will of the different tribes, and they resolutely and unanimously demanded a King. The Lord, after expostulating with them by the mouth of his servant and prophet Samuel, granted their request, and ordered the prophet to anoint Saul, the son of Kish, king over Israel. Yet God did not relinquish his claim upon the people, or right to control their matters. He therefore instructs the king what he would have him do, and how he should administer the government. The king transcending his instructions, and positively violating the heavenly command, God rejected him, and chose David, the son of Jesse, who was but a youth, yet of an excellent spirit, and who proved to be a man after God's own heart.

He took him—a shepherd boy-from the sheep-foldsfrom following the ewes great with young, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands. Ps. 88:70, 72. He was now to become a spiritual Shepherd over the Lord's flock, and to be the temporal head of his church, and guide them into all the ways of the Lord, and feed them with all the rich provisions of his truth and worship.

Such was the nature of the government and throne of David; and in his capacity and office he was a type of Christ, and his government typical of the kingdom and government of Christ. God had no more respect to the temporal and civil government, abstractly considered, of David, than He has of any other government. The Jews, and those that followed Christ at first, understood that the temporal kingdom and throne of David was to be built up again, which in the time of the first advent had fallen down, in consequence of the repeated transgressions of Israel; and so they undertook to make him king, and place him upon David's throne, and shout its resurrection again to Israel in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. They were

ready to take the sword and fight for him as David's subjects did for him: but Christ rebuked them, and said positively, My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, then would my subjects fight.

They were deceived in making such an application of the prophesy and covenant that God made with David. His tabernacle and throne, though fallen down, was never literally to be built up again. And all those persons who are looking for the literal restoration of David's throne and government in Palestine, are blinded with the same Jewish vail, and doomed to fall into the same ditch. The government shall be upon Christ's shoulders, just as the government of Israel rested upon David's shoulders; Christ is Head of his church, as David was head of Israel; and is their law-giver, judge, and leader-the Captain to head the army of his saints, and lead them on to victory over their enemies, as David was of Israel. So that Christ has taken upon him this government and kingdom of Israel—of the true Israel—and has already raised up the tabernacle of David, and is seated upon his throne, now ordering and establishing it, with judgment and justice in the earth; which will be completed at his second advent, when its increase will be the whole earth in territory, and subjects sufficient to fill it.

From this point, Christ will establish himself as King of Peace-henceforth even for ever. O, how glorious is the plan of redemption. How noble the work of restitu

tion!

The reason why men do not interest themselves in the work of their salvation, and in the study of God's glorious plan, and moral government, is not because it does not commend itself to their consciences and admiration, but because the bandage of blindness, superstition, and ignorance has not been removed, and they have never as yet consented of their own free will to be led by the hand of

a brother to the altar of truth, and there receive the light by the aid of the grand Master of all holy assemblies, that shines for all such, in the pure and lofty temple of Christianity.

Our teachers are blind guides. They have wrapped the 'simple and yet sublime truths of the Christian faith in a mantle of philosophy and science, falsely so-called, and in their spiritualism, and mysticism, they have darkened every window of the temple of truth, so that the splendor of her moral sun is eclipsed from the seeker of her light. They have so marred the work of God, so altered the plan of redemption, and shaped every doctrine of the Bible, that there is scarcely a vestige of truth in the whole popular system of theology.

I feel justified in making these remarks now, having led the reader on in the path of revealed truth, and already brought out the true theology of the Bible, showing thereby the wide contrast between the true and the false.

The Bible, when we understand it, is in harmony with itself, in harmony with reason, and is perfectly adapted as a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path, which, if we follow, will lead us into every moral truth, and teach us all that we can wish or desire to know of our present and future destiny. God has not left us in the dark upon one single point, respecting what we ought to know of Him, and of ourselves, and of our duty as subjects of his moral government. To the law and the testimony: if they speak not in accordance with this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isa. 8:20. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. 1 Peter 4: 11. Let us cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of? Isa. 2: 22.

Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended and the

floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. Matt. 7: 24. O let us build upon this sure foundation, and be a wise man, that when the fiery storm shali come—the day that shall burn as an oven, and that shall try every man's work of what sort it is, our work and faith may stand and we shout victory, victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER VI.

DOCTRINE OF THE DEVIL.

As the Scriptures, in speaking of evil men and their actions, use the terms serpent, devil, and Satan, and are of frequent occurrence, it is important that we understand these terms, and the true doctrine of the devil. In the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, these words properly signify calumniator, detractor, false-accuser. Demons, from daimones, or daimonion, has the same meaning, and is so translated in 1 Tim. 3: 11. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, i.e., not demons or devils. 2 Tim. 3: 4. Without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers-makebates, slanderers or devils. Titus 2: 3, &c. Let the definition of these words be kept in mind, as they are essential to our understanding this subject.

Also

It is in accordance with popular theology, to give personality to these terms, and hence to maintain the doctrine of a separate, created, personal being, called the devil. It is asserted, also, that this devil was once a high seraph in heaven, that he rebelled against the government of God