Earlier text: THE INCREASE OF CRIMETHE GREAT APOSTASY AND THE MAN OF SIN.
Dr. Clarke, in his Commentary on 2 Thess. 2, gives the following abridgment of Bishop Newton on this most important prophecy:— Verses 3, 4. For that day shall not come, except, &c. “The day of Christ shall not come except there come the apostasy first.” The apostasy here described is plainly not of a civil but of a religious nature, not a revolt from the government, but a defection from the true religion and worship. In the original, it is the apostasy, with an article to give it an emphasis; the article being added signifies “that famous and before-mentioned prophecy.” So likewise is the man of sin with the like article, and the like emphasis. The man of sin may signify either a single man or a succession of men; a succession of men being meant in Daniel, it is probable that the same was intended here also. It is the more probable because a single man appears hardly sufficient for the work here assigned; and it is agreeable to the phraseology of Scripture, and especially to that of the prophets, to speak of a body or number of men under the character of one. Thus a king, Dan. 7:8; Rev. 17, is used for a succession of kings. The man of sin being to be expressed from Dan. 7:24, according to the Greek translation, He shall exceed in evil all that went before him; and he may fulfill the character either by promoting wickedness in general or by advancing idolatry in particular; as the word sin signifies frequently in Scripture. The son of perdition is also the denomination of the traitor Judas, John 17:12, which implies that the man of sin should be, like Judas, a false apostle; like him, betray Christ, and, like him, be devoted to destruction. Who opposeth, &c., is manifestly copied from Daniel. He shall exalt himself, &c. The features exactly resemble each other: He opposeth and exalteth himself above all; or, according to the Greek, above every one that is called God, or that is worshiped. The Greek word for worshiped is σεβασμα, alluding to the Greek title of the Roman emperors, σεβαστος, which signifies august or venerable. He shall oppose; for the prophets speak of things future as present; he shall oppose and exalt himself, not only above inferior magistrates (who are sometimes called gods in Holy Writ), but even above the greatest emperors; and shall arrogate to himself divine honors. So that he, as God, sitteth in the temple, &c. By the temple of God, the apostle could not well mean the temple of Jerusalem; because that, he knew, would be destroyed within a few years. After the death of Christ the temple of Jerusalem is never called by the apostles the temple of God; and if at any time they make mention of the house or temple of God, they mean the church in general, or every particular believer. Whoever will consult 1 Cor. 3:16, 17; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15; and Rev. 3:12, will want no examples to prove that, under the gospel dispensation, the temple of God is the church of Christ; and the man of sin sitting implies his ruling and presiding there; and sitting there as God implies his claiming divine authority in things spiritual as well as temporal; and showing himself that he is God, implies his doing it with ostentation. Verses 5, 6, 7. Remember ye not, &c.—The apostle thought it a part of his duty, as he made it a part of his preaching and doctrine, to forewarn his new converts of the grand apostasy that would infect the church, even while he was at Thessalonica. From these verses it appears that the man of sin was not then revealed; his time was not yet come, or the season of his manifestation. The mystery of iniquity was indeed already working; the seeds of corruption were sown, but they were not grown up to maturity; the man of sin was yet hardly conceived in the womb; it must be sometime before he could be brought forth; there was some obstacle that hindered his appearing. What this was we cannot determine with absolute certainty at so great a distance of time; but if we may rely upon the concurrent testimony of the fathers, it was the Roman Empire. Most probably it was somewhat relating to the higher powers, because the apostle observes such caution; he mentioned it in discourse, but would not commit it to writing. Verse 8. Then shall that Wicked be revealed.—When the obstacle, mentioned in the preceding verse should be removed, then shall that wicked, &c. Nothing can be plainer than that the lawless, (ὁ ἄνομος,) as the Greek signifies, the wicked one, here mentioned, and the man of sin, must be one and the same person. The apostle was speaking before of what hindered that he should be revealed, and would continue to hinder it, till it was taken away, and then the wicked one, &c. Not that he should be consumed immediately after he was revealed. But the apostle, to comfort the Thessalonians, no sooner mentions his revelation than he foretells also his destruction, even before he describes his other qualifications. His other qualifications should have been described first, in order of time; but the apostle hastens to what was first and warmest in his thoughts and wishes: Whom the Lord shall consume, &c. If these two clauses refer to two distinct and different events, the meaning manifestly is that the Lord Jesus shall gradually consume him with the free preaching and publication of his word; and shall utterly destroy him at his second coming, in the glory of his Father, with all the holy angels. If these two clauses relate to one and the same event, it is a pleonasm very usual in the sacred, as well as other oriental writings; and the purport plainly is that the Lord Jesus shall destroy him with the greatest facility, when he shall be revealed from Heaven, as the apostle has expressed it in the preceding chapter. Verses 9–12. Whose [Christ’s] coming is after, &c.