The Hope Of The Morning Star. | Christian Library

(Concluded.)

4. THE TARES, THE WHEAT, AND THE HARVEST.

Mr. Brown brings forward in further proof the Scripture statements as to the end of the age and the harvest; but these we shall better consider as more fully taken up by another writer, B. W. Newton,* to whose arguments I therefore turn. *"Five Letters on Events predicted in Scripture as antecedent to the Coming of the Lord."* The parable of the wheat and tares will come before us in this connection, and he believes it decisive as to the whole question before us. I think it will be found that all depends as to this upon how the parable is to be explained. But we must go carefully through his arguments which touch many questions and a considerable range of prophetic scripture. He says:-

"I have long felt the parable of the tares to be quite conclusive of the question we are considering …. Whatever else may be true, the Lord’s explanation of the parable must certainly stand. We have in it a period definitely, and I might also say, chronologically marked, commencing with the sowing of the Son of man, and ending with the separation of the children of the wicked one. It is said that this separation shall not take place until the harvest; consequently until the harvest the field has some wheat in it. ‘Let both grow together until the harvest.’ No words could be more plain than these. They could not grow together until the harvest, if all, or even some of the wheat were gathered in many years before the tares were fully ripened; and they will not fully ripen until the time of Antichrist; indeed, it is expressly said that the tares are to be gathered first; and let it be remembered that not one tare is gathered except by angels sent forth; not one is gathered except at the time of harvest; not one is gathered without being rooted up; that is, taken out of the world. The meaning of the gathering of the tares is not left to our conjecture, but is explained by the Lord Himself:‘As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this age. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom’ [this is the explanation of the gathering] ‘all things that offend and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire:’ this is the explanation of the burning. The wheat and the tares are to grow together until this is done ….

" How can any one doubt after reading this parable that the saints of this dispensation (for to them alone the name of wheat, as contrasted with tares, belongs) will continue in the world together with the professing visible body until the end of the age, that is the harvest? for it must be remembered that the harvest is not said to be in the end of the age, but that the harvest is the end of the age." (Pp. 18-20.)

This is the whole of Mr. Newton’s argument; which he defends, however, at the close of his pamphlet from objections drawn in part from some very natural mistakes as to his doctrine, which will serve to keep us from falling into them, while some of them with his answers we shall have to consider further on.

First of all, as to the "end of the age," a term which we have already considered, and which is of very great significance in relation to the whole matter before us:he guards us from the mistake that he takes it to be "one definite moment, marked by one event, and that the saints remain until it is entirely over and passed away." He regards it "as the name of a certain period, perhaps a considerably lengthened period, during which many events will occur. But this period," he remarks, "must have a beginning, and as soon as ever that beginning comes, we may say, ‘the end of the age ‘ has come … I have never said that the saints will remain on the earth until the end of the end of the age." (P. 95.)

One may agree then thoroughly with this, that the saints of the present time will remain upon earth, neither resurrection nor rapture will take place, until the end of the age arrives. The Lord’s concluding words in Matthew are alone sufficient proof of this:" Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." Nay, more, they should make us also expect that this would be the precise measure of the time in which we should need such an assurance. When the end of the age arrives, we may infer that the period of the Church’s stay upon earth will have reached its limit, and His coming to take us to Himself will be no more delayed.

It has been already shown that the "end of the age " can in no way be taken as the end of the Christian age; for there is no such age:times and seasons are now not being reckoned, but we live in a gap of time, a blank in Old Testament prophecy, which has Israel always in the foreground. Israel it is that is to "blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit " (Isa. 27:6). Israel then being nationally set aside, it is not hard to realize that all is at a stand as far as this is concerned, until she is again taken up.

What, then, must be the significance of times beginning again which are specifically times determined upon Israel to bring her into blessing! Such times we find in Daniel’s seventy weeks, which are to end with this, sixty-nine having already passed when Messiah the Prince having come and being cut off, the downfall and ruin of the nation followed, and all was indefinitely suspended. The one week that remains is naturally and necessarily therefore the end of the age, the last seven years of these determined times. The beginning of this period means that God’s thoughts have once more returned to Israel; consequently, that the Church period is just at an end. With the beginning, therefore, of the end of the age, the hour strikes for her removal to heaven.

