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Testimony of Romans XI.

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prise, and not rather that they may "be judged every man according to his works?"

Many of the prophecies relating to the Jews furnish the strongest evidence that the day of Millennial glory will come through the dispensation of the Spirit. What else can be the import of Hos. 3: 4, 5? The children of Israel are now and have been since the destruction of their city, in the condition described by the prophet," without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without a teraphin." As the first part is fulfilled and fulfilling, so must the remainder yet be fulfilled. "Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days." This remains to be accomplished by the operations of the divine Spirit. For it is his peculiar work to cause men to return and seek the Lord their God. Nothing short of their conversion to God can be a fulfilment of this prophecy.

In the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul teaches with great clearness, that there is to be a general conversion of the Jews, which is to be in some way consequent upon the conversion of the Gentiles, and attended with the most important and desirable results for the rest of the world. "For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?" We have seen the casting away of the Jews, but not the receiving of them. This event is not to take place till after the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in; that is, after the conversion of multitudes of them. According to the apostle, the event of receiving the Jews is to come through the mercy shown to the Gentiles, not as the result of the crisis of estrangement; and the Gentiles therefore are to be instrumental in the restoration, through the blessing of God upon the gospel. Nothing is said of the restoration being sudden, or effected by miracle, or consequent upon the second advent. If these things belong to the event, it must be learned from other parts of the Scripture. It is not taught by the apostle, as might be expected, if such were the fact; for no one of the New Testament writers refers more often, or with greater animation, to the second coming. As if to cut off the possibility of mistake, Paul tells how the event is to be brought about: "And so all Israel shall be saved." That the Jewish people are meant by Israel, is certain from the context. How, then, are they to be saved? Just in the way in which the prophets had foretold. "Then shall come OUT OF ZION the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. As for me, this my covenant with them, saith the Lord: my Spirit, which is upon them, and my

words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever." How was it possible for Paul more clearly to have fixed the event to the dispensation of the Spirit? How strangely at variance with this is the theory which makes the recovery of the Jew to result from Christ's second coming, at the crisis of the world's degeneracy! and not from the lifting of the veil from their heart by the Holy Ghost, and the Deliverer coming out of Zion; -the church so long perpetuated by Gentile

converts.

Every reader of the Bible has noticed those numerous Scriptures which speak of a great general outpouring of the Spirit in the latter days. The views which we have advanced make these intelligible and precious; every other theory makes them difficult, and tends to divest them of interest. Christ taught that the descent of the Spirit was more important than his bodily presence, a truth which seems to be overlooked by those who see nothing important or decisive accomplished till he appear again. The predictions relating to the Holy Spirit are in agreement with Christ's teaching. They magnify the work of the Spirit and the results of his agency. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses." "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh, etc." The apostle Peter has assured us that this prophecy of Joel related to events which were to happen under the Christian dispensation, and that the scenes of Pentecost were a specimen of what would be abundantly displayed. They could not have been a full accomplishment of the prophecy, because the few thousands affected on that day will by no means answer to the expression "all flesh." Neither was there a complete fulfilment of the prophecy in the success of the gospel in the apostles' day, which, though great, did in fact reach but a small proportion of the world. "All flesh," does not necessarily mean every person; but it surely indicates more than a mere fraction. Can it mean less than that the Spirit, in power and fulness, will be to the whole church what it was to the primitive disciples, and to the whole world what it was to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost? Do not this and other predictions of the abundant outpouring of the Spirit, look forward to the times when "the watchmen shall lift up the voice together when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb when the Lord shall extend peace to his church like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream?" Do they not refer

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Conclusion.

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mainly to that last great onset in the mighty conflict, which is to be followed by voices in heaven, saying, "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever ?"

God has put large honor upon the Holy Spirit in the prophecies. To leave these unexplained, or to enfeeble them by limiting the results to the rescue of a few captives, here and there, out of Satan's wide dominions, is to degrade the Divine Spirit from the place where prophets in their visions beheld him. The triumph of the Redeemer's kingdom depends upon the abundance of the Spirit. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord." "My kingdom is not of this world." It wants no central government established upon this earth; it wants not the pomp of this world; for "the Lord God himself will be the glory in the midst of it." It is a spiritual kingdom, and needs only that the Spirit "come down like showers upon the mown grass," to cause the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose," and the glory of the Lord so to be revealed, that all flesh shall see it together.

