they should have paid,
according to natural increase, about £108,-
000, whereas they actually paid the enor-
mous sum of £148,000,000. Since then the
drink bill has declined to £125,000,000

176

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

in 1883, but it should have been only
£115,000,000.

In 1861 there were 263 petitions filed in
the divcrce courts of England and Wales;
in 1884 there were 703. although, according
to population, tnere should have been only
350. In 1861 there were 1,553. Suicides in

ENGLAND AND WALES:

In 1884 the number had increased to 3,312,
thougn it should have been not more than
2,000. In 1861 there were 39,647 lunatics,
idiots, and persons of unsound mind in
England and Wales. Since then the number
has increased with remarkable regularity
until, in 1883, it was 76,765, whereas,
in proportion to the increase of
population, it Bhould have been only
53,000. These tacts all show that
d/unkenness, immorality, and idiocy are in-
creasing in Great Britain at a rate out of all
proportion to the growth of tne population."
A recent writer in the Fortnightly Heview for
October, 1886, in an article entitled "The
Statistics of Morality,'' shows that the moBt
highly cultivated State of continental Eu-
rope is at the same time the most degraded
by the social evil, even as the golden age of
Greek and Roman literature was also the era
of its greatest moral corruption. And yet
Christian men in all our religious denomina-
tions are boasting of the moral and religious
progress of the age, whereas the two fore-
most Christian nations on the globe are every
day sinking lower and lower in immorality
and crime, and out of all proportion to the
increase of population. It is also a singular
fact that tnese so-called optimists who paint
the nineteenth century in roseate hues show
us but one side of the picture. They tell us
in glowing eloquence how much has been
expended for missions, but they do not tell
us how many millions on millions more
these eame Christian nations Bpent to
ruin the bodies and souls of men. They tell
us how many have been saved by the gospel
of Christ in the past year. Ihey do not tell
us how many have gone down to hell during
the same time on account of the lethargy of
Christendom. They tell us of the labors of
Judson and Carey and hundreds of other
missionaries

ON FOREIGN FIELDS,

but they do not tell us that Protestant
England and America have sent more souls
to perdition through forcing upon unwill-
ing heathen the demons of opium and rum
than all the converts of all the missionary
societies of the world a hundred times over.
Satan is still the god of this world, the
whole world hith in the wicked one. and there
is laugnter in hell when so-called optimists
tell us that Satan's kingdom is rapidly being
overthrown and the gates of perdition ef-

fectually closed. Perhaps there are anni-
versaries in Hades and jubilees in the under-
world. Perchance they have on record so
many lost'souls the past year, so many who
profess and so tew who possess Christian-
ity, so many who have abandoned
the old theology and have at
our suggestions accepted the "New The-
ology," so many who have come down out of
all the churches of Christendom to people
the dark regions of dispair, so many whose
names have been transferred from the
church roll to the black page of Satan's
minions. So much for the immorality of
Christendom. But suppose the morality of
every person on the globe were equal to that
of the Scribes and Pnarisees. not one of them
would enter the kingdom of heaven. Moral-
ity divorced from. Christianity is more fatal
to the souls of men than immorality — since
it blinds the possessor both to Christ's right-
eousness and to his own unrighteousness.

The publicans and tne harlots will go into
the kingdom of God before the Scribes ana
the Pharisees. "0 Christ, the only true mor-
ality is love of Thee!" The self-righteous
moralist no more fears God nor regards man,
than the most depraved.

Whether you regard the,'world,therefore, in
its morality or immorality, there is no differ-
ence as before God. If there is to
be a millennium 1,000 years before
Christ comes, it Burely ought to begin
to dawn after 1,800 years of gospel
preacning, but there is

NOT A CONTINENT,

a State, a city, a town, a family, or an indi-
vidual in which Satan is bound, while there
are thousands of places where Christianity
has become entirely extinct. A very good
man was once asked if he enjoyed much re-
ligion. His significant reply was, "None to
boast of." We are living in a boastful age.
Neither Christ nor His apostles ever boasted
of the spread of the gospel or the progress of
the age. On the other hand God's ancient
prophets were always warning the people
against apostacy; Christ and his apostles in-
form us that when we have done all we are
unprofitable servants. My brethren, there is
not one-half bo much Christianity in this
world as is generally supposed. In these de-
generate days we need to "cry aloud and
spare not to lift up our voices like a tempest
and show the people their transgressions and
the house of Jacob their sins."

Not long ago a Baptist clergyman, crossing
the Atlantic on a very stormy passage, no-
ticed the Captain walking the hurricane deck
with a very anxious and troubled counte-
nance. He approached him and said: "Cap-
tain, you seem very much agitated. Is any-
thing wrong, sir?"

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

177

The Captain replied: "We are on a terrible
sea; nor sun nor star3 have appeared for
many days, and we are drifting:, sir; we ara
drifting far out of our course." All day long;
the Captain walked tout stormy deck with
sextant in hand to make his observations and
take his bearings. How eagerly he watched
tor the Northern star; how he prayed for one
gleam of light! All night lontr he was drift-
ins on that open sea, with its deceitful cur-
rents, saying, "I am lost; I know not where
I am." At last there was a rift in the cloud.
Instantly he took his bearings and exclaimed
to those on board, "We are one hundred and
seventy -five miles out of our course." Men
to-day are on the wide, open sea of doubt;
darkness overshadows them; they are drift-
ing away from the Bible. A thousand pul-
pits are drifting from the

DOCTKINE OF INSPIKATION,

the deity of Christ, the vicarious
atonement, the resurrection of the body,
and eternal retribution. Nearly the whole
church, Catholic and Protestant, in the
United States has orirted away from the
apostolic doctrine of Christ's premiliennial
advent. This doctrine is the pole-star of the
church, the only doctrine in the Bible that
enables us to take our bearings and tell
where we are; the only doctrine that throws
any light upon our future course. The ac-
credited scnolarship of the world is on the
side of prernillenniaiism, out the rank and
file in this countrv are against us. There is
haidly a commentator in Great Britain or on
the continent that is not with us, but in the
United States the churches have drifted far
out of their course. Wanted, a premilien-
nial chair in every theological seminary in
our land! Wanted, a professor in each in-
stitution to teach the Bible, the whoie Bible,
and nothing but the Bibie! Wanted, a man
in all our religious schools to teach the en-
tire system of prophetic and dispensational
truth! Wanted, great, energetical leaders
who with the Bible in nand can take ob-
servations and show the theological drift of
the age. Some of us remember what an
electric light was thr i\vn upon the sacred
page when the doctrine of Christ's premil-
iennial advent flashed upon us.

Dark and forebodinsr is our theme, yet not
half so black as revelation paints it. Still
premilennianism presents a far brighter pros-
pect for the future of the race than post-
millennianisrn as it really is. The one be-
lieves that if Christ were to return to-day
and raise the righteous doad and change the
righteous living, after a brief tribulation pe-
riod he would bind Satan for one thousand
years, set up his visible kingdom on earth,
convert whole nations in a day, and the
whole world would be brought into subjec-

tion to his sway. All would know the Lord,
from the

LEAST TO THE GREATEST.

Christ's heavenly people would be as the
stars of heaven for multitude, and His
earthly people from generation to genera-
tion forever be as the sand of the seashore,
innumerable enough to fill all worlds that
roll in the great Creator's space, the lost be-
ing to the saved as a drop in the vast ocean.
Such is the optimism of premillenianism.

The other theory which vainly hopes for a
millennium without Christ would require
eternal ages for the conversion of the
world, and the saved to the lost would be
only as a grain of sand to the whole earth.
Such is the pessimism of post-millennialism.
We have a brighter hope, a more glorious
prospect, a Savior coming the second time
without sin unto salvation— the almost im-
mediate salvation of the whole world, instead
of the dreary ages of heathenism and ever-
lasting destruction.

While we believe that the Scriptures are
altogether on our side of this question, it is
gratifying to have the late Dean Alford say,
"The weiarht of the scholarship both as
regards the number and the character of
interpreters, is on the side of prernillen-
niaiism."

At the conclusion of the meeting the con-
ference unanimously voted, on motion of the
Rev. Dr. Pierson, that the committee on
conference provide that a conference shall
be held at least once in every three years.
After a hymn Bishop Nicholson pronounced
the benediction.

PROFESSOR JOHN T. DUFFIELU.

THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH WAS PREMILLENARIAN.

One of the appointments for Friday's ses-
sion was that of Professor John T. Duftield,
of Princeton College, New Jersey. Professor
Duffleld could not attend, but forwarded his
paper on the subject, "The Apostolic Church
Was Premillenarian." The paper is as
follows;'

If asked for a concise and conclusive argu-
ment for premillenananism, we r nly, the
Apostolic Church was premillenarian. We
are aware of the apparent anachronism in
the statement that the church was pre-
millenarian oe.fore the apocalyptic p:edic-
tion; that "Satan should be bound one
thousano' years, and should be cast Into the
bottomless pit, and deceive the nations no
more until the one thousand years should be
fulfilled." The anachronism is only in name,
not in fact. It is a common yet wholly er-
roneous impression that our premiilennai
faith is based mainly, if not solely, on a dis-
puted passage in the Apocalypse, in a
recent work in

178

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

DEFENSE OF POST-MTLLiENABIANISM,

the writer manifests his misapprehension
and misappreciation of the doctrine he is
opposing, by the statement tnat "the
twentieth chapter of the Revelation is at
once the birth-place and the Gibraltar of
premillennialism." The fact is, the
main question at issue in what is
now known as the millenarian con-
troversy, antedates tne Apocalypse,
and would have been a question of no less
interest and importance throughout this
dispensation if tne Apocalypse had not been
written.

What is the main question at issue? The
Scriptures contain distinct predictions, yet
unfulfilled, of two events of momentous im-
portance:

1. The return of our .Lord Jesus Christ to
this earth The "same Jesus" whom the
apostles beheld taKen up into heaven shall
come again, in the glory of His Father, and
with His holy angela

2. Throughout Old Testament prophecy
the prediction is prominent of an era of uni-
versal righteousness and peace on earth
under the reign of the Messiah. "He shall
have dominion from sea to sea, and from the
river to the ends of the earth. All kings
shall fall down before Him, all nations shall
serve Him, all nations shall call him blessed"
(Ps. lxxii. 8, 11, 17). "They shall beat their
swords into plow-shares, and their spears
into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift
up

THE SWOED AGAINST NATION,

neither shall they learn war any more. The
earth shall be full of the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover
the sea" (Isaiah ii, 14., xl, 9).
"They shall teach no more every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
know the Lord; for they shall all know me,
irom the least of them unto the greatest of
them, saith the Lord" (Jer. xxxL 34). "I saw
in the night visions, and behold, one like the
Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the Ancient of days, and they
brought him Dear before Him. And there
was given him dominion ana glory and a
kingdom, that all people, nations, and lan-
guages should serve Him; His dominion is
an everlasting dominion, wuicii shall not
pass away, and His kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed." "The kingdom and
dominion and the greatness of the kingdom
under the whole heaven shall be given to
the people of the saints of the Most High"
(Dan. vii. 13, 14, 27^

The question relates to these, and similar.
Old Testament predictions, and the issue is,
whether this ere of universal righteousnass
axel peace on earth— the Afcssianic kingdom

of prophecy — will precede or follow the sec-
ond coming of the Lord Jesus? As the pre-
diction in the Apocalypse of

THE BINbiNG OF SATAN

for 1,000 years, seems to refer to the era of
righteousness and peace or earth under the
reign of the Messiah, the term "Millennium"
has been appropriated to designate the Mes-
sianic kingdom of old Testament prophecy,
and the word should be so understood in any
discussion of the subject at issue.

it is in point here to remark that much
labored argument has been expended to
prove that Christ is now a king; that "all
power in heaven and on earth" has been
given unto Him; that He rules in the hearts
of His people; that He is head and sovereign
of His blood-bought Church All this is true,
but it is wholly irrelevant to tne question at
issue between permilenarians and post-
millenarians. This question has reference
exclusively to the predicted Messianic King-
dom. Unless the language of Scripture is
meaningless, the prophecies above referred
to have never yet been fulfilled, and the
question is, whether their fulfillment
is to precede or to follow the Second
Advent? It is with reference to
this question that we assert, that the Apos-
tolic Church, including the apostles them-
selves, was premillenarian.

God's covenant people, to whom "were
committed" and to whom pertained not only
"the giving of the law," but "the promises,"
the oracles of God, expected the fulfillment
of the predictions of the Messianic kingdom
at the first advent of the Messiah.

THE APOSTLES

undoubtedly cherished this expectation, and
probably did not entirely abandon it until
they beheld His ascension and heard the an-
nunciation of the heavenly messengers. But
a few dayB before His crucifixion He spake
to them a parable, "because they thought
that the kingdom of God should immedi-
ately appear." As He was about to be parted
from them and taken up into heaven, their
last inquiry was, "Wilt Thou at this time re-
store the Kingdom to Israel?" After His
departure and their baptism by the Holy
Ghost, whom Jesus had promised "to shew
them things to come, and to bring to their
remembrance whatsoever He had said to
them," the truth, both as to tae coming and
the Kingdom, was distinctly apprenended.
They now remembered and understood the
parable — "A certain nobleman went into
a far country to receive, for himself
a kingdom, and to return." They now re-
mem bered and understood what He h»d so
recently taught men as to the state of .the
church and of the world between the time of
His departure and His return — "wars and

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

179

minora of wars, famines, pestilences, and
earthquakes; false prophets, wuereby many
snould be deceived; abounding iniquity,
whereby tlie love of many should wax cold"
— but no intimation of an era of righteous-
ness and peace — no Messianic kingdom — be-
fore the advent. "The Gospel of the King-
dom': — the

GLAD TIDINGS

of its coming and of the way by which citi-
zenship therein might be attained was to be
preached unto all nations "for a witness."
and then should the end come.

He foretold "the coming of the Son of Man
in the clouds of heaven with Dower and great
glory," and having mentioned signs of this
coming, He apake a parable: "Behold the fig
tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot
forth ye know that summer is nigh. So
when ye see these things come to pass know
ye that the kingdom of God Is nigh at hand"

So instructed by the Master and enlight-
ened by the Holy Ghost the apostles taught
that the Lord Jesus would return again to
the earth, but that "the heaven must receive
him until the times of restitution of all things
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all
His holy prophets since the world began."
What can be here referred to, if not the
prominent theme of all Oid Testament
prophecy — the reign on earth of the Messiah?
As this Kingdom was to be manifested at and
not before the advent, the advent became
the immediate object of deoire and expecta-
tion— the "blessed hope" — of the apostles,
and through them, of the Apostolic Church.

The fact of special interest and importance
in its bearing on the question under consid-
eration is, the apostles not only taught that
Christ

WOULD CERTAINLY EETUBN,

but that the event was possibly near at hand
— that it might occur in their day —
and hence was to be "looked for"
with expectation and preparation.

They would recall, and now appreciate as
they did not before His departure, Christ's
repeated injunction in his memorable dis-
course on the parousia, "Watch, for ye know
not what hour your Lord cometh." They
would recall and now appreciate how He
had illustrated and enforced this injunction
by reminding them that if the good man of
the house had known at what hour the thief
would come he would have watched. By
commending the faithful servant who lived
in expectation of his master's coming, and
by the parable of the ten virgins with tne
accompanying interpretation, "Watch, there-
fore, for ye know neither the day nor the
hour when the Son of Man cometh" What-
ever questions have been raised as to the
meaning of this injunction, by interpreters

of Scripture in these latter days, there
could have been no doubt as to ita
meaning in the minds of the apostle*
When he spoke of "the coming of the Son of
man in the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory, and he shall send his angels with
a great

SOUND OF A TEUMPET

and they shall gather together his elect from
the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other," the apostles could never have
imagined — what many at the present day not
only imagine, but teach — that the coming
here referred to was His coming to each one
at death, or a spiritual coming, as on the day
of Pentecost, or a providential coming, as at
the destruction of Jerusalem. They could
not but understand Him to mean His per-
sonal, visible return to this earth, in the
glory of His Father, and with His holy
angels." And as to the duty enjoined, of
"watching" for the coming, the apostlos
could never have imagined — what some at
the present day imagine and teach — that the
duty would be fulfilled by believing that the
Lord would certainly return, but in the dis-
tant future. The apostles could not out un-
derstand the Savior to mean that they
were to regard his return as an
event possibly near at hand

for which they were to watch — as virgins for
the coming of the bridegroom — as faithful
servants for the return of their master.

So undoubtedly the apostles did under-
stand the injunction, and accordingly be-
lieved and taught the possible nearness of
the advent — that for aught that was revealed
Christ might come in their day. They did
not — as is sometimes alleged — believe or
teach that Christ would certainly come in
their day, but

THAT HE MIGHT COME

— and that in that sense His coming waa to
be regarded as ever near.

The proof that the apostles so taught la
two-fold — first, their language does not
fairly admit of any other interpretation;
and, second, the Apostolic Church understood
the apostles so to teach.

1. As to the language of the apostles in
reference t» the advent, Paul writes to the
Thessaloaians: "We which are alive and re-
main unto the coming of the .Lord shall not
prevent them that are asleep. * * # We
which are alive and remain shall be caught
up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air. * * * Of the times and the
seasons ye have no need that I write unto
you, for yourselves know perfectly that the
day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the
night. * * * But ye, brethren, are not in
darkness that that day should overtake you
as a thief. * * * Therefore let us not

180

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

sleep as do others, but let us watch and be
Bober" (L Thess. iv. 15; v. 6). To the Phil-,
lipians he. writes: "Our conversation is in
heaven, from whence also we look for the
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ'7 till. 20). "Lot
your moderation be known unto all men. the
Lord is at hand" (iv. 5).

To the Romans he writes: "The night is
far spent, the dav is at hand; let us there-
fore put off the works of darkness, and let
us put on the armor of light" (xiii. 12).

So Peter in his first epistle: "The end of
all things is at hand, be ye therefore sober
and watch unto prayer" (iv. 7).

So James exhorts those wno were enduring
affliction:

"BE PATIENT,

brethren, unto the coming: of the Lord."
"Be ye patient, stablish your hearts, for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (v. 7-8).

That these ana other similar passages that
might b^quoted it shouid be observed are not
exhortations to duty, based on the certainty
of Christ's coming, they are exhortations to
watchfulness and patience ana holy living in
view of the uncertainly as to the time, and
hence the possible nearness — uncertain, not
of course in the divine purpose, but to hu-
man foresight. To suppose that the apostles
aid not intend to teach that for aught that
was revealed, the Lord mis'ht come before
the generation then livinsr had passed away,
wouia be to make the reason on which the
exhortation was based inapplicable to the
very persons to whom the epistles were im-
mediately addressed.

The only passage in the apostolic epistles
which seems to teach that the day of the
Lord was not at hand is in the second to the
Thessalonians. li. 2. Paul there exhorts the
Thessalonians that they "be not soon shaken
in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit,
nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as
that the day of Christ is at hand." What
Paul is here representea as teaching does
unaoubtedly contradict in terms what he
and Peter and James haa elsewhere repeat-
edly and distinctly taught. By this seem-
ingly anomalous passage our post-millenarian
brethren insist that all other scriptures
which expressly teach the nearness of the
advent must be intepreted.

The simple explanation of the apparent
anomalv is, that there are in the original two

ENTIRELY DIFFERENT EXPRESSIONS

that in our common English version are
translated "at hand." The precise meaning
of one ot these expressions is, "is near." The
precise meaning of the other is, "is present."
Now the former is that which the apostles
uniformly use when they are represented in
our translation as teaching that the day of
Christ is "at hand." The latter is that used

by Paul in II. Thessalonians, where he is
representea as teaching that the day cf
Christ is not "at hand." To the Romans (xiii.
12) Paul writes: "The day of the Lord is
near" (eeggiken). To the Phillipians (iv. 4) he
writes: "The Lord is near" (eggus). So Peter
writes (I. iv. 7): -'The end of all things is
near" (eggusX So James (v. 8): "The coming
of the Lord is nsar" (eegqike). In the Becond
epistle to the Thessalonians' (ii. 2) the lan-
guage is: "Be not soon shaken in mind or
troubled, as that the day of Christ is pres-
ent (enesteeken). That this is its precise mean-
ing is established beyond all controversy by
its unquestionable meaning in other con-
nexions in Paul's epistles, as in Rom. viii. 38,
and I. Cor. iii. 22, where the parti-
ciple ot tne same verb ana tense
(enestoota) is used to denote "things
present" as contrasted with" things to
come;" in 1. Cor. vii. 26, "the present
(enestoosan) distress;" in Gal. i.4. "Tnis pres-
(enestootos) evil world;" Hebrew ix.9 "Tne
time then present (enesteekota). However.
Paul's languag9 in regard to the nearness of
the advent, in different epistles, is to be in-
terpreted, he is not chargable with a contra-
diction in terms.