Of all this Mr. Newton has nothing to say. For him the Church and the remnant of Israel are found side by side during at least a considerable time towards the end of the Christian age, as he considers it,-a view which we have to consider presently. We have seen already, however, how differently the whole structure of the book of Revelation speaks. But the Lord’s words:"So shall it be at the end of this age; the Son of man shall send forth His angels and they shall gather together out of His Kingdom," show that now the Kingdom of the Son of man is come, and the present time of the Son upon the Father’s throne is already over.

But this is the Lord’s interpretation of the parable, and not the parable itself, which ends short of any actual coming of the harvest. The householder tells his servants what will take place when the time of harvest shall have come, but this is when he is comforting them for their own impotence in undoing the mischief that has been done. They are not competent to remove the tares that have been sown amongst the wheat:but angel hands shall do it effectually at a future time. The time is future:the action of the parable does not go on to it.

Notice now another thing:the interpretation of the parable is cut off from the parable itself, and begins a second section of the whole series, which is thus divided, as commonly with a septenary series, into four and three. Four is the number of the world, and the first four parables, as spoken in the presence of the multitude, give us the public or world-aspect of the Kingdom in the eyes of men; and not one of them goes on in its action to the end. The three parables which follow (the number being that of divine manifestation) give us on the other hand what is told to disciples in the house; and in them we have the divine side, the secrets whispered in the ear of faith. Thus the parable of the treasure gives us the purpose of God as to Israel; that of the pearl, the Church in its preciousness to Christ; that of the net, the going forth of the everlasting gospel among the nations after the Church period is over.* *"See for a full detail, "The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven," or the notes on Matt. 13:in the "Numerical Bible."* It is with this second series that the interpretation of the second parable has its place, and thus we come in it to the "end of the age," as in the last parable of the draw-net; for we are in both beyond the present time. The interpretation, therefore, carries us beyond the present, and we must not hastily assume that the gathering the tares out of the Kingdom and casting them into the fire is simply the equivalent of the expressions in the parable itself. Indeed upon the face of them they are not so:gathering into bundles to be burnt is not the same as the actual burning, though it may be preparatory to it; just as again the gathering the wheat into the barn is not the equivalent of the righteous shining forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Mr. Newton even allows this, although he does not carry the difference out sufficiently, as we see by the answer he makes to an objection. The Lord Himself explains, he says, the gathering of the tares [into bundles] as gathering out of His Kingdom all things that offend. And to the objector who urges that "All the tares being burned before the saints are caught up at all, nothing remains to be judged," he answers, "I have never said that the tares would be burned before the saints are caught up. I make a distinction between gathering them into bundles, and burning them." (P. 100.) This is true, but how far does the distinction go? for he says of the gathering, "Not one is gathered without being rooted up; that is, taken out of the world." Thus the objection is not really met:for the meaning would be the same if it were put:" All the tares being rooted up out of the world before the saints are caught up, nothing remains to be judged (on earth)." Then his only reply would be what follows:"Even if the tares were all burned," (or rooted out of the world), "there yet remain Jews, Apostates, Heathen Nations, to be judged." (P. 100.)

He says again:" ‘Gathering’ does of itself imply removal from the field; for the reason given for allowing the tares to grow with the wheat until the harvest is this, ‘Lest while ye gather (συλλεγω,-the same word) the tares, ye root up the wheat with them." (P. 101.) Thus the tares he takes to be really rooted up out of the world as the first thing; then the wheat being gathered into the barn, the field of Christendom is entirely empty.
Before we go on to consider what he says is left in this case as objects of the judgments afterwards, let us see if this idea of gathering as rooting out of the world be in this case warranted.

