Results

In these exegetical chapters, I have sought to keep in view the two objects which I stated at the outset, jirst, To bring out the natural meaning of each of the passages under comment; and, secondly, To adduce in favour of this meaning the testimony of sound and unbiassed expositors.

I feel assured that what I may call the millennarian sense 18 the natural one. It is the sense founded upon the simple interpretation of the language, needing no effort to force it upon the words, but most easily and unconstrainedly suggesting itself upon the reading of the passage. It is the only sense which exhausts the words, which accounts for the minuteness of the figures employed, which enables us to go carefully into details without repetition and without empty

expansion. So that, supposing our theory to be true, we do not see how it could have been expressed in other words.

On the other hand, the post-millennial sense appears to me the non-natural one. It requires considerable ingenuity to devise it, and still more to fit it into the passage. It does not rise up spontaneously as we read, making us feel quite at home when using it to thread our way through the turns of the prophetic labyrinth. It needs no small power of abstraction and generalization to adapt it; and even then, it never exhausts the passage. It suits part of it, it fastens on some high feature of it, it brings out some great idea of it, but it does not exhaust it, it does not fill up or spread over all details small and great.

That which exhausts the passage — that which enters into all its recesses — that which unfolds all its figures, bringing them forth as realities, personalities, not «as abstractions, ideas, — that I conceive is likeliest to be the true and intended meaning of the prophecy. For pre-millennial interpretation I advance the claim of accomplishing these things. And this I have endeavoured to establish. I say this strongly, but without intolerance, and I trust without offence.

We are so often charged with rejecting the plain meaning of Scripture, and adopting circuitous and

extravagant interpretations, that I am led the more distinctly and earnestly to disown the accusation, and to affirm that it attaches itself much more truly to our opponents than to us. Our object is to ascertain the direct straight-forward sense of prophecy, just as we would the plain sense of history, not considering ourselves under the necessity of digging for figures below the soil, when all appears level, and the whole truth seems to lie upon the surface naked and obvious.*

I say it strongly also, because it is affirmed of us that we make everything bend to our system. At one time, we are accused of despising system, and at another, of contorting every thing to suit it. We plead not guilty to both charges. We are very far indeed from disliking system, and certainly our millennarianism has not made system odious, but rather the reverse. It fits in with such grace into our Calvinism, that our love of system has not been chilled in aught. And as to making Scripture twine round our system, instead of making our system twine round

Scripture, we say it is not true. We are taunted with

* At the same time, I do not refuse a figurative meaning. I only ask that there be a sufficient reason given for departing from the literal. There is truth in Augustine’s remark, quare quedam in rebus visibilibus quasi absurda miscet spiritus sanctus nist ut ex eo quod non possumus accipere ad literam cogat nos ista spiritualiter querere? — Enarratio in Ps. ciii. p. 251.

what are called the “necessities of our system,” or the “conveniencies of our system,” as if we set up that system, and made everything stoop and pass under its gateway. But the excellency of our system is, that it harmonizes so well with the natural sense of Scripture, that we have no occasion to cast about for the non-natural either from necessity or convenience. And in proof of this, we appeal to a host of post-millennial writers and critics — men of sound creed and calm judgment — who have expounded Scripture as we do. What necessity or convenience of system led them to these interpretations? Granting that it is our system that is blinding ws, what system blinded them? Granting that our millennarianism compelled us to pervert the word of God, what was it that constrained them to take the same path? And if they, having no system to bewilder them, (as we are said to have) yet interpreted Scripture exactly as we are doing, is it not a most obvious conclusion that we are adopting the true and the natural interpretation? Respecting each of those passages for whose literality we contend, I wish to notice this peculiarity, — that each of them contains a separate and independent proof of the pre-millennial advent. Any one of them is sufficient to prove it; so that though we should have