As to the meaning of the passage, Bishop
Ellicot suggests — and not without reason —
"Probably the form which

THE FALSE DOCTRINE

was beginning to take was that the Cslv of the
Lord had already set in. thus confusing the
whole idea of a personal, visible advent, just
as at a later period Hymeneua and PhHetus
confused the true doctrine of the resurrec-
tion, by affirming that it was already past"
Tnis interpretation is favored — if not indeed
required — not only by the express language
"The day of Christ is present," but also by
the intimation that the Thessalonians were
in danger of being "shaken in mind" and
•'troubled" — literally "frightened" — by the
erronneous doctrine referred to. Christiana
in apostolic days were not so affected by the
prospect of the nearness of Christ's coming.
It was to them a "blessed hope," and they
"looted for" it and "hasted unto" it with
longing and expectation. In his first epistle
to the Thessalonians, written probably within
the previous year, Paul commended them in
that they were "waiting for the Son of God
from heaven." If, however, they were
subsequently taught, as some interpreters of
God's word at the present day teach, that by
the parousia of our Lord they were not to
understand a personal advent, but a spiritual
coming, or a providential coming, and that
this coming had already occurred, we can
reaaily unaerstand why Paul should beseech
them to be "n;--t shaken in mind." or
"troubled" with doubts and fears as to the

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

181

certainty of what he had previously taught
them, both orally and in his first epistle, the
literal

PEESONAL COMING

of the Lord. This interpretation is confirmed
by the subsequent exhortation in the same
chapter: "Brethren, stand fast, and hold
the traditions which ye have been taught,
whether by word or our epistle."

In the passage in question Paul undoubt-
edly teaches that the advent of the Lord was
not immediately at nana. This, however, is
not in conflict with anything he or the other
apostles had elsewhere taught He
reminds them that when he was yet
with them he had tola them
that before the aay of Christ
•'there should first come a falling away" — an
apostasy — that then "the man of sin" should
be revealed, and that then the Lord would
come to "consume him with the spirit of His
mouth and destroy him with the brightness
of His coming." An apostasy, and the reve-
lation of the man of sin, before the advent
is predicted, but the time within whieh
these events would occur is left wholly un-
certain. As if to guard them against as-
suming that for the occurrence of these
events a long period must necessarily inter-
vene before the advent. He tells them that
"the mystery of iniquity doth already worK;"
that they knew "what withholdeth" the
revelation of the man of sin; that as soon as
this restraining power was "taken out of the
way" that wicked one would be revealed;
and that then the L.ord would come for his
destruction. Is there anything: here incon-
sistent with what is repeatedly and

EXPLICITLY TAUGHT

elsewhere — the possible nearness of the ad-
vent? In hiB commentary on this passage,
Meyer says: "It is incontestable, as the re-
sult of correct exegeses, that Paul not only
considered Antichrist as airectly preceding
the advent, but also regarded the advent as
so near, that he himself might then be alive."
"The events which he predicted were for
him so near, that he himself ; r > n thought
that he would survive them.

As conclusive that Paul himself did not
regard the events predicted as inconsistent
with the possible nearness of the advent is
the fact that the epistle to the Romans and
that to the l'uiiiipians, in which he ex-
pressly declares "the day of the Lord is
near," were written subsequently to this
epistle to the Thessalomaas.

Whatever questions may be raised as to
the interpretation of tbis notable passage on
the main point at issue between premiliena-
rians and postmillenarians its teaching, or
rather what it does nottea^b, would seem
to be indubitable and decisive. Paul is here

foretelling what would occur between the
time then present and the advent. He men-
tions an apostasy, he mentions the revela-
tion of the man of Bin, but he makes no
mention or intimation of a millennial era of
righteousness and peace on earth, such as
the Old Testament prophets predict of the
Messianic kingdom. Now is it credible that
Paul would have omitted ail allusion to the
Messianic kingdom had he believed that such
an era would

PRECEDE THE ADVENT.

2. That we have not misapprehended the
teaching of the apostles is confirmed by the
fact that the apostolic church believed that
Christ might come before the generation
then living had passed away, and accord-
ingly "looked for" the glorious appearing
with longing and expectation. Of the many
eminent authorities for this assertion that
might be referred to, we select the following:

In Lange's Commentary on 1. (Jor. i. 7,
it is said, "The constant expectation of our
Lord's second comiDg is one of the charac-
teristic features of primitive Christianity;
hence the clause has been taken as a simple
paraphrase of the wora. Christians."

On the same passage. Dr. Hodge says, "The
second advent of Christ, so clearly precicted
by Himself and His apostles, was the object
of longing expectation to all the early
Christians."

On the same passage, Mr. Barnes says.
"The earnest expectation of the Lord Jesus
became one of the murks of early Christian
piety."

Op. the same passage, Bishop Ellicott says,
"Waiting for the revelation" — that is the
second visible appearance — "of our Lord
Jesus Christ" — which the early church ex-
pected would soon occur."

In Conybeare and Howson's Life of St
Paul, it is said, "The early church, and even
the apostles themselves, expected the Lord
to come again in that very generation. St.
Paul himself sharea in that expectation."

In Professor Fisher's "Beginnings of
Christianity," it is said, the expectation (of
the personal coming of the Lord) is expressed
by all the apostles in terms which fairly
admit of no other interpretation. It is
found in Paul, (Rom. xiii. 11-12; L Cor. vii.
29-31, 10-11, Phil. iv. 5. L Tim. vi. 14.)
The same expectation is' expressed in Heb.
x. 25; Jas. v. 3-8, I. Peter iv. 7, II. Peter iii.
3, Juao v. 18, L John ii. 18. The Apocalypse
L 1, iii. 2, xxii. 7, 20-22.) To put

ANY I HON

on these passages, at- if the Parousia to which
they refer were anything else than the sec-
ond advent of the Lord to iudgments, would
introduce a dautrerous license in interpre-
tation, and one which might be employed to

182

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

BUDvert the principal doctrines of the Chris-
tian system."

It is needless to extend these quotations.
In regard to many important facts and doc-
trines of our Holy religion, devout and in-
telligent students of God's word differ. As
to the premillennial faith of the apostolic
church there is, so far as we are aware, en-
tire agreement We cannot but regard this
acknowledged fact as establishing beyond
question our interpretation of the teaching
of the apostles. If the matter were one of
minor importance, or referred to but inci-
dentally or obscurely, the belief of the
church migrht not be regarded as authorita-
tive and final as to the faith of their teach-
ers. Tiie second coming of the Lord, how-
ever, is a subject referred to by the apostles
prominently and repeatedly; it is presented
as a matter of the highest practical moment;

it is referred to in terms which imply tnat It
was a subject familiarly known and well un-
derstood. In regard to such a theme and so
presented, it is not simply incredible that
after all, not merely here and tnere an igno-
rant believer, but that the whole body of be-
lievers— the church in which dwells the
spirit promised as a guide to truth — should
have misapprehended the meaning of their
inspired teachers? Is it not still more incred-
ible that if bv any possibility this were the
case, they should have been commended
by the apostles for their misapprehen-
sion?

That the apostolic church — including the
apostles themselves — was premiilenarian,
we cannot but regard as established beyond
the possibility of a reasonable doubt If
this be true, each one for himself can make
the application.

SUNDAY DISCOURSES.

THE REV. DR. P. S. HEN SON.

PBAYEK.

At the First Baptist Church, the Rey. Dr.
P. S. Henson preached in the morning, his
subject being '•Prayer." He took for his text:

What profit shoald we have if we pray unto
Him.— Job xxi, 15.

The oldest boot in the Bible is the one
from which my text is taken. Two things
this Scripture indubitably proves. One is
that from the earliest ages man has felt im-
pelled to pray; and the other is that, even
when the world was youne-, and when men
presumably were predisposed to religious
superstition, there were not a few to be
found who utterly disbelieved in the efficacy
of prayer and scoffed at those who offered it
as being absurd fanatics. "What is the
Almighty that we should serve Him? And
what profit should we Have if we pray unto
Him?" These are questions that are sup-
posed to be the outcome of the "advanced
thought" of this the foremost age of human
history, and yet thej were as scornfully pro-
pounded 3.U00 years ago as they are to-day
by 6cientfiic cavilers. They are questions,
indeed, that ought to be asted and ougnt to
be answered, if answer be possible, for they
go down to the very roots of life and up to
the very gates of heaven.

The question of prayer, with which, on
this occasion, we are especially concerned,
is the pivotal point of all religion. If that
be a previous reality, then all else follows;
but if prayer be only as empty form, "then
is our preaching vain,

TOUR FAITH IS ALSO VAIN,''

the whole Bible is a tissue of lies, and we
are left without God and without hope in
the world. It is not without reason, there-
fore, that the earnest-minded Christian men
who have associated themselves together in
a Bible and Prophetic Conference, held last
week in this city, should have emphasized
this fundamental feature of the Christan
system, and should have urged its presenta-
tion in a special discourse. 1 could very
heartily wish that its preparation might have
been entrusted to abler hands than mine.

Praying God that I may worthily deal with
a theme which is alike most precious and

most profound, I invite your attention to the
nature, power, and privilege of prayer.

L The Nature of Prayer— (1) It is not a mat-
ter of locality, for God is "within no walls
confined" And He who in this, as also in
all things else, is the only infallible teacner,
said 1800 years ago to a woman of Samaria,
under the shadow of Mount Gerizin, "Be-
lieve Me, the hour cometn, when ye shall
neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru-
salem, worship the Father, but the true
worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth." in magnificent cathedral, or
in lowliest cottage home, in the midst of a
vast worshipful multitude, or all alone in
the dartness of the night or the solitude of
the desert, it matters not wnere on earth the
prayer be offered, only so it be devout

(2) Nor is it a matter of bodily
attitude. A man may stand

LIKE THE PENITENT PUBLICAN,

or tneel like the godly Daniel, or prostrate
himself in the dust like the devout Isaiah —
the Lord of Hosts cares not for the posture of
the body so the spine be sincere and the
heart beat loyally. And yet it deserves to
be said that the man who affects to pray, but
who, out of pure indolence or sinful irrev-
erance, declines to worship God witn his
body, by its decorous prostration at a throne
of grace, aeserves to oe spurned by the oot-
ereiern he has insulted.

(3) Nor is it merely a form of words. A
great deal of the grandiiaquence that in pub-
lic assemblies purports to be addressed to
God, but which in pointof fact is ambitiously
addressed to men, so tar from deserving the
name of prayer is a blasphemous yreience
that God Almighty hates.

vVe believe in the use of words in prayer — .
they classify thought and intensify desire.
We do not believe in those sublimated saints
who have reached such an altitude that they
no longer need to voice tneir minds, but
deem it sufficient silently to exhale their
sentimental piety. It will, we fear, be com-
monly found that the process of exhaling has
gone so far as to leave their souls exceeding
dry. Most wisely did the prophet Hosea write,
**Take with you words and turn to the

184

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

Lord;'' and when the Christ would teach His
disciples to pray He did not exhort them to
exhale their emotions silently, but gave
them instead a form of words, the most sim-
ple and sublime that ever were breathed by
Human lips.
Prayer in its very essence is the devout

COMMUNION OF THE SOUL

with God. And to s=uch communion faith is
ever a prime condition, for "he that cometh
unto God must believe that He is,
and that he is a rewarder

of them that dilisrently seek Him." To the
man of the world such communion is incred-
ible, if not utter[y inconceivable, for "the
natural man knoweth not the things of the
spirit of God, neither can he know them be-
cause they are spiritually discerned."

And yet this communion is most real, and
of ail things most precious. I speak to a
multitude of men and women wfio know
God, who nave walked with Him as did
Enoch, and talked with Him as did Moses,
face to face, as a man talks with iiis friend.
This nidden communion of the soul with
God— this is prayer. The soul may pour
itself out in adoration, or in thanksgiving, or
in confession, or in supplication — all these
are prayer — and none of them are to be neg-
lected. We cannot sufficiently adore God's
infinite ana excellent attriDutes. And no re-
quest for future blessings will ever be
granted unless there be grateful apprecia-
tion of blessings already Destowed. "Let all
vour requests be made known by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving unto God
and the peace of God which passath all un-
derstanding shall keep your hearts and
minas through Jesus Christ."

And confession is made an absolute pre-
requisite to the forgiveness of sins, and ac-
cordingly we knew that "if we confers
our sins, God is

FAITHFUL ANO JUST TO FGBGIVE

us our sins and to cleanse us from all unright-
ousness. " But it is not of prayer in these
several forms that we propose, at present, to
speak, but of prayer in the sense of suppli-
cation made to God for the bestowment
upon us of such things as we need. Does
such prayer profit? And is it possible for
human lip? and human hearts, by presenting
their requests to God, to achieve results that
shall affect the outer world, as well as the
inner life, that shall bring bread as well as
spiritual blessing, healing for the body no
less than for the soul; and be practically po-
tential in the determination of the destiny;
both of individuals and nationalities? This
is one of the burning questions of our time
::ud upon its decision hang issues the most
tremendous. And so we come to the consid-
eration of

IL Prayer as a Power. — We do not pro-
pose, in this discourse, to deal at all with
atheists and infidels. To them all forms of
prayer are silly superstitions, only believed
in by fanatics and fools. Our present argu-
ment is not for them, but for reverent be-
lievers in a personal God, and in the Bible He
has given a revelation of His will. All such,
of course, believe in prayer, but with very
varying degrees of faith as to the sphere of
its operation, and the measure of its power.
And not a tew are painfully perplexed by
what appears to them to be a con-
tradiction between the teachings of
Scripture and the deductions of science.
There ought not to be contradiction, for

THE BIBLE IS GOP'S WOBP.

and the universe is God's work, and yet in
the light of the latest research it does seem
almost impossible to reconcile the promises of
theonewitu lu<j ui'uuif.u.iu; tUc oilier. And
hence there are not a tew earnest souls grop-
ing about in deepening darkness "feeling
after Gou if Uaply they may find Him," and
as to prayer especially are losing the grip of
simple faith, and so, thougn they still retain
the forms of prayer it has lost for them all
conscious power. A graceful, approDriate,
and aesthetically beautiful exercise it may
be for a creature to present himself in
worshipful attitude before the Great Creator.
Its reflex influence upon the soul of the
worshiper can not fail to be most helpful. It
isalhealth lift that develops one's spiritual
life. It is the tug of the soul at the invisible
cable that links our lives to the other snore,
and hence by the aid of it we draw ourselves
nearer to our God and heaven. All this
seems natural and explicable.

But to suppose that prayer can operate as
a material force to alter physical results, to
suppose that prayer can still a storm, can
bring a rain, can heal disease, can win a bat-
tle; to suppose that by some subtle, spirit-
ual telegraph by way of the throne of God
in heaven we can touch the heart of
Asia, or accomplish results

IN THE VALLEY OF THE CONGO;

All this we are assured is preposterous and
impossible.

We may concede, indeed, that God may
touch the hearts of men, and in the realm of
spirit may be still allowed some sway, but
from things material he is absoluiely barred,
for over them is tne reign of law, stern, hard,
inexorable law. Fire will burn, water will
drown, poison will kill, beasts will devour,
and we vainly make our tearful protests or
lift our pleading hands in prayer. God made
tha world originally, impressed upon it im-
mutab'e laws, and then launched it and left
it, or else stands impassively by, watching
the grinding of the mighty machine with

Rev. P. S. HENSON, D. D.,

PASTOR FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, CHICAGO.

THE PKOPHETIC CONEEKENCE.

isr>

iron wheels and cruei cogs, glutted with gore
and quivering flesh; but He may not touch
the things that He has made, for they are
under the dominion of irrevocable law —
brainless, soulless, heartless law — and this is
practically an orphan world, from which God
is banished and the laws of nature have ta-
ken his place, like a herd of Moloch*,
"horned gods besmeared with blood." and at
the sound of the cornet, harp, sacKbut, dul-
cimer, and all kinds of instruments of mu-
sic, as played UDon by our modern philoso-
phers, we must fall down and worship or else
be consigned to a furnace of criticism hotter
than that material fire that was kindled
by a heathen king for three redoubt-
able Hebrew children that dared to carry
their heads erect and

WORSHIP ONLY THE LIVING GOD.

What are these new found deities that have
taken the places of their venerable ancestors
in the Parthenon of modern science? I ap-
proach them, I examine them — I dare to, for
they are dead. "They have mouths, but
they speak not; eyes have they, but tb<?y see
not; they have ears, but they hear not: noaes
have they, but they smell not; they have
hands, but they handle not: feet have they,
but they walk not; neither tspuu.lt they
through their throat." Who are they that
they should tate the place of God Almighty?
What is a law of nature, anyhow? What on
earth did it ever do? What is it but an order
of sequence, an order of proceeding? And
where there is an order of proceeding there
there must be somebody to proceed. And
whose footsteps ate they that echo through
the universe and go sounding down the ages
but those ot the High and Holy One that in-
haoiteth etern.ty? He is imminent in na-
ture and "upholdeth all things by the word
of His power," and "worketh all things after
the counsels of His will."

Ordinarily He works in uniform ways, and
beneficent ana beautiful is this same uni-
formity, for in consequence of it, in conse-
quence of the orderly succession of day and
night, and of recurring seasons, and of all
those processes through which nature
passes, we are able to forecast the
future, and

ADJUST OUE LIVES IN HiEMONI

with our surroundinara But it does not fol-
low that the God of nature is shut up to any
slavish uniformity. Shall scientists wall in
the material uniwftrse with their philosophy,
and tnen post a placard on the wall, "No
trespassing allowed," so as to warn off the
Almighty Maker from teaching the things
which His hands have made?

May He not. If He please, depart from Bis
uniform method in nature, and by that very

His

the might of Bis arm, and the love of
heart?

While the electric current flows on witn
uninterrupted circuit, there is no manifesta-
tion of its presence and its power, but l6t
there be a break in the circuit, and there is
a gleam of the electric light, whose palpable
reality no man can dispute. Even so, ever
and anon, God mates a break in the ordinary
course of providential administration, that
men may Know that there is a God, enthroned
in heaven, but still ruling over all the earth.

Why should it be thought a thing incred-
ible for God sometimes to interpose directly
in answer to His people's prayers?

A man may interpose his own personality,
to arrest the action of what we are pleased to
call a law of nature. A little child is in the
act of falling— it is my child It
is falling in accordance with the
law of gravitation.

I EXTEND MY ASMS

to break its fall. Do I then unwarrantably
break a law, because, forsooth, f break a fall
by the interposition of my personality? May
a man do that? And may not God. who is
not only a divine person, but an infinitely
loving and almighty Father? Must he alone
be barred from the universe just because he
made it? That were to show that in the uni-
verse, at least for the present, man is more
of a god than is God himself. This is the
very insanity of intellectuality— the
bl .sphemy of proud impiety.

That God did answer prayer in the earlier
ages of human history — that by the power of
prayer was "subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, stopped the mouth of lions,
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the
edge of the sword, waxed valiant in fight,
turned to flight the armies of the aliens"—
while thrones were overturned, and even

the dead were raised up from their jjrayes

is all so clearly written in the Book of God
that to deny it is to renounce the book itself,
with all its previous legacy of everlasting
love.

And has God gone because philosophy has
come? Bo his footsteps lernominiously re-
treat with the dawnimr of the day? Then
better give us back the night with
its throbbing: stars and the beaming of
God's face jthrough the darkness and the

WHISPERS OF GOD'S LOVE.

But God is not gone. He is still a very pres-
ent help in trouble. His word is an ablaze
with exceeding great and precious promises,
and none shall find his promises fail. Such
is the teaching of revelation, and the highest
reason evermore comt-s back into accord
with the Scriptural revelation. Ever ana
anon it looks, indeed, as if man's reason were

very

departure make manifest to doubting men swinging away to the farthest extremity of

186

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

opposition to the word of God. But 011I3
wait — the foundation of God standeth sure —
ana we have only to appeal from Philip
drunk to Philip sober — poor man, intoxicated
with a little knowledge, to man grown clear
and calm by wider knowledge and pro-
founder thought* Well has the poet writ-
ten:

"A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain.
While drinking deeper sobers us again."

The little child, standing beneath heaven's
cope and looking up at its celestial splendors,
with eyes dilated witn large wonder cries:

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."

By and by the child has grown to be a young
collegian, full of undigested Knowledge, and
fuller still of insufferable conceit. He knows
about the stars. He can confound you with
nis learned discourse about Galileo, and Kep-
ler, and Granhaber, and the Spectrum.