We are told in the parable that the servants of the householder, as soon as they discerned the tares among the wheat, inquired if they should go and gather them up. Are we to suppose that their question meant, should they root them up out of the world – exterminate them? No doubt, Romanists have attempted to do so, and illustrated the inability to separate the tares from the wheat; but is that what the servants wished really to suggest? had they no thought but of killing the heretics that had come in among the orthodox? Alas! the tares were found much earlier than the time in which the Christians could have used or thought of using the arm of flesh to accomplish such, a purification; and they must have sought it in other ways than by carnal weapons which both our Lord and His apostles so emphatically condemn. Was it not, in fact a rectification of the Kingdom which they desired, rather than of the world? a kingdom which, however easy it may be for us now, primitive Christians would never have thought of identifying with the world, or any portion of the world!

May not this put us upon the track of what the gathering of the tares would mean in the interpretation? Of course, before harvest-time the riddance of the mischief could only be by the hand, and then rooting up would be what would take place. But at harvest-time it would not be so. Reaping would be ordinarily at least with the sickle, and there would not be rooting up at all. Rather it would be a severing from the root that would take place, which might imply a separation from the doctrinal faith, of the heretic from his heresy, but not for good, so that apostasy would be the outcome. Angelic hands might accomplish the severance,-events might take place even which would make it impossible to retain the heresy; the apostasy would be their own. Thus two of Mr. Newton’s classes would be one:a thing which Rev. 17:would indicate as probable, and which would naturally lead to the Beast throwing off the woman, and the kings of the Roman earth helping to destroy her. The "strong delusion" of 2 Thess. looks exactly in the same direction, except Mr. Newton has proof that the professing Christians that fall into the snare of Antichrist are not "tares." Certainly the present antichristian systems should furnish followers for the Antichrist to come; and his rise in connection with the great head of the revived Roman empire, must make us think of Romanism and kindred systems as those out of which the great mass of these followers come. Are not these tares, who become apostates? if not, what else?

It is easy to see, then, why Mr. N. should have to speak as he does of the great book of prophecy in the New Testament. "I see comparatively little," he says, " about the judgment on the tares in the Revelation; it appears to me to be concerned almost entirely with the means which lead to the consummation and the consummation itself of Apostasy. But that apostasy is the result not merely of Christianity first them." (P. 101.) Thus the tares he takes to be really rooted up out of the world as the first thing; then the wheat being gathered into the barn, the field of Christendom is entirely empty.

Before we go on to consider what he says is left in this case as objects of the judgments afterwards, let us see if this idea of gathering as rooting out of the world be in this case warranted.

It is easy to see, then, why Mr. N. should have to speak as he does of the great book of prophecy in the New Testament. "I see comparatively little," he says, "about the judgment on the tares in the Revelation; it appears to me to be concerned almost entirely with the means which lead to the consummation and the consummation itself of Apostasy. But that apostasy is the result not merely of Christianity first perverted and then renounced, it is also the apostasy of man as man (‘worship him who made the earth), and also of the Jew; a threefold combination of Apostasy." No intelligent student of prophecy doubts the combination of other elements with it; but what is this "Christianity perverted, and then renounced," but virtually tares becoming apostates?

Nay, but, says Newton, "I also see that angels and not saints, are sent to the Tares, whereas saints come with the Lord against Apostates." "On the Tares [judgment] is by angels sent forth while they are growing quietly with the wheat." Certainly in this manner we can make plenty of oppositions, by comparing things that cannot rightly be compared. A wheat-field is, no doubt, a very image of quietness; but one may well doubt whether that is what we are meant to gather from it. And angels come with Christ against the apostates; as Mr. Newton himself says:" ‘His army,’ 1:e. saints and angels." (P. 93.) As to the exact part each may have in the judgment, Revelation does not seem to say.

But to return to the parable:the binding in bundles must come after the reaping, if the figure is to be preserved. Would one naturally think of it as something to follow death? If so, one can hardly expect to translate it into any distinct meaning. If, on the other hand, the tares (though dead as tares) are still viewed as in the field of the world, then we may imagine a various compacting of men loosened from the hold of their religious systems, in ways that are not pointed out, but which lead them on toward their final doom. The gathering out of the Kingdom of the Son of man, as in the interpretation of the parable, goes, I believe, further than this:for the Kingdom of the Son of man is not local, but over the whole earth. It is a gathering after that of the parable itself, and immediately to judgment.