failed in demonstrating our sense of half of them, or more, the remainder would suffice for our purpose. They are all positive, not negative — direct, not indirect. They go straight forward to prove our position, not merely to withdraw a proof from our opponents. On the other hand, the utmost that can be said of them, as expounded by Mr Brown, is, that they withdraw so many proofs from pre-millennialism; that is all. If Mr B. be right, then (so far as these texts are concerned) there are so many proofs less of our doctrine; but there are not so many proofs more of his. Our doctrine might still be true though all these were swept off; whereas his cannot be true if any one of these be established. The Socinian controversy will illustrate my meaning. Let Socinians explain away téxt after text regarding the divinity of our Lord, they are merely withdrawing proof from us, but not adducing positive proof for themselves; and so long as one text remains unexplained away, our position is secure. The Trinitarian doctrine might be true, though every one of our usual proof-texts were annihilated; whereas the Socinian doctrine cannot be true, if so much as one of our texts remains untouched.

In bringing out the opinions of these sound expositors so fully and largely, I have had no design of presenting them as authorities to which any one of us

ought implicitly to defer. It behoves us to call no man master, and to concede to no one any authority in the interpretation of the Divine Word. The utterances of the “lively oracles” are to be listened to directly as coming from the lips of God, not as echoed to us by the erring voices of men. But still it is sometimes of use in controversy to know what have been the judgments of the sound and the learned; and especially what have been the grounds of these judgments. We would lay no one under constraint or bias, but we would bring out the whole essence of the subject as it has passed through the minds of others, that each may calmly judge what is the true and the Scriptural.

My reasons for being so careful in referring to commentators of acknowledged soundness require, however, to be stated more fully, as they bear considerably upon the merits of Mr Brown’s volume, and affect the whole controversy.

Mr Brown conveys the impression throughout his work, that it is only maldennarians who hold the interpretations which he is controverting. He is mistaken in this, as I have shown; for almost every one of those interpretations I have produced are the opinions of anti-millennarian critics and theologians. We trust that we are not afraid to stand alone when constrained to do so, But here we have good company; much

better company in general than Mr Brown has. There

4°0 SOUND EXPOSITORS

is hardly one of his interpretations for which we could not produce neologian authority, — as indeed we have done; while for each of owrs successively we have produced substantial and recognised expositors. This should have abated the strength of some of Mr Brown’s expressions, and led him to look upon his opponents and their opinions with considerably more favour than he “has done.

I do not mean to say that the expositors held all that we hold as to the meaning of the passages controverted; but they held substantially our sense of them, in direct opposition to that which Mr Brown attaches to them, and which he considers necessary for the safety of his system. We can take up this disputed text and say, Calvin interpreted it just as we do, but not as Mr Brown does. We can point to another and say, such was the sense which Turrettine affixed to it; — it is our view of the passage, not Mr Brown’s. We can say of others, Spanheim, Marck, M‘Laurin, Boston, Ridgeley, these understood it as we do, but not in Mr Brown’s sense, We can turn up another and say, such is the judgment of Thomas Scott. We can fix on another and say, Jonathan Hdwards thought as we do as to this passage. We can open another and say, Robert Haldane expounded it as we do. These men did not draw

the inferences which we do; they did not arrange these tod

texts as we do; but they were at one with us as to the meaning. They were entirely opposed to Mr Brown in his interpretations. If such be the case, it is clear that we are no innovators. We are taking Scripture as so many sound divines have done before us. They laid the foundation, and we are but building thereon. It is Mr Brown who is the innovator. It is he who is devising new meanings for plain texts, because the old meanings, — which Calvin, and Turrettine, and Scott approved of, — are now discovered to be millennarian in their tendencies. And is not this a strong though indirect testimony in our favour? We are quite willing to construct and defend pre-millennialism; nay, to perwl the whole controversy wpon those texts alone in favour of whose literal sense a post-millennial expositor may be found. We are willing to set aside all texts un whose favour we have no such testimony to produce. In these circumstances is it not unaccountable that Mr Brown, in reference to these very texts, should charge pre-millennialists with distortion, and perversion, and sacrificing Scripture to the necessities or conveniencies of their system? If Scripture has been made to give way to system, who is guilty in the matter? Not we; for we have shown that the men who were unbiassed by a system, — the men who opposed our system, — give their testimony in favour of our interpretations. They differed widely from us on some points; they would have rejected our inferences, but they were at one with us as to the meaning of the passages. Let then our inferences be refused; let them be subjected to the epithets that have been heaped upon them; still let our interpretations be received with calmness and respect, as the interpretations of men whom our opponents venerate no less than we.

