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THE COMING OF THE LORD.

that its substitute is not easily found in this our day and generation. Was there no adult circumcision?

William. Yes, Abraham was an adult, and all that were proselyted to the Jew's institution were, like him, circumcised.

Olympas. How was it a seal to Abraham rather than to any one else? Thomas. Paul says it was a seal of a righteousness of faith which he had before the command was given; consequently it never could be to any one what it was to Abraham. The fact that God selected Abraham on account of his faith, was an approval and pledge-a sign and seal as peculiar to him as was the singularity of his position in the human family.

Olympas. We will have to take up this subject again.

A. C.

THE COMING OF THE LORD.-No. VII.

IN farther illustration of the caution with which highly graphic imagery is, in general, to be interpreted, and especially symbols concerning the destinies of the ancient elect race of Abraham, I invite the consideration of our readers to a short and pithy oration of Presi dent James in the court that tried the primitive Judaizers:-Acts xv. "Simeon (Peter) has declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name; and to this agree the words of the Prophets: as it is written, After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David that is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world."

The Prophet here quoted is Amos, who flourished before the first captivity, or the removal of the ten tribes, about 787 years before Christ. The passage above quoted immediately follows a prediction of the captivity and dispersion of Israel. "Mine eyes," says Jehovah, "are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; and I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob; for lo! I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up its ruins, and build it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, (even the Gentiles,) upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord." And imme

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diately after continues the Prophet, "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt; and I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof: they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them, and I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." So reads the remarkable prophecy out of which James, the inspired Apostle, in the midst of all the lights of the world assembled in Jerusalem, finds conclusive testimony that the calling of the Gentiles was foreseen and foretold to occur, when the tabernacle of David should be repaired and the ruins thereof raised; and that this sbould be followed by a restoration of Israel to their own land in the midst of great national prosperity.

Here, then, we have in the midst of the boldest imagery, a prediction in which, who, but for James, would have thought to find the first fruits of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles under the government of the son of David? "The falling of the tabernacle of David" was a bold image of the captivity, or temporary removal of the family and throne of David, which indeed continued in a ruined and dilapidated condition till the ascension of his son into heaven; and in no literal sense has that tabernacle yet been raised or its ruins repaired. It is spiritually re-edified by raising from the dead David's root and offspring, the Messiah, and by making him spiritual Lord of heaven and earth. David's throne is not now on earth, but in heaven: for James affirms that the fallen tabernacle has been raised and its ruins repaired; and therefore Edom, Israel's ancient enemy, type of the Gentiles, has been called, and the name of the Lord imposed on baptized myriads of the New Testament Edomites-the Gentiles.

Certainly James understood the prediction, and rightly interpreted and applied it; and equally certain it is, that in his hands it means no Jat more than a spiritual resurrection of David's tabernacle-a spiritual 12 erection of his throne in the heavens a conversion of spiritual Edom, and the union of persons of all nations, upon whom is put the name of the Lord, in one nation under the sacerdotal King Messiah, David's Son and David's Lord. Such a key from such an infallible hand is worth a million of guesses, and shows that the restoration of Israel has much more in it than a literal return to the patrimonial soil of their renowned ancestors.

The prophecy of Amos is so far fulfilled, James being witness; and

the phrase, "In that day," so often grossly misconstrued, is shown among the Prophets to indicate the gospel age, or a period far future to the times of these ancient seers; and hence that time having come, and Jew and Gentile united under Jesus, we may say with James, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of time;" and now the kingdom has come, the tabernacle of David has been raised, the ruins repaired, and a new order of things spiritual commenced, which is destined soon to pervade all the earth. We may have occa sion to recur to this passage again: meantime we shall glance at another spiritual resurrection.

“And when the two witnesses shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit [the unfathomable ocean] shall make war against them, and shall overcome and kill them; and their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which is [mystically] spiritually called Sodom and Egypt; also, the city where our Lord was crucified, [Jerusalem;] and they of the people, and kindreds, and tongues, shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And after three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon their enemies who beheld them: and they heard a great voice from heaven saying to them, Come up hither; and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them."

This passage, independent of its intrinsic light and value, is of much relative importance in furnishing authority: for here we have a mysti cal killing, dead bodies, graves, reanimation, resurrection, ascension. And in the midst of the lock we have a key-a mystical Sodom, Egypt, and Jerusalem.* This, no doubt, was intended to expound the imagery of this picturesque scene. The witnesses were neither literally killed nor reanimated; they were neither literally lying in the streets unburied, nor raised from the dead; they had not descended into the earth, nor ascended into heaven. Still spiritually all this was true. They were as good as dead, and their corpses were publicly insulted; yet they were again quickened and exalted to honor. They have been ascending for more than forty years, yet have not reached their proper heaven. There is in the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse no bolder imagery than in the 11th. The binding of Satan, his being cast down to the unfathomable abyss, the first resurrection, the rest of

