theme of several of the Prophets, who "in times past spoke unto the fathers" of Israel, setting before them a hope and consolation amidst the sufferings and sorrows of the nation. Isaiah saw the throne, the character of the government, and the glory of "The Prince of Peace," who was to wield the sceptre of David, and spoke of it in connection with a time of darkness and tribulation, as a promise of deliverance from the oppressor, and of the establishment of a dominion of righteousness and peace. He foretold that the government should be on the shoulder of the eternal Son of God, who, having been "given" to the Father, was to be "born" a son of man, the "child" of a Jewish virgin,* to order and maintain the kingdom on the immutable basis of judgment and justice, "henceforth even for ever."†

Ezekiel saw the same throne during the captivity, "by the river Chebar in the land of the Chaldeans," and "upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it." The throne had left Jerusalem on account of the sin of Israel, consequently the voice of God to the Prophet in the vision was one of judgment, whilst it announced a re-establishment of the kingdom in grace.

Ezekiel, who in a vision, as recorded at the early part of the prophecy, saw the glory of the throne removed from the Temple, saw it also return, when he was commanded to prophecy concerning the restoration of the land, the regeneration of Israel, and the building of a yet future sanctuary, upon the return of the Messiah, to reign "in the midst of the children of Israel for ever."

Daniel saw the throne of "The Son of Man," in connection with the close of the four Gentile monarchies. He saw the great and terrible being of the last phase of Gentile rule on earth "given to the burning flame," in succession to whom he beheld "6 one like the Son of Man," who " I came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before Him. And

*The expressions "child born" and "Son given" are significant; and show that it was the Eternal Son of God given to become the Son of God in Incarnation, for the momentous purposes of redemption and universal sovereignty.

+ Isa. ix. 6, 7; Luke i. 31-33.

Ezek. x. 18, 19; Ezek. xliii. 1–7.

there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and all people, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."*

That throne and kingdom are those of Jehovah Jesus, Son of God, and of David, the fulfilment of all prophecy, and the reality of the Ark of the Tabernacle. David has often tuned his harp to sing of the glory of the future throne and government of Jehovah, and of the joy and gladness of the whole earth, when the Lord, who "sitteth between the cherubim" shall reign thereon. To extract

any portion of those divinely inspired strains,. would be to spoil their exceeding beauty; I therefore earnestly commend them to the perusal of the reader, promising him a hallowed delight in the wondrous prospect of such precious realities. The Psalms I allude to are from xcv. to xcix.

Kings and rulers may conspire and take counsel together in impotent derision against the counsels of the living God, but He declares, "YET have I set MY KING upon My holy hill' of Zion." Though the Anti-christian wild beast, Satan's king, with the allied principalities of heathenism may rage, and blasphemously oppose themselves to the Son of God, a voice shall sound from the majesty of the throne, echoing, in tones of thunder, the unchangeable decree that first went forth against the wicked king Zedekiah, "Those profane wicked princes. of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God, remove the diadem, and take off the crown.

. . . I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until He come Whoseright it is and I will give it HIM!"‡ I will conclude this account of the Throne of the Millenial Government, in the words of another Prophet, "It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the Mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths. For

Nation,

out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the Word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords

into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' The Lord hasten this in His time.

EVERYONE speaks and writes as far as he is able to do so on the development and spread of Ritualism. It has long been fostered in secret, and has at last, like an epidemic, burst forth with great violence, and taken many by surprise. It may be that the present excitement will soon subside, but it does not follow from this that its progress is arrested, and the mischief it is calculated to do is lessened. People get used to everything; they learn to bear burdens which seemed to crush them when first laid on, and become gradually indifferent to errors which, when they were proclaimed in their hearing some time before, filled them with horror and roused their indignation, More especially if the champions of truth are guilty of exaggerating the importance of the errors they testify against, and if the promoters of error can succeed in suffering a little persecution, or secure a cheap martyrdom, then reaction speedily sets in, a feeling of sympathy springs up, and the horror every Protestant feels of everything that in any way has a semblance of oppression or religious persecution, reconciles many to look with pity, if not with sympathy, at what they must and do condemn with head and heart.