HE KNOWS IT ALL

He has plucked out the heart of the stellar
mysteries. But bv-and-by when he is older
grown, and has become a philosopher worthy
of the name, he comes back to tbe starting
point of wonder, and awe, and reverence,
and conscious ignorance; and again, as he
stands beneath the open heavens, 1 hear him
whispering as in childhood's unsophisticated
hours,

"Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are."

So we begin life with simple-hearted faith
in prayer. In our cbildish ignorance we
suppose that the thing to do is to go to God
as to a loving and almighty Father, and that
He will graciously near us, and do for us
precisely the tnings that we desire. Latter,
when we have attained to a smattering of
philosophy, and have obtained some
glimpses of the laws of natures, we come to
think that even God is neld in leash and that
prayer is a thing of no avail. But when we
have really launched out into the depths,
and have come to know how little we know,
and to realize something of the infinite
majesty of that awful presence which is in
nature, and under nature, and over nature —
even the presence of Him who is God over
all blessed forevermore — then we return to
childhood's simple and beautiful faith, and
feel that the thing to do is to
go to Him in humble prayer, and
spread our wants before Him. and ex-
pect that he will do for us "exceeding
abundantly," according to the greatness of

THE WOKKS OF HIS GBACE.

In conclusion, I beg your attention to a
few thoughts relating to I1L Prayer as a priv-
ilege. We are tired of hearing the cnanges
rung forever more on duty. Duty is all well
enough in its wav. It is a sort of fly-wheel,
with a reservoir of power in it to carry us
past the dead points when the stimulus ot
motion fails us; but for all that it is a cold,
hard, joyless, loveless thing. There are
things that only a stern sense of duty would
ever prompt us to do. To reprove the faults
of a friend is not a pleasant task, at least
not for a noble and sensitive soul. To preacn
of hell is not a thing to take delight in,
though there be some who preach as if it
were. No true minister of Jesus Christ will
ever preach it except from stern constraint
of duty.

But there are some things in respect to
which considerations of duty should never
be needed to furnish a spur. And prayer has
been belittled and degraded by dwelling
upon it as a duty to be done instead of a
privilege to be enjoyed.

I pity the man wno simply prays because
he must, scourged to his duty like a galley-
slave, instead of flying joyfully to a throne
of grace, as a weary wanderer to love's
embrace. Ob, brethren, if our God be the
King of kings and Lord of lords

THEN ACCESS TO HIS PRESENCE

andjassurance of graciouslaudience is a privi-
lege of supremest honor. If he be an in-
finitely tender-hearted Father their prayer is
a privilege of sweetest joy. It" he be an om-
nipotent ruler who can guide us ia perplex-
ity, who can give us light in darkness, com-
fort in tribulation, bread for our hunger,
healing for our diseases, salvation for our
souls, salvation for our friends, wno can
smooth all earth's rugged pathway for us,
and prepare us for Him and give us an
abundant entrance — then prayer is a privi-
lege of grandest opportunity.

"Give me a place where to stand and a lever
long enough and I will move the world,"
cried the great philosopher of Syracuse.
We have the place where to stand — in the
promises of God — and we have that mighty
lever in the power of prayer. Let us in sim-
ple faith lay hold of the power, and we shall
move the world with the might of God.

THE REV. JOHN F. KENDALL.

SANCTIFICATJON.

At the First Congregational Church, the
Rev. Dr. John F. Kendall, of Laporte, Ind.,
occupied Dr. Goodwin's pulpit in the morn-
ing, preaching on the subject of "Sanctifica-
tion.'' He spoko as follows:

In our human relations conduct and char-
acter are the result of condition. The Prince

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

187

of Wales is the prospective king-, and the
condition of kingship into which he was
born regulateB his conduct ana molds his
character, The resident of Zululand or of
the Congo Free State will develop character
quite in accordance with the condition
which surrounds his birth; similar condition
will result in similar conduct, and similar
conduct wild Harden into similar character.
Improve the condition into which one enters
at birth and you secure at once improved
character. Every ascending step in the
one will be marked by corresponding ascent
in the other.

The rule, like all, is not without exception.
One in a thousand, a Socrates or a Keshub
Chunder Sen, may have nis eyes enlightened
to see the deep degradation of national char-
acter and conduct, and may strike out
a new and higher path for himself,
or one born to higher purpose, may grovel
a debase himself; but the rule will be.

Character Corresponds to Condition. — In
like manner, all holy living and holy charac-
ter now from a sanctified condition. God
first gives somethinsr and then he makes nis
demand. The law says, "do and live;" God
says, "live and po." His order is, "I make
you alive; now live and act accordingly."
Whence tbese scriptural facts and demands:
"Ye are dead," therefore be dead to sin and
all this world, "'mortify (make dead) your
members, which are upon the earth'' (Co!.
iiL 5). Ye are "buried with Him," therefore
"crucify the flesh witb the affections and
lusts" (Gal. v. 24). Ye are "risen with
Christ," therefore "seek those things which
are above" (Col. iii. 1). Ye are seated with
Him, in tne heavenlies, therefore, "set your
affection" on heavenly objects. Thus it will
be found that every exhortation to personal
holiness, in the Bible,

IS BASED UPON A SALVATION,

aiready possessed and enjoyed. The ques-
tion of salvation is no lonsrer open, but, as
saved and "sanctified in Christ Jesus," the
believer nears nis Lord's demands for holy
living. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren,"
"beloved of God, called saints," "by the mer-
cies of God, that ye present your bodies,
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable
service" (Rom. xii. 1), tne reasonable service
of one who has been redeemed, and ;for
whom, "walking not after the flesh, but
after the Bpirit," "there is therefore now no
condemnation" (Rom. viii. 8). Paul having
assured the Ephesians that they had been
ohosen in Christ before a founding of a
world, and that, in time, they had been
quickened out of their death in sin, having
taught them that tbey were already saved
bv graced throush faith, tnen demands of

them that they "wait worthy of tne voca-
tion wherewith they were called" (Eph. iv.
1). "Now are ye light in the Lord: walk aa
children of light" (Eph. v. 8).

In a word, ye are "sanctified in Christ
Jesus," therefore be sanctified in your char-
acter and conduct. See that character cor-
responds to the condition into which grace
has brought you. God makes no demand
till He first gives something, on the basis of
which His demand may nave easy com-
pliance. How can a depraved, sin-lovin?
man obey the demand of the Lord, "Be ye
holy;" how can a sinner exhibit saintly
living? He can not till a change is wrought
in his nature which only God can work.
That change God accomplishes; He makes
the sinner a saint, and then calls him to
saintly living.

It will be the purpose of this study to show
that the teaching of the Scripture plainly is
that;there is first, a

SANCTIFIED CONDITION,

into which the believer is introduced, solely
bv the grace of God, and there is then a
holy life, flowine from and consequent upon
that; and these may not be confounded, Dut
especially may their order not be reversed
without serious spiritual harm. The reversal
of order lands one at once in the bonds of
legalism, and he seeks to assure himself of
his sanctified condition by means of his holy
acts. On the contrary, it is a fact that no
attainment in holy living can add one iota to
that sanctification, which is the immediate
and exclusive gift of the grace of God.

We will seek first the Scripture meaning of
our term,

Scanctification. — The one root- word from
which spring all the words which are
translated "hallowed," "sanctify," "holi-
ness," "sanctification," is the word,
adopted from the profane Greek hagios.
The nearest thought to "holiness," of
which the profane Greek was capa-
ble, was "the sublime," "the consecrated,"
"the venerable." The moral element was
utterly wanting, to his thought. In adopt-
ing: this word, therefore, for use in the
Scripture, it had to be "filled and coined
afresh with a new meaning."

Using the term "holy," in its highest sense,
as applied to God, Professor Cremer, of
Greifswald (Theo. Lexicon, p. 39), defines
it as "what deserves and claims moral and
religious reverence." The same authority
defines holiness as "that element in the
divine nature which lies at the basis of, de-
termines, and molds the reverence which is
due from man toward God" (p. 35). There is
that In God which makes it fittinsr, and de-
mands that men approaching shall, with
bared, bowed heads, exclaim, "holy and rev-

18c

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

erent is His name" (Pa. iii. 9). The distance
between this thought and "the sublime"

OF THE PROFANE GREEK

i-s measureless. The point of departure from
his low idea to the supernal conception of
the Scripture, is that definition, in classic
Greek, which makes our word mean "de-
voted to the gods." Anything devoted to
the gods — an animal for sacrifice, a house for
worship, a vessel for sacred use, a garment
for priestly wear, a man for service — be-
comes, by such destination, holy. It is
at once perceived that, in tnis early
meaning, the thought of personal charac-
ter, has not found place. A person or
thing was denominated "noly" by reason of
being separated from secular usee, and de-
voted or set apart to sacred purposes or to
the service of God. Whii„ this is the lowest
thought concerning holinee>s it gives occasion
for the use of such terms as -'holy city,"
"holy place," "holy Jerusalem," "holy gar-
ments," "holy vessels," and others. All
these are termed holy, not from any intrinsic
character of their own, but because they
stand in certain relations to God and His
person, His character or His service, and
each, "in their degree, participate in the di-
vine holiness and embody and manifest it"
(Theo. Lexicon, p. 42). This is very im-
portant and helps us to understand the force
of such scriptures as this: "Jehovah shall
establish thee an holy people to Himself
* * * and all the people of the earth shall
see that the name of Jehovah is named
upon thee" (Deut. xxviii., 9-10); and this:
"Holy men of God spake, as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost" (II. Pet i., 21).
In their personal characters Moses, David,
Solomon, even Jeremiah, exhibited traits
and tempers whicu would detract much
from the ascription to them of holy lives; but
in their relations to Gou, which was the only
light in which He could view
them. they were "partakers of the
Divine nature" (IL Pet. i., 14), "'partakers
of Christ" (Heb. iii. 14), and were "com-
plete in Him," holy. In all instances sano-
tification implies this setting apart for God
and separation from the world, both in
their own intent and in the calling of God,
Thus the Lord said unto Moses: "Sanctify
unto me all the first-born;" "thou ahalt set
apart unto the Lord all that openetn the
matrix" (Ex. xiii. 2, 12;; "I hallowed unto
me all the first-born in Israel, both man ana
beast" (Num. iii. 13).

AS SEPARATED, DEVOTED ONES

these were "saints," and they were called to
a saintship which was not yet theirB. We
may not and we do not identify the setting
apart and the saintly living. We only assert
that God calls that holy or sanctified which

is set apart for himself, and that then he de-
mands a holiness which "is the perfect
purity of God," a holiness which only him-
self can impart "It makes no difference
whether it be the children of Israel, the Sab-
bath, the temple, the priesthood that are
called holy; in every relation of communion
based upon election the object of the elec-
tion participates, according to its degree in
the holiness."

From the thouerht of being set apart or
devoted to God the passage is thus easy to
the higher idea of personal, holy character.
This is the thought whenever we
speak of the Holy Spirit, the
holy angels, the holy God. And holi-
ness, is only and always, "likeness to God,
to Him who is the holy one of Israel, to him
whom they laud in Heaven, as holy, holy,
holy * * * so that we are dead to sin but
alive to God, alive to righteousness, having
died and risen in Him, whose blood has
made us what we aie, saints, holy ones."
The final demand of the sanctified condition
is a holiness, nothing inferior to the holiness
of God.

Two texts of scripture wili now show us,
that, according to the divine plan, all be-
lievers have been thus set apart for a holy
purpose, to holy ends. "According as He
Path chosen us in Hiin, before the founda-
tion of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame, before Him iu love"
(Eph. 1-4), and "elect, according to the fore-
knowledge of God, the Father, in sanctinca-
tion of the spirit" (1 Peter, 1-2).

Having thus discovered tue first thought
in holiness, the holy destination, and the
final thought, the holy life, we proceed now
to show that

WE HAVE A SANCTIFICATION

directly from God, and being from Him, it
must be complete and perfect from the
start And this is something entirely apart
from personal holiness of life. The
evidence of its completeness is found
in the fact that it is spoKen of
in the present and past tenses, but never in
the future. Look at such texts as these:
"Unto the church of God, which is at Cor-
inth, to them that are sanctified in Christ
Jesus, called saints" (I. Cor. i. 2). Speaking
of thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers,
Paul says: "And such were some of you,
but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but,
ye are justified, in the name of the Lord
Jesus and by the spirit of our God" L Cor.
vi. 11). And the revision puts these all in
the past tense, "but ye were washed, ye were
sanctified," etc. Now, to say, as some do,
that "this denotes the proeessive and ad-
vancing process of purifying which succeeds
regeneration," is to violate the plaiueat and

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

189

simplest principles of grammatical construc-
tion. It is to Bay that the Apostle Paul and
the Holy Spirit aid not know what they
wanted to say, or to affirm that they made
egregious blunder, in saying it. The wash-
ing, the sanctification, the justification are
alike complete, all "in the name of the Lord
Jesus and by the spirit of our God." In God's
view, that is to say, we are already sancti-
fied, for in tnis. he veriiy "seeth not as man
seeth."

Consider again, the words of Paul:
"Lo, I come," said Christ, "to do
Thy will, O, God;" and the and
the apostle immediately adds, "in which,
will we are sanctified (R V. have been sanc-
tified) through the offering of the body of
Jesus Christ once for all." '-For by one offer-
ing He hatd perfected forever them that are
sanctified" (Heb. x. 9, 10, 14). On the
first]of these passages. Winer, (N. T. Gram, p,
387) who certainly can not be actuated

BY ANT THEOLOGICAL BIAS,

says: "It is founded in the will of God that
we are sanctified through Christ's sacrificial
death." And it is plainly a work already
completed, wholly apart from human striv-
ing. "We are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ." His offering
is divinely and eternally perfect, nothing
can ever be added to it; on the basis of
that, a sanctification has been wrought, and
it must be finished, and complete."

Other passages Cave a similar import.
"Both He that sanctifietb, and they who are
sanctified are all of one." Heb ii. 11).
Christ Jesus, "of God, is made unto us,
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifica-
tion, and redemption" (L Cor. i. 30). Who
shall assume, or dare to say, that the Di-
vine One "is made" to us, matchless,
wisdom, perfect righteousness, com-
plete redemption; but before
we possess full sanctification, we must add,
to what our Lord has wrought, and ''is
made," some pitiable and worthless human
efforts and strivings? No, all our complete-
ness is "in Him." And all that we have in
Him, must be complete. It is of this spirit-
ual nature, that the Apostle assures us,
"whosoever is born of God, doth not commie
sin * * * and he can not sin, because he
is born of God" (I John, 3. 9). In other
words, "that which is born of the spirit is
spirit," it partakes of the nature of its
origin. The sanctified one, is a participator,
by reason of his heavenly birth, in God's
holine-B; abiding in Him, in whom is no sin,
Be slnneth uot. The believer has been re-
ceived into fellowship, with the redeeming
God, that is, the God who has chosen him
"to salvation through sanctification of the
spirit (II Thesa 2. 13). The work of His

sanctification is accomplished in Christ,
apart from creature striving, by the blood of
Christ

AND IT SHOULD BE NOTED

that the passages which have been cited
teach that the sanctification has already
tafcen place, tnough the self-sanctification
and offering of Christ, who says: "For their
safces, I sanctify myself, that they also might
be sanctified through the truth" (Jobn xvii.
19).

It has been said, in a word, in passing,
that this sanctification is wholly apart from
personal holiness of life. In proof, consider
the Corinthian believers. They are not
sanctified because of personal attainment
They have not been battling with sin till
they have overcome and are now personally
holy. For. but a few sentences after Paul
had called them "sanctified in Christ Jesus."
he says, "l hear that there are contentions
among you" (I. Cor. i., 11), and his letter is
largely filled with stern rebuke for great de-
lects in iadividual character and Christian
iivinar.

It deserves our notice also that this bless-
ing of salification was not for the few, but
for the many. . Christ suffered "that he
might sanctify the people" (Heb. xiii , 12),
not a few of them, not those of eminent at-
tainments, but "the people." And Paul says
of all the Hebrew Christians. "We have been
sanctified" (Heb. x, 10). And to the Corinth-
ians he writes "unto the church of God,
which is at Corinth, to them that are sancti ■
fied" (L Cor. i., 2). The sanctification of
which we SDeak is thus the common lot of
the "called saints."

Puzzling questions may perplex many
minds when we begin to inquire, "how can
these things be?" How can those be said to
be sanctified who are so manifestly imper-
fect? A sufficient answer would be that

THE PUZZLE IS NOT OUBS.

but God's, who settles all with the attlrma-
matiou, "My thoughts are higher than your
thoughts" (I&a. iv. 9.) It is all a part of
God's eternal plan, and in the line of His
eternal Durposes, and we may speaK of God's
purposes as of no other. It is no violence to
language or to truth to say that all God's
purposes are accomplished purposes, not
because we actually see their accomplish-
ment, but becau-e, "declanner the end from
the beginning; and from ancient times, the
things that are not yet done, saying, my
counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasun-" (lsa. xlvh 10), He thus does. What-
soever He purposes He will bring about, be-
cause able to bring it about He sees the
end from tho beginning. There can be no
thwarting, in the end, of His purpose formed
in the beginning. We have been seeing God's

190

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

accomplished purpose toward us; we shall
presently see hpw His purpose is accom-
plished in us. To Him our sanctification Is
already accomplished by the blood of Christ.
And He reckons according: to facts as
they will finally appear, while we judge
according to tacts, as they appear to-day.
"We can not count a man worthy or meet
for a place till we know that he is meet for
it. But when God calls a man to any posi-
tion He accounts him meet for it beforehand,
be cause He can make him so." Says Paul:
"1 thank Jesus Christ, our Lord, who hath
enabled me, for that He counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry." (1 Tim. i. 12.)
Saul of Tarsus was thoroughly bad, but be-
forehand God reckoned him faithful, and
then he

MADE HIS BECKONING GOOD.

Precisely so on the point before us. "God
hath not called us unto uncleanness, but
unto holiness." (1 Thess. iv. 7.) "Be ye
holy, for I am holy." (1 Pet i. 16.) And He
begins with calling us holy "saints," "sancti-
fied in Christ Jesus;" and as He now reckons
us, so will He finally make us. From the
moment tney believe, ah believers "being
viewed by God according to the value of
Christ's sacrifice, and according to what they
are in Him, are 'called saints,' 'sanctified in
Christ Jesus,' and are 'clean every whit.'"
Thus it appears that, as children of God, we
have from Him a sanctification which is
complete from the start.

We now approach that portion of our subject
which is of most eminent importance for itb
practical bearings. It may be expressed in
these terms: The sanctified condition de-
mands holiness of life and leads to it. The
sanctification, of which we have spoken,
does not convey moral qualities, out it does
imperiously demand them. The one, who is
already, "in the will of God," "sanctified in
Christ Jesus," may be very far wanting in
practical holiness of life, as is clearly mani-
fest in the Corinthian believers, but he may
not be content to remain so. Tne Antino-
miaa would Dervert our doctrine, and would
say, "I have Christ, I am sanctified, I may
live as I will.'' But the Christian apostle re-
plies, "As ye have, therefore, received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him,
rooted and built up, in Him" (Col. ii. 6-7).