* Mystical and spiritual are used by us interchangeably. The mystical or spiritual differs from the literal by transcending it. The literal meaning of serpent is a venomous reptile; but mystically it denotes the devil. Babylon literally indicated the capital of Chaldea; mystically it represents Papal Rome or the present apostacy The mystical meaning is always obscure, and requires a knowledge of natural emblems or symbols duly to appreciate it.

the dead, Gog and Magog, are not more figurative than the passage now before us. Indeed there is a great similarity. We have a death, revival, ascension, a Sodom, Egypt, and Jerusalem in the first, and in the second a burial, resurrection, and reign with Christ, a spiritual Gog and Magog, with times and circumstances specified of striking analogy. There is, moreover, one point of much value in this passage, as explanatory of the most perplexing item to all literalists in reference to the two resurrections. The two witnesses, say they, are not two persons; for no two persons could prophecy 1260 years. The revival of the witnesses is not, therefore, of necessity the revival of the same persons, but of the same class of characters. So the first resurrection, or the revival of the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, is not the return to earth, nor the proper resurrection of those who had lived on earth before; but a return, or a recovery of such characters, a race of kindred souls, valiant for the same truth, and of the same danger and terror-defying spirit. This is farther evident from another point which seems to have escaped the optics of these interpreters. The literalists generally, if not universally, make only a portion of the just participants of the first resurrection-such as were martyrs or sufferers for the cause of Christ. They are, indeed, obliged by their own principles so to limit the honors of this resurrection to such; for "I saw," says John, "the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God," &c. "and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Now all the other pious dead continued in their graves, according to this view of the matter, during the thousand years. And what then come of them? They must be lost forever: for such are not participants of the second resurrection!! The rest of the dead" cannot possibly include them: because it is written, "Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death shall have no power," &c. Now is it not fairly implied that the second death shall have power upon "the rest of the dead" not participants of this resurrection: otherwise where would be the bliss of the first resurrection with regard to the second death? Is it not, then, undeniably evident that if "the rest of the dead" included the pious, not martyrs nor confessors, not participants of the first resurrection, they shall become subjects of the scond death?

"The rest of the dead" we conclude are all wicked, and the second death shall triumph over them. The theorists of the literal school lose all the righteous except martyrs and confessors; else they must have three resurrections-one for the martyrs and confessors; one a thousand years after for the rest of the saints; and one some time after that for the rest of the dead.

To us "the rest of the dead" indicates that class of wicked spirits who shed the blood of the saints; those who withstood the martyrs, or those who would not receive the mark in their hands nor in their foreheads persecutors, spiritually called Gog and Magog. A class of the same type and spirit shall revive at the end of the thousand years not the old class raised to life again, but a similar brood. Thus the two resurrections are homogeneous, and of the same category; and thus this passage stands in good keeping with the history of the two witnesses-with the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David, and with other picturesque representations which may fall in our path as we advance farther into the subject.

A. C.

RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS.

A RESPECTABLE number of communications on the subject of periodicals has come to hand since ile first article on this subject appeared on our pages during my absence last winter. On this subject, like many others, many men have many minds.' From my position to the question, I cannot, with freedom, take any part in its discussion. I have selected two communications out of many, for three reasons:-1st. Because they pretty fairly represent the two sides of the question embraced in those communications. 2d. Because of their becoming brevity, which, in this verbose and prolix age, is a very great desideratum. Because, in the third place, the writers are two sons of oil-a Printer and an Editor. The former has been, I believe, not only a professional printer, but a publisher; the latter is now well known as a judicious and devoted editor; and they both are, or have been, professional teachers as well as evangelists.

I do not think that the brethren are sufficiently enlightened on this subject to act with wisdom and prudence; and therefore the thing, like many others, must regulate itself. In a more advanced state of intelligence the time will come, I doubt not, when every com. munity will be as cautious and careful in the selection of its public instructors of the type -as of the tongue; and when no one shall so interpret the doctrine of equal rights as to plead that all men have the same right to become what God has never made them, of equal age, intelligence, capacity, and talent-of equal ability to enlighten the public, and direct the energies and action of a great community.

A. C.

May 20th, 1841.

SOME weeks ago I saw an article in the Harbinger, signed by a number of worthy brethren on the Western Reserve, Ohio, suggesting the discontinuance of all the publications among us, except one, which should be determined upon, and an editor appointed by a kind of congress of brethren. It was there also stated, if I mistake not, that no one had any more right to publish a paper setting forth the necessity of a reform in the religious and irreligious world, under the patronage of the body of disciples, than such one would have to enter the field as an evangelist, without the appointment of the brethren in the first place. This doctrine is unsound, which can be shown by a number of reasons, some of which, if I am allowed a hearing, I will offer:

1. If such publication be got up as a central matter, for the purpose of disseminating a knowledge of "our views" of things, the net proceeds of which to be applied to the support of evangelists or any thing