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Apostolic Doctrine. pains which cries of the Spirit are unutterable by man, and unintelligible to man, but known to Him who searcheth the hearts of men, and knoweth the mind of the Spirit. This is oneness with Christ; this is entering into His mind, and sorrowing with him this, in a word, is salvation. (viii. 22-27.)

22. From such a height of holy communion with God by the Spirit, and in the consciousness of fellowship with our risen Head, we know and rejoice in the working together of all things for good to them that love God, the called according to his purpose and foreknowledge; whom he hath predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. (viii. 28-30.)

23. The testimony of the Holy Ghost, bearing witness with our spirits that we are children of God; that God is for us; that Christ, who died, yea, rather, who is risen again, and intercedes for us at the right hand of God; does, in the midst of tribulation and persecution endured by us in following the steps of Jesus, produce the firm persuasion that we shall not by any creature power be ever separated from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (viii. 16, 31-39).

24. We ought to have great

Babylonian Doctrine. and hasten the reign of universal peace and happiness.

[This is the only form in which any thing analogous to the doctrine stated opposite, can possibly be seen in the present state of Babylon.]

22. The doctrine of Election being the peculiar mystery of Christianity, is to be kept continually before us in all our dealing with the Gospel; and whatever appears to be inconsistent with it, in the character of God's love to men, the extent of the atonement, or the possibility of quenching the Spirit, or falling away by apostasy, is to be denied and opposed to the uttermost. The end of election is not our concern; but God will do all His pleasure, and cannot be frustrated or grieved at all.

23. A firm and steady faith in the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints is sufficient to produce in us the comforting assurance that we can never fall away, without any need of the attestation of the person of the Holy Spirit in us, which is not now to be reasonably expected, as the days of miraculous gifts have gone by; and without any testimony arising from outward tribulation or persecution, which would savour of selfrighteousness.

24. We need not give our

Apostolic Doctrine. heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for our brethren, who have gone away from God; as the Apostle, declaring the truth in Christ, and witnessed by his conscience in the Holy Ghost (which declares the mind of God to have been in him), had for his brethren, who had apostatized from the adoption, and the covenant, and the glory, and the promises. (ix. 1-5.)

25. The mystery of the purpose of God from eternity; the harmony of election with redemption and love to all men ; the object of all creation; and the final issues of judgment to come; are all, in so far as God has been pleased to reveal them, shewn out in large characters in the making known of his ways to Moses, and his acts to the children of Israel; and all these things are recorded for our warning and instruction and comfort. (ix. 6-33.)

26. God's dealings by the Jews are expressly declared to be the rule of his righteousness, both in the goodness shewn to them, and the severity which overtook them when they fell into unbelief. But while it is revealed that they shall yet again be restored to their dignity as the peculiar people of God, when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, it is also declared that the Gentiles shall be utterly cut off and destroyed through unbelief and apostasy. (x. xi. 1–24)

27. The Lord would not have

Babylonian Doctrine. selves any real pain of heart by thinking of our brethren who come short of salvation, seeing it must be the purpose of God they should perish; and though we send them Bibles and tracts and preachers and Prayer-books, yet there is no use in bearing a continual burden of heaviness and sorrow for them, else we should never have any comfort at all!

25. The Old-Testament record of God's dealings with the Jews, their privileges and apostasy, their resisting of the Holy Ghost (Acts vii. 51) and limiting the Holy One of Israel (Psalm lxxviii. 41), contains little that is now of much direct use to us, because we are under a totally different dispensation. The prophecies have been long ago fulfilled, and are the evidences that the book is of Divine origin; but the New-Testament part is what we must attend to exclusively.

26. The Jewish dispensation was only a shadowy introduction to the Gospel dispensation, which is the perfect one, into the blessings of which the Jews shall be finally admitted; and then the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and all the glory of the reign of Messiah shall be seen, without any preceding apostasy or consuming judgments at all.

27. It does not affect our

Apostolic Doctrine.

the Gentiles ignorant* that the
off-casting of the Jews, and
the consequent calling of the
Gentiles, is for a limited period;
and that, when it is fulfilled
(Luke xxi. 24), the Gentiles
must be cut off, that the Jews
may be restored to their former
place and calling. Then the
mystery of God's dealings
with man shall be fully re-
vealed; the new covenant
made with Israel (Jer. xxxi.
31, &c.), the blessedness of the
promised kingdom, shall begin;
and the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and know-
ledge of God be disclosed to
the ages to come, that all cre-
ation may see and acknow-
ledge that
"Of Him, and
through Him, and to Him are
all things; to whom be glory
for ever. Amen." (xi. 25-36.)

Babylonian Doctrine. safety whether we be ignorant or not of God's ultimate purpose concerning the Jews and Gentiles: this only we believe, that a thousand long years of blessedness are promised to the world, which surely are not yet begun; and therefore, as the Lord is not to come until after the Millennium, to judge the world, any expectation of his coming, or preparation for it, is foolish and distracting; and not only pernicious to the comfort of the church in the present day, but reflects a charge of ignorance upon our fathers, and all the wise and good men of the present day.