While we have these men upon our side thus far, we have. nearly all the critics of the neologian school against us. With almost none of our interpretations do they agree, except when forced by critical necessity. They find no difficulty in resolving into mere poetical figures or orientalisms many of the plainest passages of Scripture. Accordingly, they give millennarianism no quarter. Yet it is remarkable that that section of German critics which is returning, or has returned, to soundness in the faith, is adopting not only pre-millennial interpretations, but the pre-millennial system itself. Olshausen, in his work on the Gospels, and on the Epistle to the Romans, not only expresses himself decidedly on the point, but wonders how it can be doubted. Gess, in his work on the Revelation of God,

speaks still more at large, and to the same effect.

Others also have given similar testimony. But this properly belongs to the history of millennarianism, and cannot be entered on here.

Of many of Mr Brown’s expositions I may say, that they are peculiar to himself. I have conversed with many post-millennialists, but never met with one who held those leading points on which Mr B. lays such stress, and because of which he censures millennarians in language which certainly ought to have been more measured and generous. I have read post-millennial works, but they venture upon no such theories as he does regarding the binding of Satan, the very imperfect nature of the millennium, the transmutation of the personal into the abstract, the spiritualizing of such passages as the 25th of Isaiah, or the 12th of Daniel. Possibly they did not feel so much the embarrassment which the plain sense of these passages throws around their system. They admitted the common meaning of them, without perhaps being aware of the consequences of their admission. But Mr Brown, having once been a millennarian himself, is fully alive to these things. He knows both the strong and the weak places of both systems. He feels the embarrassment into which the common interpretation of these texts brings him, and he takes up a bolder position than is usually done, in order if possible to extricate himself, and shake his system clear of these formidable difficulties. He strikes out a path for himself. He discards old interpretations as admitting far too much for the safety of his system, and introduces others, which may appear to relieve him from his embarrassments; but which can only do so by endangering all sound hermeneutics, and overturning interpretations hitherto universally allowed by all parties, and round which many a cherished association is fondly wrapped. We would not reject a comment because it was new, or censure a commentator simply because he overthrew an old idea. But such innovations as Mr Brown would introduce are so uncalled for and so unsupported, that they do produce a revulsion in one’s mind. More especially when in these interpretations, which are thus unceremoniously overturned, all orthodow commentators, whether millennarian or anti-millennarian, have hitherto been agreed. It may be thought nothing to oppose what Mede, and Cunninghame, and Frere, and Bickersteth have approved, when we have Calvin, and Turrettine, and Scott, and others of that approved class on our side. But it will always be thought something to take up a position adverse to that in which Mede and Turrettine, Calvin and Cunninghame, Scott and Bickersteth, with all millennarian and anti-millennarian writers whatsoever, that have ever had any name for soundness in the faith or sobriety in interpretation, have agreed, and to occupy a position in which one can only get the concurrence of such men as Grotius, Seiler, Dathe, Kuttner, Bush, or Swedenborg. Such a position may not necessarily be a wrong one, but assuredly it is a suspicious one. The company that one has had to forsake is so reputable and orthodox, while the associates into whose circle we are thus thrown are so unsound and questionable, that we cannot help asking ourselves somewhat timorously, can I be right? We have no wish to prejudge the question, or attempt to settle it on other than its own intrinsic merits; but still, these are things that cannot fail to strike the mind. In settling truth, we know that the votes are weighed and not numbered. Their weight is every thing, their number nothing. But when both weight and number concur, there is certainly something to startle, something to rebuke over-confidence, something to take away all excuse for rashness, something to lead a disputant to speak respectfully of opposing arguments. In several of his expositions Mr B. seems to me strangely inconsistent with himself. Sometimes he speaks of the Apostle’s celestializing the descriptions of the prophets,

