From a tract with the above title we take the following facts concerning the claims of the Roman church to civil supremacy. It is written by Rev. J. L. McCartney, Professor of Natural Science in Geneva College, Ohio:
PAPAL claims to civil supremacy is an integral and essential part of the Romish system. Peter was the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. All civil, as well as ecclesiastical, power being invested in Jesus Christ, that power was transferred to Peter. Peter's successor is the pope, and all power exercised without his authority is usurpation. Beginning with this assumption, their system is logical and consistent throughout. Take away this and their magnificent structure falls to the ground. Admit it, and not only are most of the nations, but every protestant Christian church is in an attitude of rebellion against the rightful authority of the church of Rome. Based upon, and in the fullest harmony with this claim, the following canon laws have been promulgated:—
CANON LAWS.
"Whatever decrees of princes are found to be injurious to the interests of the church, are declared to be of no authority whatever."
"While a sovereign remains excommunicated, his subjects owe him no allegiance; and, if this state of things should last for some time, and the sovereign, being admonished, does not submit himself to the church, his subjects are absolved from all fealty to him."
"The pope may dethrone the emperor for lawful cause."
"The emperor is the bishop of Rome's subject, and the bishop of Rome may revoke the emperor's sentences in temporal causes."
"The bishop of Rome is judge in temporal things, and hath two swords, spiritual and temporal."
"He is not bound by any decrees; is the supreme judge of articles of faith. No man may judge him in asserting and imposing, nor nullifying the laws of nations. Let no one dare to reprehend him."—Text Book, page 140.
Even the spiritual supremacy has no other foundation. It can be supported in no other way.
Pope Boniface VIII. gave the true doctrine of the church, when, in his canon law, he said: "There is one fold and one Shepherd. The authority of that Shepherd includes the two swords—the spiritual and the temporal. So much are we taught by the words of the evangelists: 'Behold, here are two swords!' viz: in the church. The Lord did not reply, 'It is too much.' Certainly he did not deny Peter the temporal sword. He only commanded him to return it to its scabbard. Both, therefore, belong to the jurisdiction of the church—the spiritual sword and the secular. The one is to be wielded by the church, and the other for the church. The one is the sword of the priest, and the other is the hand of the monarch, but at the command and sufferance of the priest. It becomes the one sword to be under the other—the temporal authority to be subject to the spiritual power."
Gladstone, the ex-premier of England, expostulated with the Catholics of that country on the matter of their divided allegiance. Lord Montague, in his reply, while claiming the fullest allegiance to the queen, nevertheless sets forth the same doctrine of supremacy as promulgated in the canon laws.
"We owe," he says, "the strictest allegiance to the queen, and yield to no subject of her realms in loyalty. We also owe the same to the pope, because the one power is subordinate to the other; just as the end of the State is subordinate to the end of the church, and as the body is subordinate to the soul."
Besides the acts of popes interpret their own laws.
1. Gregory II., in 1730, deposed Leo Isaurus, and absolved the Italians from their oath of allegiance.
2. Gregory VII., (Hildebrand) deposed Henry IV. in 1075.
3. Innocent III., in 1212, claimed that the pontifical authority excels the civil, as much as the sun excels the moon.
4. Gregory IX., in 1239, excommunicated Fredrick II., and absolved his subjects from all allegiance.
5. Paul III., in 1538, excommunicated, cursed, deposed, and damned Henry VIII. of England.
Had Lord Montague then been living in England, he would have said, "We owe the same allegiance to the pope as to the king, because the king is subordinate to the pope, as the end of the State is subordinate to the end of the church."
6. Paul V., in 1570, damned and excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, another sovereign in England; and the queen, according to the same principle, should have submitted, instead of resisting with all the powers of her great soul, the infamous claims of this anti-christ, who would exalt himself above all that is called God.
7. Gregory XIII. renewed this.
8. Sixtus V. confirmed it.
But the evidence here is cumulative. The teaching of standard Roman Catholic writers is very decided on the supremacy of the pope. Let the united testimony of Thomas Aquinas, Ferrares, Baronius, and pope Pius VII., suffice on this point.
