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the Apocalypse is an exception to this rule; instead of what is so reconcileable, that its rehearsal of national visitations, is because it relates to the time of the end," when the Church shall have finished her course?

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3. The Church's hope, throughout every generation, has been, and is, so suspended upon the one event-the coming of her Lord, for which she is put under a solemn responsibility to wait and watch, that dependence upon chronological information about national crises-supposing her edification involved their prophetic record would be incompatible with her position. Hence the Apostle, writing to the Thessalonians on this very subject of the Lord's coming, interrupts his instructions with the following emphatic proviso" But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you" (1 Thess. v. 1). As though the Divine purpose was, that she should always be contemplating the end of her journey through the wilderness, not its stages, which latter might tempt to intermission of vigilance.

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And, what renders the more remarkable this alleged irrelevancy to the Church's case of knowledge of the times and seasons, is the fact that our Lord implies its importance in connection with Jewish hope. For, when inquired of by His disciples, after His resurrection, "Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel ?— His reply was, It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own hand' (Acts i. 6, 7). The restoration of the kingdom of Israel, belonging, as it does, to the category of earthly things, will be accompanied by its palpable earthly adjuncts and corresponding signs. It will also renew the progress of the sacred Jewish Festivals, which has been stopped by the present dispensation; taking up the thread, as we find in Joel ii., just at the very point where the rejected ministry of Jesus and the twelve Apostles (Jewish in character) broke it off. Therefore, to be conversant with "the times and the seasons," properly belongs to the prospects of the JEW.

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Moreover, is it not probable that since our Lord reserved such information; and it would appear, as the Christ—before His ascension to the Father, had it not to impart (for until then, THE CHRIST" relation did not receive its full expansion, so that He could become the depositary for it (see Mark xiii. 32)- is it not probable, I say, that upon His ascension, He received it from the Father, and disclosed it in His last communication to His Church? Accordingly, this would further strengthen the presumption that the Apocalypse which teems with references to "the times and the seasons,' being given under these very circumstances, would turn out to be pregnant with Israel's restoration, and its concomitant events.

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But, perhaps it will be said-Why, if this be the character of the Apocalypse, has it been given to the Church, which I allege, from 1 Thess. v. 1, needs not such information about "the times and seasons?" This difficulty is easily obviated :

1. The Church, as interested in all that concerns her glorious Head, must be interested in all that concerns His kindred according to the flesh. Joseph's wife, in Egypt, while he was "making strange with his brethren," doubtless shared his confidence throughout the process, and valued it, though her own more intimate relationship was essentially perfect without it. So with the Churchespoused to Jesus; her sympathies must ever be exercised towards Israel" the dearly beloved of His soul," and the disclosure of His designed discipline with them, to issue at length in overflowing faithfulness, must yield to her blessed material for communion with her Lord.

2. Though not directly, yet indirectly, the subject affects the Church herself. For antecedently to Israel's redemption, and we know not by what duration, will be the realization of her own glorious hope-translation to be with her Lord; so that from her descrial of the budding of "the fig tree, and all the trees "-i.e., Israel's and the nations' phases, may her heart be quickened into deeper emotion on her own account. Therefore, there is nothing inconsistent in the presumption hereby gathered to be the true one, that the Apocalypse should mainly relate to the earthly peopleIsrael, and the nations with whom they will have to do; albeit, its contents ought also to be a source of the most intense concern to the present Church of God.

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I hope my readers will not be impatient of this chapter, as containing matter which they think might be dispensed with, under the head of " Apocalyptic Interpretation." For my own part, I believe that adequate knowledge on the topics here introduced, though I confess I have not done justice to them, lies at the root of all profitable study of this crowning portion of Divine Revelation. And it is because Mr. Elliott, with all his historical and numismatic lore, has so sadly overlooked these dispensational truths, that I am persuaded his labours will eventually turn out like those of his predecessors. However, I have now done with the question of presumptions, into which I should not have gone, but for Mr. Elliott's so confidently advancing his groundless ones. In the next chapter, I shall enter upon an examination of the case, as it actually is.

