May 1, 1868.

jealousy." (Zeph. iii. 8, 9; Zech. xiv. 3-5, 12, 13; Is. ix. 3-7; Psa. xlv. 3-5.)

(3.) Jesus is then to be seen as the Son of Man. Isaiah xxiv. describes the Lord's judgment of earth. The next chapter is Israel's burst of song upon the occasion. "And it shall be said in that day, [when the resurrection of the saints takes place, v. 8,] Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord." (Is. xxv. 9.) For, behold the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity." (Is. xxvi. 21.) "0 Zion, that bringeth good tidings say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand." (Is. xl. 9, 10; Zech. xiv. 3—5.)

Jerusalem is to be the city where he dwells. "The Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients [elders] gloriously." (Is. xxiv. 23.) "Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty. Look upon Zion the city of our solemnities, thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation." (Is. xxxiii. 17, 20; Ez. xliii. 1-9; Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; Mic. iv. 6-8; Zech. ix. 9, 10, xiv. 16, 17; Zeph. iii. 14-20.)

(4.) Jesus' saints are to reign with him when he reigns. The "horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." (Dan. vii. 21, 22.) "They lived and reigned with the Christ a thousand years." "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; over such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." (Rev. xx. 4, 6.)

If then Christ is now reigning, his people ought to be reigning too. But they are not, and ought not. When some Corinthian believers began so to do they were warned by the Apostle Paul, that it was unseasonable. "Ye reigned as kings without us, and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you."

But how could that be a suitable season, when God's messengers, the Apostles, were so differently treated? buffeted, rejected, in peril of life. "I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you." (1 Cor. iv. 8-14.)

As then God's saints are forbidden to reign now, neither has Jesus yet begun to reign.

With a brief analysis of the speech of Peter as bearing on the subject before us, I conclude. Men of Israel, you have slain Jesus, though God accredited him to you by mighty proofs of miracle. But God has raised him up, without his body being tainted by corruption. In that He has fulfilled David's 16th Psalm, and proved Jesus to be the Holy One of God. For the words I quote are not true of David. David's body has seen corruption: David's soul abides still in Hadees among departed spirits. But the words are true of David's son, For David by the spirit of prophecy was speaking concerning the resurrection of the Messiah (who is hereafter to fill his throne), when he said, "My soul shall not be left in Hadees, nor my flesh see corruption." That was true of Jesus. His body has risen out of the tomb, his soul has come forth out of Hadees, as we this day testify.'

COMMEN

THE SEVEN-HEADED BEAST.

May 1, 1868.

OMMENTATORS generally-however they may differ on other points-agree that the city represented by the woman of the 17th chapter of Revelation is Rome, but with respect to the heads so intimately connected with the harlot, great diversity of opinion prevails. Current belief assigns the seven heads to the several forms of government of Daniel's fourth beast, explaining the "five fallen" by kings, consuls, decemvirs, dictators, and military tribunes, already passed away before St. John's time, and the "one is," or 6th head, by the form existing at the date of the prophecy. But it is difficult to conceive how such an interpretation can be maintained without conclusive and satisfactory reasons being adduced for the exclusion of the triumvirate which certainly appears to have been quite as distinct a form of government as some of the others, and unless the contrary be proved, emperors should be the seventh head, whereby the whole fabric of interpretation constructed upon the Roman forms of government, would crumble to dust. But still another formidable difficulty accrues. In the first verse of the 4th chapter, St. John is called up to heaven, "to be shown things which must be hereafter," or after these things, and among things future, he saw a beast come up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. If five of these heads were kings dead and gone ages before, or past forms of government, then St. John could scarcely have seen a beast rise up with seven heads, but with two only, and even one of these-if assignable to the form actually in existencewould have been more appropriately included among "the things which are," than among "the things which shall be hereafter."

If literality is to be adhered to-and unquestionably it is the only sound principle for the interpretation of prophecy-then all the theories that apply the heads of the beast to Rome in the past, must be abandoned, and if all the heads were future in St. John's day, they are so still, and the harlot that bestrides the beast in the 17th chapter, under the 6th head, must likewise in that case be future; nevertheless, there can be no doubt but that "the woman is that great city,' Rome,' which reigneth over the kings of the earth."