"The pope, by divine right, holds supreme power over the whole world, both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs. In the pope is the summit of each power.*"
"The common doctrine teaches that the pope hath the power of the two swords, viz., the spiritual and temporal, which jurisdiction Christ himself committed to Peter and his successors. 'To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.'—Matt. 16. And if a king becomes a heretic, he can be removed from his kingdom by the pope, to whom the right of appointing his successor belongs, if his sons and near relatives are heretics."†
"God hath made the political government subject to the dominion of the spiritual church."‡
Pope Pius VII. wrote to his nuncio at Vienna, in 1804: "The principle of a canon law is this, that the subjects of a heretic prince are liberated from all duty, all fealty and homage toward him." And every Romish bishop, when he receives the mitre, solemnly swears that he will maintain this principle, viz: "I will do all that in me lies to preserve, defend, increase, and strengthen the rights, honors, privileges, and authority of the holy Roman church of our Lord the pope, and his successors." . . . "I promise and swear that I will persecute and combat all heretics, schismatics and rebels of our Lord the pope."
But the same spirit of defiance of civil authority, when not in harmony with these views, still prevails. In the pope's encyclical letter, February, 1875, to the archbishops and bishops of Prussia, the address runs thus:
"To all to whom it may concern, as also to the whole Catholic world: That those (Falk) laws are null and void, as being utterly opposed to the divine constitution of the church. For it is not the powerful of this world that the Lord has placed over the bishop of the church, in all that concerns her holy ministry, but it is to Peter to whom he has intrusted not only his laws, but also his sheep to feed."
It is not strange that this defiant attitude, assumed by the church of Rome, has goaded King William and Bismarck on to adopt such decided measures in Prussia, regulating the civil conduct of priests and people throughout the country.
"The States of Europe are becoming every year more thoroughly aroused to the danger of this old presumptuous ruler of the nations, and not without good reason.
"At a meeting of St. Sebastian League in June, 1874, Archbishop Manning said: 'Now when the nations of Europe have revolted; and when they have dethroned, as far as men can dethrone, the vicar of Jesus Christ; and when they have made the usurpation of the Holy City a part of international law; when all this has been done there is only one solution of the difficulty—a solution I fear impending—and that is the terrible scourge of continental war—a war which will exceed the horrors of any of the wars of the First Empire. I do not see how this can be avoided; and it is my firm conviction that, in spite of all obstacles, the vicar of Jesus Christ will be put again in his rightful place.' Take this in connection with his boast on another occasion, and does it not appear ominous? 'There is not another church,' says he, 'so-called (than the Roman), nor any community professing to be a church, which does not submit or obey, or hold its peace when the civil governments of the world command.' Add to this the fact that the pope orders the millions of his subjects; that he rules the rulers of her myriads just as he pleases, and is there not something threatening in the words of the London Tablet—Manning's organ—which says that were the cardinals, archbishop of Dublin and Westminster but to say the word, at least a million Irish would rise as Fenians within a week. They are conscious of their great power for mischief; and it was with this spirit that the Dublin Review threatened 'that if facilities were not granted to extend the convent system, they must submit to the dismemberment of the empire.'"
"The Roman Catholic church claims that decisions of the pope, in all doctrinal matters, and upon all questions pertaining to the relation of church and State, and of religion to State institutions, are infallible. On such decisions he claims from all Catholics unlimited submission. Is he bound by any bonds? Men will say, 'By the moral and divine law, by the commandment of God, by the rules of the gospel.' Yes, truly! but breaking away from all these, as more than one pope has done, who is to call in question his judgments? Before what court are his mistakes to be tried and be judged? What legislative body can call in question his actions and decisions? He is supreme over even the canon law—the law of the Romish church. He is a law unto himself; he is sole and absolute judge; no earthly power can possibly call in question any of his decisions. Is not this absolutism of the worst kind! Is not this claim a reversal of the entire drift and outgrowth of our Christian civilization?
"The dominion of the priests over the people is almost absolute; but these again are subject to the bishops, while the bishops are subject to the archbishops, and the archbishops are all subject to the pope, who is over all, claiming to be the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth—invested with all authority, civil and ecclesiastical, over all lands; and thus does he most exactly identify himself with Paul's 'Man of Sin,' 'opposing and exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.'"
The Sabbath Not Typical.
By James White
HAD man never sinned, it would still have been forever true, as it is to-day, that God made the world in six days. Had no system of redemption been devised, or none needed, it would have been eternal truth that God rested the seventh day, and that he blessed and sanctified his rest day.