THE ENGLISH BIBLE AND PEOPLE.*

PURPOSE to speak to you upon "The English Bible, the Salvation of the English People," and to say a few words on some of the principal hostile influences which are at work around us, diminishing the faith of the English people in this their most wonderful possession. We

* Rev. Edward White's Bristol speech, slightly abridged.

cannot hope to raise the English people from a life of secularism and sensuality except by the influence of religious faith; and the religious faith of the English people must be faith in the Bible, or there will be none at all. Whoever, therefore, works towards the diminution of the faith of the people in the authority of the Bible as the record of the revelation of the living God, so far labours towards the degradation of the English people; and whoever strives to increase the faith of the people in this Book, which has been handed down to them from their fathers as a Divine revelation, not only subserves the higher end of leading them towards their eternal salvation, but does a good stroke of work towards helping them to make the best of both worlds-of this as well as of the other. Now it appears to me that I have only to look at France for one moment to see the infinite value of faith in the Bible to the English nation. I will just read to you one seutence of the writings of M. Reveillaud, a wonderfully able Frenchman, who was for many years an ordinary French unbeliever, but who was visited, in the Divine mercy, with a marvellous dream, from which he awoke to religious thought, and speedily became a convinced Christian. He is now still, as he was before, the editor of a newspaper, but he edits his newspaper in the interests of faith; and you shall just hear the outcry of this remarkable man when he looks around and sees the ravages of unbelief. Не says: "Ah! shades of the poor Protestants whom Louis XIV. killed, exiled, martyred! How are you vindicated! You, at least, were brave hearts, of whom we are but the unworthy descendants. If one had believed you, if one had followed you, you would have had ages ago assured to France the benefits of liberty and of Parliamentary Government, with the stable energy of an enlightened Protestantism! With a Protestant France, we should have kept and extended our colonies; we should have kept Canada, Louisiana, India, and acquired Egypt and Syria; we would have kept Alsace. France with you would always have been La Grande Nation." All those alternatives might not have come to pass, but it would have made a mighty difference in the history of modern France if she had retained her Protestantism of the fifteenth century.

Now, there are influences at work around us in England to diminish the popular faith in the Bible. I will mention three or four, and add a few words on each. The first of these influences which is tending to sap the faith of many of our people in the authority of the Holy Scriptures, is nothing more or less than ignorance of the Sacred Scriptures. You will ask me, "Is it possible for you to stand up in a great assembly of Englishmen and declare that the people are in any degree ignorant of the Bible! Why, they all know it by heart." Do they indeed? Why, when Mr. Bright, in Parliament, making a speech some years ago, had occasion to refer to the Cave of Adullam, a number of members crowded round him at the end of the debate and asked where that cave was. A comparatively excusable piece of ignorance was that, but it is characteristic of the general fact that our higher classes, from the absence of godly home-education, from the absence of Scriptural teaching in their schools and colleges, are grossly ignorant of the real contents of the Holy Scriptures. Of course there are noble exceptions. The same thing is true of the generality of the middle classes, because there are so

few families where children are carefully trained in those Holy Scriptures which are "able to make them wise unto salvation." Almost every one fancies he knows something of the Bible; perhaps he knows a text or two, and recognises a text or two when he hears it; but that is not sufficient. To believe in the Bible you must understand the general drift of the Bible; you must comprehend that it is the most wonderful Book in the world, because it can be bound up an organic unity, though consisting of sixty or seventy writings that were written over the space of 1,500 years; and yet, when they are so connected, they form a unity; and the books of the Bible belong to one another, as the parts of the human body belong to one another. You cannot fail, if you become students of the Bible, to find that the Book of Genesis belongs to the Book of Revelation, and that all the intermediate parts of the Bible belong to each other, and form the most marvellous unity; which cannot be accounted for except by the inspiration of God, teaching holy men of old to speak as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Now, it is through this widespread ignorance of Scripture that men are so easily assailed with the objections of unbelief. The whole Bible is a sufficient answer to the world in arms against it. If you know only one or two passages of Scripture, or have a vague impression of one or two stories in the Bible, you cannot well stand up against the unbelief of the present day; but if you have read the Bible carefully and seriously, and read it as a whole, I think you will share the belief of so many around me, that you care nothing whatever about the main objections of the sceptical party, because you know in yourself that this wonderful Book has the deepest internal evidence of being the very Word of the living God. I remember reading an answer to a question to the following effect: "How do you know the Bible to be the Word of God?" "Because as none works so none speaks like God."