THE DOCTBINE YOU PBEACH

leads to carelessness in life, one says. But
we reply: Before all others, "he that saith,"
with unqualified and unwavering assur-
ance, "he abideth in Him, ought himself
also so to walk, even as He walked
(L John, ii 6). who has left us "an
example that we should follow His
steps." (L Peter ii. 21). If there is a man
on the face of the earth who ought, by every

motive, whether of common gratitude or of
the fitness of things, that he may seem not
unworthy his "high calling" to live a holy
life, it is he who most fully realizes that he
belonsrs to the number of those whom Jesua
designates as "sanctified by faith that is in
me." (Acts xxvi. 13). And the apostle who
teachep most clearly our sanctified condition
is the one who most insists on the holy life.
Look for a moment at the letter to the
Ephesians. In the first naif Paul sets forth
with wonderful force and clearness the be-
liever's standing. He is "blessed with all
spiritual blessingrs * * * in Christ." God's
eternal purpose of love chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. His
final thought for us was "that we should be
holy and without blame before Him in
love." Our adoption, forgiveness, redemp-
tion, present salvation by grace, and many
other blessings, are already the possession of
the "sanctified in Christ Jesua"

Then, having assured the believer of his
place and standing in tne love of God, he
devotes the last half of the epistle to the
most earnest and importunate exhortation
in reference to the believer's Ufa
"I, therefore," he says, "the prisoner
of the Lord, beseech you that ye wait worthy
of the vocation, wherewith ye are calied."
(Eph. iv. 1). Ye are chosen, ye are called
"to be holy, and without blame before Him,"
who chose and called you; now li ve up to that
Five times, in two chapters the apostle ex-
horts the Ephesians, to consider their "walk"
They are to

"walk wobthy or the vocation,"
to "walk in love," to "walk circumspectly,"
to "walk as children of light," to "walk, noo
as other gentiles walk." Being all that God
has made them, there must now follow war-
fare to the end, and to the death, against
Satan and all his hosts. The doctrine does
not lead to carelessness of life, either in the
divine thought, or in any valid Christian ex-
perience. God's own Holiness is the basis of
the demand, for his people's holiness. "Be
ye holy, for I am holy." And what is more,
his holiness brings about their holiness. "I
am Jeliovah that doth sanctify you." Ex
xxxi. 13). By reason of the fact, that be-
lievers "are born of God," and are ,4partak-
ers of the divine nature," "God's holiness
leads on to the sanctifying of his peoDle."
Hence such scriptures as these. "1 will be
sanctified in you. Ye shall know that 1 am
Jehovah when 1 have wrought with
you, for my name's sake.'' (Ezek xxi. 41-
44). "The heathen snail know that I am
Jehovlah, saith the Lord God, when I shall
be sanctified in you, before their eyes. For
I will take you * * * and will gatner you
out of all countries. * * * Then will I

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

191

sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall
be clean: from all your filthineBS, and from
all your idols, will I oleanse you * * *
I will also save you from all your unclean-
nesses * * * and ye shall loath your-
selves in your own sight, for your iniqui-
ties and for your abominations." (Ezek.
xxxvi. 23-33). These scriptures, with many
others whicti might be quoted, show that
God, naving brought; his people first into a
sanctified condition, then proceeds, by means
within his own power, by judgment, cleans-
ing, by teaching and by His spirit, to make
them

WHAT HE CALLS THEM, "HOLT."

This teachingdoes not lead to carelessness of
life. In the beginning of the twenty-seventh
chapter of Isaiah we find account of God's
care for nis people and his defence against
their enemies. In the fifth verse we read:
"Let him (i. e., the enemy) take hold of my
strength, that he may mate peace with me,
ana he snail make peace with me." An
English clergyman relates the following
incident illustrative of the thought of this
text: "One of my little children," ne says,
"had committed a fault, for wnichl thought
it my auty to chastise him. I called him to
me, explained to him tne evil of what he
bad done, and told him how grieved I was
that I must punish him for it. He heard
me in silence and then rushed into my arms
and burst into tears. I coula sooner have
cut off my right arm than have struck him
for his fault. He nad taken hold of my
strength and he had made peace witn me."
The grief of the fatner tnat he must punish
was to the child tne toKen of the grace which
reigned

IN THE FATHEB'.S HEAET.

The sight of that grace overcame the child's
rebellion, and he cast bimseif helplessly upon
the fathers grace and was Saved.

What effect nad the father's forgiveness
upon the future conduct of the child? It
could nave but one— to make him more
obedient and faithful. Tne grace of tne
father wrought righteousness in the child.

Let us now notice that this is the constant
requirement of the word, both in the old
testament and in the new. To the priests,
specially set apart, and consecrated to his
service, the command comes: "Let the
priests also, wnich come near to the Lord,
sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break:
forth upon them." (Ex 19-22). The days
of King Hezekian were a time of deep degra-
dation and sin in Israel. The king
summoned the people to keep the
passover, "and the priests and the
Levites were ashamed, and panctified
themselves" (2 Chron. xxx. 151. The voice of
Hezekian. calling to the passover, was to

them the voice of Goa, proclaiming. "Be ye
clean that bear the vessels of the Lord" (Isa.
lii. 11). As soon as they became conscious
of the sanctified condition into which grace
had called them, they heard, clearly, the
call to holiness of life. Precisely sucn was
Hezekiah's requirement For, having assem-
bled the priests and Levites. he said unto
them, "Hear me, ye Levites; sanctify now
yourselves, and sanctify the house of the
Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth
the filthiness out of the holy place" (2 Chron.
xxix, 5).

TE ABE HOLT, THEBEFOBE BE HOLT.

With equally explicit and emphatic de-
mand does the Lord call upon all His people,
"1 am the Lord your God; ye shall therefore
sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy, for
I am holy. * * * I am the Lord that
bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt to
be your God; ye shall therefore be holv, for
I am holy" (Lev. xi. 44-45). The very pur-
pose for which he had redeemed them out of
Egypt was that they mi&ht be separated
from other people and be noly unto Him-
self.

How easy, now, the transition to tne re-
quirements of the New Testament. "I be-
seech you, therefore, brethren, by tne mercies
of God, tnat you present your bodies a liv-
ing sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which
is your reasonable service" (Rom. xii.. 1).
And another apostle: "As He which hath
called you is holy, so be ye holy in all man-
ner of conversation, because it is written,
Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Pet. t, 15-16).
Who will say, in the face of these Scriptures,
"I am saved, therefore may I live as I list?"
Listen: "He hath chosen us in Him,
before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before
Him in love" (Eph. i., 4). Believers are not
originally distinguisbed from other men by
any merits or excellencies, but it is the will
of God that they should become dis-
tinguished from all. "This is the will of
God, even your sanctification, that ye should
abstain from fornication, that every
one should know how to possess his vessel
in sanctification and honor. * * * For
God hath not called us unto uncleanness,
but unto holiness" (I Thess. iv., 3-4-7.) "I
may live as Hist;" the thought

SHOWS UTTEE PEEVEESITT

of wickedness, and ignorance of the power
and demand of grace. We are called unto
holiness. "Follow * * * holiness, without
which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. vii.
14). We are to "be like Him," wnen "we
shall see Him as He is." and how will that
agree with living as a sinful man may list?
God's word requires be ye "holy in all man-
ner of living" The end of all things ap-

192

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

proacbing, "what manner of persons ought
ye to be in all boly living and godliness?"
(2 Pet. hi. 11.) Tbis, ana tbis only, is tbe
high demand of a sanctified condition, viz.,
a boly life, practical holiness, proceeding
from a boly state. "Know ye not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, wbich
is in you, which ve have of God, and ye are
not your own? For ye are bought with a
price; therefore glorify God in your body"
(1 Cor. vi. 19,20). What right has the re-
deemed man to use his redeemed powers in
any other way tdan as his Redeemer shall
list? Or "who can live, in the calm sense of
oneness with Jesus, and not war against
sin? Who can delight in His love and not
obey?" Who can go from day to day
saying '"I belong to the sanctified in Christ
Jesus," and not then add, "So must I walk,
even as He walked?" This is the divine or-
der, and tbe divine requirement. God puts
our hearts at rest from anxiety that our
bands may be free for His service. Man
says:

"Do holy things, that you may be sancti-
fied" God savs, "Ye are sanctified, now do
boly things." Saints sbould strive for saint-
liness. A holy life is therefore to be looked
for as the legitimate fruit of a sanctified con-
dition. And

SUCH HOLT LIFE SHOULD BE

the object of constant, earnest striving on
the part of every believer. Sanctified al-
ready "in the name of the Lord Jesus, and
by the spirit of our God" (1. Cor. vi. 11),
there is certainly no room for any contribu-
tion of creature performance, so far as our
Standing in God's sight is concerned. But
while thus "perfected forever" in the esti-
mation of Him who sees us only in the face
of Jesus Christ, our ever sarious question
should be am I "meet for the Master's use"
(II. Tim. ii. 21) as priest, vessel, house, im-
plement was required to be kept clean for
holy service? Whence such exbortations
as these: "Having, therefore, these prom-
ises, dearly beloved" — tbe promises to
"saints," to those who have an
assured dwelling on high — "let us cleanse our-
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting' holiness in the fear of God."
(2 Cor. vii. 1). The "saints," tbe "sanctified
in Christ Jhsus," have not, in their practical
experience, attained to pertect holiness, and
they need, like the apostle, who exhorts
them, to "follow after that they may appre-
hend that for which also they are appre-
hended of Christ Jesus. " There is ever a
higher mark in attainment. The end of
striving will never De obtained, the need of
striving will never cease, until there is in all
our lives a practical compliance with the

requirement, "be ye holy." What are the
means of

THIS PRACTICAL SANCTIFICATION?

We shall find tbem, appointed in the word,
even as our sanctification in Jesus is there
declared. Says the Apostle Peter, "Ye have
purified your souls in obeying the truth."
(1 Pet. i. 22). "What is truth?" "Tliy word
is truth." Thus shall we be driven con-
tinually to the word of the Lord,
with absolutely obedient heart, which
ever says: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth" (1 Sam. iii. 9). in obeying the
truth a practical work shall go on in our
own soul£, with which our Lord snail be
well pleased, as He holds therein the accom-
plishment of His own will, even our sancti-
fication. This obedience will find its ex-
pression in every day and every act of our
earthly life. The word will enlighten our
understanding, it will foster the growth of
heavenly affections, it will prepare us unto
every good work, and cause us to abound
therein. The word of tbe apostle will nave
heed: "Dearly beloved, I beseech you * * *
abstain from tlesiiiy lusts, which war against
the soul, having your Behavior seemly
among ttie gentiles" (i Pet. ii. 11-12).
"Hating even the garments spotted witb
the flesh" (Jude xxni. ). And tbe word of
another aDostle: "Casting down imagina-
tions, and every high tning that exalteth it-
self against the knowledge of God, and
bringing into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. x 5). How
many unhallowed imaginations in hearts
where flesh lusteth against spirit, how
many thoughts,

UNWORTHY THE CHRISTIAN NAME

and profession, and especially, how
many that are not harmonious with a state
of advancing holiness. By the grace of God,
we would lay restraining hand on every
lewd or unhallowed imagination; we would
capture every unholy thought and bind it
fast within the restraints of holy living; we
would struggle ever upward towards that
state in which spirit, soul and body shall De
first blameless and then faultless before the
Lord. For this we may walk in no energy
of tbe nesn, but in the energy
of the thrice Holy One. Just in proportion
as we do that shall we lead holy lives, and
walk as He walked. Thus the word becomes
the efficient means of personal holiness.
"Sanctify tbem through thy truth; thy
word is truth." (John xvii., 17.)

And equally prayer will aid in this attain-
ment. "If ye abide in Me, and My words
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and
it shall be oone unto you." (John xv. ,7.)
"If ve shall ask anything in My name, I will
do it." (John xiv., 14.) Thus, wbtn tne

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

193

prayer of Jesus "sanctify them, through thy
truth," becomes the believer's own,
and he prays "sanctify me through Thy
truth," that prayer, offered sincerely and in
faith, is in process of swift answer.

Another topic, not less important than the
others, remains to be considered, and it con-
cerns the measure of practical holiness after
which we are required to strive.

HOW HOLT OUGHT WE TO BE?

What attainments should be ours? There
have been theories, concerning spiritual
attainment in our lime, which, while the end
was altogether worthy, have been lamentable
failures. \Yhen iny would .brinar holiness
down from what holiness is, and, reaching
some point, should tnen say, "I am holy,"
that Jis no scriptural sanctification. Sancti-
fication does not consist in lowering the de-
mand. This the late President Finney did,
in these words: "The law does not require
that we should love God as we might do, had
we alwavs improved our time, or had we
never sinned. It does not suppose that our
powers are in a perrect state. The service
required is regulated by our

ability." Similarly, President Mahan
lowers the . demand in saying:

"Perfection does not imply that we love God
as the saints do in heaven, but merely that
we love Him, as far a5! practicable, with our
present powers." Even Mr. Wesley savs:
"Mistakes and infirmities are not sins.
These are, indeed, deviations from the per-
fect law, and consequently need atonement.
Yet the*y are not properly sins. A person
filled with the love of God is still liable to
these involuntary transgressions. Such trans-
gressions you may call sins, if you please, I
do not" Up to such a standard it may be
easy for some to com". But how does such
attainment aarree with the aivine word,
"Whatever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. x'v.
23); and with this: "The very God of peaca
sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ" (I Thess. v. 23). Sanctification
does not consist

IN DENTING OUR FAILURES.

We are no nearer to practical holiness by
seeking after something which is not holi-
nesa

Some who long for holiness say plainly
Chey do not expect or strive
for Ad-imic or angelic perfection,
but for something less than these, and so say
we, not for either of these do we strive, for
these are not 'the scriptural standard; for
the Scripture nowhere says, "Be ye holy as
Adam," "or be ye holy as Gabriel." but dis-
tinctly and emphatically, "be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in

heaven is perfect." The standard of holi-
ness to which God calls us is none other
than the holiness of God. Nothing below
that can satisfy him. Nothing Delow that
can satisfy anyone who has a true appre-
hension of the demand of the sanctified con-
dition. We want that high attainment
which is according to the Divine mind, and
not some inferior attainment, which lets us
keep our mistakes and infirmities and in-
voluntary transgressions. vVe must see all
these swept away before we dare to call our-
selves holy with the "holiness of the thrice
Holy One."
But this is

IMPOSSIBLE OF ATTAINMENT.

No, rather, not yet attained: in the holiest
life, as yet, far short of attainment. Bui
because an end is not yet aHainea
there is no necessary inference that it ca*
not be attained. There is the constant de-
mand for high endeavor. The goal of to-day
is no place at which we may sit down and
congratulate ourselves on our success; it is
only the- starting point of to-morrow. "Be-
hold wnat manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God; and we are" (I. John iii. 1),
and "He that spared not His own son, bus
delivered him up for us all, how shall He
not. with Hun. also, freely give us all things?"
(Rom. viii. 12). tie will give us all. "Be-
loved, now are we the sons of God, and it
doth not yet appear what we snail be, bus
we know" — blessed knowleage founded on
the unfailing word of God — "we know that
■when He shall appear, we ehall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is. And every
man that hath this hope in Him ourifiech
himself, even as He is pure" (I. John iii.
23). No other apprehension of the de-
mand is correct save that of the
Psalmist: "As for me, 1 will behold
Thy face in righteousness; I shall be
satisfied when I awake with Thy
likeness" (P*. xvii. 15). Hence, though con-
tinually obliged to confess failure, we are
not thereby discouraged, for "the battle is

NOT OURS BUT GOD'S"

i,2 Chr. xx. 15), and we are "confident of
this very thing, that He which hath begun a
good worK in us, will perform it, until the
day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. i. 16). "This is
the will of God, even your sanciiiication,"
perfect and complete; and "nought can
withstand His will." The st indard, which
is placed before u«, is that of absolute per-
fection. We will not lower the standard,
and we will, not deny our failures. These
might well discouracre us, if it were not for
the callincr, "unto holiness," the "high call-
ing of Goa in Christ Jesus." But with thi°.
and with the assurance of needed help, wo

194

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

must surely "follow after, if that we. may
apprehend that lor which also, we are ap-
prehended of Christ Jesus." And we will
ever "press toward the mark" (Phil. iii. 12-
14). The sanctified condition, into which
grace has introduced up, requires nothing
less than absolute holiness of life. As yet,
we attain it not; but, in spite of frequent
failure, we are not "utterly c<*st down."

"W. E. BLAGKSTONE.

MISSIONS.

The Prophetic Conference resolved itself
Into a ereneral mission meeting at 3 o'clock
Sunday at i'arwell Hall. A large audience
listened to the following address by W. E.
Blackstone. of Oak Park:

"Lift up your eyes and look on the fields." —
John iv, 35.

Jesus sat by the well. To the east was the
little plain of the cornfields. To the west
was the multitude, coming forth from the
bamaritan city, filled with desire to se.j the
Man of whom the woman had said, "Is not
this the Christ?"

To his wondering aisciples Jesus said:
"Lift up your eyes and look on the fields."
It was not the cornfield, from which no
Uarvest would be reaped for four months,
but on this company of human beings, with
many repentant hearts, that the Liord asked
his disciples to look. To these same aisciples
he also said, "the field is the world." With
these two texts before us let our thoughts
reach out beyond our immediate surround-
ings, beyond our State, beyond our Nation,
and get one wide sweep of the wnole world,
with all the teeming millions; ana as we
bring it up to our minds may the • Holy
Spirit bring it into our hearts,
ijet us consider first the

NUMBERS OF MANKIND,

and to aia us in this, this chart has, been pre-
pared. See chart on page 204. There are
1.434 squareB, eacn representing 1.000,000
souls, divided as shown according to the
prevailing' religions: Christian — Protestants,
136; Greek ana Oriental, 85; Roman Catholic,
195; total Christians, 416; Jews, 8; Moham-
meaans, 175; Heathen, 835; total, 1,434.

It is aifficult to comprehend such numbers.
Into one square we could put Chicago and
its suburbs, and have a quarter
of it left. New lork and its

suburbs would go into two squares,
jt'roni the bottom we could cut off sixty
bquares, and hardly miss the entire copula-
tion of

THE UNITED STATES.

An audience of 500 people, if proportionately
represented on the chart, would not cover
one-sixteenth of the intersection of the white
lines, and 10,000 neople could, on the same
scale, stand in the eye of a tine cambric nee-

dle. Now, if this chart was enlargea to three
feet by four feet, it would represent the en-
tire number of human beings from the days
of Adam to the ena of 6,000 years; possibly
180,000,000.000. How insignificant the indi-
vidual appears in the presence of tuch multi-
tudes, and how little a part we form of the
vast congregation of humanity who are even
now traveling with us toward the grave and
the judgment? But while the multitudes of
earth are almost incomprehensibly great in
our sight, they are very small in the
sight of the Creator. Behold the nations
are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as
the small dust of the balance" (lsa. xl. 15).
Possibly we may get some conception of this
if we consider how small a space the

EACE WOULD OCCUPY

if all were gathered together. Very few
have any proper idea of the area they would
require to stand or sit upon. Indeed it has
been argued against the literal resurrection,
that if all were raised from the dead they
would cover the entire earth, and some have
even said, "yes, three deep." But this is
like many ot the foolish assertions" against
the truth of God's word, all of which vanish
into oblivion when candidly considered.
The fact is, all the race now living could
stand or sit upon 206x4 square miles, or less
than six ordinary townships. "I don't
believe it," says one. Well, let us compute
it The figures will not lie. An average
sitting is 18 by 30 inches, or 540 inches,
nearly four square feet. The latest esti-
mated population of the world is 1.437,000,-
000. This multiplied by four equals 5,748,-
000,000 square feet. Divide by 27,878,400
square feet in a sauare mile, the result is
206^4 square miles, a surface 10 bv 2l
miles, or a circle 16^ miles in diameter.
The little Isle of Man would accommodate
them all and have room to spare.
They could all stand in the
city of Philadelphia. How easily
they can all be gathered before the Son of
man, where He sits in the throne of His
glory, (Mat xxv. 31-32). From Mount Tabor
He coula

VIEW THEM ALL

in the little plain of Esdraelon ana surround-
ing hillsides, or they could be easily mar-
shalled on the plain of Snarou. Again all
the population of the earth for 6,000 years
from Adam could stana on the Island of Tas-
imaina, and have room to spare. "Prove
that." says one, "I c^n't believe it" Well,
suppose we average each generation at forty
years; this trives 150 generations in 6,000
years. Suppose each generation to have
1,200,000,000 souls. This is doubtless far
too large on estimate, as the race began with
two in Adam's generation, ana there were

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

195

only eight in Noah's time. Out we want to
make the estimate very liberal. Multiply
1.200.000,000 by 150; the result is 180,-
000,000,000; four square feet to each equal
720,000,000,000 square feet; divide by
27,878,400 square feet in a square mile, and
we have 25,826 square miles. Tasmania has
26.215 square miles, and Hayti 28,000. So
we see either isle would have room to spare.
Ob, skeptic! remember tbat God will some-
time gather all the dead (who have not had
part In the first resurrection) before the
great wUite throne. What a mighty gather-
ing that will De, and yet the human
eye, loosing from one of the foot-
Mils of the Rookies, could measure
the whole multitude on Colorado's plains.
God grant that when we see them there may
ba

NO BLOOD EEQUIBED

at our hands (Ezek. iii. 18). This mass of
humanity is distributed udod the earth ac-
cording to the prevailing religions, as shown
by the map.