—The apostle was eager to foretell the destruction of the man of sin; and for this purpose having broken in upon his subject, he now returns to it again, and describes the other qualifications by which this wicked one should advance and establish himself in the world. He should rise to credit and authority by the most diabolical methods; should pretend to supernatural powers; and boast of revelations, visions, and miracles, false in themselves, and applied to promote false doctrines. Verse 9. He should likewise practise all other wicked acts of deceit; should be guilty of the most impious frauds and impositions upon mankind; but should prevail only among those who are destitute of a sincere affection for the truth; whereby they might attain eternal salvation. Verse 10. And indeed it is a just and righteous judgment of God, to give them over to vanities and lies in this world, and to condemnation in the next, who have no regard to truth and virtue, but delight in falsehood and wickedness. Verses 11, 12. Upon this survey there appears little room to doubt of the genuine sense and meaning of the passage. The Thessalonians, as we have seen from some expressions in the former epistle, were alarmed as if the end of the world was at hand. The apostle, to correct their mistake and dissipate their fears, assures them that a great apostasy, or defection of the Christians from the true faith and worship, must happen before the coming of Christ. This apostasy all the concurrent marks and characters will justify us in charging upon the Church of Rome. The true Christian worship is the worship of the one only God, through the one only mediator, the man Christ Jesus; and from this worship the Church of Rome has most notoriously departed by substituting other mediators, and invoking and adoring saints and angels; nothing is apostasy, if idolatry be not. And are not the members of the Church of Rome guilty of idolatry in the worship of images, in the adoration of the host, in the invocation of angels and saints, and in the oblation of prayers and praises to the Virgin Mary, as much or more than to God blessed forever? This is the grand corruption of the Christian church; this is the apostasy, as it is emphatically called, and deserves to be called; which was not only predicted by St. Paul, but by the prophet Daniel likewise. If the apostasy be rightly charged upon the Church of Rome, it follows of consequence that the man of sin is the pope; not meaning any pope in particular, but the pope in general, as the chief head and supporter of this apostasy. He is properly the man of sin, not only on account of the scandalous lives of many popes, but by reason of their most scandalous doctrines and principles; dispensing with the most necessary duties, and granting, or rather selling, pardons and indulgences to the most abominable crimes. Or, if by sin be meant idolatry in particular, as in the Old Testament, it is evident how he has perverted the worship of God to superstition and idolatry of the grossest kind. He also, like the false apostle Judas, is the son of perdition; whether actively, as being the cause of destruction to others; or passively, as being devoted to destruction himself. He opposeth—he is the great adversary of God and man; persecuting and destroying, by crusades, inquisitions, and massacres, those Christians who prefer the word of God to the authority of men. The heathen emperor of Rome may have slain his thousands of innocent Christians; but the Christian bishop of Rome has slain his ten thousands. He exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped—not only above inferior magistrates, but likewise above bishops and primates; not only above bishops and primates, but likewise above kings and emperors; deposing some, obliging them to kiss his toe, to hold his stirrup, treading even upon the neck of a king, and kicking off the imperial crown with his foot; nay, not only above kings and emperors, but likewise above Christ and God himself; making even the word of God of none effect by his traditions—forbidding what God has commanded; as marriage, the use of the Scriptures, &c.; and also commanding or allowing what God has forbidden, as idolatry, persecution, &c. So that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, &c. He is therefore in profession a Christian and a Christian bishop. His sitting in the temple of God implies plainly his having a seat or cathedra in the Christian church; and he sitteth there as God, especially at his inauguration, when he sits upon the high altar in St. Peter’s church, and makes the table of the Lord his footstool, and in that position receives adoration. At all times he exerciseth divine authority in the church, showing himself that he is God—affecting divine titles, and asserting that his decrees are of the same or greater authority than the word of God. So that the pope is evidently, according to the titles given him in the public decretals, the God upon earth; at least there is no one, like him, who exalteth himself above every god; no one, like him, who sitteth as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. The foundations of popery were laid in the apostles’ days, but of which the superstructure was raised by degrees; and several ages passed before