Mr. Newton’s own interpretation is different in so many respects from this, that there would be little profit in proportion to the labor of any extended comparison. For him the end of the age is the Christian age, and although in the tract from which I have quoted, he allows that the "end" may be "a considerably lengthened period," yet elsewhere he charges those with endeavoring to avoid the force of the argument from this parable, who suggest that "the end of the age may mean an indefinitely (?) lengthened period." He replies that it is definitely marked as "the harvest," quotes the interpretation of the parable as if the gathering and casting of the tares into the fire were the whole matter, and asks, "Is Antichrist to arise after this? "

But we shall apprehend his system better when we have reviewed his arguments as to the Jewish and Christian remnants at the time of the end.

5.THE SAINTS IN THE TRIBULATION, WHO ARE THEY?

We have already briefly considered the structure of the book of Revelation, and the evidence that it gives us as to the change of dispensation that is impending. The argument is a connected one of many arguments combined. We have in the first chapter the Lord in the midst of the candlesticks, the Christian assemblies. In the addresses to these which follow in the next two chapters, emphasized in each case by a solemn appeal for our attention, we find what is in fact the history of the Church of God on earth. As they progress from the address to Thyatira onwards, the promise or the warning of His coming is more and more enforced; ending with the threat of Laodicea being spued out of His mouth, and immediately after this a Voice as of a trumpet calls, and the apostle is caught up to heaven.

There he sees thrones around the throne of God, -a throne of judgment circled by the bow of God’s covenant with the earth; and, while the company of kings and priests sing their redemption song to the Lamb slain, he is told that this is Judah’s Lion-the King of the Jews-who has prevailed to open the book. We look upon the earth again as the book is being opened; judgments are being poured out upon it; there are saints there still and martyrs; presently a company sealed out of all the tribes of Israel; then an innumerable company of Gentiles also, but who have all come out of the great tribulation; by and by we see the actors in this,-the last beast of Daniel, and the lamb-like, dragon-voiced beast who leads men to worship him; times are reckoned, the half-weeks of the last week of Daniel; and looking on beyond the judgment of Babylon the Great, we see the marriage of the Lamb is come, and presently the Lamb Himself, with a glorious train of saints who follow Him, descends to the judgment of the earth.

Now this is simply the story of Revelation, with scarce a word of comment, and none needed, one would think, to make it plain. Through all this latter part we hear nothing of the Church of God on earth. The Lion of Judah opens the book; the book gives us Jewish scenes, Israel, Jerusalem, the time of Jacob’s trouble, the instruments of it, the false woman and her doom, until after the marriage of the Lamb, He comes with His saints from heaven. Does this fit with Mr. Newton’s views, or Mr. Brown’s, or Dr. West’s, or with that view which they all oppose? What have they to say about it? what arguments do they use against it? I can only speak as far as my knowledge goes, but as far as I know, they use no arguments; they simply ignore it. They give us proofs of their views, or what they conceive proofs, from Revelation, as from other parts of Scripture; but face this long line of witnesses they do not. We have seen what has been so far offered; we are going on still to see what Mr. Newton offers; but it is well to keep in mind how much of positive testimony for the views they are opposing they leave aside.

Mr. Newton hopes he may now assume, upon the warrant of the parables of the Tares and of the Fishes, and the Lord’s parting words in Matthew, that saints marked by the characteristics of the present dispensation will be found on the earth until the end. He urges that their testimony will be most needed, and suffering most glorious in the times preceding the end. He finds that "On all past occasions of destroying judgments, whether on Sodom, or the world at the flood, or on Egypt, or on Jerusalem, some testified and suffered, though all were removed before the threatened judgment fell. He urges also that "all who have thus testified have not been either ignorant of or enemies to the truth peculiar to the dispensation that was closing in; for how then could they have testified at all?" (P. 25.)

He does not notice the Lord’s assurance to Philadelphian overcomers that He would keep them "out of the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth " (Rev. 3:10), nor that the tribulation to come at the end is "Jacob’s trial," although it may involve others also, as we have seen. He does not understand that the end of the age is not part of the present dispensation, but the time of darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, when the light begins to dawn on Israel (Isa. 60:), and that God’s testimony for that time is an Elias one (Mal. 4:5- Rev. 11:3-6,) and not that of the Church.
He does not know that he can ‘’ find with any degree of accuracy the extent of this testimony "(!), and that on account of that of which he does not know the signification, that "the recorded facts of prophecy have always Jerusalem for their center;" and he needs to remind us that "a Christian in Jewish circumstances is a Christian still"!