(An immense map of the world, in two
nemispheres, expressly prepared in colors to
Bhow the religions, having: the mission sta-
tions in gilt, so as to ba easily distinguished
by a large audience, was used for this pur-
nose. ) The pagaus and heathen, in black,
are seen to be in Africa, India, China, Japan,
Australia, some islands, and a mixture of
' natives in America and Siberia The Moham-
medans, in green, are principally in India,
Persia, Turkey, Arabia, North Africa, and
some islands. The Jews are sown like seed
through a sieve, among all nations (Amos,
ix 9) The Catholics, in scarlet, are in
Europe, Mexico, and South America, and
scattered in many nations. The Greek and
Oriental Christians, shown in brown, in Rus-
sia, Siberia, Turkey, and Abyssinia. The
Protestants, in yellow, are found in Great
Britain, part of Europe, United States, Aus-
tralia, Madagascar, and many islands.
It was into these masses that the Lord Jesus
gave command to His disciples, Go ye and
preach the gospel. It was His last command,
and

SHOULD BE TBEASUBED

as dearly aB the last woros of our departing
friends, and obeyed in sincere reverence to
our ascended Lord and bavior. The early
disciples did obey, and went everywhere
preaching the word.

But, at the conversion of Constantino the
church was deluded into the errror that the
kingdom had come on the earth, and a long
era of dark ages followed.

The true missionary spirit began to dawn
again upon the earth about 100 years ago,
and men like Gutzlaff, Morrison, Carey, Duff
and Judson soon knocked at the doors of

heathenism. But lo, Batan bad locked and
barfed the doors, and so impregnable did the
wall of darkness appear to be that one cried
out, in despair, "Oh, rock, wnen wilt thou
open?" But they toiled on and the church
prayed on till the rusty bolts are drawn and
the hinges creak as the heavy doors slowly
Bwing, one after another, until all the world
is open except the little province of Thibet.
Africa, sealed for two millenniums,
is pierced in every direction by explorers,
and all opened up to

POSSIBLE EVANGELIZATION.

India already has 125,000 Christians, with
gospel light in every part In China the pru-
dent missionary may go where he will. In
Turkey, Persia, Japan, Burmah, Siam, Mada-
gascar, and the islands the work of evangel-
ization moves grandly forward. Even her-
mit Korea has joined the family of nations,
and several missions have already been
planted there. Only Thibet, tne present home
of Buddhism, with the Grand Lama living
in the city Lassa, and the subordinate Lamas
controlling the country, remains locked
against the gospel message. The Moravians
have long essayed to enter from the province
of Nepaul, in India, where they patiently
waited and translated tne Bible into the Thib-
etan language. Again they tried via Cashmere
and Bod, on the west. The China Inland
Mission has scouted the eastern border
through China, but thus far all efforts have
been in vain. But, lo! the English Govern-
ment in India is negotiating for a political
mission to enter Thibet, and we thanit God,
for wherever the English go, the Christian
missionary can soon follow. And this
last little spot held in the clutches
of Satan shall see the great light that is
shining among the nations. With such an
outlook and such opportunities what should'
be the

ATTITUDE OP THE CHUBOH?

Surely it should be that of enthusiastic en-
deavor. With the command behind her.
Providence leadine her, and marvelous suc-
cess attending all efforts, she should obedi-
ently and resolutely prosecute the work her
Lord has left her to do. Every member
should consecrate self and substance to tne
proclamation of the gospel.

Bought with ilis blood, born of His Spirit,
filled with His love, and stirred by His pres-
ence, oh ! how she should obey His command
in fidelity and power. The very thought of
maternity and fatherhood, the nursing of
children, their development, training, and
education at home, in Sunday school and
church should all Do for the object and pur-
pose of making them soldiers of the cross.
The preaching of the gospel, all the means of
grace, our schools and theological institutes

196

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

should have tor their sole object the winning
of converts and training them as an army to
obey our Captain's marching orders. It thrills
the soul to think what could be accom-
plished with such conseciation and devotion.
But alas I alas I what is the attitude of the
church? As a whole, Protestantism is now

WORLD - CONFORMING

and easy living. Even evangelical churches
are simply playing at missions. Look at
some of the fact?. Oat of the 6,093 churches
in the Presbyterian denomination, North,
2,267, or over one-third, grave nothing for
foreign missions in 1885. Of 1,742 Congre-
gational churches in the District of the In-
terior, embracing thirteen States and Terri-
tories, 902 churches, over one- half, gave
nothing for foreign missions in 1885. The
Methodists, North, make a better showing in
this respect, tor out of 19,728 churches,
thousands of which are in the South among:
the colored people, only 872 cnurches report
nothing for missions, and 140 of these are
mission churches in foreigru lands. There is
an impropriety in averaging congregations
which give nothing, or only a triflle, wita
those which are giving as the Lord hath
prospered; and yet for the sake of compari-
son we give the following: average per mem-
ber: Presbytrians, North, $1.08; Congrega-
tionalists, $1.53; Baptists, North, 54 cents;
Methodists, North, including Woman's So-
ciety and Bishop Taylor's work, 35 oents;
Baptists, South, 7*2 cents; Disciples, 7 cents;
Protestant EDiscopals, 40^ cents. Think of
it Protestants, even evangelical Protes-
tants, are not giving: an avera°:e of 50 cents
each per year for

the world's evangelization!
Some are doing their pest Many are doing
well, but thousands upon thousands are
doing nothing. What are the reasons for
this spirit of disobedience in the army of the
Lord? First of all, we believe that a lack of
genuine spiritual life lies at the root of the
matter. The cares of the world, the deceit-
fulness of riches and the lust of other things
entering in have choked the Word until it
has become unfruitful in multitudes of pro-
fessedly Christian hearts. Self and substance
are not consecrated to the work, and conse-
quently there is little interest in it; indeed,
not enough to stimulate the desire for
information. They do not care to
read the news from the outposts of the
Lord's army. Yery few missionary periodicals
are self-supporting. Most of them have to
he subsidized from the

GENERAL COLLECTIONS

of the societies. A notable exception to this
is The Heathen Woman?* Friend, which not
only pays it way, but has considerable sur-
plus for the Zevana paper and other publi-

cations. Why is this? Simply because it has
an interested constituency among the 100,-
000 women of the W. F. M. S. Why does the
secular press need no subsidy? Because the
people are interested in the news, the mar-
kets, and, alasi even in the sensational stuff
printed therein. How it would please the
Lord if His disciples were thus interested in
the news from His army, in the tidings from
the skirmish line, where brave soldiers are
meeting Satan's forces in the strongholds of
darkness.

2. This want of information about the
condition of the heathen and evangelistic
work among them leads to an utter neglect
of their claims upon us, and we bear it said,
"Ihere are heathen enough at home; let us
stay here till these are converted," and thus
an attitude is assumed which is utterly op-
posed to the spirit of the gospel and the
plainest commands of the Master.

The work of evangelization was to be from
Jerusalem out among all nations. The dis-
ciples were

TO BE WITNESSES

in Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost
parts of the earth (Acts i.). Not a word was
spoken that they should remain in any place
until all were converted. Indeed, there is
no Scripture statement that all would be
converted. On the contrary, the testimony
is directly the opposite.

In Matt. vii. 13 the wide gate, broad way,
and many are contrasted to the straight
gate, narrow way, and few.

The parable of the sower in Matt xiii. show»
how few are fruitful, and the words in Luke
xviii. 8 show how few will be faithful Chris-
tians at the last.

The parable of the tares and the teaching
of L Tim. iv., IL Tim. hi., II. Pet iii. show-
how evil men and wickedness will increase
to the end. The lawlessness of IL Thes. ii. 7,
12, Satan's masterpiece, is only brought to
an end by the coming of our Lord Jesus
did not set any such example. He hastened
on that he might preach in the other towns
and cities also (Mark l. 38, Luke iv. 43). Hia
followers were to go and make disciples of
ail nations. At the first apostolic council it
was declared to be the express purpose of
God in this dispensation "to take out of"
the nations a people to His name
(Acts xv. 13-17). Hence we see that
our business is to carry the prospel into all the
world with the ussurance that it will be the
power of God unto salvation, both at home
and abroad to the few who will believe.
Where should we be if missionaries had
stayed at home? Dancing around the Druid
fires of our ancestors.

Another most important reason results
from the erroneous statements con-

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

197

earning the progress of Christianity and the
condition of the world. Very much is said
and wriiten about the progress of Christian-
ity. The progress of Christianity is stated
to be as follows: 1000, A. D., 50,000.000;
1500, A. D., 100,000,000; 1700. A. D.. 155,-
000,000; 1800, A. D.. 200,000.000;
1885, A. D., 416,000,000. These
are divided as shown upon the chart, viz:
Protestants. 136,000,000; Greeks and Ori-
ental churches, 85,000,000; Roman Catho-
lics, 195,000,000; total, 416.000,000. And
it is exultinsrly claimed that at this ratio of
increase all mankind will be Christians in
less than 100 years. It is also claimed that
the ratio of increase of population under
Christian governments is even greater, viz:
1500, A. D., 100,000,000; 1700, A. D.. 155,-
000.000: 1830, A. D., 387,788,000; 1876,
A. D. , 685,459, 411; the latter being divided
as follows: Roman Catholic governments,
181,000,000; Greek Church governments,
96,000,000; Protestant governments, 408.-
000,000. At the same rate of progress all
would be under

CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENTS

in less than fifty years more. The-e figures
are so enchanting that we hear much about
Christians "capturing a planet" and "brinsr-
tag the world to Christ," and often the
"progress" is painted in such glowing colors
that the millennium seems to have really
dawned upon us, and the mass of the church
settles back udoq the lees, scarcely thinking
it necessary to help push the '-car of
salvation" that appears to be so grandly
rolling on. Progress in art, science,
invention, commerce, material wealth,
civilization, and refinement are all arrayed
to help swell the delusion. We say delusion,
for there never was a greater deception than
such wholesale figures to represent true
Cnristians and christian influencea It is a
miserable opiate lulling the church to sleep
in the arms of false security. Let us an-
alyze these figures. We will not begin with
the Catholics, who put the church and the
Pope in the place of Christ, prohibit the
Bible from the people, practice idolatry in
the worship of Mary and the saints; a church
that was once pure, and the mother of us
all, but is now recognized as mission
ground; nor with'the

GREEK ANP ORIENTAL

churches permeated with formalism and
political power. But let us consider the
Protestants about whom we ought to know
the most, and upon whose "progress" the
greatest stress is laid. ■ Where are these 136.-
000,000 Protestants? Dr. Dorchester [jives
the total of Baptist-*, Congregationalists,
Methodists, Moravians, Presbyterians, and
New Jerusalemltes in all the worM In 1880,

at 11,530,979; all others in the United,
States, 1,675,214; add sundry small denomi-
nations in Great Britain and Europe, esti-
mated at 2,000,000; Church of England,
total estimated population, 21,000,-
00U: Lutherans in the world (see
Stall's Year Book), 47,451,136, and
we have a total of 83,647,329.
Wher« are the rest to come from? We must
put in nominal Christians, as follows, who
make no profession of Christ and belong1 to
no church, and yet are counted in to swell
the numbers of "evangelical" population:
In the United States, 25,000,000; Great
Britain, 4,000,000; Germany, 1,000,000;
Holland, 2,600,000; Switzerland, 1,557,000;
total population of Australia, Van Diernan's
Land, and New Zealand, not enumerated
above, 2,000,000; Canada, 3,000,000; Mad-
agascar, 2,000,000; and now we must scrape
up from somewhere, and not even imagina-
tion can tell where, a balance of 11,185.671,
to make the total of 136,000,000.

If the number of Protestants be called
160,000,000, as shown on the diagram pub-
lished by the American Baptist Mission
Union, then this balance from nowhere
would reach the enormous number of 35,-
185,671.

Over 108,000,000 of nominal Christians
are counted into this mass Are not such
figures deceiving the church into an imag-
ined prosperity? The truth is that, if we
reckon one in four of the Church of England
population and one In seven of the

LUTHERAN POPULATION

as actual church members, we have a total
church membership in all Protestantism of
27,039,526. And when we consider that
this includes Universalists, Unitarians, and
Swedenborgians, as well as the vast number
of those whose Christianity consists only in
a name on the church record, shall
we not regard 12,500,000 to

be a large estimate of

the number of Protestant consecrated dis-
ciples of the Lord Jesus? What do
the other 123,500,000 belong to? Jesua
said, "He that is not with me is atrainst me"
(Matt. xii. 30). Now let us set over against
this 12,500,000 consecrated Protestants, the
solemn fact that this world's population is
increasing every year about 14,000,000
Bouis, or more, in two years, than the entire
Protestant Church membership in the
world!

The portion of the earth's population
under Christian governments in 1876 Is
given as follows: Under Catholic govern-
ments, 180,787,905; Greek Ouurch, 9b,-
101,891; Protestants. 408,569,612; total,
685,459,411. And these figures are said to
■ : emonstrate

198

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

the rapid extension
of Christian influences and the Christian
subjugation of the world." If "Christian
subjugation" here means subjugation to
Christ, then is it not fair to as-
sume that Cnri8tian governments ought
to be serving Christ? Mohammedan
governments are faithful to Mohammed. Are
Christian governments faithful to the King
of kinjrs? Let us take the United States for
example. First as to population. The cen-
sus of 1880 gives the total population at
50,145,783, which we find divided as fol-
lows: Protestant church members, 8,953,-
870. Over against this we nave the Catho-
lics, 6,174,202; nominals, 35,027,801.

Wno are the people serving? it is pretty
fair to judge of a nation's fealty by the way
it spends its money. Hence we make the
following comparison: For the annual
support of the trospel, education, and chari-
ties— Sixty-five thousand clergymen,* $1,000
each, $05,000,000; public schools, $103,-
949.528; universities ana colleges, t $5,124.-
lS'J; charities, estimated, $24,426,283;
missions, bom-: and foreign, $5,500,000;
total, $204,000,000.

Thousands of ministers in the West and
South do not receive $200 apiece, and it is

A LITTLE QUESTIONABLE

about including public schools, in many of
which the Bible is prohibited; but we wish
to make the total liberal and large, and
$204,000,000 does seem a grand sum to be
annually expended in the service of
Christ. But look at the other side.
Our nation spends for liquor, 3900,000,000;
for toDacco, $600,000,000; luxuries and
frivolities, $100,000,000, the latter includ-
ing $25,000,000 for kid gloves and- $5,000,-
000 for ostrich feathers, making a total of
$1,600,000,000. One dollar for Christ to $8
for self and Satan I But let us look at an
aggregate for ninety years. Dr. Dorchester
gives the total receipts of all foreign mis-
sionary societies in the United States since
their origin until 1880 at $57,628,946;
home missionary societies, $72,676,801; re-
ligious publication houses, including Sunday
school and tract societies, $109,483,436;
support of clergymen and churches for
ninety years, $3,154,950,000; total, $3,-
394,339,183. This is a very great sum, and
It might fill us with admiration for the
Christian consecration of our nation. But
behold the appalling sum on the other side!
Dr. Dorchester, who is corrooorated by
other

PROMINENT STATISTICIANS,

gives the amount spent in the United States
in ninety years for liquor alone at $78,899,-

•iDcluding Catholic priests. See p. 203.
♦See American Almanac 1886. d. 46.

943,864, a sum greater * by half than the
present real and personal value of all land
and property of the whole Nation. Oh! what
waste, what destruction, what anguish, sin,
and misery, what a multitude of hopeless
souls, what a throng of widows and or-
phans, what squandered fortunes, ruined
homes and blasted lives are represented
by this tremendous sum. Yet the fearful
traffic is licensed by our «overnment, and a
large portion of its revenue derived there-
from.

Whose is this government. Christ's or
Satan's?

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey ,his servants ye
are to whom ye obey" (Rom. vi. 16).

Multiply the above totals by three, aud we
have the approximate expenditure in
Protectant nations, or by seven would give
us, perhaps, the total expenditure in all
"Christian" governments. One is ovcr-
whelmea by such

INCOMPREHENSIBLE SUMS.

Christian nations are said to have spent for
war in this nineteenth century over $15,-
000,000,000, and for missions $300,000,-
000. One dollar for the sword of the Spirit
to $50 for the gods of war I

It is in "Christian nations'' that we find
communism, socialism, and nihilism. Athe \
istic anarchists are here preaching aud
practising the diabolical doctrines of law-
lessness, and they may be the forerunners
of that "lawless one" of 2 Thes. ii. 8-12
The evil influence of so-called Christians in
heathen lands is one of the greatest ob-
stacles to missionary work. One ship from
a Christian land to the Congo tooK one mis-
sionary and 100,000 gallons of rum. The
government of Great Britain, the chief of
Christian nations, for "the love of money"
monopolizes the opium trade, raises the
poppy, maufactures the drug, ships it to
China, and at the mouth of the cannon
forces it upon that helpless heathen nation.
God have mercy on our mother land. If
there is one crying evil under heaven this
must be it, this total eclipse of national
righteousness. Oh, Christian governments,
who shall deliver you from the wrath to
come. The degree of light is the basis of re-
sponsibility. Remember that the

AWFUL DENUNCIATIONS

of Jesus were not against the heathen, but
against Israel and her rulers, who had the
light but walked not in it. "Ye are of your
father, the devil" iJohn viii. 44). "Ye ser-
pents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
escape the damnation of gehenna"
(Mat. xxiii. 33), are his awful words.
Rather would l be a kind hearted Brahmin
or Confuoianist, than a "nominal Christian,'*

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

109

rejecting the gospel of the grace of God in
a favored Christian land. Of what value, in
the sight of heaven, is this nominal Chris-
tianity? And of what avail if the whole world
should be converted to such a Christianity?
This is not; to Christ A secular paper in
JaDan is said to nave lately advocated the
adoption of Christianity as a state religion,
not for toe service of Christ, but in oraer to
be on a better footing with the Western
Christian nations. A world conforming,
nower denying form of aroaliness mav pre-
vail, but not sound doctrine and Holiness.
For tue simple fact is, Christian nations are
not serving Christ.

There has come to be a great difference be-
tween Christ and Christianity. Christianity
is a term which now embraces more than
100,000,000 of Protestants and 250,000,000
of Greeks, Orientals, and Catholic-;, who pro-
fess no change of heart, but simply because
they are not Mohammedans or Buddhists, are
regarded as servants of Cnrist. Surely this
is Satan's arithmetic. The true Christians of
all denominations are a comparatively little
handful of witnessing disciples, ''holding
forth the word of life," in the midst of the
world's masses who are plunging on the
broad

BOAD TO DESTBUOTION.

"Ah! what a darK picture," says one. In-
deed it is, but it's true, for it was painted by
Jesus in answer to the question, "Are there
few that be saved?" (See Luke xiii. 23-24
and Mat. vii. 13-14.) Ever since sin entered
In the garden separation from God, moral
darkness and spiritual death have followed.
The whole history of the race has been one
mighty panorama, showing thao "the wages
of sin is death." Each dispensation has
ended in judgment— Eden in the expulsion.
Antediluvian in the flood. Post-diluvian in
Sodom, Patriarchal in the Red Sea, Mosaic in
the cross and destruction of Jerusalem. So
will this Christian dispensation end in the
judgment. Fifty-nine centuries, and still it
is night! Satan is still deceiving the na-
tions; yea, he is even deceiving the churcn
into a blind confidence that "things are
going well" and the world is waxing better.
God help us to dispel this delusion. "We
know," said the beloved John, "'that we are
of God, and the whole world lieth in the
wicked one" (I. John v. 19, N. V.), lieth like
a child asleep in the

ARMS OF SATAN.

Oh I beloved, ye Christians, beware! beware
lest ye sleep also (L Thes. v. 0). Awake I
awaKe! and gaze upon the multitudes of those
who are in the gall of bitterness
and bonds of iniquity. While Christian
missions in 100 years have gained 600,000
converts from Mohammedans and heathens,

representing with their families a possible
population of 3,000,000, the population of
the latter has increased 200,000,000, or
about 70 to 1. Think, as you read your
Holy Bible, that every chapter, nay every
verse, nay every letter, stands for over 230
of the heathen. What a throng of aching
hearts one single precious promise would
thu-< represent. It's an awful fact that in
these crosins: years of the nineteenth cen-
tury 15,000,000, possibiy 30,000.000, are
.-ervmg Christ, while 1,20U,000,000 are
serving Satan — "children of the devil tak.u
captive at his will." And so it has been in
past generations. Every thirty-three years
a new ho-t floods the road to darkness. Ah,
you say this is discouraaringl So it is in the
false assumption that all living are to be
converted in this dispensation. How long;
how long at this rate shall we be in "bring-
ing "she world to Christ?"

Beloved! We are not bringing the world to
Christ. We were not told to do it. What
we are doing, what we were told to do. is to

TAKE THE GOSPEL

to the world. And God by His blessed Spirit
is taking out of the nations "a people for
His name" (Acts xv. 14).