the building was completed, and the man of sin revealed in full perfection. The tradition that generally prevailed was that that which hindered was the Roman Empire; this tradition might have been derived even from the apostle himself; and therefore the primitive Christians in the public offices of the church, prayed for its peace and welfare, as knowing that, when the Roman Empire should be dissolved and broken in pieces, the empire of the man of sin would be raised upon its ruins. In the same proportion as the power of the empire decreased, the authority of the church increased, and the latter at the expense and ruin of the former; till at length the pope grew up above all, and the wicked, or lawless, one was fully manifested and revealed. His coming is after the energy of Satan, &c.; and does it require any particular proof that the pretensions of the pope, and the corruption of the Church of Rome, are all supported and authorized by feigned visions and miracles, by pious frauds and impositions of every kind? But how much soever the man of sin may be exalted, and how long soever he may reign, yet at last the Lord shall consume him, &c. This is partly taken from Isa. 11:4. And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked one; where the Jews put an emphasis upon the words the wicked one; as appears from the Chaldee, which renders it, “He shall destroy the wicked Roman.” If the two clauses, as said in the note on verse 8, relate to two different events, the meaning is “that the Lord Jesus shall gradually consume him with the free preaching of the gospel; and shall utterly destroy him at his second coming in the glory of the Father.” The former began to take effect at the Reformation; and the latter will be accomplished in God’s appointed time. The man of sin is now upon the decline, and he will be totally abolished when Christ shall come in judgment. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom, give much the same interpretation that has here been given of the whole passage. And it must be owned that this is the genuine meaning of the apostle; that this only is consistent with the context; that every other interpretation is forced and unnatural; that this is liable to no material objection; that it coincides perfectly with Daniel; that it is agreeable to the tradition of the primitive church; and that it has been exactly fulfilled in all its particulars; which cannot be said of any other interpretation whatever. Such a prophecy as this is an illustrious proof of divine revelation, and an excellent antidote to the poison of popery. THE DRAGON VOICE.
By Wm. Pepper
The student of prophecy cannot fail to discern in the signs of the times that the time is not far distant when the image to the beast will be set up. As straws show the direction of the wind, so does the following, which I find in the Carlenville Democrat, show the tendency of the times in regard to the Sunday question:— “The religious question has come up in a new form in Boston. A little girl attendant upon one of the schools in that city, which are kept open on Saturday until noon, was arraigned before the Police Court recently under the compulsory education act for habitually absenting herself from school on that day. Upon the trial, it appeared that the girl was of Jewish parentage, and her father appearing in her defense stated that she was kept at home to attend divine service. The police justice was unable, however, to find any exemption on that account in the law, and sentenced the girl to three months in the Reformatory. It is not likely that the girl’s parents will submit without testing the question.” Yes the question will be tested, and the faith of those who profess to be God’s commandment-keepers will be tested. Who will endure to the end? Whose faith will prove sufficient for the trying, testing scenes which are before us? Let us have faith and courage in the Lord; for if God be for us, who can be against us? If we are only faithful in the profession to which we have been called, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” THE sympathy of Christ was not merely love of men in masses. He loved the masses, but he loved them because made up of individuals. He “had compassion on the multitude, but he had also discriminating, special tenderness for erring Peter and erring Thomas. He felt for Zaccheus in the sycamore tree. He compassioned the discomfort of his disciples. He mixed his tears with the stifled sobs by the grave of Lazarus. He called the abashed children to his side. Among the numbers as he walked he detected the individual touch of faith. “How long does it take to be converted?” said a young man to his father. “How long,” asked his father, “does it take the judge to discharge the prisoner when the jury have brought him in ‘not guilty?’” “Only a minute.” “When a sinner is convinced that he is a sinner, and sorry for it; when he desires forgiveness and deliverance from sin, and believes that Christ is able and willing to save him, he can be converted as speedily as the prisoner can be discharged by the judge. It does not take God a long time to discharge a penitent soul from the condemnation and power of sin.” The Agony of Being Deceived by Those We Love
By Bulwer Lytton
Of all the agonies in life, that which is most poignant and harrowing, that which for the time annihilates reason, and leaves our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart, is the conviction that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love.—Bulwer Lytton. Eleventh Paper.—Messianic Dates.