meaning thereby, that the Old Testament deals more with the physical, and the New Testament with the spiritual. But in other places he reverses this without one reason given. He makes, for example, the 25th of Isaiah to predict the spiritual; the 15th of Corinthians to predict the physical. He refers the 65th of Isaiah to the spiritual; the 21st of Revelation to the physical. Why this inconsistency?

Is not the physical the typical platform for the spiritual? Are not these words of the Apostle true even on this point, “that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” Sometimes Mr Brown seems to believe this; at other times not.

I shall not enter into the question of Double Prophecy. There is much truth in Mr Fairbairn’s remarks upon this subject in his 7ypology of Scripture; but taking the thing, either as what is commonly called a double prophecy, or as the prediction both of type and antitype at once- — how can Mr Brown’s variations be defended? If it be a prediction both of type and antitype, as in the case of Babylon, still the type must come before the antitype — the Babylon of Chaldea before the Babylon of Latium. Mr Brown in several places reverses the order — placing the predicted antitype before the type. Let him accept and carry out either of the two orders; let him affirm that the antitype should be before the type; but let him

€ adhere to this order throughout. Let the prophet and the apostle have the pomegranate divided between them; let the prophet have the rind and the apostle the substance (I use his own figure), or let the apostle have the rind and the prophet the fruit. If it can be done let the latter view be maintained; but let not an interpreter give these alternately to prophet and apostle, so that sometimes the apostle takes the prophetic pomegranate, and, paring off the rind, reserves the inner fruit for himself; and sometimes the same apostle takes the pomegranate, and, casting away the substance, retains only the rind. Where such inconsistencies occur there must be something at fault, not merely with the interpretation of the passage, but with the hermeneutics of the interpreter. ‘They are hermeneutics not operating according to fixed rule, but moveable and capricious, varying with the exigencies of a pre-arranged scheme of prophetic truth, or, at — least, always acting under their pressure.

‘And as the post-millennial system must bear the blame of making void our hermeneutics, so must it also of disorganizing our theology. The concluding chapter of a work, already protracted beyond my original intention, is no place for arguing this matter. Of the truth of it, however, I am well persuaded. There are few points in theology which do not receive fresh illustration from pre-millennialism. It brings them forth in new breadth, coherence, fulness, and harmony. Not only does it find all its congenialities in Calvinism; but over Calvinism it sheds new brightness, new glory. Hence there is hardly such an anomaly to be found in the churches as an Arminian millennarian. Millennarianism either finds or makes men Calvinists. Thousands of Arminian and Socinian anti-millennarians may be found; and on their lips is the ready taunt that millennarians are always Calvinists. But you will look in vain over the churches for the converse.

The special truths of Calvinism, which the millennarian theory illustrates and consolidates, are the truths concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Himself it magnifies and honours. His work, his offices, his ° kingdom, are what it sheds its special light upon. These it brings out with a completeness entirely its own; not only drawing out their proper brilliance by adjusting the prophetic telescope to its right focus, but presenting them on various sides, and enabling us to contemplate them in manifold aspects.