Is there then no hope? Ah, yes, indeed.
Through this red sea of sin, sorrow, and
darkness.in the fullness of faith and hone, we
see the coming kingdom. There is to be an
era of peace and holiness. "The earth shall
be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the
waters cov^r the sea" "Behold a king shall
reign in righteousness." Jesus said: "Fear
not little flock, for it is your Father's good
pleasure to give you the Kingdom." God
lifted the curtain to that grauo old prophet
Daniel, and let him see the great, beastly
empires of earth, with all their destroying
power, wearinsr out the saints of the Most
High. But thanKs be to God, He let niaa see
farther on, until ,-the judgment shall sit and
the kingdom and dominion, and the great-
ness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven shall be given to the people of the
saints of the Most High."

But notice; they do not possess the King-
dom until after the judgment. It is not in
this dispensation, but in that which is
coming.

JESUS AND THE APOSTLE

make a plain distinction between this eon
and that which is coming. (See Mat. xlu 32,
Luke xx. 34 35, Eph. i. 21). The present is
called an "evil eon, (Gal. i. 4), and we are
not to De conformed to it (Rom. xii. 2),
nor love it (IL Tim. lv. 10). The wisdom
of this eon, the princes of this eon
and the god of this eon are all evil (see 1.
Cor. ii. 6-8, 2 Cor. lv. 4). It is the power and

200

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

glory of the coming eon wnich we are to
seek (see Heb. vi. 5, and Tit. ii. 12-13).

This word eon, in the Greek, is a measure
of time just as distinct as a century, though,
unlike centuries, eons are not of equal du-
ration. Each eon has an end (see Mat. xiii.,
39-40-49, Mat. xxiv. 3), and as another fol-
lows, it must have a beginning. It fs best
rendered dispensation, as the word age nas
become too indefinite, although originally
derived from eon. "We believe there is no
key to Scripture more potent than this.
There have been many eons in the past (Eph.
ill 9, Gr., and Col. i. 26), and there are to
be many in the future (Eph. ii. 7). Jesus is
the King of the eons (1 Tim. 17, Gr.), and
they are all arranged according to a plan
(Eph. iii. 11. Gr.). Several of these eons,
possibly seven, compose a great eon, so that
we have eons of eons (Gal. i. 5, Phil. iv. 20,
N. V. Marj), like the week of weeks. The
Bubject is enchanting, and opens up to us
these great

MEASURES OF TIME

as the hours of eternity. But we only touch
upon it to show how clearly the Scriptures
distinguish these dispensations, both past
and tuture. Throughout them God is work-
ing out a great plan or salvation, and
though only a small portion of the
race have been His servants, He has
surely accomplished His plan in the past
dispensations, and He is also accomplishing
it in this present "evil" dispensation, though
there be but few that are saved. Let us
then reverently enquire what is God's plan
or purpose in this dispensation? If we can
discover this our hope will be brightened
just in proportion as we see how nearly tne
purpose is accomplished. We answer then,
in the words of Jesus Himself, "This gospel
of the kingdom shall be preached in ail the
world for a witness to all nations; then shall
the end come." (Matt, xxiv., 14.)

This world is to be evangelized. All na-
tions are to hear the good news of the com-
ing kingdom, and while men proclaim it
God, by it, gathers the bride for His Son. He
selects out from all who hear the gosDel
such as believe, who by His spirit are born
from above, justified and sanctified, and are
cleaned with the washing of the water of the
word, that Jesus may present them to him-
self, as his bride, a glorious church

WITHOUT SPOT, WKINKLE,

or any such thing (Eph v. 25-32; 1 Thes.
iv. 16-18; Rev. xxi. 9-27). To be a mem-
ber of this bride of Christ; to be joined to
Him in holy wedlock, and to reign with Him
over His kingdom, is the very pinnacle of
human exaltation. It is throughout the
eons to come God's unparalleled object les-
Bon to the universe of the exceeding riches

of His graca (II Cor. xi. 2; Rom. viii. 17; I
Cor. vi. 3; 2 Tim. ii. 12; Eph. ii. 7). Now
whatever salvation God may have for the
heathen by the law of conscience, as stated
in Rom. ii." 14-15, none of them can become
members of this body or bride of Christ
without hearing the gospel. This is clearly
slated in Rom. x. 14. "How shall they call
on Him in Whom they have not believed?
and how shall they believe in Him
of Whom they have not heard? and how
shall they hear without a preacher? Let
none excuse their remissness by imagining
that God will whitewash the heathen into
this body of Christ Nay! Nay! Nothing
will avail but regeneration by the Holy
Spirit, (John, iii. 5), a new creature in Christ
Jesus, (Gal. vi. 5, Tit. iii. 5). It is God's plan
that we shall preach the gospel to them as a
witness. Then shall the end come — the end
of the dispensation, or eon, about which the
disciples had askea in verse 3. The end of
this "evil eon," the end of the overflowing
of sin and sorrow and the end of Satan'8
dominion. God hasten it, and He will if
we are obedient, for we can hasten
it if we will. (See 1L Pet., iii. 12, margin).
He will cut it short in righteousness. What
is a witness? The original word signifies
testimony, and It is so translated in the new
version. This testimony, theo, is the Word
of God and the testimony of the believer, or,
in other words, the open Bible and the
preacher or proclaimer. Go! said Jesus, "ye
shall be witnesses unto the uttermost parts
of the earth." To taKe the gospei to all na-
tions is the business He has given the church.
Oh! if we could only realize this, what an in-
sDiration it would be to our zeal and hopes.
For it is not

A HOPELESS TASK,

like an attempt to convert all the people in a
single city, but it is something we can ac-
complish. We can translate the Bible into
the mother tongue of every tribe, and we
can give them the living preacher, and then,
ob, joy of joys! He hath said it, tne end
shall come! Our Lord shall appear, and
Satan, rising in the might of his power, and
putting forth his masterpiece, the Lawless
One shall be paralyzed, bound, and cast into
the pit, that he may not deceive the nations,
and the multitudes of earth shall turn to
seek after God (II Thes. ii. 8; Rev. xx. 2;
Acts xv. 16. 17). What a blessing to hasten
such an end as this.

Now let us see how great things God hath
accomplished even with the feeble efforts
that hath been put forth. First, we notica
that the Protestant courses of evangeliza-
tion are in the United States and part of
Europe. In these there are now organized
eighty-seven missionary societies, with

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

'JOl

5,835 male and female missionaries and 29,-
091 native preachers and helpers. The
Bible

HAS BEEN TRANSLATED

into 287 languages and dialects, and two of
these, the Wenli of China and the Arabic,
can each be read by 100,000,000 of peo-
ple, and altogether these languages com-
prise the speech of nine-tenths of the in-
habitants of the world. And now we turn
to the map again to show to what a wide
extent the mission etations have been planted
throughout the world. [Here the large map
was used, upon which the mission stations
of all . societies are shown in bright gilt
spots.] The Russo-GreeK Church does give
gi/e the Bible to the people, and a Bible so-
ciety exists in St. Petersburg and there is
considerable active evangelistic work in
Russian countriea In these we have no
mission stations. But in Catholic
countries, where the Bible is pro-
hibited by the apostate church,
we have many mission stations, as also in
Mohammedan and neathen lands.

The stations shown are only the central or
principal ones, and in many cases several
societies have missions at the same stations.
Around these there are large numbers of
out-stations, as, for instance, around trie one
Presbyterian station of Tamsui, in For-
mosa, there are thirty-four out-stations, and
aronnd the five Methodist stations in the
Foo Choo district, in Cnina, there are forty-
live out-stations.

THE AMERICAN BOARD

in 1885 had eighty-three stations ana 826
out-stations. If all these out-stations were
put on the map it would indeed make a
blaze of light. Again, to this must be added
the journeyings of missionaries and colpor-
teurs, like Sir Henry Lansdell in Siberia and
Central Asia, and Cameron, the Livingstone
of China, ana especially those avant cour-
iers, the Bible Society agents, who have
threaded back and forth through the distant
fields of the unevangelized, distributing the
Word to the peop;e in their own tongue. It
would be impossible to show these journeys
on the map distinctly, as in some countries
it would be an indistinguishable maze.

But how hopeful we ought to be as we thus
look upon the present state of the world's
evangelization. Again, consider tor a mo-
ment the helpful agencies of our day. The
Postal Union and the avenues of commerce
have coverea the seas and the continents
with highways for transportation and com-
munication. The spread of the Anglo-Saxon
race and of the English language are mar-
velous providences to help forward the
vork.

In Bhort. only let us substitute the Scrip-

tural idea of the world's evangelization in
place of the papal idea of its conversion, and
we join hands with the most

SANGUINE OPTIMIST

in hearty thanksgiving for the heaven-
ordained helpful agencies now at our com-
•lnand. And just here we note that in all the
range of evangelizing forces we Know of
none so hopeful as the present organized
work of women. Beginning in the gentleness
and weakness which usually characterizes
God's great undertakings, it has spread from
heart to heart until 100,000 praying women
in the Methodist church alone, and over
200,000 in other churches are now banded
together for the work of proclaiming the
gospel. It is a grana fulfillment of the
Psalmist's prophecy, "The Lord giveth the
word. The women that publish the tidings
are a great host" (Ps. lxviii, 11-12, N. V).
And the most hopeful feature lies in the
fact that these women, meeting from month
to month in their little circles, are not only
praying, but are systematically studying the
whoie subject of missions and mission fields.
There is many a mother, despite her busy
cares, who knows far more of Japan, China,
ana Africa than her good husband, who
spends his leisure moments in the daily
paper. And this knowledge accounts for
the increasing total of

THEIR TEAKLT GIFTS,

which in some societies even now excel the
regular contributions of the churches to
which they belong, and in some have already
passed not only the one, but the two million
dollar line.

If the husbands and brothers were only
thus organizea; nay, if even the pastors
were all thus interested, what a mighty
ground swell of missionary zeal and labor
we should seel But, alas! how few pastors
hoia a monthly missionary prayer-meeting.
How few comparatively take their own
church missionary periodical! H but the
pastors patronized the missionary literature
of their own church societies there woula be
no deficiency in the publication fund. Can
we expect the stream to rise higher than the
fountain? Will the flocks follow unless the
shepherds lead them?

Oh, that we might have a Pentecostal bap
tism upon the pulpit and the pew, and that
the genuine primitive missionary spirit
might enter and possess every disciple's
heart. Then shoula we have

AN EAST TASK

to enter Mongolia, Thibet, Turkestan, Arabia,
Tripoli, Central Africa, the Soudan, and the
Gallas, Venezuela, Ecquador, the Valley of
the Amazon, and the Islands, and to translate
the Bible into the remaining languages.
Given 10,000,000 consecrated Christians,

202

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

and the whole world could be easily evangel-
ised in twenty years. Think of it! All the
millions of the unevanorelized might hear the
gosoel in twelve months if there were only
preachers to declare it Praise God for the
increasing interest, and the scores who have
obediently gone to the front. But the cry.
comes from nearlv every mission field,
"Give us more men and more women." Will
we do it? We can if we will. Oh, ye Chris-
tian business men! there is no investment
that will pay so well as to give yourselves
and your substance to Jesus for this work.
Heap no longer treasure for "yourselves in
these last days, but think, plan,
and execute, for the proclama-
tion of the gospel. The time is short
What is done must be done quickly, for the
night cometh when no man can wort. We
want men ana we want women who can go
and bear their own expense, and who will
esteem it a privilege thus to do it The
work must and it shall be done. It is the era of

UNIVERSAL MISSIONS.

One grand determined effort is demanded*
Duty demands It — obey the marching orders
— the last words. Gratitute demands it;
Jesus has saved us, shall we save our kin-
dred? The Hindoos are our own blood rela-
tion, the other arm of the great Aryan race.
Sympathy demands it. All the sorrow and
anguish of a Godless, benighted, hopeless,
Household; multiplied by hundreds of mill-
ions, appeals to our hearts in agonizing
tones. "Why didn't you come before?" said
a poor old Chinese woman to Mrs. Crawford;
"My mother would like to have heard of
this Jesus, but she is dead." These fellow-
beings for whom Christ has died are dying.
dying, dying, over sixty every minute.

Will there be any blood on our souls when
we meet tnem at the judgment? And now,
beloved, while we remember that it is
said unto us, "Ye shall be witnesses unto
me," it is also said unto Israel, "Ye are my
witness," and let us not forget that
after God takes away the church
(Acts xv.) He will build again the taberna-
cle of David, which is fallen down, that the
residue of men irtay seek after the Lord.
Therefore it may be converted Israel who
shall complete the witness, to all the nations,
of the coming kingdom. Hence we have no
event to stand, as a sign, between us and
the coming of the Lord We are to live with

OUB LOINS GIRDED

and our lights burning like unto men that
wait for their Lord. For the Son of man
cometh at an hour when ye think not
Herein lies the grandest incentive to be
minute-men for Jesus, There are to be
three great gatherings of mankind, in one of
which every mortal shall appear before
God.

The first is when the saints, both those
who sleep and those who waice, shall be
caught up together to meet the Lord in the
air. (I. Thes. iv.^ The second is when Jesus
has come down to earth, and, with saints,
shall sit in the throne of His glory, and be-
fore Him shall be gathered all the nations.
(Matt xxv.) Tne third is when all the dead
are gathered before the great white throne.
(Rev. xx) Beloved, in wnich of these gath-
erings shall you and I assemble? Heed the
admonition of Jesus against the cares of this
life. Watch at every season, maxing suppli-
cation that ye may prevail to escape all
these things that shall come to pass, ana to
stand before the Son of man.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

203

For Self and Satan

Liquor in 90 Years

DIAGRAM

SHOWING COMPARATIVE

Population ai Eipenfliture

IN THE

UNITED STATES.

Hot. 6 and 6 are on one-tenth the scale
«/ 3 and 4,

e a

f a
en

e
c
E.

"For Christ
and the Gospel

>
0

f—
g

£•

K
1

1— Protestant Church members 8,953,870

8— Annual expenditure lor:

(a) Home and Foreign Missions 5.500,000

(b) Charities 24,426,2*3

(d) Public schools, universities, and

colleges 109,073,717

Total 201,000,000

B— Expenditure in 90 years for:

(e) Foreign mission societies since

their organization 57.6-8,946

(t) Home mission societies since

their organization 72, 270,801

(K) Relieious publication houses.... Iu9, 483,436
(h) Clergymen and churches, $1,000

each per year 3,154,930.000

Total 3,394.339.183

* * 8

2— "Nominala" 36,027301

7-Catholics 0,174.202

4— Annual expenditure for :

(J) Luxuries and frivolities loo.000.000

(K)Tobacco 60n.000.000

(L) Liquors 900.000.000

Total 1.61 ib"! 000.000

6— Liouor alone in 9n years (see Liquor

Problem by Dr. Dorchester)... 78.899.943,864

DIAGRAM EXHIBITING THE

ACTUAL AND RELATIVE NUMBER OF MANKIND.

CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THEIR RELIGION.

Each square represents 1,000,000 souls.

IIHlllllllllllllllllllljH
lilllllllMllllllHillUlllll

The one white square in the black indicates converts from Heathenism.

In 100 years the Heathen and Mohammedan population has increased 200,000,000.

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

205

PROFESSOR J. G. PRINCELL.

WAITING, WATCHING, WORKING.

The remarks of Professor J. G, PrincelJ, of
Chicago.until lately President of the Swedish-
American Ausgari College at Knoxville,
11'., formed the last of Saturday afternoon's
exercises. Professor Princell's remarks were
extemporaneous, anal he occupied but thuty-
five minutes in speaking upon the subject,
"Waiting, Watching, Working." The ad-
dress, somewhat abbreviated, is as follows:

Several parables, as well as direct teaching
of our Lord, inculate the lessons which the
three words of my subject are intended to
suggest. Thus He says in Luke xii. 3-37:
"Let your Joins be girded about, and your
lightB burning; and be ye yourselves like
unto men that wait for their Lord, when he
will return from the wedding, that when he
cometh and knocketh they may open unto
him immediately. Blessed are those ser-
vants whom the Lord, when He cometh,
shall find watching."

And the parable in Luke xix., 11-27, about
the ten servants ana the ten pounds, with
the ringing command, "Occupy till I come,"
teaches plainly that the Lord's disciples
should be waiting for and expecting His re-
turn; that they should be watcning and ea-
gerly looking out for His coming, and that in
the meanwhile they should faithfully serve
Him, making good use of the gifts, the pow-
ers, the position afforded them by Him.
Other words and other parables of His brine
out the same thoughts which, in terms a lit-
tle differing from those of my subiect, may
be thus expressed:

1. Patient waiting, or the exercising of that
attitude of mind by which a person stays or
rests in expectation of something, here of
the literal, personal, bodily, visible coming
again of Jesus Christ, who

WAS ONCE ON THIS EARTH,

lived, taught, worked miracles, was despised,
rejected, crucified by His enemies, died but
rose alive from the grave and from or out of
the midst of the dead, and then ascended into
heaven. We should thus be expecting that he
will return to this earth again for great, glo-
rious, and, on the whole, most beneficial pur-
poses.

2. Eager looking for that Christ's return —
i. e., we ahould be in such a state of mind as
continually to be attentive to or observant of
any indications of His coming, earnestly desir-
iner and always ready for that great event;
watching being opposed to inattention and
indifference, watchfulness opposed to sleep-
iness or carelessness.

3. Faithful service in the meantime, or
between the present moment and the actual
coming of the .Lord, i. e. , we should be earn-
estly, joyfully, obediently engaged in some

effort for Him, be it by teaching, testifying,
giving, sacrificing, suffering, using mind,
hands, feet, whatever we have and whatever
we can for His honor and for making Him
and His will known among men for their
welfare.

All this, 1 apprehend, is embraced in wait-
ing, watching, and working for our dear
Savior. Of course moie or less of this has
been presented in different forms and in dif-
ferent connection by several or all of the
speakers on prophetic subjects, especially
those wtio have pointed out the direct prac-
tical bearings of these subjects on Christian
life and work. But it may not be amiss to
try to bring together under one view what
belongs practically to these parts of the
great prophetic field.

I will begin by calling attention to tue
waiting. Having hinted at what waiting is,
aud the word "wait," for which there
are several different words, more or less
strong, in the Hebrew and the Greek ia
used in the Bible in no more different or pe-
culiar sense than it is

USED IN COMMON LANGUAGE

or everyday speech, as we say "waiting for
rain," "waiting for snow," "waiting for a
friend," "waiting for this or that change."
etc. Now, having hinted at what waiting is,
I will ask, what, according to the Bible, are
we thus to wait for?

We are not to wait for death. There is not
in the New Testament a single exhortation
to wait for or be looking for death. On the
contrary, death is always regarded as an
enemy, as one that will be destroyed after
Christ has come. True, death can not harm
the true believer in Christ; «tiil he is a sep-
arator, a destroyer, a severer of the moat
tender tiea Christ is a uniter of what
properly belongs together. Some writers
exalt death; the Biblical writers exult over
death: "O death, where is thy victory? O
death, where is thy sting? * * * Thanks
be to God which giveth us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
There ia nothing inspiring about death;
death is indeed an expiration, no; an
inspiration. Dr. Waldenstrom, tte great
leader in the free church movement in
Sweden at present, related once at a large
public meeting a little story about one of his
children. "Mama," said a brignt little boy
of 5 or 6 summers, "when will Je^us come
to earth again?" "1 do not know, my child,''
answered the mother. "Does the catechism
say when Jesus will come?" "No, it does
not." "Does papa know when Jesm will
come?" "No, he can not know that, for tho
Bible does not say when Jesus will come "
"Does it not stana in the Bible? But does not
the Bible say He may come any time'" "Yes.

206

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

my darling, the Bible says He may nome any
time." -'Well, then, mother, I wish Jesus
would come while we all are living:, for then
I and you and papa and my brothers and
sisters would not have to die." In relating
this story the good and learned Doctor ad-
Jed: "That was an apostolic way of think-
ing."

AGAIN, WE ARE NOT TO WAIT

for the conversion of the whole world to
Christ, nor even for the general preaching of
the gospel in all the world before Christ
comes. This Idea, which is quite generally
entertained, is based on an erroneous view
of Matt. xxiv. 14, "This gospel of the
kingdom snail be preached in the whole
world for a testimony unto all the na-
tions; and then shall the end come."
Most surely this shall happen, but Ciirist
will come before the end comes, as is clearly
proved by I. Cor. xv. 23-28: "Each in bis
own order: Christ the first fruits; then they
that are Christ's at His coming. Then Com-
eth the end, when He shall deliver up the
kingdom to God, even the Father. * * *
But He must reign until He natn put all
His enemies under His feet." Then, and not
before then, will "the end" come. By that
time, indeed, "the gospel of the kingdom"
snail have been reached in the whole world.
By that time shall have been fulfilled the
great ccmmission: ''Go ye and make .dis-
ciples of all nations." By that time the great
promise to Abraham shall nave become a lit-
eral fact: "In thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be bieBsed," Tnese and all sim-
ilar promises and declarations of God shall
most truly be accomplished; but tne loving
parting promise of Christ to His sorrowing
disciples will precede and ante-date them all
in fulfillment: "1 come again, and will re-
ceive you unto myself."

