two witnesses have been slain, their bodies insulted, and they have been raised to life again, and been called up to heaven in the sight of their affrighted enemies. The prince is in the midst of peace, a deadly peace with the Jews, and he is aided by the other beast (Rev. xiii. 11-17) whom John "saw coming up out of the earth; he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake like a dragon." This beast is, I believe, THE ANTICHRIST, the MAN OF SIN.

John the Baptist had called the Jews to look on the Lamb of God; and so we see the Antichrist arise with "two horns like a lamb." He has all the powers of Satan and of Satan's demons placed at his disposal, joined to the earthly power and force of the prince of earth. He works all lying wonders and deceptions. through the direct instrumentality of demons, and he places the badge of slavery to the beast on the men who buy life on such conditions. He brings down fire from heaven, he makes the image of the prince speak, and he makes it to be worshipped. His mouth speaks "like a dragon." Surely this is he of whom Paul speaks (2 Thess. ii. 9), "even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all powers and signs and lying wonders." He is that

"wicked one; and, if he is the beast coming out of the earth (Rev. xiii. 11), and if he aids the first beast in his resuscitated eighth-head development, then he is not the prince who wields the world's power, but is, so to speak, his high priest and coadjutor; or, as the Word calls him, "the false prophet."

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It seems to me that the burden of proof lies rather with those who hold that the Antichrist is not a Jew to show how the Jews accept him as their leader, through whom they make a covenant with death, a league with hell (Isaiah xxviii. 18), which I take to be the covenant with the Leopard Prince against the armies of "the King of the North," called at varying times in Scripture, Gog, the land of Magog, chief Prince of Meshech and Tubal," and the Assyrian," the sword of the Lord." There appears to have been a falling out amongst the nations, and this may be the reason for the deadly wound of the seventh head, but which is wonderfully healed. From now, however, if we turn to Daniel xi. 29 to end, we see the little horn king is opposed by enemies north and south, and the king of the north enters "the glorious land," and plants" the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain." So in Isaiah viii. 7-8, we read how the King of Assyria "shall pass through Judah, he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.” The march of this king was traced in Isaiah x. 20-34, and being lopped down, the rod from Jesse's stem come; forth and rules in righteousness and equity, and Israel, all Israel, is called back to the land from Damascus to the river of Egypt, and from the great sea to the river, "even the river Euphrates." This, too, is evidently the same king, and these are the same events described in Ezekiel

xxxviii. xxxix. So, too, in Daniel xii. we see when the nation is at the last gasp, receiving the heavy punishment for her continued sin, and for her "covenant with death and agreement with hell,” which (see Isaiah xxviii.), "shall be disannulled: and when, as in Zechariah xiv. 2, half Jerusalem is actually taken, then the Lord goes forth (v. 3); Gog falls a prey to ravenous birds in the open field (Ezekiel xxxix.); the bow of Assyria is lopped (Isaiah x. 33); and Michael, standing up for his charge, Daniel's people are delivered, from the "time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time" (Daniel xii. 1). When "the King of kings and Lord of lords" (Rev. xix. 16) geos out "to rule with a rod of iron and to tread the wine press and fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, the fowls of heaven are called to "the supper of the great God to eat the flesh of kings and

. . of horses," as in Ezekiel's vision of Armageddon. Then the ruling beast, and his false prophet, and the kings of the earth, seeing the Conqueror coming, combine at once against him, sinking their own enmities. But in vain. The kings fall and their dominion is taken away, though, as we are told, and have already noticed in Daniel vii. 12, "their lives were prolonged for a season and a time." Not so the beast and the false prophet. They are "both cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." Revelation xix. 20; and Daniel vii. 11, confirms the fate of the beast. Satan is bound, the Lord reigns a thousand years. Satan is loosed, and the reprieved beasts again show that the heart of man is only evil continually; they go forth against the Almighty, but there is no more fighting, no more fowls called to "the supper; fire comes down from heaven and devours the armies, and the Devil that deceived them is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone."

