sleep in Christ until his death and resurrection and second coming in his glorious resurrectional power, to resurrect them, and to resurrect likewise all who should be subsequently disembodied by death, immediately thereafter. All this glory in the process of glorifying the whole humanity is beautifully symbolized in the offering by the Israelites of the first ripe fruits unto God, and his acceptance of that offering, being a pledge or an assurance of the safe and certain in-gathering of the whole harvest. So, as we have before seen, Christ offered himself to God as the first purified portion of the humanity of which he was the head, and his resurrection from the dead declared the acceptance of his offering; and the order of the resurrection by the divine economy is that the resurrection of all the members of the body shall follow that of the head.

Before we pass from this resurrectional and glorious solution of all human destiny, we will for a moment contrast its nature, order, and time with that which is taught by the popular creeds. They hold that the literal fleshly body is to be raised, that its dust and ashes are to be collected, reformed, reanimated at some time in the future world, and the bodies of the saints fitted for heaven and glory, and those of the sinners for hell and its torments forever. We mean no exaggeration, and leave all comments for the reader.

Our illustrations of the Bible account of the origin and purpose of the universe, have brought us to the epochs, as before seen, of the day of judgment, the abolishment of the legal dispensation,

the passing away of the Jewish Church and State, the second coming of Christ, the resurrection, and the coming of the Kingdom of God in her great power and glory. All these, if they were not actually simultaneous, transpired about the year of Christ seventy.

CHAPTER XIX.

OUR remarks and expositions will henceforth have reference to certain important changes in the Christian Church, affecting adversely her faith and practice, her most lamentable change being "the departure of a great portion of her body from the grace, free and unconditional, that is in Christ," for the entire humanity, as the members of his body and thereby the children of God. And we shall endeavor to show, and we trust successfully, that the cause of that departure from the truth was the receiving by the Church of the Pagan dogma of infinite evil; which, it is plainly inferable, both from sacred and profane history, was brought into the Church by Pagan priests, who were Christian converts and became eminent Christian Fathers, and doubtless very learned and pious men, who were believers in Christ, and yet in the existence of an infinite evil principle; which, however, was but a different phase of the belief in an infinite evil being of the then very popular Oriental Philosophy.

It was a fundamental error, and most prolific of ascriptions to the Deity of malignant passion, wrath,

vengeance, and infinite cruelties toward his own offspring. All these were ascribed to the gods of the nations, who were believed to be provoked thereto by the existence of positive infinite evil, and the wickedness of men tempted by a wicked devil, or God and his angels; this is about the sum and substance of the philosophy of most of those Eastern nations. Now it seems clear to our mind that the philosophy of the existence of infinite evil and sin, or an infinitely wicked God or devil, is very unphilosophical, if we admit also the existence of an infinitely good God, or of any positive infinite good. For there cannot be two infinite beings. If the evil God be infinitely evil and infinite in power, he will destroy all good and all good beings, or rather would have prevented their existence. And so of the good God, if those nations admit and acknowledge the existence of an infinitely good being-infinite in wisdom and power, omniscient, omnipresent-they must give up the evil God, inasmuch as there is not, neither can there ever be, any being or any thing or principle in the universe but which is of him (the true God), and is therefore good and not evil. He is the sole author of the universe and all things therein. If there be devils and hell, or hellfire, they exist, as before said, for the good of all parties concerned, and all that ends well is good.

Many good men have for centuries believed in the existence of devils-but never have seen or felt them. The Apostles seem not to have known anything of a real personal devil. Saint Paul comes the nearest to a description of him, in speaking of

the prince of the power of the air, which he subsequently shows, however, was simply the spirit of disobedience in the hearts of the Jews. Christ spake of him as the father of the wicked Jewswhich if taken literally would make him only a Jew also, nothing more; his existence therefore is to our mind simply a myth, and we know that his place is fully supplied as a tempter of the sinfully inclined fleshly lusts of all mankind. But these devils and hells, wrath, and vengeance of God must have their existence from the evil God, or principle of infinite evil of the Persian or Oriental philosophy. We infer therefore that with the introduction into the Christian Church, about the close of the first century, of the dogma of infinite evil and sin, came also the belief in the infinite wrath and anger of God toward all sinners, and their belief also in a devil who is almost a God-being present in all places and at all times to tempt and incite all mankind to evil; and there must needs be a vast hell, in which for him to reign as supreme director of the torments of his victims, and at the same time executing fierce wrath of the good God upon his rebellious offspring. And from the same source is suffering, vicarious atonement, imputed or transferable righteousness, and eternal torments.

Now it is marvellous to relate, but nevertheless true, that the Christian Church embraced all these immediately after the death of the Apostles-who had during their whole ministry preached to her and to the world nothing but the pure "gospel of the grace of God to a world dead in trespasses and