Another strange thing is that he has to go to Old Testament scriptures for the main part of his proof of Christians giving this testimony, and to justify what seems strange in this, he has to refer to Rom. 16:25, 26, taking, as many do, the "prophetic scriptures" there, as being those of the Old Testament prophets. (Comp. Eph. 3:5.) He illustrates this by types, however, which we should all admit, and some other passages which show a singular lack of knowledge of the calling of the Church which he says they reveal. But I cannot dwell on this.

From the Old Testament he brings forward Daniel. Here he interprets for us the "wise," who "instruct many" among the Jewish people, without being able to prevent their fall "by the sword, and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days." This he calls, though we may well doubt it, "the moment of Jerusalem’s ratified desolation," and thinks we can be therefore at no loss to understand them to be "Christ and His servants; nor from that time forward would the Holy Spirit give the name of ‘understanding ones’ to any but those who acknowledged Him and had received His Spirit." But on the contrary, most commentators refer this to the Maccabees, and with apparent reason. We have not time to argue as to it, it is plain; but proof-text it can hardly be When all depends upon a very questionable interpretation. The "wise"or "understanding ones," with this special meaning forced upon them, are then found by him in the time of Israel’s great tribulation following; and so his point is proved. But to merge Christ among the "understanding ones" is certainly not the way of the Spirit of God; and the presence of Christians depends entirely upon this. On the other hand "the two witnesses" of Rev. 11:would certainly have this character of "wise," while as certainly they are not what we should now call Christians. All here is mere rash assertion and not proof.

That these understanding ones (as illustrated by the witnesses) will be worn out by the Little Horn, (identified at the last with the Beast itself,) is seen in Revelation, and being raised from the dead they will have a heavenly place contrasted with Israel’s earthly one. That these are, in fact, the saints of the high places, of whom Daniel speaks, and who are Mr. Newton’s next and remaining proof of Christians in Jerusalem, we have no need to question. He makes no distinction between "heavenly" and "Christian"; but he must certainly know that those he is opposing do make one, and that for them all that he gives for proof is entirely futile.

This closes his argument from the Old Testament:he passes on to Revelation, which he rightly takes as in its "central part" relating to the same period as (much of) Daniel. Here his first argument is from persons being mentioned "who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus"; and again in chap. 14::"here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." No doubt there is difficulty in defining in any perfectly satisfactory way what either expression may mean. "The testimony of Jesus" is said, in the book of Revelation itself, to be "the spirit of prophecy" (19:10), and this will be found in the saints of those days. There is no excuse for confounding this with Church testimony. " The faith of Jesus " will be, no doubt, imperfect enough in the darkness of days from which the light of Christianity has disappeared, and the Spirit itself as now known and enjoyed in Christianity. I presume He will be known as Messiah, not in His own proper glory as Jehovah; and this will be the discovery that will bow them in humiliation and repentance, when they look upon Him whom they have pierced.

The next text (chap. 13:7), if parallel with Dan. 7:20, is nevertheless also, as we have seen, of no importance whatever for his argument.

Again, those on the sea of glass (chap. 15:2) are saints martyred under the beast, and having got victory over him in this way, and the passage in chap. 20:4-6, which Mr. Newton rightly associates with the former one, shows that such have their part in the first resurrection, and reign with Christ for the thousand years of the Kingdom. All this is very familiar truth to those whose views he is opposing; and he certainly must know it. There is nothing about the Church in either passage.

As a specimen of what a more minute interpretation would give, he adduces chap. 11:i, to urge that the worshipers in the temple of God (the sanctuary) must be Christians. In his argument he says rightly enough that the temple consisted of two inner courts, but speaks as though this were proof that for worshipers in it, the holiest of all must be accessible. There is no proof of it whatever. For the priest in Israel the veil was not rent, but he could worship in the temple in the outer holy place, and once a year the high priest went into the holiest. There is absolutely no token of Christian worship:the "clear evidence " of it, of which he speaks, does not exist.