On the other hand, post-millennarianism maims and narrows these glorious doctrines. The full glory of Christ the Prophet, Christ the Priest, Christ the King, it cannot set forth, according to the complete purpose of the Father. The full glory of the Church, the

Bride, the Lamb’s Wife, the true Eve of the second Adam the Heir of all things, it fails to declare. The eternal design of Jehovah respecting his kingdom here, — respecting the government of creation, — — re- ‘specting the earthly and the heavenly, — the rulers

and the ruled, — Israel and the nations, — it sets aside

as carnal.*

So far from dislocating theology, our doctrine brings in new principle of cohesion between all its parts. So far from mutilating truth, or disfiguring, or unsettling, it consolidates, it beautifies, it fills it up. It completes the whole circle of divine truth, which otherwise would be unfinished and broken. It points to the time which shall bring back heaven to earth, which shall satisfy the Church’s hopes, which shall

* It seems strange that Israel’s pre-eminence should be denied, as inconsistent with the gospel, by those who yet believe in the distinction of ranks here, and degrees in glory hereafter. The principle of rank and order (may, and primogeniture), runs through all God’s purposes, which purposes the gospel was meant to carry out, not to make void. Star differs from star in glory. There are principalities and powers among the angels. There are varying “‘ weights” of glory for the redeemed. So with nations, too. They take rank among each other as individuals do. The history of earth has always exhibited a dominant nation. And in the millennial age, this part of God’s original purpose is not to be cast aside. In Israel we shall then see the regnant or dominant nation, — a regnancy not founded upon usurpation or carnal privilege, but upon the eternal purposes of Jehovah, the electing love of God. meet the feverish cravings of humanity after the true and real, and silence for ever creation’s bitter groans. Not a few seem to found their opposition to millennarianism on what they call the law of progressive development, which takes for granted that all things physical, moral, spiritual, are gradually moving upwards from level to level. But in truth there is no such law, save in the dreams of such philosophers as the author of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Physically, there has been no such development. arth feels the curse no lighter than it did 6000 years ago, when it was said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” Not only do individuals wither down and die, but whole species, whole genera, become extinct. Morally, there has been no such development. Is Rome one whit higher in morals than Babylon, or Paris than Corinth, or London than Jerusalem? Spiritually, there has been none. Are the churches in our days better, holier, purer, than in primitive days? Or are ministers in our days on a higher level than the Apostles? Are they personally holier, or in labours more successful, than Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; or even than Knox, or Calvin, or Luther? Of which of us can it be said now what Melancthon said of his friend, fulmina erant linguce singula verba tue?” Where is

there to be seen, or where has there been seen, this boasted law? Up toa certain height I admit it, just as I admit the tower of Babel rose up loftily till it had reached its fixed limit. I admit that the seed shoots up into the bright blossom, and the blossom passes into the mellow fruit; but after that, decay. — The limit has been touched. I admit that spring buds into summer, and that summer brightens into autumn with its harvest wealth; but after that the winter. I admit that civilization has its progress; but always its limit too, after which it corrupts and dies. I admit also that churches have their progress and their development; but always their /imt too, if Scripture and history are to be credited. What is the story of each church from the days of the Apostles? The story of a springing and a withering; a reviving, a dying, and a passing away. In short, the orbit of progress (in this dispensation) is always a cwrve, — whether circular or elliptical, it matters not; it is a curve, the law of which is far beyond our calculus. And sometimes when that curve seems just about to return into itself and repeat its progress, it breaks in pieces; and the being or the thing, whose course it formed, passes away. That there is a law of unbroken progress and widening development I believe; but not in this age. There is no

range here for such a law to evolve itself. Sin hedges it about, fastens ‘like a drag upon it, and sooner or later brings it to a stand.