We frankly confess we have no sympathy with those views of proph ecy which shut out the glorious advent of the Spirit, and which give to the militant church no place on earth except in the wilderness: or else so blend the heavenly with the earthly as to join her with the holy dead raised with spiritual bodies to take part in a monarchy which belongs neither to this world nor the next. This is to confound the Millennium with the New Jerusalem which follows it. All our feelings are in harmony with the command of Christ, "Go ye into all the world," is still binding; and the promise, "Lo, I am with you alway even to the end of the world," is the cheering watchword which cannot fail till the gospel is preached to every creature. We love the doctrine of Christ's second coming, coming as the conqueror who has subdued all his and our enemies. We believe “God is not slack concerning his promise," but that he is preparing all things as fast as possible for the judgment of the great day, "when the Lord himself shall descend, and all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth." An important part of this preparation is the triumph of the seed of the woman by the complete overthrow of Satan and his cause. We see not how the way is prepared for God to vindicate his own character, or for Christ to enjoy his triumph, till every obstacle to the spread of the gospel has been surmounted, till every strong hold of sin has been demolished, till every opposing power has been routed, and Satan himself bound and shut up. The letting loose of Satan for a little season, after the thousand years are ended will only

serve to show that his evil disposition is unchanged, and that it is fit he should be cast into the lake of fire, to go no more out forever.

We are confident that this view of the kingdom of Christ is suited to excite and support the faith and patience of Christians, and give fervency to the prayer, "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Such effects have appeared during the last fifty years, and they will be more apparent as the church comes more fully to understand that the day of prosperity shall come. Days of degeneracy and trial will only strengthen the confidence of the faithful that "the God of peace shall bruise Satan under their feet shortly." We know not what commotions and fearful judgments shall be upon the earth; nor what the present shaking of the nations betokens; yet are we assured that Providence will unite with the agency of the Spirit to give the result. "Our Redeemer is strong; the Lord of Hosts is his name. Thou hast a mighty arm; strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand." Whose heart does not kindle with gratitude and zeal while he contemplates the work to be done and the glory that shall follow? Who will not cry,

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The Relations of Faith and Philosophy.

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ARTICLE IV.

THE RELATIONS OF FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY.

AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE PORTER RHETORICAL SOCIETY OF ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AT ITS ANNIVERSARY, SEPT. 4,1849.'

By Professor Henry B. Smith, Amherst College, Mass.

GENTLEMEN OF THE PORTER RHETORICAL SOCIETY:

ALTHOUGH the very name of your society might seem to indicate the subject of your anniversary addresses, yet I have been deterred from taking sacred rhetoric as my theme, partly by the memory of the orations of former years, and partly because I have supposed that he who advocated the claims of this art ought, in his own person, to exemplify its power. And I feel justified in adventuring upon a graver topic, because this is consistent with your own precedents; because I am convinced it is equally befitting the occasion; and because it is more congenial with my own pursuits.

We meet as believers, as students, perhaps as teachers of the Christian faith. We are rationally convinced that in Christianity is the highest truth, and that in the orthodox system, which has formed the substance of Christianity through its advancing and victorious centuries, we have the best human exposition of the divine revelation. In proportion, then, to our love for this system, and to our love of all truth, will be the depth of our interest in the assaults made on our faith, whether by depraved passions or by elevated intellects.

No man who loves the Christian faith as it ought to be loved, no man who is alive to the spirit of the times in which he lives, as every man ought to be alive, can have failed to feel, to see, or to forebode the coming of a conflict between the mightiest powers that sway the destiny of man. There may, indeed, be those to whom, through grace, it is given, in the ripeness of an impregnable conviction, or in what Milton calls the "undeflowered and unblemishable" simplicity of a

1 The form of the spoken address is retained in this contribution to the Review, because a change in this respect would demand a change in the whole structure and arrangement of the discussion. The tone of the piece was necessarily kept rather popular than scientific. The exigencies of the occasion must be the author's plea for the slight notice given to many important points, which must needs be introduced, though they could not be formally debated.