Nowhere are we told that the Man of Sin is a great prince, no, the Wicked One is a man filled with all lying and wickedness to deceive. I know that part of Daniel xi. may have been fulfilled, but assuredly we cannot believe that it is all yet fulfilled, for, if so, we must set aside the clear statement that the end of the trouble is deliverance for ever to Daniel's people, or else that Michael, the great prince, is the father of the Maccabees, who rallied Judah for a time: a most lame and impotent conclusion.

It is open for anyone to take the resuscitated eighth head as the Antichrist, as he undoubtedly magnifies himself against Christ; but in that case he is clearly distinct from the Wicked One, the Man of Sin. And I think in no way can we assign these terrible heights of sin and power to Napoleon I. or III. The Prince must be of Greece; the deceiver of Jews must surely be a Jew, if they, who look rightly for a deliverer from the stem of Jesse, are ever to yield him obedience, and, under his guidance, look for safety from the Assyrian to any but the Lord, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. G. J. v. S.

Substance of Sir H. Rawlinson's note referred to in the foregoing

pages:

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Gen. x. 4. Tarshish," reduplicate of Tarsh. Tarsh, as primitive form of the name, will represent the Etruscans of later history, and especially the Tyrrenian, or Tyrrhenian Sea, which was an early name of the eastern part of the Mediterranean. "Kittim," "Dodanim," races first colonized Cyprus, and then passed on to Latium and Magna Graecia. Kittim-Chittim-Cyprus. "Dodanim." Early Assyrian inscriptions divide the inhabitants of Western Asia into two great classes, highlanders and lowlanders, Highlanders in Taurus, Zagros, Ararat in Eastern half, including Assyria and Babylon. Lowlanders, Western half, or Syria proper. Highlanders, unial name. Akkad-ankad-nejd; and also Tilla, from ala, to be high. Lowlanders: Tidan, from dan, or adan, to be low. So Tidan means Syria; also called Akhari, or, Western Tidan-Dedan, true form of Dodanim. Dedan is cognate form of Yadnan, the old Assyrian name of Cyprus. Yadnan, reduplicate of Yadan-in Hebrew to Vadan, the old Jewish name of Cyprus, and Ezekiel xxvii. 19—should be “Vadan and Javan." i.e.. "Cyprus and Greece." Possibly Danaus, from Yadan, in Authorised Version of Ezekiel xxvii. 19.

The second colonization of Cyprus was Phoenician (?), about в c. 2,000. The third by Cypriotes proper, cognate with Carians, Dycians, and other Pelasgic nations.

Sargon, of Babylonia, in 17th century B.C., conquered Syria, and embarked on the Mediterranean. His son, Naramsin, was deified in Cyprus. In 7th century B.C, a second Sargon visited Cyprus, and set up his image in Citium; a monolith, with his image and record of his titles, being found in Larnaca. At that time the Yahnag kings ruled Yahnag Inachus (?) who was the father of Pelasgus.

Famagousta Ammachosta (with initial diagamma), Amta Khadusta, "holy lady" in Assyrian; or, the Syria Dea.

THE UNITY OF THE FAITH.*

THE Scripture doctrine of Immortality has usually been discussed as a matter of mere speculative belief concerning the destiny of the lost. This, however, is only the reverse side of the medal. The obverse side-the positive statement of the doctrine-tells of the reciprocal relations existing between Christ and His saints. These relations are based on the possession of a common life, just as are the relationships of an earthly family. The non-immortality of those who do not possess this life is a corollary, and necessary result of the doctrine, but is by no means the substance of the doctrine itself.

The Bible is not a compendium of abstract doctrine. It is, rather, considered as a whole, the history of a Person. All Scripture Truth concerns this Person.

*By William R. Hart, Philadelphia, Author of "Eternal Purpose: A Study of the Scripture Doctrine of Immortality." This Essay is a contribution to the Symposium contained in Prof. J. H. Pettingell's comprehensive work (now in press), entitled "Life Everlasting."

Apart from Him, doctrinal statements are dry and powerless. Reduced to scientific formula, they may interest the mind, but have no effect upon the heart. But when these statements are apprehended as concerning the character and history of One with whom we are most intimately connected; with whom, indeed, we are allied by the ties of kindred; to whom we are indebted for untold benefits; whose undeserved but perfect, unchangeable, unforfeitable love to us we have known and believed, and with whose eternal future our own is closely identified; they become personal to ourselves, living, powerful, and, so far as they are apprehended, dominant in the heart and life.

The truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ is, therefore, the beginning of the Scripture doctrine of Immortality. All truth centres in Him. He is the Truth; that is to say, He is the personal, living embodiment of all that God has to say to His creatures. In Him all truth is harmonised, and each separate statement forms part of a resplendent and harmonious whole. It is just here that Christendom has missed the key to Revelation. Revelation is about Him, and all its disclosures centre in Him. But theologians have supposed it, instead, to be about Man; and taking isolated statements, they have built up clashing and inconsistent theories. Their starting-point has been wrong; hence their exegesis and dogmatic induction have led to wrong results. Hence, also, no two commentators, starting from the same point, have ever been able to arrive at the same end. The most fruitful source of error in this respect has been the assumption that the Bible history of man assumes his native and inherent immortality.

"Break but one link, the whole you mar."

The Unity of the Faith which centres in Him as the Life, as well as the Way and Truth, is shattered when immortality is claimed to be, instead of His possession and His gift, the inherent and inalienable possession of the creature. The whole Divine economy as revealed in Holy Scripture changes its aspect. It becomes merely remedial, instead of radical. Atonement has different relations and effects. The doctrine of God's sovereignty becomes mere intellectual Calvinism, or is denied altogether; or is, at any rate, deprived of its power and blessing. Faith becomes a work, Regeneration a mere figure of speech, the Hope of the Church is set aside; in brief, the popular doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul is the foundation of an incoherent and heterogeneous religion; while the doctrine of Immortality derived from Christ only is a central fact in an homogeneous Christianity. Worst of all, the former doctrine cuts up by the root the relationships, based on the possession of a common immortality, which the New Testament reveals between Christ and His saints. The Rev. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, recently said, in reviewing adversely a work which advocated the truth of Life in Christ only, "He sets forth the most

precious views as to the person and work of Christ, and as to the intimacy and fulness and security of the believer's union with Him, and of its blessed and glorious consequences." There is evident surprise that such views should be held in connection with what Dr. Hodge calls (most incorrectly) "the doctrine of the annihilationists; " but these views are the necessary result of belief in an actual vital union with Christ, and they are contradicted by the assertion of an immortality independent of Him. Many who believe the latter doctrine do indeed gather from their Bible-reading precious views of Christ, and of His relations to His saints, but they are fragmentary and incomplete, and are held illogically. They cannot be fully apprehended while the union of Christ with His Church is held to be mystical and symbolic rather than a literal and real, although spiritually apprehended fact.

The central fact in this Unity of the Faith is the essential Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from this it is impossible to rightly understand the Scripture-teaching concerning immortality. This teaching is based on the fact-most fully set forth in the Epistle to the Ephesians-that God's design in Redemption was to manifest Himself to His creatures. This manifestation is made in a Person, through whom immortality is conferred on the worthless and perishing. Now if this Person were less than God, He could not be the expression of God. A Revelation may be made through a creature, but God only can be the absolute and complete expression of Himself. And Jesus is the "brightness of His glory, and the express image of His substance."

The next essential element in this Unity is that God became Man. He who was "in the form (morphe) of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, emptied Himself, took on Him the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross."

The third essential is Resurrection. This self-emptied One came into a world of which Satan had gained possession. Man had failed utterly, and the race lay in the helplessness of moral death. It was put on trial again in the person of this, the Second Man. As man, and not in the exercise of Divine power, He successfully met every test imposed upon Him. In the power of faith in His Father, He lived, suffered, and died, displaying throughout entire sinlessness and perfect self-abnegation. Committing His spirit to His Father's hands, He went down into death. One sin would have kept Him there, but His perfect victory was demonstrated by His resurrection from the dead. "Wherefore,” it is said, "God also supremely exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus (a human name) every knee should bow." This exaltation was bestowed upon Him not as the mere rightful acknowledgment of His Godhead, but was the reward of the victorious Man; the Head,