But, on the other hand, had not man sinned; had no system of redemption been promised; had no types of the Redeemer's work been ordained, then none of the typical or yearly sabbaths would have been instituted. Had man not sinned, the whole train of circumstances by which those sabbaths were called into being would not have existed. They all stand related to man's action as a sinner, and to Christ's work as Redeemer. And as they point to, and have their fulfillment in, his work, they are appropriately denominated, "A shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." Col. 2: 14-17. But the Lord's Sabbath is of an entirely different nature. It is not so related to man's action as a sinner, or to the work of redemption. It was not based upon any contingency, or upon any future work. But it had for its foundation a glorious work all finished and complete "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy;" a work in which Jehovah himself delighted, and which he pronounced "very good."
The obligation to keep the seventh-day Sabbath is based on primary and eternal truth. By primary truth we mean that which grows out of the action of God alone—out of the original constitution of things; truth that existed before the fall of man; and would ever have existed had he never sinned. There is a class of secondary truths growing out of a perversion of God's work; out of the contingent relation we sustain to God since the fall. And all institutions, and obligations corresponding thereto, growing out of these secondary relations are necessarily limited by their nature; they are typical or shadowy. No person, on reflection, will dispute the ground here taken, that, no typical institution or merely positive duty can grow out of original relations; i. e., out of those relations existing from creation, and by virtue of creation. And, on the other hand, no moral obligation can originate in, or spring from, a secondary relation; i. e., a relation growing out of man's act of rebellion. In God's own mind all moral relations and duties originate. Man may, and he did, create the necessity for a scheme of restitution and redemption; but no part of this plan is elementary. It owes its origin to wrong-doing; its necessity is laid in sin and rebellion.
The seventh day was from the beginning a hallowed or sanctified day. It was "holy to the Lord." Ex. 16: 23; 31: 15. "The holy of the Lord." Isa. 58: 13. "My [the Lord's] holy day." Id. The obligation to observe it has sacredness as its basis; the commandment guarded an original, sacred institution. The Sabbath, like its twin sister, marriage, though often and much abused, comes down to us from Eden's purity and glory.
It is based on the right of property. God always claimed the seventh day as his; and this claim he based on facts as old and unalterable as creation itself, as has been abundantly shown. But the obligation of the other sabbaths did not rest on any such original relation; and, coming yearly, they fell at different times on all the different days of the week which God gave to man for his own work. The days of the week on which any of them fell, (except when they fell on the seventh day,) were not holy by any reason of any blessing or sanctification ever put upon those particular days. The consecration, in their cases, attached to institutions which were temporary, and (as to the days of the week,) were movable. God never claimed the right in them that he did in the seventh day. He did not rest from his work on any of them. They could not be the Lord's sabbaths, or rest, as the seventh day was and is. In a word, the duty to keep the seventh day holy is based on the original right of property, specifically declared. And if the eighth commandment is moral because it guards the right of property, evidently the fourth is moral for the same reason. Certainly, every relation upon which the institution and obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath depends is as old as creation itself—as old as any of man's moral relations possibly can be.—J. H. W., Discussion with Vogel.
Dr. Edward Beecher on the Immortality of the Soul.
By Dudley Marvin Canright
APPLETON and Company of New York have just issued a book from the pen of Edward Beecher, D. D., under the title of "History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution." It is written in a candid manner and very many facts are brought out in it concerning the doctrine of immortality. He clearly shows that several of the most eminent Christian Fathers believed in the annihilation of the wicked. He has devoted considerable space to a critical examination of the Greek word (aionios), translated everlasting and forever, showing conclusively that it does not necessarily mean endless. But the particular point to which I wish to call attention is the fact that he squarely and frankly admits that the Bible does not teach the natural immortality of the soul; but on the other hand plainly denies it. The following is taken from pages 58, 59:--
"But before doing this it will be expedient to consider the real foundations of any reliable belief in immortality. Plato sought to find them in the inherent nature of the deathless soul, existing from eternity to eternity. Others have sought them in the aspirations of the soul, and the imperfect development of retribution in this life. But the fundamental positions of the system of the Bible are not of this kind. It does not recognize, nay, it expressly denies, the natural and inherent immortality of the soul. It assures us that God only hath immortality. 1 Tim. 6:16. By this we understand that he only has immortality in the highest sense—that is, inherent immortality. All existences besides himself he created, and he upholds. Men are not, as Plato taught, self-existent, eternal beings, immortal by their very nature. There is no such being except one, and that is God. There is no immortality of the soul in this sense. What God created he sustains in being, and can annihilate if he will. It is by his will that we live, and move, and have our being.