We have now found the event, and the date, from which the seventy weeks of Dan. 9, are to be reckoned; namely, the decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus to Ezra, which he issued in the 7th year of his reign, B. C. 457. We have applied the first measuring line given in the prophecy, namely the 49 years which were to cover the building of the street and wall, even in troublous times, and found it to fall exactly upon the events specified. The work was finished in the 15th year of Darius Nothus B. C. 408; and there the 49 years terminated, reckoned from B. C. 457. Three other events remain by which to test the application of this prophecy: 1. Sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years were to extend to the Messiah the Prince. 2. Sixty-nine and one-half weeks, or 486½ years were to extend to the cutting off of the Messiah; and 3. The seventy weeks, 490 years, were to extend to that point when the Jews should no longer be the peculiar people of God. If, reckoning from B. C. 457, we find the measurements to reach the events specified, the correctness of the application will be assured beyond the least shadow of uncertainty. The word Messiah means “the anointed;” and the expression “to the Messiah the Prince,” must point to the time when Christ was manifested to the world as the anointed of God. This was not at his birth, as some have imagined, but at his baptism, as is proved by Acts 10:38; 4:27; Luke 4:18, &c. We have therefore to inquire (1) at what point, according to the foregoing dates the baptism of Christ should have occurred; (2) at what point it did occur: (3) to ascertain the length of Christ’s ministry; (4) the date of the crucifixion; and (5) the time when the blessings of the gospel ceased to be especially offered to the Jews. 1. From some point in the year B. C. 457, the period of sixty-nine weeks or 483 years to the Messiah the Prince, would carry us to a corresponding point in the year A. D. 27. This is the answer to the first point of inquiry; and if the first date is correct, here we should find the baptism of the Saviour. 2. When Christ entered upon his mission, immediately after his baptism, he came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled.” Mark 1:14, 15. This must mark the fulfillment of some definite period, or it would not be asserted that “the time is fulfilled.” The time here fulfilled can be none other than that given in Dan. 9:25: “Unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks,” 483 years. We are therefore correct in saying that this is the period that reaches to his baptism. Can we now ascertain in what year his baptism occurred? Christ was six months younger than John the Baptist, and is generally considered to have entered upon his ministry six months later; both of them commencing their work, according to the law of the priesthood, when they were thirty years of age. Of Christ, Luke says expressly that at the time of his baptism he began to be about thirty years of age. Luke 3:23. Now John entered upon his ministry as Luke informs us (3:1) in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar. Tiberius was the successor of Augustus who reigned to A. D. 14. The date of Augustus’ death is indisputably fixed by means of the great lunar eclipse soon after, Sept. 27, which served to quell the mutiny of the Pannonian legions, and to induce them to swear fidelity to Tiberius, as recorded by Tacitus, Anal. 1:28, and Dio. lib. 57, p. 604. But the reign of Tiberius is to be reckoned, according to Prideaux, Dr. Hales, Lardner, and others, from his elevation to the throne to reign jointly with Augustus his step-father, in August A. D. 12, two years before the death of the latter. The fifteenth year of Tiberius would therefore be from August A. D. 26 to August A. D. 27. If John commenced in the spring in the latter portion of the 15th year of Tiberius, it would bring the commencement of Christ’s ministry in the autumn of A. D. 27, the very point where the 483 years of Dan. 9, expire. 3. The length of Christ’s ministry. This may be quite accurately determined by enumerating the passovers which he attended. There were but four of these as recorded in John 2:13; 5:1; 6:4; and 13:1. At the last of these he was crucified. This would make the duration of his ministry three years and a half. Thus, if he commenced in the autumn of A. D. 27, he would preach six months before his first passover in the spring of 28. His second passover would be in the spring of 29, his third in the spring of 30, and his fourth in the spring of 31, when he was crucified. This would correspond exactly to the prophecy; for he was to confirm the covenant with many for one week, seven years, and in the midst, or middle of the week, he was to be cut off, and cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease. This he did when he expired upon the cross, three and one half years from the commencement of his ministry; and during the remainder of the week he confirmed the covenant through his apostles. Heb. 2:3. Dr. Hales, vol. 1, p. 94, quotes Eusebius, A. D. 300, as saying: “It is recorded in history, that the whole time of our Saviour’s teaching and working miracles was three years and a half, which is the half of a week [of years]. This John the evangelist will represent to those who critically attend to his gospel.” 