There is an apparent paradox, but-human prejudices may warp the judgment, and construe that into a paradox which is none. In our desire to reconcile the several stages of the Lord's advent-from the 4th and 5th chapters to the 19th-with Daniel's last or 70th week, we endeavour to crowd all the events evolved by the intervening chapters within the seven years of that week, and that we may be enabled to do so, we mercilessly decapitate the beast, and deprive it of five of the heads seen by St. John. It may be probably urged that as the seven heads emblemize hills as well as kings, St. John might have seen the beast rise with seven heads, even though five of the kings had previously passed away; but this objection can scarcely hold, as St. John must then have seen the beast emerge from the sea in a mutilated, or imperfect state; moreover, all he saw or heard pertained to the "hereafter,"

May 1, 1868.

which could not have been the case had any portion been already accomplished. One of the leading requisites in the pursuit of practical research unquestionably is faith; not the faith unto salvation, though that must be peremptorily associated with it, but unbounded, implicit faith in God's Holy Word-as it is written-in its entirety, even when incomprehensible. Another indispensable quality, extremely difficult to acquire, failing which all our perquisitions may be profitless and vain— is the power of discarding all bias from the mind, all human prejudices and preconceptions, remembering ever when searching the Scriptures that "God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor our ways his ways." Now, although very clear inferences of a secret stage in the Lord's advent are deducible from Scripture, nowhere is there any indication given of its probable duration. All the events predicted between the 5th and 19th chapters of the Apocalypse, evidently pertain to that secret stage, but whether they will be compressed within Daniel's 70th week, or spread over several of such heptades, Divine writ does not unfold, and it is probably because we arbitrarily-presumptuously even-seek to fill up a blank which God, for his own all-wise purposes, has left open, that there is still so little unanimity among expositors respecting the several heads of the beast. Analogically, the longer period is more likely than the shorter, for there was virtually a secret stage in the first advent of thirty years' duration, and nothing that can be adduced from the Sacred Writings will militate against a similar protracted period of the Lord's secret presence in the second.

In its earlier stages the first advent was known but to the few, to whom it was specially revealed, as by God's grace and his holy Spirit will be the second-to Mary, the Lord's mother, and to Joseph-to Zachariah, and Elisabeth, and to their son, John the Baptist-to the just and devout Simeon, who was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and to Anna, the prophetess, who served God by prayers and fastings night and day-to the shepherds abiding in the field, to whom the good tidings of great joy were brought by the angel of the Lord, and to the wise men from the east; but the great mass of the Jewish people, his intimate youthful acquaintances, his constant companions in manhood, were quite unconscious for the first thirty years of his life of the marvellous presence amongst them of God Incarnate. To them He was only the carpenter's son! It was only when having attained the age of thirty; when for thirty years the Lord had been preserving an impenetrable incognito amongst them, when He was publicly baptized in Jordan by John the Baptist, and a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," that our Lord's presence as the promised Messiah was manifested and proclaimed; even then his relatives, his very brothers, ignored the wondrous truth; for after this public manifestation, St. John says, "for neither did his brethren believe in him."

That there should be a secret stage of the advent inaugurated by a rapture of living saints, and extending over twenty or thirty years, or more, may sound so exceedingly strange, that we may be prone to repudiate as irrelevant and absurd any exposition of prophecy involving such a demand upon our faith. Besides, how, under such circumstances, can it possibly be secret? Will not the translation of the

May 1, 1868.

saints give it universal publicity? Yes, but the same objection will apply to a secret coming of the Lord, however brief may be the interval. But, then, who will credit the rapture? Who will put such a construction upon the sudden and singular disappearance of that small happy flock that will constitute the first translation of the glorified elect? None but the comparatively few, who will, like Mary, "Keep all these things, and ponder them in their hearts." None, perhaps, but the foolish virgins, who, though expectant and watching, took no oil in their vessels with their lamps. The world at large will devise countless false theories to account for a phenomenon so unparalleled. Every possible reason, save and except the true one, will be conjectured and assumed, and then the circumstance will be forgotten by all but the true Church!