"The true and only sure basis of eternal existence is found in the fact that God is immortal, and chooses to have an eternal system, in which his rational creatures can know and love him and co-operate with him in his eternal plan. So long as God wills this he will render immortal those intelligent moral beings who are involved in his plan. His will, his power, and not their inherent nature, is the pledge of their immortality. How, then, under such a God can the highest assurance of immortality be given? Not by philosophical reasoning on the nature of the mind. God himself must give it. He must reveal himself as immortal; he must disclose an eternal plan; he must take his intelligent creatures into covenant relation with himself; he must reveal himself to them as their portion and their God; he must disclose to them the eternal plan in which they are to co-operate with him and give them the assurance that their action with him is to be eternal. Let this be done, and there will be the highest possible assurance of immortality. It rests upon the assurance of the immortality of God and the eternity of his kingdom, and that he is the God and the eternal portion of the soul."
We could not ourselves more clearly state our belief of the doctrine of the Bible upon the subject of immortality than it is stated in the above. We rejoice to find that scholars and prominent religious men are coming to the light on this important subject.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
Happy New Year.
By James White
The old year, 1878, with all its blessings and adversities, its good and ill, is entered upon the records of the past, and the new year, 1879, with its happy greetings, has come. Here, let us pause a moment, and reflect upon the blessings which our gracious God has bestowed during the past year.
1. The bounties of his providential hand have been liberally bestowed upon the people of our land. God has sent the rain upon the just and unjust, and the earth has brought forth plentifully. For these blessings let the children of God give thanks to their kind Benefactor. Those only who love and obey him can truly prize earthly good.
2. Spiritual blessings have been enjoyed during the old year just past. The Bible and religious freedom are among the choicest blessings of 1878. And Christ, God's dear Son, in infinite forbearance, long-suffering, and mercy, was pleading for sinners, during that long year, and was pardoning all those who would come to God repenting of their transgressions of his law, and believing in Christ whose blood alone can wash away their sins.
3. Success has crowned the labors of our people. During the last year prosperity has attended our institutions. The facilities for doing business at our publishing houses have been greatly enlarged and improved. And a more systematic order of accomplishing the great work has been introduced. In order to do this these times, it has been necessary to make some debts; but it is confidently expected that with the improvements made, and with the faithfulness of old friends, and the increase of patrons these can be removed during the new year which we hopefully and joyfully greet. Our College at Battle Creek, Mich., is, as usual, well patronized. And we are happy to know that each year its influence is extending. Before the old year had past, among its records are found five students from Oregon, three from Texas, five from Virginia, and several from other States which have not before been represented by pupils. And not less than fifty young men have been in the lecturing field during 1878, whose names are among those of the happy students of the few past years. The future success of the cause depends, so far as consecrated human agency is concerned, upon these noble youth who have left all for Christ and humanity, have taken the sword of the Spirit, which is the sword of God, to fight the battles of the Lord.
4. Our borders and members have increased the past year. Four Conferences have been added to the sisterhood of conferences: Oregon, Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania, making eighteen in all. And our missions to Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Alabama, Virginia, and other States and Territories of our own good country have been greatly blest. A good work has been done in both the Canadas the past year, while our foreign Missions have been extending their salutary influence from Switzerland to France, Germany, Italy, and even to Egypt; and from Denmark to Norway, Sweden and other countries in Northern Europe.
Very much of the success and extension of the cause the past year is attributable to the influence of our beloved paper, the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, which has made its weekly visits to California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and the Territories of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Dakota, Arizona, and Utah. To the Canadas, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, also to England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It has indeed been a power in the land. It has been blest of God as the only direct means of the conversion of hundreds of precious souls. And besides this, it has prepared the minds of thousands to come to Christ and to embrace the great truths pertaining to redemption, on hearing the present truth from the lips of the preacher.
For the sake of his truth and cause, God has let his blessings fall upon our people, our institutions, and our efforts, notwithstanding our want of consecration, as a people, to him and the great work he has called upon us to do. While he has increased our borders and members and has enlarged our facilities, we have not advanced in the graces of the Spirit, and have not manifested that spirit of sacrifice of time and means which his cause demands, as is indicated by his providence in the advancement of the work. And as we bid the old year, with its record of blessings on the part of our gracious God, and on our part, unfaithfulness, and want of consecration, a final adieu, let us right here make those vows, consistent with the word of God and our individual circumstances, which by the grace of God we can and will perform, and let their faithful fulfillment pass to the record of 1879.