It were a needless labour to follow out this contrast through the details of the preceptive part of the Epistle, because, where there is unsoundness, perversion, and contradiction on all the leading heads of Apostolic doctrine, there must of necessity be a corresponding deficiency and denial of every point of holy conversation. And is not the history of every day the confirmation of this rule, in every square, street, and court of "the great city?" On one occasion the Lord made an appeal, for confirmation of a charge against his apostate people, to the consciences of the people themselves: Is it not EVEN THUS, O ye children of Israel, saith the LORD?" (Amos ii. 11.) So now the charges against the men of Babylon the Great are many and

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It is certainly a singular coincidence, that there are but five heads of doctrine in all the Epistles introduced in these solemn words: they form a strange contrast with the proverbial Five Points, for the church is grossly ignorant of them all :

1. This mystery of the temporary dispensation to the Gentiles.

2. The analogy of the former and present dispensations. (1 Cor. x. 1-11.)

3. The whole doctrine of spiritual gifts. (1 Cor. xii. xiii. xiv.)

4. The first resurrection, at the coming of the Lord. (1 Thess. iv. 13, &c.)

5. The estimate of time which the Lord makes; and the fact that He shall come suddenly, and with fiery judgments. (2 Pet. iii. 8, &c.)

grievous. Is it not so, that the traditions of men are exalted over the commandments of Jesus? that the form of sound words has been supplanted by phrases of man's devising? and that the ample provision of God's house, exhibited in the love and righteousness of the Father, the person and faith of the Son, and the power and presence of the Holy Ghost, has been denied and limited and made void, by the falsehood of human systems and schools and creeds? Is it not so, that through the teaching of men the gift of God has been changed to an offer? that the Gospel, glad tidings of great joy proclaimed to every creature, has dwindled into good news to believers? that, not the goodness of God, but the fear of the wrath of God, is said to lead men to repentance? that the judgment of all flesh by the Lord Jesus, is called an arrangement in which the elect only have an interest? that the apostasy of the Jews is believed to contain no direct warning to the Gentiles? that the righteousness of the Father is confounded with the righteousness of Christ? that the faith of Jesus is attributed to his Godhead, and so cannot be the example left us of faith in God? that righteousness is denied to be the character of one who believeth God, but maintained to be a covering, or garment, prepared for believers, to cover their sins and hide their true character even from God's eyes? Is it not so, that the likeness of sinful flesh is taught to mean the most unlike of all things to sinful flesh? that the power of the Holy Ghost is regarded as diluted and modified into "the influence of the Spirit?" that, because in man's flesh there is no good thing, it is asserted that the power of the Spirit cannot keep a man holy? that spiritual gifts are undervalued and unsought for now, as being fit only for the infancy of the church and uneducated Christians? that a baptized man is called upon, not to keep down the flesh in death by being filled with the Spirit, but to keep up war with it, and seek to put it to death by degrees; and in this warfare to use the law of Moses, rather than the Spirit of Christ; and, consequently, to regard the wretched state described in Rom. vii. as a very hopeful and delightful token of being in the way to heaven? Is it not even thus, in a word, that the absolute and uncompromising word of the Lord, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is NONE OF HIS," is explained away through notions of imperceptible though progressive sanctification, and human distinctions of ordinary and extraordinary, of saving and miraculous, of temporary and permanent, influences and experiences, and means of grace; whereby a man is regarded, and received, and flattered as a Christian, who neither has, nor pretends to have, the Spirit of God as a Person dwelling in him, leading him, crying out in him, and bearing witness with his own spirit, while he suffers with Christ now and waits for the redemption of his body, that

he is indeed a son of God, and an heir, yea, a joint heir with Christ, of the glory to be revealed at His coming?

Oh come out of her! come out of her! ye people of the Lord! "Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob and they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out" (Isa. xlviii. 20, 21). May the great Head of the church, whose name is the Mighty One (Psa. xlv.), give point and power to these arrows of testimony; and quickly gather out many faithful and fearless men to bend the bow of the Spirit against Babylon, to shout against her round about, to bring forth the weapons of the indignation of the Lord; for this is the work of the Lord God of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. Amen.

W. R. C.

THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT.

CHRIST IN US THE HOPE OF GLORY.

DEAR Christian reader, learn to know God, and learn to know yourself, that you may fulfil the end of your being. Know God as the Creator of all things, hating nothing that he hath made, but loving the work of his hands; and as loving man best, the last of his works, whom the Lord God made in his own image, to shew forth his glory. Know yourself, as one furnished with means of understanding what is the will of God, and, in doing that will, of glorifying him.

God, in forming man, endowed him with a capacity for receiving Divine revelations; and adapted the revelation to the capacity, in giving his holy word. Man, thus endowed, is held accountable for the use or neglect of this gift. Those who have used it well, shall be received with, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord:" those who have neglected or abused the word committed unto them, shall be cast out, as wicked and unprofitable, into outer darkness.

To the responsibility of man it is necessary that he be endowed with a capability of understanding and obeying the commandments of God; that they are clearly revealed, and that he has the power to obey; that he knows his Creator's will, and finds it suitable to his condition. And this responsibility lies upon all men alike, as all are the children of Adam, who was made

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