But while all this is to him clear, the witness of the whole book of Revelation, as I have briefly given it, passes absolutely without notice. And yet when he wrote this he must have known quite well that it stood at least to be accounted for.

Of the Jewish remnant of the last days which according to Mr. Newton exists side by side with the Christian one he says:-

"They must have an intermediate standing:not Antichristian, for they would be consumed; not Christian, for then as suffering with and for Jesus, they would also reign with Him, and stand upon the sea of crystal in heavenly glory; whereas they are destined, after having passed through the fires from which the Christian remnant are altogether delivered, to be God’s witnesses on the earth:… I now request your attention to the following passages which show that this remnant is not owned by the Lord, nor has the spirit of grace and supplication poured on it, until after the Lord has appeared, and they have been carried through the day of His judgment" (Pp. 43, 44).

He quotes for this, first, Isa. 10:12, 20-22; of which he says:-

"The passage teaches us that they are not regarded as ‘ returning’ and ‘staying themselves ‘ upon the Lord, until after He has accomplished all His work upon Mount Zion and Jerusalem." (P. 45.)

I can only answer that to me it says nothing of the kind. It does say that in that day there will be no going back on the part of the saved remnant, to repeat the sad story of declension, so often recurring in the past. They "shall no more again stay upon him that smote them, but stay upon the Lord." Then the truth of their return is affirmed:"The remnant shall . . . unto the Mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall return." There is nothing about their only returning after God has accomplished His work. It does not mean that He delivers them in an unbelieving condition, and then they believe. That is certainly not God’s ordinary way of delivering, but to wake up a soul to faith and then answer it. Nothing contrary to that is said here.

The next passage is from Zech. 13::"And it shall come to pass that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined . . . they shall call on My name and I will hear them:I will say, It is My people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God." This expresses only the full confidence reached as the result of purification; but it is because they are "silver" He refines them. No one ever refined into silver what was not silver; and that is not what is done here.

The third passage, Zech. 12:9-13:i, shows undoubtedly that an amazing discovery is made by them when they look upon Him whom they have pierced; and I think that will be, as before said, when they realize their rejected Messiah to be Jehovah Himself. That they own Jesus as Messiah seems clear from the guidance given to them in His own prophecy of the end of the age (Matt. 24:); but the "Alan, Jehovah’s Fellow "may be yet unknown.

As to what is said about their having to believe nationally, and the nation being born in a day, Zion travailing and bringing forth, he is surely wrong in taking that as new birth, a truth of which as such the Old Testament never speaks. That at the time of their deliverance, the remnant will come to the birth, as the new nation of Israel, is true, and is what is meant by this. The implication that as individuals they were not born again before is unwarranted and false.

Again, the principle is a very simple one, that in the Psalms and prophetic Scriptures, we may take out all that is bright and happy and confident, and apply it to a Christian remnant, while we relegate all that is gloomy and querulous to a co-existing Jewish one. It is a short road to interpretation, but a most unsafe one. The Psalms, for instance, are expressive of the whole education and purification of a Jewish remnant, through all the trials of the latter days, until they are brought into full blessing. Of this the five psalms, from Ps. 3:to 7:, are an introductory epitome, which shows this very clearly. But they begin with faith (Ps. 3:), the joy of which they can contrast with the restless seeking of "any good" on the part of the ungodly around them (Ps. 4:). Here they reason and plead with these, but in the next, as the evil grows more determined, plead against them (Ps. 5:), assuring themselves of the distinction God will make between them and the wicked. But the gloom darkens and the shadow falls upon their own souls (Ps. 6:). The prevalence of the evil makes them dread divine displeasure, and the confidence they have had changes into a cry for mercy. In the seventh psalm the shadow passes, they can maintain again their innocence as far as their persecutors are concerned and look for divine intervention; which in the eighth is come.* This is only an introduction, of course, but it shows the character of the book, which the arbitrary invention of contrasted remnants completely destroys. *See the volume of the Psalms in the " Numerical Bible " for a full exposition.* All these fruitful exercises become but the wailings of unconverted men; all the expressions of faith belong to another people!