Dear readers, would you have the year 1879 a happy one? Then go in pursuit of duty. The ones who selfishly search for happiness, never find it. They chase the shadow which ever advances before them. These never know in what true happiness consists. But those who search for duty, and pursue it, will find happiness as the result. And in the day of final reward, it will be said to them who shall have improved upon their talents of means and influence, \"Well done,\" \"Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.\"
This future joy of Christ will be realized when he shall see the purchase of his blood, the countless millions of the saved, seated by his side in the throne of the immortal kingdom. Then, in the language of the prophet of God, he will \"see the travail of his soul and be satisfied.\" This will be his joy. Divine satisfaction will sit upon his brow. Joy will fill the great heart of Christ in seeing the happy faces of the redeemed, the result of his sacrifices for the good of lost sinners. And all who suffer with him here, and sacrifice for the good of their fellows, as they see in the immortal saints the fruits of their labors and sacrifices, will enter into, or share in that joy of heaven, which here consists to a degree in laboring for the good of others.
Is there a miserably unhappy man in community? It is he who lives for his own happiness without regard for that of others.
Thousands shout, as they meet their friends, at the opening of 1879, \"Happy New Year,\" who are not able to take in the true meaning of the expression. Some speak these cheering words while in their hearts is the bitterness of death. Many will recklessly shout, \"a happy new year,\" while their steps take hold on hell as they enter the dram shop; and there reaches along before them three hundred and sixty-five days of drunkenness, resulting in wretchedness and woe. O, God, what a year! Happiness in it? Rather, a brief hell on the way to a drunkard's grave, the righteous judgment of God, and the just retribution upon the head of him who invited the devil to enslave him to brutish appetite, for all the wretchedness he has brought upon himself and family.
The majority of the masses who greet their friends with \"a happy new year,\" were strangers to real happiness during 1878. And not knowing the only Source of all true joys, nor the path that leads them to Him, who offers his joy for their wretchedness, they will probably pursue the phantom of earthly happiness in the indulgence of appetite, passion, and worldly mirth. In this course they will make for themselves a darker record in heaven for 1879 than exists for 1878.
But the Christian who fears God and keeps his commandments, and the faith of Jesus Christ, will measure the hight, depth, and breadth of the time-worn expression, \"a happy new year.\" In his very soul he knows that heaven begins here, that the rewards of well-doing are not all on the immortal side. He sees in his own experience and in that of his brethren, and feels the witness of the heavenly millennium in his heart in advance, while bright hope lights up his pathway to the reward and glory unspeakable. In the pursuit of duty, under a willing, cheerful sense of his obligation to God and to his fellows, it is not in the power of men and devils to make such a man otherwise than happy.
\"I am persuaded,\" says Paul, \"that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor hight, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\" Rom. 8:38, 39. All those who stand in faith with the apostle, will be happy. The progressive experience of the true Christian, to which we commend the obedient and believing for 1879, is in these words of Paul: \"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of God's dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.\" Col. 1:9-14. To all such the first number of the SIGNS for the new year shouts, as it flies to your truly happy firesides,
\"A HAPPY NEW YEAR!\"
It comes to you richly laden with the precious truth of God's word, set forth by sanctified pens, inviting you to increase its circulation. During this happy year the entire grounds of our faith and hope will be canvassed by our ablest and best writers. In order to prevent confusion, and repetition of the same ideas by different writers on the same subjects, each has his own field of thought, and will present his subject, fully discussing it from beginning to end. To our fellow-editors, writers, numerous correspondents, printers, mailers, and readers, we sincerely wish a happy new year.
In activity in a good cause there is true happiness. And as the good work of God abounds on every hand, corresponding happiness awaits the happy workers. Have you neighbors or friends in your community who should read this paper? then turn canvasser, search them out and see that they have the weekly visits of the SIGNS. And have you friends in other States? correspond with them, and see that they become subscribers. If they are poor, and you are able, make them a present of one volume of our pioneer paper. It is the easiest thing in the world to double the circulation of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES by each of our present patrons obtaining just one more subscriber. But there are hundreds of our readers who can obtain from two to twenty-five subscribers each. And yet our main dependence for the circulation of the SIGNS is on the tract and missionary workers. These alone should be good for ten thousand. If all enjoy the satisfaction of working in a good cause and doing their work faithfully and well, the year 1879 will truly be a happy year.