Well, that general ignorance that I have spoken of can only be dissipated by a very careful endeavour on the part of Christian people to inform their fellow-countrymen. My own belief is that if you will gather men together-yes, even the most skilled artisans of the working classes and offer to read to them in an interesting way some of the chapters of the Bible-not give them a snip which you call a textand then make remarks upon it, the men will be profoundly interested in the Bible. That is my experience; for now for some years, on one Sunday every month, I have caused all seats to be free; the pious people have been sent away; and the men come in crowds to that meeting, which has for its main object the reading of the Scriptures; and they are just as interested in it as the regular church-goers; and if the men who could read it distinctly, and give the sense, would stand, as Ezra of old, on "a pulpit of wood" and read the Bible, I believe we should see a great diminution of unbelief.

In the next place, another influence which I think is acting somewhat disastrously, is what we may call "literary criticism" of the Bible by men who are without spiritual insight. Far be it from me to say one word in derogation of the honour which belongs to literary men and critics. We owe, in England, an untold blessing to the labours of the scholars of past ages. There is not a man in England who has not shared the benefits of the result of the labours of great literary English

men in former years; but then those of us who have spent our lives in reading, have come to understand that there are critics and critics, that there are two classes of scholars, and that while there is one class of scholars to whom we can never be sufficiently thankful, not only because they have the knowledge of words, but a vision of truth, there are some other scholars and critics-and some of them are engaged on the Bible-who have not the spiritual faculty. There are some men who can speak ten languages, and not say one word in any of them that is worth hearing; and there are some other learned Hebrew and Greek scholars who are also engaged upon the "criticism of the Bible," as they call it, who seem to me to be tearing the Bible to pieces, very much as a lion or tiger would tear to pieces a bullock in the wilderness. When, therefore, I see statements made by men denying the Mosaic origin of the book of Deuteronomy-a book which is full from one end to the other of the highest inspiration; a book which, if any book in the Bible does, bears upon it the mark of antiquity and authenticity, when I see that stated to be a production of the last ages of the Jewish monarchy, and said to be the work of a man who only personated Moses, I cannot but think of the want of spiritual insight. And it is still worse when we hear a man, who has read the Gospel of St. John year after year, arrive at the conclusion, that the most wonderful writing of the world is the production of a forger of the second century. A man who can believe that those marvellous chapters containing the account of the Lord's last supper with the disciples are not the words of Jesus Christ, but the work of some impostor of a later age, is capable of believing almost anything; and, however learned he may be in Hebrew or Greek, the man is destitute of spiritual insight, which alone makes verbal knowledge useful.

Now I will speak a word or two on a third kind of hostile influence which is at work amongst us rather widely-I refer to what we may term science, which has lost one of its eyes-" Science falsely so called." Now "science" is a Latin word which has become English, and it means "knowledge; " knowledge of positive fact. Where science begins opinion ends. It is not simply my opinion that the atmosphere is composed of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid, but it is a fact, and it is science; but in our loose way of modern talking, we have of late come to call the opinions of scientific men "science." Now, I venture to maintain that nothing is science which is not proved as fact, and which is therefore necessarily believed by every man who is competent to apprehend the facts. It is a signal mistake to allow that the opinions of this learned physicist, or the other, are of the same rank as absolute discoveries, and the failure to distinguish between "opinion" and "science," has wrought exceeding mischief during the last few years in England. Amongst gentlemen of the class which I have described, who mistake their own opinions for science, there has been of late a tolerably fixed opinion for the last ten or fifteen years that it is "all over" with the Bible, because, as the result of their discoveries, they have ascertained that the early chapters in the book of Genesis are one mass of errors; and, since Judaism is built on Genesis, and Christianity is built on Judaism, if the very foundation is gone, and you have proved the fallacy and untruth of the creation and fall of man in the earliest books,

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