4. The date which this gives us for the crucifixion, A. D. 31, is confirmed by abundance of testimony. The crucifixion was attended by a preternatural darkening of the sun, for the space of three hours. Matt. 27:45. “A total eclipse of the moon may occasion a privation of her light for an hour and half, during her total immersion in the shadow; whereas a total eclipse of the sun can never last in any particular place above four minutes, when the moon is nearest to the earth and her shadow thickest.”—Hales, Vol. i. p. 69. This darkness was observed at Heliopolis in Egypt, by Dionysius the Areopagite, afterward the illustrious convert of Paul at Athens, Acts 17:34, who in a letter to the martyr Polycarp describes his own astonishment at the phenomenon, and that of his companion, the sophist Apollophanes. “These, O good Dionysius,” exclaimed Apollophanes, “are the vicissitudes of divine events.” To which Dionysius answered, “Either the Deity suffers or he sympathizes with the sufferer.” And that sufferer, according to tradition, recorded by Michael Syncellus of Jerusalem, he declared to be, “The unknown God, for whose sufferings all nature was darkened and convulsed.” Id. Vol. iii. p. 230. “Hence it appears that the darkness which ‘overspread the whole land of Judea’ at the time of our Lord’s crucifixion was preternatural, ‘from the sixth until the ninth hour,’ or from noon till three in the afternoon, in its duration, as also in its time, about full moon, when the moon could not possibly eclipse the sun. The time it happened, and the fact itself, are recorded in a curious and valuable passage of a Roman Consul, Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator, about A. D. 514: ‘In the consulate of Tiberius Cæsar Aug. v. and Ælius Sejanus (U. C. 784, A. D. 31), our Lord Jesus Christ suffered, on the 8th of the Calends of April (25th of March): when there happened such an eclipse of the sun as was never before nor since.’ In this year, and in this day agree also the Council of Cæsarea, A. D. 196 or 198; the Alexandrian Chronicle, Maximus Monachus, Nicephorus Constantinus, Cedrenus; and in this year, but on different days, concur Eusebius, Epiphanius followed by Kepler, Bucher, Patinus and Petavius, some reckoning it the 10th of the Calends of April, others the 13th.”—Id. Vol. i. pp. 69, 70. The common Bible chronology placing the crucifixion in A. D. 33, was, according to Dr. Hales, assumed on no earlier authority than that of Roger Bacon, in the 13th century, who, finding by computation that the paschal full moon fell on Friday in the year 33, was led by that circumstance to suppose that that must have been the year of the crucifixion. But this very circumstance Dr. H. claims as proof that that was not the year; for the true paschal full moon should come not on the day of the crucifixion, but the day before when Christ ate the passover with his disciples. Id. p. 100. We have thus thirteen creditable authorities locating the crucifixion in the spring of A. D. 31. And all the evidence on this point tends also to establish the date of Christ’s baptism in the autumn of A. D. 27; for according to the prophecy the Messiah was to be cut off after three years and a half from the time of his manifestation; and, according to the evangelists, his ministry continued just that length of time, three years and a half. If, therefore, he was crucified in the spring of A. D. 31, he was baptized and commenced to preach three and a half years before, in the autumn of A. D. 27. And right at that point the sixty-nine weeks ended, reckoned from B. C. 457, and in A. D. 31 we reached the middle of the last or seventieth week, where the Messiah was to be cut off, and cause the sacrifice and oblation (the Jewish sacrifices and offerings) to cease by the offering of himself as the great antitype of them all, upon the cross. So far we find the most striking and indisputable harmony. We now go forward three and a half years to the terminal point of this grand prophetic period of seventy weeks, and inquire what then occurred. On this point we quote again from the learned Dr. Hales:— “Eusebius dates the first half of the passion week of years as beginning with our Lord’s baptism, and ending with his crucifixion. The same period precisely is recorded by Peter, as including the duration of our Lord’s personal ministry: ‘All the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of [or by] John, until the day that he was taken up from us,’ at his ascension, which was only 43 days after the crucifixion. Acts 1:21, 22. And the remaining half of the passion week ended with the martyrdom of Stephen, in the seventh or last year of the week. For it is remarkable that the year after, A. D. 35, began a new era in the church, namely, the conversion of Saul, or Paul, the apostle, by the personal appearance of Christ to him on the road to Damascus, when he received his mission to the Gentiles, after the Jewish Sanhedrin had formally rejected Christ by persecuting his disciples. Acts 9:1–18.” Vol. 1. p. 100. Thus at precisely the right point we find events which fitly mark the termination of that period which was allotted to Jerusalem and the Jews: Stephen is martyred, Paul is raised up an apostle to the Gentiles, the Jews formally reject Christ and the gospel in the persons of the first disciples, and the apostles turn from the Jews to other nations. Surely a fulfillment of prophecy so plain cannot be questioned. And with these facts all established by the clearest evidence, and the dates of the prophecy all thus harmonized, we have in our hands the key which will draw every bolt, and give us free entrance into all departments of the larger prophecy and longer period of the 2300 days. TO CORRESPONDENTS.