In a sermon by Professor Tappan of New York, entituled, “Human Agency in the Evangelization of the World,” there is a bold passage upon progressive development which I would fain quote; but it is too long. He assumes the existence of such a law, and illustrates it with some beauty. When met with the facts of decay and death, he turns them aside by the brief remark, that this “relative imperfection is the condition of a higher growth.” But what higher growth has as yet come forth from the wreck of Hden? What higher growth has come forth from the ruins of Nineveh, or Tadmor, or Carthage? What higher growth has sprung out of the fallen churches of Ephesus, or Hippo, or Constantinople? What higher growth does he expect to arise out of the depths of hell, unless with

a recent poet he has a belief in a coming day of

“* Tll annihilate,
The restoration of the angels lost,
And one salvation universal given
To all create.””*
The theory of progressive development is not founded on science, or on history, or on Scripture. And yet

it is rooted in many minds; so that unconsciously they

* Bailey’s Festus. — See Proem.

prejudge millennarianism, because it furnishes no room for the working out of this theory, nay, sets it wholly at nought. So long then as this theory is made the basis of those speculations which seek to solve the problem of human life, or the problem of an imperfect world, so long we may expect nothing but failure; and wherever this theory is introduced as the basis of a theological system or religious doctrine, we may look for a failure still more foolish and complete.

One of the best of our modern philosophers thus writes: — “The philosophy we maintain asserts the perpetual progress of humanity!”* No wonder then that he should in a subsequent page arrive at the conclusion, — “if it be allowed that Christianity has to overcome all antagonistic evils, and in the process of its historical development, to come forth clear and brilliant as the light of day, it follows from this that the living spirit, the whole religious consciousness of humanity in its providential growth, acted on by the divinely inspired Christian, is the real expownder and enterpreter of the full truth and meaning of Christ’s holy religion!”+

* Morell’s Philosophical T’endencies of the Age, p. 186.

+ P. 191, see also Coquerel’s Ideas on Progress, Christianity, p.. 52, 33 — 70, 71. Hus “progress” ends in universal restoration of all men and devils to happiness.

2F

43.4 THE WORLD TO COME.

In the present day, God is giving the full lie to all man’s notions of progressive development among the nations. He is breaking them in pieces that, ere long, they may become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. For not till man and creation and all things therein have been brought down to lowest helplessness and ruin, will God interpose to build up and renew.

The world to come, the yy oimoumevy werrovoe, is that to which we look forward as our only hope. It shall be a world of order, a home of peace, a realm of righteousness, a region in which God’s schemes, God’s thoughts, God’s purposes shall all find their glad de-. velopment. Now, it is man’s schemes, man’s thoughts, man’s purposes that are exhibiting themselves. And when man has schemed his utmost, and thought his utmost, and yet brought no regeneration, no deliverance to the earth, then shall God come in, and, setting aside man, be himself the doer as well as the purposer of all. 3

God’s making man with a body as well as a soul, shows us that there are two departments of being or creation, in which he has deposited his truth, and which together go to make up the full revelation of himself which he designs to give us. The material and the immaterial, the physical and the spiritual, the corporeal and the mental, the mechanical and the metaphysical, the earthly and the heavenly; these are some of the subdivisions into which the two great primary classes are laid out.

Between these two orders or departments of truth there ought to be entire harmony; the one being the filling up of the other; — not an excrescence or an incumbrance, but something absolutely needful to bring out the full harmony. If there be dissonance, it is sin that has caused it; nothing but stm can make the immaterial to jar with the material, the spiritual to find itself not at home with the physical. Such discord was not in the original design; neither could be; for it indicates imperfection somewhere. It is a dislocation introduced by man’s temporary frustration of the design, but not contained in the design itself..

This dissonance has all along been felt by man. Philosophers have felt it. Christian men have felt it “more sorely, and wondered at it more profoundly. It was confessed there was a dislocation — an element of ‘repulsion and incongruity somewhere. But, where? was the question. Heathen sages felt that “this life was a false nature” — that it was “not in the harmony of things.” The early fathers theorized upon the ‘point, and thoughtful men always have been and still are trying to discover the jarring element, and the seat of the discord.

Unhappily, however, they have speculated, rather than searched Scripture. Hence they have almost invariably come to the conclusion, that it is in the material or physical part of creaturehood that the poison lies, and that it is from this that it oozes forth to defile all that is good and blessed. Hence their cure for the evil is, either the extinction of matter, or the entire separation of it from spirit. Where matter is (they reason) there must be evil; or at least where matter comes into contact with the soul.