This is indeed a "higher criticism" of a peculiar kind, which by taking texts here and there and applying the moral test, putting in juxtaposition passages of diverse character, from different places, and apart from their context, can make it at least a tedious and difficult thing to expose its unsoundness. And this is made worse by misleading comments scattered here and there throughout, in which truth itself can be so applied as to give apparent countenance to what is error. Who would not agree, for instance, that "to suffer for righteousness’ sake in conscious fellowship of spirit with God, is something very different from .suffering penalty under the rebuke of His heavy hand "? But apply this to the case before us,-a remnant of converted people making part of a nation which as such is away from God, and going on to complete apostasy; suffering penalty thus, and involving these in their sufferings, who from sharing their guilt at first have been gradually awakened, with the light increasing for them, but allowed of God for their good to be thoroughly exercised as to everything. Plowed up as to their sin, they find their way amid the promises and threatenings of His word, without firm footing as to the gospel; and in a time of trouble such as never was! These various exercises, the conflicts of faith with unbelief, the many forms of trial, are given for their help, and for the help of multitudes in any similar ones, as poured out in the utterances of the Psalms and prophets. Think of a criticism like Mr. N’s, which ignores these varied and subtle differences, and makes it all a question of the highest Christian communion or of suffering penally! Why the Psalms are a human resolution largely-under the control and guidance of God-of problems of the most difficult character. Are they suffering penally? there is sometimes their perplexity. They reason upon it all round:the clouds break and return; but no:we are to use the scissors, it seems, separate what is not fit for the Christians, and give it to these poor, unconverted Jews! and the practical use and beauty of the Psalms are largely gone for us. How much shall we value the miserable experiences of mere unconverted men!

We may close then with this:for here is the rest of his argument, and we have no interest in following Mr. Newton’s further account of how, according to his thought, a Christian remnant is not found in Jerusalem at the last, which we have not been persuaded exists there at all. But it may not be without profit to have seen how destructive of Scripture at large is this system which makes hypothetical differences which do not exist, only to ignore those that are real and vital.

There is only one more point, therefore, that we need to. consider in this connection, and that is his argument from the eleventh of Romans. He says:-

" I would briefly notice these things:-

"1. That it speaks of Israel as blinded for a season by the judicial infliction of the hand of God. It is important to notice the judicial character which attaches to their being broken out of their olive-tree.

"2. The blindness thus judicially inflicted has never been, and never will be anything more than ‘in part’; that is, it has never rested on every individual in Israel, but there has ever been a seeing remnant. Some, not all, the Jewish branches, have been broken off.

" 3. The fact of there being a seeing remnant during the blindness of Israel, is a proof that Israel as a nation is still under the infliction of the hand of God.

"4. That this judicial infliction cannot be continued after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in."

Thus, he says, "it is proved beyond a doubt that Israel’s Antichristian period (when as a nation they be emphatically blinded, though there will be even then a seeing remnant) cannot be after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. Observe, I do not say that as soon as all the elect Gentiles have been gathered in, all Israel will instantly be filled with light and knowledge; but this I affirm that the positive action of the hand of God in blinding them will not be continued after the period which He has been pleased to fix-1:e., when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in. Consequently, the period of their deepest and most fatal blinding cannot be after the period which He has fixed for the ceasing of His wrath against them. There can be no seeing remnant in judicially blinded Israel; no election out of Israel, and therefore no Antichristian period to Israel, after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; therefore all such conditions of Israel must be before the fulness of the Gentiles has come in." (Pp. 63-65.)

Now, I apprehend that the writer has spoiled his own argument. For if he had maintained that, as soon as ever the fulness of the Gentiles had come in, all Israel would "instantly be filled with light and knowledge " that would have been consistent at least. But he could not say so; only that the positive action of the hand of God in blinding them will not continue. But that would seem to infer that there would or might be still a seeing remnant for awhile among them after the judicial blinding was removed. Let us see then what in fact takes place. The beginning of the " end of the age" or the last week of Daniel, shows that the fulness of the Gentiles has indeed come in; it shows also that the judicial hardening of Israel is at an end by this week being the return of times determined upon her to bring in her blessing. Israel is now going to be saved; and as a pledge of this, those now converted are no more brought into the Church, but remain Israelites, grafted back into their own olive-tree.