Then, again, we are not to wait for great
upheavals or catastrophes in nature, extra-
ordinary signs and wonders in the heavens,
in sun, moon, and stars, nor for unusually
calamitous occurrences on earth. Though
such things are predicted in the wonderful
Word, and though they will without doubt
and without fail come to pass, they will n ot
precede the coming of the lord for the pur-
pose of gathering and taking unto Himself
His own people

FOE THEIR PROTECTION

and eternal security, gear the word of the
Lord about this. In Isaiah xxvi., after the
Lord nas spokeu of the resurrection of the dead
of His people. He says: "Come, my people,
enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy
doors about thee; hide thyself for a little
moment until the indignation be overpast.
For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of
His place to punish the inhabitants of the

earth for their iniquity." Of this escape of
God's people before a single one of those pre-
dicted blows at this old creation is struck,
both Christ -(in Luke xxi., 36) and Paul (in
L Theas.. iv. 16 17) testify.

Further, we are not to wait for the general
gathering of Israel into their own land,
Canaan, and their establishing a kingdom
tnere. No douot that will happen; it is ab-
solutely foretold in the sacred Scriptures.
In a measure this event may be even now in
these days beginning, but no general fulfill-
ment of the prophecies in this regard may
be expected before Jesus Himself shall have
come and removed His people ot the present
age or dispensation, and, after that, .shall
commence to deal with that ancient people
of God which once rejected Him.

Then, again, we are not to wait for the fall
of the Turkish or Mohammedan power, nor
for the reconstruction of the old Roman
Empire, nor in fact for any great
political change. It is true that there
will be, very Ikely in the near fu-
ture, great political changes on the map of
the world, especially in the old, historic
world. But at least the main part of these
changes or revolutions belongs to a time sub-
sequent to the coming of the Christ Himself.
This is plain from tne connection of the great
historic latter-day pictures in the book of
Revelation.

Again, we are not to wait for the rise of
the Antichrist, with his lying words and won-
ders.

THAT STRANGE, FEARFUL PERSONAGE,

the very man of sin, will not dare to raise
his head as long as "che anointing of the
Holy One" is here, according to L John iL
18-22, for through this anointing the true
believers "know all things" concerning that
execrable individual, and would, if he dared
to turn the olectric light of God's truth on
him, disclosing him to the horrified gaze of
mankind, causing him to bide himself for
shame. Tne Christ of God must, therefore,
first come and take to Himself Hi3 anointed
ones before that Antichrist of the devil will
show himself.

Finally, we are not to wait for that great
and general apostacy spoken of by Christ
and Paul (Matt, xxiv., 2 Thess. ii,), nor for
that fearful persecution and that dire tribu-
lation which especially Jeremiah, Daniel,
our Lord Himself, and John have pictured
in such red colors. There will come "a time
of trouble" unparalleled in all history and
every age, affecting at first Israel, but gradr
ually all who then may yet be holding on to
faith in the true, personal God, aud in Jesu-;
of Nazareth as the only true Christ. But the
true church of Christ, especially that
part of it living on earth at the

THL PK0PHET1C COJNFJiKE.NCE.

207

time of Christ's coming, has the
particular promise of being exempt
from those awful calamities; it has the
promise of escape from all these things by
being previously "caught up in the clouds to
meet tne Lord in the air;" it is to be "kept
from [or out of that is spared] the hour of
trial;" it is to have "rest, not tribulation, ai
tne revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven
with the angels of His power." if It were
otnerwise; if we, believers now living on
this earth, have to expect a general apostacy
and a terrible tribulation, unlike anything
that has ever hitherto befallen tne people of
God; if we were to awaio any such dreadful
things before the coming of our Lord in per-
son, how could we, or how can we "comfort
one another" with the words, "The Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, ana

WITH THE THUMP Of GOD?"

ShoulU we not rattier wish to fail asleep, to
die, before that t«rribie event comes to pass,
bo that we thus mi^ lit be spared from com-
ing into that fearful whirlpool of possible
disasters to ourselves and others?" Oh, it is
this dreadful misapprehension, yea, this
frignwui misrepresentation of the Lord's
coming that has so sadly put that glorious
event aside and in the shade, in the feelings,
thoughts, and beliefs of thousands oE aear
Christiana Thus represented to them, they
dread and can not love their Lord's coming;
they prefer to die before that happens; and
bo. naturally enough, they have put death in
the place of the Lord, and have toned down
and watered that real personal coming into a
sentimentally sweet, vapory, spiritual com-
ing— just as if He had ever been spiritually
away or Broken His own dear promise: "Lo,
I am with you alway. " No, no, dear
Lord, Thou hast never left; no, never
forsaken us. We will not, we dare not ac-
cuse Thee of having, even for a single
moment, broken Thy parting pledge. We
cling to that; and we cling, also, to that other
oft- repeated parting pledge of Thine: "I
will come again and receive you unto My-
Belf. Yea. I come quickly." And we send
the answer Dack to heaven: "Amen. Come
Lord Jesus. "

Thus, then, we see what or rather whom
we are to wait for; it is our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom of our souls,
our heav<nlv Elder Brother, our dearest
friend, the benefactor of the whole world,
the rightful king of all the earth, the re-
mover of all wrong, sin and misery, the
great restorer of all creation to ideal order,
beauty and loveliness. It is He Himself
whom we are to await every day and night,
and expect to come at any moment. He
whoBe coming, at its first stage, will not be

with outward pomp and manifestation,
visible to the whole world; but silently as a
thief comes. He will come to catch up His
people, snatching them away from coming
disasters and judgments; after that "every
eye shall see Him."

WOT NECEBSABILT AT ONCE,

but some at one time, some at another, some
in one place, some in another. (Several
Bible passages were here read, showing how
the Scriptures speaK of the waiting under
consideration; such passages were L Thess.,
i. 9, 10; I Cor., i. 7; Rom., vili. 19, 23, 25;
Phil., lii. 20; Heb. ix.. 28. The revised ver-
fltpn was quoted throughout.)

Truly, there is a rich, beautiful benedic-
tion on all true waiters for the Lord:
"blessed are all they that wait for Him."—
(la, xxx 18.)

Some of the most important conditions or
requisites of true waiting are: L Knowledge
of and living personal faith in Jesus Christ 2.
Knowledge of and real faith in what He and
His accredited witnesses have said concern-
ing His return. 3. Desire aud hope for this
His return. 4. Intense love of Christ as a
personal Saviour and Friend 5. Freedom
from entanglement with the world: its evil
ways, thoughts, societies, its dishonest busi-
ness, its selfish pharasaical Laodicean reli-
gion, its corrupt politics. Or many, even
professed believers, would be greatly sur-
prised if their Lord should now, immediately
appear.

"If He cometh to-day, your Lord and your God,
Would gladness or anguish o'erwheim you."

Among the reasons for waiting for the
coming of Jesus, the following may be urged:
1. His own word, and the words of His in-
spired witnesses declare that He will surely
come again. 2. What He has done for the
world, and for each one of us personally, all
this will ripen into its full, perfect, ever-
lasting fruit, only when He comes again. 3.
Hia love for us, and our love for Him; it is
good for us that He ia with us where we live,
and as long as we live, but it will be better
for us to be with Him where He lives, and as
long as He lives, that is always. 4. What
He will do for us and the whole world when
He comes back; what an inheritance "the
heirs of God and joint-heirs of Jesus Christ"
will then receive and take possession of!
What bettering of al! conditions, of all
classes, of everything social, religious, politi-
cal, material in all creation there will then
be I Tne good time which prophets have
foretold, and of which poets have sung, will.
Indeed, then com°>.

WATCHING.

As regarda watchin? for the Lord, It may
be defined as thai! eas^r lor>kin~ r>- r»r Ft*-

208

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

quently (not to say continual) thinklnsr
about our Lord's return, by which state of
mind we are constantly attentive to the no-
tice of any indication* of His coming. There
is in general no great difference between
waiting and watching; yet in particular
there is some quite distinct difference.
Watching is the stronger of the two terms;
watching is more intense than waiting. We
may oe waiting for a friend, yet not be
watching for him. We are not only to wait
for Jesus, we are to watch for Him.

Watching is the very "watch- word" of the
Bible in regard to all the truths concerning
• our Lord's cominar. Our olesseo Master did
constantly urge His disciples to watch, par-
ticularly with reference to His return. Seven
times the word occurs in His discourse about
the last things. (The following passages
were quoted and commented upon: Luke
• xxi, 3 0; Mark xiii., 33-35 37; Matt, xxiv:
42, 43; xxv., 13; I. Thesa v. 6, 10; Rev. Hi.,
3; xvi-15) It is remarkable to note, as
lexicographers tell us, that the original
Greek word used in most of these passages
is one that occurs nowhere in all extant
Greek literature outside of the New Testa-
ment and the Keptuagint translation of the
Old Testament It is gregoreo, I watch, from
a word meaning to awaken. From it is de-
rived the strictly Christian proper name
Gregorius or Gregory, one who watches, a
watcher. We should, therefore, be awake, be
on the alert, be looking out for the coming
of our Lord.

Why? 1. Because we have so|much to watch
over, we have so many valuable things, the
grace and peace of God, the word of God,
"precious and exceeding great promises,"
title deeds of our inheritance, the spirit of
God as "an earnest of our inheritance." A
watchman over coffers full of gold, or jewels,
or other valuables, will be more likely and
careful to watch, well armed, than a tramo
will be over an empty old Dag. 2. Because
we are sojourners and pilgrims through a
strange land, full ot enemies and various
dangers, such as wondllness, formalism, love
of ease, proneness to run down, get low or
cold in spiritual life, or, on the other hand,
fanaticism, religious egotism and the like.
Nothing will so much help us to be sober, te
watch and pray as having our Lord's near
appearance before our eyes,revo!ving it with
all its consequences constantly in our
minds.

As an incentive to and aid in watching
comes naturally earnest, faithful

WOBKINQ

I or thejMaster. "Trade ye herewith till I
come," "Glory and honor and peace to
every man that worketh good." "Give dili-
gence to present thyself approved unto Goo,

a workman that needeth not be ashamed."
These are ringing, significant words, like
trumpet calls. True, earnest, unselfish, self-
sacrificing, spiritual, Christian work is needed
everywhere — within us, near iis, around us,
and away beyond our horizon— Individual
and united work, work in thousand different
ways, work by the learned, the talented, the
rich, the old. the young, the poor, the un-
learned; work till the Master comes. But
how can active Christian work agree with
eager watching and longing for Christ's
speedy coming? Very well. There is the
same connection between waiting and watch-
ing for the Lord's return on one hand, and
working for the saving of the lost or for any
other direct Christian object on the other
hand, as there is generally between faith
and works. It is certain, and has been dem-
onstrated innumerable times, that where
there is the greatest faith the most
implicit, childlike, loving faith in Goa, in
Christ, in the Divine Spirit, in God's word,
in its commands and promises, there is the
greatest.most faithful, most earnest, most ioy-
ful, most successrul unnsttan work. And thus
it is nere. One who most lovingly and hope-
fully believes in and expects his dear Lord's
near advent, that one will be most activel} .
buoyantly, faithfully and wakefully engaged
in some work for his adorable Master. Be-
cause he is awake and watching for the
coming of his Lord, he will be the more
watchful for souls. Because he believes
more of the word of the Lord, he will use it
more, teach it more, press it home more on
the consciences of sinners. He has the cross
of Christ in one hand with which to hsh out
poor sinners from the mire of the world, and
in the other he has the title deeds- of a full,
undetiled inheritance and of several glitter-
ing crowns that the new convert may obtain
just as soon as Christ comes, and the sooner
He does come the better. The Christian
worker who believes In and rightly uses botu
the advents of Christ, the past and the fu-
ture, has the true two-edged sword, with
which to fight most valiantly the battles of
the Lord.

Which think you would be the more en-
couraging and inspiring to work faithfully
on the pare of a company of

SEKVANTS OF A PRINCE,

if that prince with his servants should stand
by a seashore and say to his servants:
"Now, I am going away for a while; you go
to work and empty that ocean, and save the
water (transfer it to other quarters), and
when you have done that, then I will come
back and reward you." Well, they would go
to work and get out a good deal of water,
but, oh, the idea of emptying that ocean!
How it would overpower them! How they

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

209

would find excuses, and discuss methods,
and invent machinery, and theorize about
tne chances of the water rinding some un-
derground passage in order to be
saved. No wonder if they are say-
ing: "Our Lord aelayeth nis coming."
But on the other hand, suppose the
princa says to his servants, "I am going
away from you so that vou will not see me
for a while, but still I'll be with you; my
thougnts and my mind will be with you;
everything you need I'll supply vou with.
Now you Know that bier sea there is un-
healthy, and is generally not what it
ought to be; you go to work and get out all
tne' water you can. filter it, distill it; it will
be put to special use. I am going to turn it
into something wonderful, and when I find
you have done all that is needea in this re-
spect then 1 will come back and atttend to
the rest of this old stinking ocean, and it is
going to be all right by and by."

Now, judge for yourselves, dear friends,
which of these different orders would in the
Inspiring for the servants of the prince to

supposed case be the most encouraging and
worK diligently and enthusiastically? Well,
we, all beliet^rs in Jesus, are His servants;
the ocean is the world of humanity; the
water now taken out ana filtered and ^Duri-
fied for special uses is "the church of the
first-born who are enrolled in hea-
ven," and here we are to work till Jesus
cornea

Tne more that are gathered unto Him
the sooner will his church be full grown,
and He will come and take her home, ind
the angels will publish the marriage banns,
ana there will be a "high life" wedding in
"high places." Thus, if we love our Lord
and His church, we will have the experience
of Jacob, who "served seven years for Ra-
chael, and they seemed to him but a few
days for the love he had to her."

"My soul crieth out for a jubilee song I

There is joy in my heart, let me praUe with my

tongue;
For I know though the darkness of Egypt still

lowers,
That the time of release 1b not ages, but hour*."

BISHOP MAURICE BALDWIN.

THE POWEB OV THIS TEUTH TO 8TIMULA.TK THE WOBE OP EVANGELIZATIOH.

My Christian friends, I have been asked to
apeak on the subject of the bearing of the
doctrine of Christ's premillennial coming
on the subject of missions, and, I may
add, of our daily Christian life. There are
many indications, no doubt, of the speedy
coming of our Lord and master Jesus Christ,
but among the most tangible is this, the
awakening interest in the cause of missions.
Wherever we see members of the church of
Christ we eee awakening interest in the
.great work of missionary labor. Not a hun-
dred years ago there was the utmost apathy
and indifference everywhere upon the sub-
ject, and many of you are aware of the re-
ception which Caiey met with when he
preached to the people on his going to India
to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God.
The subject was met with ridicule, sar-
casm, and scorn. It was derided on
every hand. But where, I ask, to-day
is there any representative of the Church of
Christ who will stand up in a public assem-
bly to ridicule the great work of missions?
Such an one couid not be found. There has
been a most tremendous growth upon the
Bubject, and the tact of this great growth is
one indication, at least to my mind, of the
speedy coming of our Lord.

Let us observe the following facts: Our
Lord tells us in the 24th of Matthew, that
His gospel was "to be preached in all the
world for a witness unto all nations, and
then shall the end come." It seems to me
clear and definite that the instruction given
to us in this passage is that our Lord intends
that His gospel is to be preached in every
iand for a witness.

Now, a hundred and fifty years ago people
might have folded their arms and said that
that idea of Christ's coming was, to say the
least, intensely remote. And what was
the state of the whole church at that time?
There was great laxity and indifference.
And I can say as a member of the Church
of England that the growth of
that church has been in direct ratio to hex

advancement of the cause of missions, and I
will further say that never was there a time
of deeper spiritual life — never was there a
time of intenser earnestness than there is
to-day, and if we ask what reason may be
assigned for this, it is that there has been
this increased blessing in the work of ad-
vancing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Qreat
missionary societies have arisen. They are
constantly developing and expanding in
their worE, so that to-day there is scarcely
to be found a nation not willing, to a
greater or less extent, to receive the her-
alds of the cross. The world is to-day
interpenetrated by missions. India, from
the mountains of Himalaya to the Cape
Comorin is receiving the word of truth, and
away into Tartary and Thibet, the Lord
Jesus is sending out His messengers, glad
precursors of that blessed morning when He
shall come to take His bride to be with Him-
self; to be forever with Him in His presence.

I would state in the next place, that our
Lord is further preparing for His advent by
stirring up his people so that they have
learned this truth, that whilst the whole
work must be advanced, — whilst the millions
which lie about their own doors must be
seen to, yet there is the paramount duty
which we cannot divest ourselves of, to
spread the gospel "till like a sea of glory it
spreads from pole to pole." We see, however,
that in this dispensation there are limitations.
Christ says (using a Greek word) "this gospel
must be preached for a witnesa" He does
not say till every nation is con-
verted. He does not say until every person
is brought into direct and positive subjection
to His perfect sway. He tells us that it Is
for a witness, and we are told distinctly that
His coming is to gather out fiom the nations
His ecclesia. That gathering is going on
to-day.

The subject before me is the power of this
truth to encourage and stimulate the church
in and to the work of evangelization, and I
therefore pass on to state in the next place

TEE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

211

that there has often been brought to my
mind the objection that so little is appar-
ently done. The enemies of missions have
risen and said, Where are the results which
we might have anticipated? Where are the
nations born in a day? Where are the un-
converted millions that are bowing down at
His feet to worship and serve him? In
answer I would state, the Lord's pur-
poses unfold slowly but surely, and we look
forward through the darkness to the orighter
morning before U9. There was an able paper
read this morning upon the Second Coming of
Christ as Related to Israel, and I might first
add that, amongst the many blessings which
are in future store for the world, is tbis
restoration, the conversion of the ancient
people of Israel. It is just one of those errand
majestic steps, the heighth. and the depth,
the length and the breadth of which our
finite minds have not vet fully grasped.
Sufficient however to say, that the subject
wasjust touched upon, and may be developed
this afternoon concerning the effects which
flow from the restoration of God's ancient
people.

Tne apostle saya "If their rejection be the
reconciling: of the world, what shall their
acceptation be but life from the dead?" Now
does that mean something absolutely
figurative? la it to be related
to the domain of metaphor?

I do not think so. We rind that the rejection
of Israel was the preaching of the gospel to
us gentiles. The apostle said, "Since you
count yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo,
we turn to the gentiles.'' Well, now we gen-
tiles have been receiving the gospel for so
many hundred years, I may say that we have
not been as faithful as we should have been,
and the apostle distinctly states that there
was the fear lest, if God spared not the nat-
ural branches. He would not spare the wild
olive tree. But we learn from Scripture
that there is an end of the church of the
first born, that it, the church of the first
born, is to be caught up to meet the Lord in
the air, and that in this blessed millenial
glorv which is to follow Israel is to take its
place as the great and mighty priestly na-
tion for the advancing of the gospel of God's
eternal love.

Now I draw your attention to the fact
there is a line of prophecies concerning
Israel which, under no mode of interpreta-
tion, can be claimed to have been already
fulfilled. Take the wondrous prophecy con-
cerning Israel commencing with the sixtieth
chapter of Isaiah. No one can say that this
has ever as yet met with Its fulfillment In
the tenth verse: "And the sons of strangers
shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall
minister unto them; for in my wrath I

smote thee, but in my favor have I had
mercy on thee." Twelfth verse: "For the
nation and the kingdom that will not serve
thee shall perish, vea those nations shall be
utterly wasted." There are so many besides
these that might be quoted that I would
consume too much of your time were I to
read them. I may say, however, that they
point to the time when Jerusalem
shall be the moral center of the
earth, it shall be neither London, nor Paris,
nor New York, out the kingly glory — the cen-
ter of God's mighty operations, shall be the
Holy City, and Israel being restored and con-
verted shall become the great nation to ex-
tend the gospel throughout ali quarters of
the earth. In the 20th chapter of the same
prophet, and at the 26th verse, the sublime
language is used, "Moreover the light of the
moon shall be as the light of the sun, and
the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the
light of seven days, in the day that the Lord
bindeth up the breach of His people, and
healeth the stroke of their wound" The
church of the first born having been re-
moved to be at the side of the Heavenly
Bridegroom, the millennial glory shall be the
great time of missiona It will be the
time when the light of the
moon shall be as the light of the
sun. It will be the time when nations
shall be born in a day. It will be the time
when Israel's people shall be righteous, and
men shall know them as the ministers of
God.