Was not this precisely the case nineteen centuries ago? Many must have been familiar with the marvellous incidents recorded in Mary's and Elisabeth's lives. With reference to the latter, indeed, it is said, "and her neighbours and her cousins heard how the Lord shewed great mercy upon her, and they rejoiced with her." (Luke i. 58.) And after Zachariah's mouth was opened, we learn that "fear came on all that dwelt round about them, and all these sayings were noised about throughout the hill country of Judea." (Luke i. 65.) All the circumstances connected with the birth of our Saviour must, therefore, have been pretty generally known. It was subsequently spread abroad by the shepherds; then, when the Holy Child was brought to Jerusalem, and was seen by Simeon and Anna, all connected with the Temple must have heard of what had transpired. Moreover, it is said, that Anna, who was evidently a person universally known and renowned for her sanctity, "spake of Him to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem," implying that the glad tidings were communicated by her to all the devout Jews who frequented the Temple, and by them again doubtless repeated to their friends and connections. At a subsequent period, a year later, perhaps, or more, the wise men, under the miraculous guidance of a star, appeared at Jerusalem. Scarcely can we conceive the agitation and excitement that an event so remarkable and unprecedented must have occasioned. "Herod was troubled in mind, and all Jerusalem with him," significantly observes the Evangelist, as evidence of the popular ferment kindled among all classes by the appearance of these Eastern sages. "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" must have startled the multitude and reverberated through every part of the city. As proved by the reply, it could have been no mystical inquiry of a people who from their first call as a nation had been looking for the Desire of Israel.

The chief priests and scribes were all assembled at the palace and consulted upon the extraordinary purport of the visit of these illus trious strangers; the motives that could have induced them to undertake such a long, fatiguing and perilous journey, and all the circumstances that gave rise to it must have been thoroughly discussed, commented upon, and widely circulated, awakening emotions, good or evil, in the breast of every individual correspondent with his hopes and fears, and yet the commotion subsided, the subject was dropped and forgotten; but the Lord continued amongst them for thirty years, and they knew

THE RAINBOW.
May 1, 1868.

it not! Just so may it be again. Shall we be wiser in our generation than were the Jews in theirs? The disappearance of the Saints will be a nine days' wonder, and will then lapse among the obliterated things of the past; forgotten by the world at large, and in many cases, alas! it is to be feared, even by their brethren!

It will be remarked that, independently of the prophetical writings generally, there is a special Book of Revelation, more systematically constructed, given to each of the two dispensations of the Law and the Gospel-the Book of Daniel to the Jew, the Apocalypse of St. John to the Christian. But though the last essentially regards the Church, yet as it culminates in the glorious manifestation of the King of kings, it is likewise closely interwoven with the future destinies of Israel, and as all the prophecies of the second Advent must necessarily converge and harmonize, so there must be a point where Daniel and St. John meet, and that point appears to be the rise of the seven-headed beast, the iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar's metallic image, merging into the last stage of iron and clay of Daniel's fourth beast, which, from the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, has been lying prophetically dormant.

Assuming, therefore, that St. John literally saw the beast rise, as described, with seven heads, neither more nor less, may it not be a still future undeveloped state of Daniel's fourth beast? If so, then must we expect and be prepared for a series of sovereigns, which, terminating in that Wicked One whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, may very appropriately be called the AntiChristian dynasty, under whose fostering care the Romish Church may rise to far greater spiritual supremacy than ever yet exercised, until she attain the elevation and altitude represented in the 17th chapter; and thus, that same Rome which was the great city reigning over the kings of the earth in St. John's day, may, without paradox, be the identical Rome predicted as the seat of the future woman, who, for thirteen centuries, has been ominously casting her shadow before her.

In the 17th chapter, St. John is called to witness the judgment of the whore; he sees her sitting in the full pride and plenitude of spiritual authority upon the beast, and is then informed that it is under the sixth king, after the first five are fallen, that she will attain this maximum of power-that another king will follow and pass away—the beast will be then non-existent, "was and is not," but " even he," the seventh head, "is the eighth !" not a distinct head therefore, but the seventh revivified from the bottomless pit!-the head which he saw wounded to death and healed. St. Paul calls him the Son of Perdition. Our Lord gives the like title to Judas Iscariot. According to St. John, in the 9th chapter of the Apocalypse, he must be the son of the Angel of the bottomless pit! During the preceding part of his vision no woman appeared, nor is there the slightest allusion made to one, and yet the angel addresses St. John as if he were perfectly cognizant of the part the woman was to play in the world's perversion. "Come hither, I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters." It must be the same woman, therefore-for none other is spoken of in any preceding part of the book-of whom he was previously commissioned to write to the church of Thyatira, and yet