By Uriah Smith
What is the meaning of John 11:26: “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die”? J. KOONS. Ans. Christ is speaking of the time of the resurrection, and what will take place then, “He that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Verse 25. When? At the resurrection. “And whosoever liveth [at the time of the resurrection] and believeth in me, shall never die.” That is, those who are alive and believe in Christ when the resurrection takes place, shall not die, but be translated into the kingdom of God. A. J. BREED: See explanation of 1 Pet. 3:19 in the work “Man’s Nature and Destiny,” published at this Office. 1 Pet. 4:6, asserts simply that the gospel was preached (past tense) to them then that are [now] dead. It was preached to them while they were living. J. C. T.: We think Amos 8:11, 12, refers to a famine for the word of the Lord, yet to come. There was no such search for it in the Dark Ages. To your second query, “Why was the Saviour called the Son of man?” we reply, Because of his having taken upon himself our nature. He “was made flesh.” The objection you refer to, raised by a D. D. against the resurrection of the body, because the particles may become component parts of other bodies, reminds us of a joke once played upon a scientific Society in England. They were called upon to explain why a basin of water containing a live fish weighed no more than the same basin of water without the fish. They went into profound dissertations to prove that the fish, having power to suspend himself in the water, would not add to the weight of it, &c. &c. But their wisdom was put to an ignominious discomfiture, by a fellow of a practical turn who thought he would test the matter by weighing the water, to see if it was true that it would weigh no more with the fish than without. He did so, and found that the proposition they were trying to prove was wholly false; the water with the fish weighed more than the water without, just as much more as the fish weighed! Just so with this objection against the resurrection. It is without foundation. It is a physical impossibility for two bodies to become so mixed up that the same matter would be essential to them both, unless we can suppose that God would work a miracle to defeat his own purposes. Let a man be eaten by cannibals; (and they would not consume more than one-half of him by weight); let those cannibals be struck down in death within twenty-four hours, a month or a year; and we challenge any man to show that even then (and this is the extremest case possible) all the essential particles of the eaten man might not be restored to him without affecting the identity of those cannibals, and that, too, by a power no greater than that which is pledged to bring up the dead from the dust of the earth. This objection is neither scientific nor philosophical. We brand it as a skeptical cavil, D. D.’s to the contrary notwithstanding. Any doctor of divinity who will use it needs himself to be doctored. See chapter on the resurrection in “Man’s Nature and Destiny.” B. F. TERRY: For an explanation of the expression, “Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,” see “Nature and Destiny of Man,” published at this Office. “Is there any assurance in the Bible that there never will be any more war in Heaven? If so, where? An infidel asks this question.” R. C. KING. Ans. There is the strongest assurance in the declaration that there shall be no more death. Every incorrigible rebel against God and his government, past or future, must die. The wages of sin is death. And when the present rebellion, which began with Satan’s fall in Heaven, is closed up by the destruction of all who are in opposition to God, “root and branch,” the devil and all sinners, Mal. 4:1, then there shall be no more death. This scene of rebellion, and consequent and well merited destruction, will never be repeated. “What kind of a law does Ps. 19:7, refer to?” T. PRITCHARD. Ans. The moral law, the ten commandments. The word is from the Hebrew tohrah, which occurs in the Old Testament 217 times, and is translated law in every instance. Why the translators have put in the margin, “doctrine” is unaccountable. ANSWERED BY LETTER. E. R. Jones, H. Edson, Richard Asbury, J. E. Hoemes, W. C. Irish. U. S. WHY IS IT?