Had they taken the facts of Scripture, could they have argued thus? But being desirous to cast the blame of originating the evil on something apart from themselves, and being blinded to the true character of sin, by taking its grosser forms as the proper type of its nature, they have persisted in blaming matter for that of which it was wholly guiltless. Did the fruit of the tree of knowledge poison? Whether did sin originate iné or in man? Was there infection in the flowers of Eden, tainting the pure spirit of man? Did sin flow inwards from his body to his soul, or outwards from his soul to his body? Was it creation that brought the curse on man, or man that brought the curse upon creation? Was the material or the immaterial the first cause of the evil? Did the absence of matter from the nature of angels prevent their falling? And then in bringing in the cure, does God give the slightest intimation that matter is the seat of the evil? Does he not indicate the opposite? Does not the incarnation prove that matter is not the evil thing? Will not resurrection prove that it is absolutely needful to the completeness of our being and to the adjustment of our being’s various parts and powers? And will not the renovation of earth prove that the material and the visible are needful to the completeness of the immaterial, the invisible, the heavenly? The earthly may be the lowest notes in the vast scale of creation-music, but it is not on that account the less needful. Without this, the harmony would be defective.*

It is curious to observe how thoughtful men in different ages have developed their theories upon these points. Always the dissonance was felt. Always the difficulty came up as to the adjustment between the

* Somewhat like the above is the idea which Sewell gives us in his Christian Morals (a manual of Tractarian error, yet not without stray gleams of truth.) ‘The spirit of man developes itself in a creation of matter. It is a centre unseen, untouched, beyond all depth of sense... when it first begins to act it gathers round itself, upon a model of its own, an embryo of matter: and from thence spreads into an organized frame and assumes shape after shape... every part of this is an expansion and copy of itself. In every stage it is the inner man magnified and developed and made visible.” Pp. 313-314.

two elements, the physical and the spiritual; and the two extremes were presented, sometimes in succession, sometimes in collision; these extremes being, in philosophy, the sensational and the idealistic, in theology, the rational and the mystical. This oscillation has gone on from age to age, man’s mind reverting from. one extreme to the other, as if dissatisfied with both, and unable to find the true adjustment.

At present there seems to be conflict and collision. The two theories have both come upon the field at once, the mechanical and the metaphysical, the sensational and the idealistic, the rational and the mysti- cal, each contending for the mastery.

And why this collision in the present age? Why have the two extremes thus come face to face upon the field at once? Is it not because this is the age in which God is allowing man to try his utmost in restoring the world, to put forth his last efforts to adjust the disordered system?

Man fails. He is baffled in his efforts. He has ruined a world, but he cannot replace one chord in the broken harp; he has blasted Eden, but he cannot restore freshness to one faded blossom.:

Then God steps in. He has proved man’s helplessness to undo the evil. And now he comes forth to do the mighty work himself. He comes to make all things new; not to dissolve but to rectify creation; not to sever the material from the immaterial, but to link them blessedly together; to take both parts of his handiwork and so adjust them, that each shall be seen adding completeness to the other, and evolving each other’s harmonies. For it is not merely the body that needs to be retuned, in order to be in unison with the soul, but the soul also needs the same retuning, to make it a meet companion for the body. The more entirely we are perfected, the more that the mind of Christ dwells in us, the more shall we be fitted for communion, not only with God himself, but with that material creation around us, through which he is giving utterance to his mind, and in which he is revealing his manifold glories.

This is the true adjustment between the material and the spiritual to which we look forward in millennial days, the true harmony of creation then to be evolved. Then shall be the meeting between parts of being so long disjoined, the meeting between the soul and the body, the junction between the Jerusalem below and the Jerusalem above, the union between the terrestrial and the celestial, the commingling of material and immaterial beauty, the fellowship between

earth and heaven.