صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[ocr errors]

all what his visionary scheme of perfection demands, that Christ should reign over us without any "state of political economy, of judicial procedure, of international relationship" at all, cannot be effected without the Lord Jesus himself personally appearing and slaying those who would not have him to reign over them before him. You might get up in your pulpit, Mr. Orme, and cry "ONWARD, ONWARD, ONWARD,' as much as you liked, for this, but after having descended from your rostrum, you would be obliged to go home and think no more about it. The Lord Jesus, therefore, having followed up the blow of Mr. Orme and his "constantly increasing band" of Invincibles clothed in fine linen, white and clean, by a personal appearance, as captain of the host of the Lord, the foredoomed Jericho falls at the last trump, is involved in the lake of fire and burned with its Imperial and Papal systems, and Gog and his numberless hosts with it; and the covenant which had been miraculously signed and sealed at first, is brought into full operation by a miraculous opening of the books at last. Thus, Mr. Orme, having entered into the land with only your partial assistance, we now have rest for a thousand years, being the time of the judges sitting upon thrones and reigning with Christ, not spiritually, Mr. Orme, in your mixed worldly sense, for in that sense we have been already "raised up together" according to the Apostle, Eph. ii. 6, "and made sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," but in a proper

66

exclusively spiritual" sense, viz. with spiritual bodies as well as spiritual minds, i. e. with bodies adapted to an exclusively spiritual mind, incapable of sin, and with exclusively spiritual laws, without any of your worldly admixture of political economy. But though we come into nominal possession of the land, yet after our temporary rest, the Canaanites, whom we had merged in the lake of fire at the beginning of the Millennium rise up again against us by a second real resurrection, Gog and Magog for number, and it is still left for David our king to put us in full possession of all the inheritance promised us, by eradicating our enemies from the earth again for ever. Then our spiritual Solomon sits upon his peaceful throne through a blessed eternity. Thus, Mr. Orme, I have shewn how the law or Mosaic dispensation was a shadow of good things to come, from its rise in the wilderness to the full accomplishment of the covenant in the days of David and Solomon. I go no

E

lower in the typical application, because I imagine that the time elapsing between Solomon and Christ was as introductory to the Christian dispensation as that between Abraham and Moses was to the Mosaic, shadow chasing shadow till the full day come, the Abrahamic promises prior to Moses being typical of those immediately prior to Christ, each set ushering in its own dispensation. For after Solomon fell, the prophets taught men to look for the substance of the shadow, the throne of David to be raised up again in the throne of Christ. Shadows, therefore, having struck more terror into your perpetual and exclusively spiritual scheme than ten thousand images of the Mosaic church state, and headed by Mr. Irving, I shall now come to close quarters with your universality, Mr. Orme. And here I am exceedingly amazed at a Calvinist, an exclusive spiritualist carried away by the ignis fatuus, the phantasm, of a Millennary and temporal universal Christianity! Does Mr. Orme then think that the mere temporal universality of the Christian dispensation is the ultimate end of God's moral government on earth? Does he think that God will be satisfied with the specious surface of a Catholic religion, when in Mr. Orme's own opinion he dislikes even a national one? Is it not the grand error of national Christianity that every member of the State is by birth a member of the church of Christ, when the church of Christ is only a few elected out of the State? And, what too, Mr. Orme, when "we have here no continuing city, but seek one to come," will God lavish all his glory upon the present state of things? Will he prolong this present state of things for a mere outward unmeaning shew, when his saints are crying out day and night for their full redemption? Oh no, assuredly not. Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." "Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me." This is the ultimate end of God's dispensation. A right knowledge and outward profession of the true principles of Chris tianity may run and be glorified before the Lord come, but wherever is it to be found in the Scripture, that a true knowledge and a true practise were to be commensurate?— At the same time that the prophecies concerning churches and systems speak of a glorious diffusion of the right principles of Christianity, at the time of the end, the prophecies concerning individuals make personal Christianity to be at a low ebb. They are eating and drinking and