When so many testify against the epidemic of Ritualism which extends its ravages to all ranks of society, and more especially attacks the young and the unguarded, it cannot be thought strange that this periodical should also raise its voice, weak though it be, against an enemy who threatens to deprive us of that heritage of truth for which our fathers suffered nobly and fought valiantly. Yea, "The Scattered Nation" is more particularly called upon to protest against this awful foe, because it cannot be denied that Ritualism is disguised, if it be disguised, Popery. It paves the way to Rome, against which we must and will

protest with our whole heart; for Rome has ever been the enemy of Israel, and Rome and Jerusalem can never be reconciled. It might be thought that Ritualism can be supported by an appeal to the writings and rites and ordinances of Moses, and in order to guard Moses against such an abuse of his authority, to protect his symbols, and shadows, and types against this affront put upon them, I think it my duty to lay before you the following statements which, I trust, will prove that Ritualism has nothing in common with what God commanded Moses to do.

It is scarcely necessary to say that I believe that the same God spoke in the Old Testament in divers manners by the prophets, who spoke in the latter days by His Son, and that as God is the same for ever, so also there can be no shadow of variableness in His teaching nor in the way of access to Him. It is therefore as dangerous to separate the two dispensations as to oppose them, or to confuse them one with another. If we wish to value them rightly, and to give to each of them the place awarded by God, we ought simply to say that the New Testament is hidden in the Old, and the Old derives its full light from the New. The law is not the Gospel, and the Gospel is not the law; but the law leads to the Gospel, and the Gospel magnifies the law. This clear distinction should be made and maintained in order to secure divine unity and harmony, the very reverse of man-made uniformity, the result of confusion and the expression of monotony.

Law and Gospel, then, are intimately connected, and to each implicit obedience is to be paid. For all God says and does is perfect, eminently calculated to accomplish His designs, and must therefore be observed and * Isa. ii. 1-4.

submitted to until abolished by Him. But it does not follow that what He has given for a certain purpose, and intended to last for a certain period, must remain for ever, and be thought perfect under totally different circumstances. Playthings or food, or even lessons, suitable for a child, are not suitable for a grown-up youth. It would be foolish to overlook the difference of age, of bodily and mental development, and either to deny the child what its tender years require, or to restrict the man to what fed him when he was young. Who can deny the truth of the words of the Hebrew of the Hebrews: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things' (1 Cor. xiii. 11). The distinction is so plain and clear that no one will dispute it, or call it in question. Let us now apply this principle to the old institutes of Moses and to modern Ritualism.

I believe that the whole of the Tabernacle, the measures, materials, and the different instructions according to which the various parts were made, had a spiritual meaning, and were calculated to convey important lessons. As God spoke through the prophets, even so did He speak by the Tabernacle-the place of testimony where He met with His people, and revealed His glory in their midst. But are we to suppose, that the same means for the communication of truth,-which were employed for a people just emerged from slavery, having been oppressed for centuries, and consequently become so degraded as scarcely any longer to know the name of the God of their fathers-I say means, and not truth, for that remains ever the same, and can as little change as its Author, the God of truth, though it may in the course of ages be more fully revealed to us, and more minutely describedmust the means, I say, then used, be preserved even now, when God has spoken through Him whose advent was in the days of Moses foretold and foreshadowed? Must we in the Christian dispensation return to Moses, when all that Moses said and did was simply destined to lead us to Christ? or, in other words, must we go back to the shadows after the substance is come?