Yet this is the time of Antichrist, as Daniel and Revelation unite to show us, and the nation that is to be is refined and purified in a furnace of affliction. It is the remnant that becomes the nation, the rebels and apostates being separated and purged out. It is a mistake, surely, to look at Antichrist as a sign of the "nation" being "emphatically blinded," when in fact, it is Israel’s travail-time; and presently it will be found, when the followers of Antichrist have received their judgment, that "he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning" (Isa. 4:3; 4). The fulness of the Gentiles having come in, and so the end of the Church-period, is the very thing which allows this truly Jewish remnant to be formed, which is the nation in embryo, and to which Antichrist in Jerusalem is Satan’s power in opposition. The man of sin in the temple of God there, instead of showing that the judicial blinding of the nation is going on, shows that God is taking up Israel once more, and that the determined times are bringing on her blessing.

Christianity and Judaism, hopes heavenly and hopes earthly, the body of Christ in which is neither Jew nor Gentile, alongside of Jews and Gentiles (if the sheep and goats apply to these last),-all this owned of God alike and going on at one and the same time:this is Mr. Newton’s theory; the very statement of which might assure us that it is only theory. Scripture condemns it in every particular.

6.SECRECY, MANIFESTATION, AND SIGNS OF IMMINENCE.

All that remains to be considered can be stated in few words. As to the secrecy of the rapture of the saints, it is a point of small importance, reached only by inference, and need not be discussed at all. It is "when Christ our Life shall appear," that "we shall appear, (or be manifested) with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). Thus we may argue that we shall not be manifested before. But it affects no point of all that we have been looking at, so far as I am aware, however it be decided.

As to the manifestation, or appearing, or revelation of Christ, it is that which is most largely spoken of in Scripture, as we might expect, for various reasons.

1. It is that which connects itself with prophecy and the blessing of the earth. It is the rising of the Sun of righteousness in contrast with the simple heavenly radiance of the Morning Star.

2. It connects thus with the rights of Christ as to the earth, the place of His rejection.

3. It connects with the rewards given to His people, so far at least as these have to do with the kingdom and its displayed glory. And thus we can understand that we are to "wait" for it, as that in which every one will "receive his praise from God." Timothy’s being exhorted to "keep the commandments without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of Jesus Christ" (i Tim. 6:14), while often urged to the contrary, in fact shows how such things are to be taken. The appearing is the goal of responsibility; the time between this and the end of the path here would not affect the matter of the exhortation; and no one would contend that the apostle meant to guarantee that Timothy would live until the appearing.
Signs are all connected with the appearing necessarily, but yet so far as they are manifested, will only be more forcible for those who are expecting to be with the Lord before it. We are not taught that we need them, but are not certainly to ignore what is before our eyes. Times we cannot reckon, inasmuch as we are in that gap of prophetic time in which all Christianity has its place. Our Lord has also given us warning with regard to this (Acts 1:7). In the same passage we find Him telling His disciples that they were to be His witnesses "to the ends of the earth." That this and other declarations implied some lapse of time before His return is undoubted. We must remember, of course, that this did not imply for them what it does for us, and that Augustus Caesar could command "all the world" to be taxed (Luke 2:i). In the parables of the talents (Matt. 25:19) "after a long time" the absent lord returns and reckons with his servants; but it is with the same servants whom he left when he went away. Nothing hints to us as a delay of generations long. We are in other circumstances, in a world that widens no more, looking back over the Church’s history as Revelation has at last unfolded it to us, and finding ourselves certainly near the close, and how near we cannot say. Is there another page yet to be written? We do not know; but certainly of all men that ever lived we should be " as men that wait for their Lord." A clear view gained of what is prophesied as to the end, with the knowledge of what the Church of God is, and its place amid the dispensations, will make all else clear as to what in this respect may not have been considered. F. W. G.

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God." 2 Timothy 2:15