J. W.
The Signs of the Times.
By James White
THE title, or heading of this Journal, conveys the idea to the mind of the reader that it is designed to be largely devoted to expositions of those portions of the prophetic word the fulfilment of which constitute the signs of our times. It becomes our pleasant task to present this great subject in the several numbers for 1879. In this issue, however, we give a brief
INTRODUCTION.
The signs of the times, in the broadest sense of the phrase, signifies tokens of the presence, or the soon advent of some great crisis. In the more limited sense of the sacred Scriptures, evidences of the end near, or that the second coming of Christ is nigh at hand, even at the doors is meant.
We are living in an age of wonders. No sooner does the excitement of the public mind subside as one marvel passes into history, than something new and still more marvelous, is brought before the people. The record of new things in science, of startling events in the political and religious world, are entering into the daily history of our time. But in order for any new manifestation or remarkable event to constitute a sign of the end near, it must be a matter of prophecy.
Many become excited at some startling event which is not a matter of prophecy, and regard it as a sure token of the second advent near. In this they are mistaken. The prophetic word is the only means of information on this subject which we possess. God, who alone knows the end from the beginning, can only reveal such an event of the future. However startling may be the events which are transpiring, they are signs of the second advent near only as they stand connected with the fulfillment of the "sure word of prophecy."
"Can ye not discern the signs of the times?" Matt. 16:3. Our Lord asked the Pharisees and Sadducees the question contained in the text at a time when they came to him tempting him for a sign from heaven. It was a reproof to them for their unbelief in the signs mentioned by the Old-Testament writers, which they professed to believe, and which were actually fulfilling before their eyes, yet disregarded by them. They could tell the weather for the morrow, but had no skill in those prophecies that pointed to that time. We will here name some of the signs which the Jews had as evidence of Jesus' being the true Messiah.
3. Herod's slaying all the children in Bethlehem, from two years old and under, Matt. 2:16, 18, prophesied of in Jer. 31:15.
4. His forerunner, John. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isa. 40:3. All Judea and Jerusalem saw this sign when they went out to be baptized of John. Matt. 3:1–6.
5. The gospel preached. When Jesus stood up in the synagogue to read, he opened the book and read where it is written, Isa. 61:1, "The Spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings," &c. The eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened upon him. And he said unto them, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Luke 4:16–21.
6. His humility when on trial. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." Isa. 53:7.
7. The manner and circumstances of his death. "They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. . . . . They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." Ps. 22:13–18. This prophecy had an exact and literal accomplishment at the crucifixion of Christ, and the Jews saw it. Read Matt. 27:35.
8. The fulfillment of the seventy weeks of Dan. 9:24–27. The Jews understood this, or might have understood it. Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, "Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied [or taught the prophecies] that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." John 11:49–52. We might add to these signs the miracles of Christ, his resurrection, the pouring out of the Holy Ghost on the day of pentecost, and still others which were distinctly spoken of by the prophets.
But notwithstanding all this Scripture was fulfilling before the faces of the rulers of the Jews, and all these signs were actually accomplished in a little more than thirty years, and they themselves had to acknowledge that notable miracles had been done, yet they believed not. Well may it be said by this generation that the Jews deserved wrath, and God was just in destroying their nation and place. But how is it with the professed people of God at this day? Do they believe in that word which they blame the Jews for rejecting? The Jews were looking for a temporal kingdom, and overlooked the signs of Christ's first advent. The nominal church, as a body, is looking for a temporal millennium, and overlook the signs of his second advent, which are more numerous and forcible than those of his first advent. Then if the signs of Christ's second coming are doubted and rejected by the professed people of God of this generation, the sin of unbelief will rest upon them heavier than it did upon the Jews, in proportion as they reject greater light.
J. W.
The Duty of Speaking Kindly
By Tillotson
A GOOD word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only silence, which costs us nothing.—Tillotson.
Preparing the Heart for Christ
We often pray anxiously that Christ would come and take up his abode with us, whereas if we fit up an abiding place in our hearts suitable to the holiness of his nature, he will come and occupy it without much urging.