No, and again I say no; for it is not our duty to imitate Moses, but to realise those spiritual truths of which the "ites and cere

Jan, 1, 1867.

monies were types. Moses himself is so much alive to the fact that even circumcision-the sign of the covenant God had made with Abraham and his seed, and as such of great importance is but a type of the circumcision of the heart, that when the covenant was set aside during the thirty-eight years' wanderings through the desert, the Israelites were not circumcised. All the washings and purifications teach the lesson: "Be ye holy for I am holy." We cannot help reading Moses in the light of John the Baptist, who tells us that Christ is the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world; and in these few words assures us that all the lambs ever slain as sacrifices pointed to the Lamb, and became unnecessary as soon as the substance of these shadows was come. What the Baptist said of himself holds true of Moses and of Elijah, of all they have said and done, that they must decrease and Christ increase; for all must disappear before Christ even when they stand beside Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and we are to behold none but Christ only (Matthew xvii. 8).

We cannot help reading Moses in the light of Paul, and he tells us that Israel when led out of Egypt had a lamb as a passover; we also have a passover, even Christ sacrificed for us. We neither require nor wish for the blood sprinkled on the door-posts, when we have the blood of the Lamb of God sprinkled on our hearts to cleanse us from all iniquity. We have unleavened bread, even as Israel; they had the shadow, for that bread was to tell the Jews that they were to be a holy people, a nation of priests keeping aloof from all that defiles, and from the leaven of unrighteousness. The passover typified "I am your God," and the unleavened bread declared "ye shall be My people." As long as the time of shadows lasted, no nation on earth enjoyed such glorious privileges and holy teaching as the people of Israel. But now that the Christ is come we have done with the Jewish passover and unleavened bread: old things have passed away, we do not imitate Moses, but we realise the glorious revelation of the Father in the Son, our Saviour and Passover; and whether we eat leavened or unleavened bread, we put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, and walk in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Again, it is impossible to suppose that we

are again to have priests, sacrifices, bleeding or inanimate, when Paul tells us distinctly that the priesthood is altogether changed; yea, that there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before the anointing of Christ as a priest after the order of Melchisedec, for the weakness and unprofitableness of the Levitical priesthood; yea he makes bold and says, "The law makes nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope, by the which we draw nigh unto God." If then the law makes nothing perfect, and Christ makes all things perfect, are we not perverting God's word, and acting contrary to God's mind in doing what the Ritualists are striving to introduce into the Church of Christ?

Ritualists talk a great deal about priests, and greatly lament the dreadful degradation that the sacrificing priest has undergone in being changed into a preaching minister of the word. They delight to speak of an altar, which, if it means anything, presupposes priests and sacrifices, and naturally leads us back to the time of the law. But all this is derogatory to the perfect and finished work of Christ the High Priest who has offered Himself up by the eternal Spirit and by His one offering has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. I shall say no more at present on this attempt to deprive us of the allsufficiency of Christ's glorious person and perfect work, but let me now remind you that when we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews "We have an altar," those words are preceded by the exhortation-"Be not moved away with divers and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein." If there be now an altar it is Golgotha, where our Priest sacrificed himself to sanctify His people with His own blood. But we need not go to Jerusalem now to follow Christ; no, nothing is required but to go forth and bear His reproach. We must, therefore, not have an altar decorated with flowers and perfumed with incense and adorned with candles, for we have Christ who is both Priest, Altar, and Sacrifice, all in Himself, and by Him, our Priest, our Sacrifice, our Altar; let us, therefore, offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is-and I beg you to mark this word, as more especially opposed to every sacrifice in the host or mass- -the fruit of our lips

giving thanks to His name (Hebrews xiii, 9-15).

This declaration in the Epistle to the Hebrews, far from giving countenance to the altar and sacrifices of the Church of Rome and her worthy or unworthy imitators, the Ritualists, proposes a scheme of Christian profession and worship altogether inconsistent with them. Yea, so long as a person adheres to these ceremonies and the use of meats for the establishment of his heart in peace with God, he can have no interest in this altar of ours which is Christ, in His finished, all-sufficient work and merit.

Alas for the altar of Romanists, which Ritualists have copied, pretending that these altars with the sacrifices are the life and soul of their religion, and that without them there can be none! Thereon they have slain or burned to ashes innumerable Christians who looked upon these altars, priests, and sacrifices as derogatory to Christ, and excluding Him from being our altar.