marrying and giving in marriage with the utmost religious indifference on the very day that the Son of Man is revealed, and even those who cry day and night unto him to avenge them, have no faith in his appearance-a description which has nothing in it that can quadrate with the prophecy of the destruction of Gog and Magog at the end of the Millennium, when the beloved city has been already avenged, and the rebels are engaged in a holy war, but which rather in the latter instance will fit Mr. Orme's case. The coming of our Lord and the avenging of his church happen together (Luke xviii. 8; Rev. xix. 2,) which puts Mr. Orme's thousand year scheme of an universal diffusion of prosperous Christianity with the continuation of the present order of things, quite to flight. His is nothing but a political Millennium at bottom. But to give the finishing blow to Mr. Orme's universality, there is nothing in St. John's description of the Millennium which affords the slightest countenance to it; but flatly disproves it. The camp of the saints and the beloved city there occupy but a small surface of territory. There is room for an immense host of nations in the four quarters of the earth besides, without the city; and not only room, but moving room too, so that they can come up on the breadth of the earth and encompass the city: which gives a poor idea of the universality of the saints who are to take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever and ever, as the distinction between Gog and Magog and the beloved city shewn at p. 107 testifies. And now we come to the shadow. That the earthly Canaan was a type of the heavenly is universally admitted. But it was the shadow and not the very image of it." It was the shadow, because a small portion of mankind was selected out of the rest as the peculiar favourites of God, and established in the heart of their enemies, till they vanquished them in the time of David, which is the case of the beloved city in its eternal state, as before shewn. But it was not the very image of it, because the first selection was made upon the arbitrary Calvinistic Old Testament plan, but the second upon the New Testament Arminian scheme. And now we come to a conclusion with the new heavens and new earth, in which Mr. Orme and Mr. Jones are in the same error, confounding the two plots, the march of the church to them as a body, and the march to them as individuals, the former of which is closed at what is called the end of the world, and the

latter at the end of every Christian's life. It is the same kind of error which exists between Mr. Orme and Mr. Irving, neither distinguishing between the prophecies which regard personal religion, and those which regard ecclesiastical religion, those which regard the practice, and those which regard the theory, the latter being good, while the former is comparatively bad. The individual arrival of the church to the new heavens and earth is expressed in that part of the Apocalypse, xiv. where the first-fruits are seen with the Lamb on Mount Sion, that new heaven and earth which I have shewn, did not exist before Christ's coming, under DEATH, 5 p. 199, and which Mr. Orme, to have been consistent with his text, ought to have shewn had already superseded the old ones. But he is not only not consistent with his text, but he has taken unwarrantable liberties with it both in interpretation and translation. He is not consistent with his text (Heb. xii. 27, 28), because if he maintains that the old heavens and old earth, or the Jewish church and state are removed in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain, he ought to have maintained that the new heavens and new earth are come, which, if he had read Is. lxv. 17, 18, he would have found to have been the same as "the Mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," to which he says we are come, p. 27, (Heb. xii. 22,) to which indeed we are come, though we do not get in them till we die," having here no continuing city, but seeking one to come," (Heb. xiii. 14). But here Mr. Orme was thrown off his conclusion by a feint. He saw that Peter in his 2nd Ep. iii. 13, represented the new heavens and rew earth as still future, and also St. John at Rev. xxi. 1, and, therefore, not having skill enough to reconcile these discrepancies, he avoids the inference of his text. And hence we see the unwarrantable liberty he has taken with the interpretation of it. There and where he should have come to close quarters, and given a home thrust, he is absolutely paralysed. The text says, " And this word, YET ONCE MORE, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." No, shuffles Mr. Orme, not once more, but twice more, not "cannot be shaken," but "to be shaken again.' When we speak of the perpetuity of the dispensation, we do not mean," says he, "that it is to last for ever, but that it is

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

to last to the end of time-that it is to undergo no change in its principles or administration, till the heavens shall be no more," (p. 39). "Consequently, when the immoveable should be substituted in the place of the moveable things, no subsequent alteration should take place till the final consummation," p. 41. This is a pretty way of serving an Apostle! the dispensation is only perpetual and immoveable so long as will suit Mr. Orme's system! "The present dispensation having abrogated the former, and being designed to last till the final consummation," says he again, is far inferior to the new heavens and new earth, wherein righteousness shall dwell for ever, and for which believers are taught to hope," pp. 47, 48. But Mr. Orme knows as much about the new heavens and new earth as he does about the old ones. "Referring to the giving of the law, which was attended with so much majesty and terror," Mr. Orme explains it, "Paul says at the 26th verse, Whose voice then shook the earth, but now (alluding to the prophecy of Haggai, in which the creation of the gospel kingdom is foretold) he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven," i. e. the earth stood for mount Sinai, and the heaven for the law, which was to be done away! a pretty confusion of symbol! But what is the real state of the case? The earth which had been shaken was the Jewish state shaken out of its place by the Babylonish captivity, but the heaven still remained. "For I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts, according to the covenant with you when ye came out of Egypt," (Hagg, ii. 5). But in a little while not only the Jewish state, but the Jewish church, were to be shaken, the heavens as well as the earth, and not only the natural Jewish church and state, but the adopted Jewish church and state, that system of church and state which now exists in Christendom upon the plan of the old Jewish. For though, Mr. Orme, the old heaven and earth are nominally abrogated, yet they are not actually abolished. The latter house still stands, and the glory of it is greater than that of the former, the present church and state being the greater glory of the Christian dispensation enshrined in the lesser glory of the Jewish. And thus we see in the Apocalypse the old heaven and earth actually standing till the last. (Rev. xx. 11.) And thus we see in Daniel it is the same temple that wants cleansing to the last. Then true Mr.

[ocr errors]
« السابقةمتابعة »