Let us note in the next place, that there-
fore we are to pray that the Lord will
speedily come. Then at his coming, living
waters shall flow out of Jerusalem for the
healing of the people. Tbarefore it is our
duty, our blessed, glorious privilege, to
know that Christ is coming, and to cry con-
tinually, "Come. Lord Jesus, come quickly"
to thy waiting, waiting church.

Now, these truths must have the greatest
power upon our Christian life. They are
doctrines which must affect ua As some
people hold that there is no personal com-
ing, it seems to me to take away the bright-
est sight that the eye can rest upon. A pleas-
ant thing it is for the eye to see the
light, but a pleasanter thing for the
soul to look upon Jesus Christ, and to know
that our dear Lord is coming, coming soon
to take His bride to be forever with Him;
and therefore if we believe that Christ is
coming, and if, in the second place, we be-
lieve that comine to be contingent upon the
diffusion of the gospel of Jesus Christ, does
it not follow, as a necessary consequence,
that those who are permeated with such
views will want to do everything that lies in
their power to advance the cause of mis-

212

THE PEOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

sions? It is His cause, not oura We see
Christ in struggling missions, we see His
glory in the feeblest of them. There is a
mistaken idea in this world about what are
the great movements. People suppose that
when great nations sign declarations of war
against other nations that these are
the great events, but as 1

look at it the great events of life
are tbe going forth of groups of missionaries
with the gospel in their Hands, to proclaim
God's love to dying men. The great event
waits the work of these men. This gospel
must be preached to every nation, and then
shall the end come. Then in view of this
ought we not — and this seems as practical
as the other — to be more ready than we
are to lay down our silver and our gold — to
consecrate our means to the blessed cause of
Jesus Christ, that this work may be accom-
plished and that the bride may Boon look up
and say, "Behold he cometh leaping upon
the mountains, skipping upon the hills."

The next point 1 have to speak about is,
that in considering the subject of our Lord's
coming and its bearing on missions, we can
not but notice tnat the whole subj ect of
revelation is only now being slowly
examined into. I do not underrate
the labors of earnest men in
the past. I am only speaking of the general
fact in the case. The book of the Revelation
has been practically sealed. Now I do not
wonder at the fact. Let us understand that
the Scripture clearly points out that Satan
is the god of the world. It indicates that
Satan has had a great deal to do upon the
earth. He caused tbe failure of our first
parents, and this book is the book which tells
his doom. It shows him bound, and thrown
into the lake of fire. It shows us the fulfill-
ment of the statement of the dear Lord. "I
saw Satan as ligntning fall from heaven." It
shows us the final end, the holy foot of Jesus
Christ upon the neck of our great foe, and
his being hurled into that bottomless pit,
from which he is never to rise. Is it likely
that he would promote the study of the book
of Revelation? No, it is not likely. It is more
likely that he would induce people to consider
that it is so dark, so mysterious, so utterly
Incomprehensible, that the safest, the wisest,
and the most judicious course was to leave
it absolutely unread; but at the very
threshold of the book lies the statement,
"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear the words of this prophecy, and keep
those things which are written therein, for
the time is at hand."

Now if we go to the study ot the book of
Revelation we find that it is just that which
the grace of God indicates we should do. In
the epistle of Paul to Titus there are three

effects noted of the grace of God. One ia
that it teaches us to deny ungodliness and
worldly lusts; secondly, that we should
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present world. The one is the negative, the
other the positive, and the third is that
we should "look ror that blessed
hope, the glorious appearing of our
erreat God and Saviour, Jesus Christ." I
would say that these three etf ects ought to
be kept together, the negative, denying un-
godliness: the positive, living soberly; and
thirdly, looking for the blessed coming.
Thus we live in hope, however bright the
day may be. and howevor joyous we may be
if we are looking for His coming, it makes
the day go swifter. The thought that in a
moment we may stand face to face with
Him, how it helps us to bear the sorrows of
this troubled life. To stand amidst the duties
of every day and look through the dark and
thickening air, and feel that the coming of
the Lord draweth swiftly nigh. It is the
grace of God within the heart that makes us
look up from things temporal to things
eternal.

Now, the next point is the statement
of the Apostle Paul as to our pres-
ent position. His language is very
remarkable. He says that our common-
wealth is where Christ is. If we turn to the
Epistle to the Philippians, third chapter,
twentieth verse, we find the apostle stating
— as it is in the old version — "our conversa-
tion is in heaven.'' Now that word means
more than that; .it is our commonwealth,
our state is in heaven. We are to live there;
that is, we do not live there as regards the
body. We do not live there as regards
things temporal, but the apostle, in his epis-
tle to the EpheBians, tells us that this is our
commonwealth, that place where Christ is
anu from which we expect our Lord to issue;
we are to live there. And I would say, how
much more nobly would we waik and live if
we realized more the pilgrim character of
those that are expecting the coming Ck/ist.
The sandals then would always be upon
our feet, and the staff would ever
be in our hands, and our faces would
be towards the city of the great Kinar. We
would use the things of this world as not
abusinsr them. We would fill ■ the time of
our sojourn with happy, joyous service, seeic-
ing to improve each moment, that we might
advance the glory of our blessed God.

Another point I would draw you attention
to is a very remarkable one concerning this
subject. That just in proportion as we ex-
pect our Lord's coming, and look for that
coming, do we grow in divine life. In tne
third chapier of the second epistie to the
Coriu Lhiuns, eighteenth verse, the apostle

Rt. Rev. MAURICE BALDWIN, D. D.

BISHOP OF HURON.

THE PKOPHETIC CONFERENCE.

213

says: "We all with open tace beholding as
in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the spirit of the Lord." Now I gather
that however difficult this passage may be,
and however many interpretations have been
given as to its proper meaning, that it simply
teaches us that the view of Christ transfig-
ures us. That just as a man going into the
state where people are below him and in-
ferior to him in education, inferior to him
m life, and he to go among them and adopt
their modes of living and expression, loses
his high position by going down to them — he
sinks, whereas if we look at Christ, Che apos-
tle says, gazing at Him, setting the Lord
always before us, from sunrise to sunset, we
are changed into His image from glory to
glory. Thens is elevating power in the study
of the coming of the Lord. None of us;denv
for one moment that people Have taken up
unscriptural ground on the subiect. That
people have run into wild excess, and have
brought the subject in the eyes of many into
discredit, but the truth is here. It is be-
fore us. and just as we keep Christ
before us, and His coming glory do
we, ourselves, becomes changed into the
likeness of His image, so thai if He tarries,
and we have fallen asleep, we shall awake
satiefied with His likeness. We shall see
Him when this corruptible shal- have been
exchanged for the incorruptible, and this
mortal shall be changed into the immortal,
and we know not what we shall be, but we
know that when He shall appear we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Again, I might speak too of the comfort of
this doctrine. We are sometimes called to
comfort those who mourn, and I think that
so orten whilst people comfort the mourner
with whatever doctrine they have at their
command, they fail to see the mode in which
the aDostle Paul would comfort those that
weep the loss of friends. So often people get
no further than the language of David when
he said, the child could not come to him, but
he couid go to the child. True, but we go to the
house of mourning with the apostle and say,
at least we try to say, that there is a strong
consolation, that that body which represents
the_ home of a sleeping saint is just laid —
perchance for a little while to reBt there —
perhaps only a day, a week, a month, a year,
and then Christ shall come, and the dead in
Christ shall rise first We point them to the
fact that the believer's falling asleep is, as it
were, momentary; that that body is precious
to God. That it has been redeemed as well
as the soul. That the Lord knows its resting-
place, and that He shall call It forth again,
purified, beautified, and made meet for the
eternal home. "Comfort one another with

these words." Tell them that the night is
far spent, and that the day is at hand. Iu
the day of mourning people are told
to bear their sorrows, and it is
most proper and most true; but
there is this further to be said
that while we do bear our sorrow, and whilst
we mourn, it is not of those who have no
hope; that we Know it is only for a little
while. If 1 am called to go to the bedside,
and afterward to follow to the grave, one
who has sunk without nope, what can I say?
I say, I know he shall rise, but I know not
when; the Lord knoweth. There is a dark-
ness and a gloom, but that darkness and that
gloom does not rest on the Deiiever's hope —
it is bright. It is "the Lord shall come
again."

Two other points, and 1 conclude. First,
the apostle says there is a crown for those
that love His appearing. In the second
epistle to Timothy, fourth chapter and eighth
verse, we read: "Henceforth there is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at
that day, and not to me only, but unto ail
them also that love His appearing." Have you
ever thought that that crown is for all who
love His appearing? It is for those who are
lookinar for it The Greek verb signifies the
waiting for His coming. That crown is not
spoken of as being given to those who have
achieved great results. Not even to those
that even the church have thought the most
worthy, but to those who love His appearing.
To those who through good and evil report
have waited, and with the cry, "Come, Lord
Jesus, come quickly."

The next thought is with reference to tho
gifts. In L Corinthians first chapter and
seventh verse is the remarkable statement
The apostle says that they, the Corinthians,
come behind in no gift, waiting for the com-
ing of the "Lord Jesus Christ" In other
words, that just as they waited they were
endowed with the various gifts of the Holy
Ghost Now just as the gospel of
Christ is proclaimed with the Holy
Ghost is with power and the
men who, anterior to Christ's first advent,
proclaimed that Christ would come, were
men of power. They were the irreat and
mighty of Israel — the men who, like Isaiah
and Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor
prophets, lifted up their voices and said that
Messiah cometh. They were men of power,
having the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Now,
then, we come to our day, and I gather that
the apostle's teaching is this: That tho men
who to-day proclaim the second advent small
have the especial charisma which belong to
the Churcn of Christ That, in other words,
the Hoiy Ghost will endow with special pow-

214

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

ers those that boldly, fearlessly, and em-
phatically make Known the hope of the
cnurch in the speedy cominfr of Cnrist

Those true servants in Corinth
came behind in no gift I miarht
expatiate onthe subject, but I will
only say that these gifts of the Holy
Ghost were to dwell in the church, and just
as this truth of the second advent is brought
forward the servant of Cnrist may expect
power.

In conclusion, there are several subjects
on which I might speak, but I will conclude
with the following: If the cause of missions
be brought before us, let us cease from look-
ing at the subject from the human stand
point and rather identify the cause wholly
with the personal, living Christ Second,
let us bear in mind the words of Christ,
"Pray ye therefore the Lora of the harvest,
that he may send forth more laborers into
the vineyard." I do think that each day we
should pr ay for the cause of missions; we
should pray that the faith of those in the
work may be stronger, that mightier suc-
cess may be given them; and let
us remember that on their success is
dependent th» coming of our risen
and exalted Lord. Let us, therefore, live
very near to our Divine Master, in abiding,
holv, blessed union, for "he that abideth in
me, and 1 him. the same bringeth forth

much fruit." Christ in me bringeth forth
much fruit, and the whole effect of this
blessed doctrine is to bring us into closer
personal union with Jesus Christ It is that
we may die and He live. Oh. that we shall
learn more and more the power of our dailv
death and His daily life.

In the next place, it will lead us to be more
earnest in the reclamation of those that
have wandered away. It will make us more
in earnest in trying to win the lost and err-
ing souls to the Lord Jesus. It will make us
preach with more fervor, more earnest-
ness the gospel of love to sinners. It
will make us feel as Frances Ridley
Havergal said she felt, that sainted woman
who fell asleep so recently, "I try to see my
Lord in every person I meet, and I try to
minister to every one, that I may minister
in every one to my Lord and Master Jesus
Christ."

And, dear fellow Christions, let this Lord
dwell richly in you. Let Him be the Alpha
and He the Omega. Let Him come with
many crowns upon His head into your heart,
and lee Him sit upon the throne, and you lie
low at His feet Let Him speak, and do you
obey, and just as you dwell in this attitude
you will find His yoke is easy and His burden
is light, and you will get faith each day to
hasten His blessed coming.

IMPORTANT EXEGETICAL PAPERS.

VOICES OF EUROPEAN PROFESSORS.

Note. — The important letters appearing on
pages 135 to 138, from old-world professors of
the first standing and scholarship, in addition to
the one from Professor Godet, of Neuchatel.
Switzerland (pages 121-122), were laid before
the conference by Dr. West, who had, with much
pains, secured and prepared them in translated
form for this occasion. A brief note from Pro-
fessor Luthardt, of Leipzig, expressing his re-
gret at inability to write any communication,
and referring to the forthcoming new edition of
bis work on the "Last Things," was not
read. As for these professors, their
names are household words with multi-
tudes of our American scholars, and of
great authority. Drs. Godet, Delltzsch, and

Luthardt are known so well by their great
scholarship, piety, and Biblical labors that it is
unnecessary to say anything more. Pastor
Koch, of Bardewisch, Oldenburg, Saxony, is one
of tne most; powerful critics of the age, aud, like
Professor Volck, has vigorously defended the
early church faith. Both, like many others in
Germany, have answered, with effect, the spirit-
ualizing commentaries of Keil and Hengsten-
berg on the prophets and the Apocalypse. Pro-
fessor Volck, of the University of Domat, Rus-
sia, is unsurpassed, as an exegete, to-day, and
his name appears as in the list of eminent con-
tributors to Zockler's "Hand Book of Theological
Sciences." Among his colleagues are Kurtz, the
church historian, and Christian!, both strong
Chiliasta The celebrated Martensen, recently
deceased, was of the same university.

REASONS FOB HOLDING THE BIBLE AND PROPHETIC CONFERENCE.

BY QEOIiQK a NEEDHAM.

Before the adjournment of this precious
meeting I wish to summarize a few of the
reasons for its existence:

1. To give prominence to neglected truth
This is simply history repeating itself. God.
who is jealous for all portions of His word,
compels His servants to give each part its
due place. Hence when any doctrine falls
into disuse He mores in a single heart, as in
the heart of Luther, who gave the needed
emphasis to "justification by faith," or He
draws togeiher tor counsel ana action a
number of Christians who become a unit in
their utterance of a lost or forgotten testi-
mony. Nor will any servant of our Lord
escape reproacQ who persistently determines
to rescue from oblivion any or every item of
God's complete and revealed wilL

It is a universally acknowledged fact that
unfulfilled prophecy has, for centuries, been
relegated to the theologian's grave. But
truth is life and power. It leaps from its
sepulchre soon as the stone is rolled away.
In every age willing hands are found to do
this work; in every century Bible students
have come to the front, not shrinking from
the stigma put upon them because of their
zeal in endeavoring to bring Scripture
prophecy out into the open

SUNLIGHT OF CBITICISM

and publicity. Let none, however,
be intimidated by scoffs nor

be deceived by sophisms. Formerly the cry
was raised that prophetic study bred fanat-
icism; now it is the siren song that material-
istic theology is alone attractive, and escha-
tology is both unpractical and non-essential.
If this be so how sinsrularly unpracticable
was our Lord, who gave so much promi-
nence in his teaching to future events, and
how short-sighted was the Divine spirit, the
author of scripture, who inspired holy men
of old to write so largely of things to come.
"The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy." Is it not lioelous, irreverent,
nay infamous to charge the living God with
folly? Does it not, to say the least, betray a

heart far removed from fellowship with God
in His eternal purposes for any to dare affirm
there is anything non-essential in the Bible?
The object, then, of the conference has been
to make prominent teachings of God's word
which have been so greatly neglected; teach-
ings both powerful in motive ana practical
in every detail of life.

2. Another object of the conference
has been to emphasize the true prin-
ciples of Scripture interpretation. The
figurizing theory has made sad havoo
of Bible prophecy. Its advocates are
compelled to violate their own principle in
every case of fulfilled prophecy. Where i*
the consistency of saying tne prophecies
concerning our Lord's first advent must be
literally interpreted, while those relating to

HIS SECOND ADVENT

are purely metaphorical? In Zech. ix. it ia
prophesied that our Lord should come meetc
and lowly, riding upon an ass; but in chapter
xiv. it is said He will come again, and His feet
shall stand upon the Mount of Olives. The
ass, say those who hgurize, means an ass,
but the Mount of Olives is the broken heart
of the penitent sinner, who is now close to
Jerusalem, that is the church.

The true principles of interpretation have
been made prominent by several speakers
throughout the conference, viz. : That where
no figure is intended, the word of God is to
be interpreted in its plain, literal, and gram-
matical sense. Hence prophetic truth is to
be received, as every other truth, by faith;
"with the heart man believetn unto righte-
ousness." The faith which rests on divine
testimony concerning any doctrine of the
Bible is the same kind of faith which be-
lieves in the same Word concerning things to
come..

3. Another object the conference had in
view was the awakening of Christians from
slumber. We are living in an enchanted
age, and are passing over Bunyan's en-
chanted ground. The air is heavy, and the
spiritual senses of the King's pilgrims axe

THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE

ever in danger of stupefaction. We have
need to meet together and exhort one an-
other, in view dt

THE APPROACHING DAT.

Sleep is for sons of night; "Let
us not sleep as do others, out
let us watch and be sober." As the' hour of
our completed salvatiou draws near "is it
not hiffh time to awake out of sleep?'' By
every consideration, of the heathen abroad
and .it home; of the present intensity of
sin and the philosophical forms of wicked-
ness; of the unregenerate stat^ of our
neighbors, our sons ana our daughters, our
husbands and wives; of the drunken and
debauched state of society, and the be-
numbed and paralyzed condition of Christen-
dom, we appeal to you, to the church of
God, to all who name trie name of Jesus, to
arouse you from slumber. Nay more, our
divine Lord Himself appeals to you: "Awake
thou that sleepest and arise from among the
dead."

4. Asrain, the conference presents tho
most majestic of all motives for world-wide
evangelism. Both earnestly and powerfully
tne bope of our Lord's glorious return has
been presented. And this present meeting,
the final session of the conference, has con-
vened for the purpose of brineing before us
the harrowing need of tho world, our grave
responsibilities in relation to its dark moral
condition, and the divine incentive, the
stimulating motive for immediate and per-
sistent action. Oh! let not the heathen na-
tions rebuke us as pagan sailors rebuked the
renegade prophet: "What meanest thou, O,
sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be
that God will think upon us, that we perish
not"

5. This Bible and Prophetic Conference
calls attention to the doctrine of "last
things" as

A BULWARK

against the skepticism of modern theology.
Two hundred years ago old Manton wrote:
"All new light is old darkness revived; it is
neither new nor light." The gentlemen at
Andover feel deeply aggrieved that their
smoky and sulphurous match-light of mon-
grel Ayrian-German rationalism is not read-
ily utilized by those who walk in the ud-
dimmed sunlight of divine revelation as it
shines in every verse, word, and ietter from
Gen. i. to Rev. xxii. Brethren, premillen-
arianism pure and simple rorms a breakwater
against every advancing tide which would

throw upon the clean beach of a God-given
theology the jelly-fish theories evolved out
of man's erratic consciouness, pride, and
self-wilL

''Waiting for the Son from heaven" is an
antidote against the feverishness of the age,
as shown in its excited race after theological
novelties.

6. I could furnish you with other weighty
reasons why this important conference
snould be held. But I mention only one
more. Thousands of our Lord's dear 6aints
who love His appearing and kingdom, many
of whom live in isolated places, are hereby
brought into nearer fellowship one with
another. How gratifying has been our meet-
ins toffether, how blessedly helpful to each
and all who have for the first time greeted
one another within these walls. We have
met; we now part; but the warm grasp of
the hand, the

TONES OF THE VOICE,

the form and features of brethren hitherto
unknown will abide with us in memory and
in influence. Our oneness in Christ is
made more real and precious because of
this present communion.

Let me not, however, be misundemtood.
We are no clique or party coterie— no ex-
clusive company of self-admiring Pharisees.
Thank God, we can and do say, with tender
emotion, "Grace be with all who love our
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Our love in
the Lord, our fellowship in service, our com-
panionship ih tribulation, embrace the
friends of Jesus who, though not one with
us iu prophetic study, are one with us in
eternal union, redeemed with the same
blood, indwelt by the same spirit, having be-
come heirs together of the grace of life.

Beloved, the brotherly fellowship we have
so sweetly enjoyed during the days we have
been togetner will not bo severed, though
necessarily interrupted, as we now part one
from another. But

"The memory, so precious of hallowed delight.
Shall strengthen our faitn and equip for tha

fight.
When severed in presence there still doth remain
Our oneness in hope of His coming again.

"We po to the fields where our lot. has been

thrown,
Wbere soil must be turned and where ssed must

sown.
That sinners may hear of the Lamb who was

slain.
And saints be prepared for His coming again."

A NB.W PAPER.

THE FAITHFUL WITNESS

Semi-Monthly— 16 Pages, 9x12 inch-48 Columns.

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