The Apostle Paul refers to the priesthood, sacrifices, and altar, in the same manner as Christ does to the history of Israel. It was a wonderful manifestation of Divine power and mercy when Israel was fed during forty years in the wilderness; but still Christ tells the Jews: "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven ; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of heaven is He which came down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." Manna is excellent till Christ comes, and then it is of no value. The water which gushed forth from the rock and refreshed the thirsty Israelites tuned the harp of the psalmist, and filled his soul with delight when he sung the 'praise of Him who "turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters." But when Christ is come, it holds true even of this water; "Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again but whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John iv. 13 and 14). All these instances, and they might easily be multiplied, go far to confirm that great principle: Do not imitate Moses, but realise those spiritual truths his institutes were ordained to foreshadow.

:

Hitherto I have supposed that Ritualism is as well founded as all that Moses commanded

Israel to do, and I have only attempted to show that it is unnecessary and degrading, inasmuch as it brings us back to the time of the law, when the people were not yet of age.

But the whole supposition is controverted by Moses himself, as you will perceive from the considerations I hope to submit to your judgment on another occasion..

1. It is not because I love war that I now write about battles, but because, since the Fall, Providence has made it one of the terrible scourges for devastating or overthrowing nations. My aim is to study and illustrate the progress of the Divine administration and gather what lessons I can from the Providence of God. Palestine has been conquered by the Jews, by the Heathen, by the Saracens, and by the Christians. The conquests of Joshua we pass over because they are fully related in the Bible. To some of the other conquerors' battles and sieges, we intend to call your attention in a few letters if time permit during the present year.

2. Suppose yourself sailing up the Euphrates about 2,500 years ago in a fine London built steamer, with your eyes open to observe the scenery and the civilization around you. What do you see? You are in the centre of a great monarchy; a successful rebellion has overthrown the great city of Nineveh and made Babylon triumphant; the idols are now falling which Abraham's father worshipped, which Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jonah witnessed, and which you too may see in the British Museum! But you are now in the land of the old Paradise where Adam had his garden, where true religion had its origin in the call of the son of Terah; where the tongues of men were divided at the terrible curse of the blasphemous tower; where art, literature, and science dawned, and brightened among the Chaldean sages; when, in the hoary ages of the past, the magnificent cities of Niveveh, Babylon, Selucia, Cresiphon, Bagdad, bear witness at once to the salubrity of the climate, the fertility of the soil, and the transient nature of all human glory. It is a wonderful land. But bridling the historic imagination let us attend to present

events.

3. What great shadowy, majestic form is that at the head of the assembling army? That is the most remarkable monarch that ever lived. He is the hero of the nation, the first universal king, the conqueror of the nations. That is the lion with eagles' wings (Dan. vii.), the noblest of beasts; that is, the head of gold in the great image, the noblest of metals (Dan. ii. 38), that is (perhaps next to Bunyan), the noblest of dreamers, to whom God revealed his secrets. The most splendid and resolute of idolaters who dictates the worship of images on the plain of Dura. Is he not a remarkable man? And then finally to punish his pride and reduce him to reason, he is changed into a beast until seven times pass over him! Now, however, he is in the height of his power and glory, and the warlike multitudes that surround him, are, in the language of the time, as swift as the lightening and as numerous as the sand of the sea. He is now waiting for his prey, and crouching like the lion ready to spring.

4. But who is his antagonist coming from the West flushed with the pride of victory, and determined by one battle to decide the fate of the world? His march has been hitherto a continual triumph, the army of the Hebrews is overthrown at Megeddo and the good King Josiah slain; and nothing obstructs his march to the Euphrates. It is Necho, the King of Egypt. His destiny leads him on. The two

men of the age, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar must meet; they stand at the head of the two great civilised heathen nations of the time, and between them lies the goodly land of Israel.* The armies you can now see approaching near the fortified city Garchemish on the Euphrates, and the joy of the anticipated battle (gaudium certaminis) fills and animates both nations. We are too far off in our Euphrates steamer