By R. F. Cottrell
Why is it that late in the nineteenth century the Christian world are unsettled on the subject of the Sabbath of the moral law? Why is it that, while so many are agreed in observing the first day of the week instead of the seventh, so many and conflicting reasons are given for so doing? Why is it that, with the Bible in hand, and with all the accumulated and increasing light of centuries of investigation, the subject is so far from being settled that the number is increasing of those who doubt the divine authority for the change of the day, and many intelligent students of the Bible and history are convinced of their obligation to return to the85 original day, though it has so long been degraded as merely a Jewish rite, while the first day has been honored as the Christian Sabbath? Why is it that, in a land of Bibles, convictions of the want of the divine sanction in favor of this time-honored change, should force themselves upon so many inquiring minds, and the agitation on the subject increase, rather than diminish? With the mighty array of learning and talent in favor of the first-day Sabbath, combined with all the force of tradition and custom, what can be the reason for so much distrust and dissatisfaction, but the want of Bible testimony in its support? Is it not most probable that this is the thing, and the only thing, that is wanting to settle the question and put the public mind at rest? If the keeping of the seventh day as the Sabbath is really Judaism, and therefore a virtual denial of Christ and the gospel, as it is frequently claimed, why is it that other rites of the same class, such as circumcision and bloody sacrifices, are not also being revived in the Christian world? All the types, or shadows, of the former dispensation have an equal claim to observance in this; if one has any claim to be perpetuated, so have all the others; and consequently no argument can be adduced in favor of one which is not equally good for all the rest. Then why is it that Christians in this enlightened age of the world should be convicted of their duty to keep the ancient Sabbath, and, contrary to their own convenience, worldly interests, and the popular custom of the times, be conscientiously compelled to turn and keep it, while they have not the slightest conviction of duty to “be circumcised and keep the law of Moses”? Is it not probable that the proofs on which the claims of the Sabbath rest are very different from any that could be adduced in favor of circumcision and sacrifices? And are not these things presumptive proof that the original Sabbath is still binding? The whole Christian world are settled in the faith that the ordinances of the Jewish church have been utterly abolished; but there has never been a time since Christ was on the earth in which there were no Christians who kept the Sabbath on the seventh day, according to the commandment. Such considerations go to show that the arguments on which the Sabbath rests, and those which might be brought to sustain Jewish rites, are of an entirely different nature; and is not this strong presumptive proof that, while Jewish rites have been utterly abolished, the Sabbath remains precisely as it was? The present agitation of the Sabbath question, and the turning to the original day all over the Christian world, could not exist, could make no headway against the popular wind and tide, were it not a real reformation, having the truth of God for its foundation. The reason why this work is advancing, in spite of gray tradition, is because it has truth for its foundation, God for its author, and the Holy Spirit for its motive power. The Restitution tries to parry the force of our friendly criticism on its Ten Virgin's article, published in the REVIEW of Jan. 20. This is not strange; but it is of no use. We spoke of going “into the marriage,” and the Restitution wants to know what kind of a Bible we use. Now there isn't the least point to this, because we were not pretending to quote Scripture, as the Restitution was when it said, “They that were ready went into the marriage supper.” Besides, going into the marriage is a very different thing from going “into the supper.” The Restitution is evidently envious at the union and harmony existing among S. D. Adventists, and tries, in its issue of March 8, to prove that it don't exist by the following startling fact: The author of one of our pamphlets years ago took the position that the law in Galatians refers to the moral law. A recent writer in the REVIEW, refers it to the ceremonial law. Now where's the union and harmony among S. D. Adventists? Oh! where! But what about these writers? Do they both believe there is a distinction in laws? Yes. That the ten commandments constitute the moral law? Yes. That the law of Jewish sacrifices and offerings was the ceremonial law? Yes. That the moral law in all its parts is now binding? Yes. That the ceremonial law has been abolished? Yes. Then what? Why, in regard to the application of a particular text or texts, they do not come to the same conclusion, one thinking they may more properly refer to the moral, the other to the ceremonial, law. Does this affect their position on the two laws a particle? Not a particle. Or their practice? No, not in the least. Wonderful disunion this, isn't it? Wonderful! The Restitution is very welcome to all the consolation it can derive from it. U. S.