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day? We may safely challenge this writer to prove, on his method of procedure, that there is a nebular theory, in the sense of Herschell and La Place. Though he should work at it through 30,000,000 of years, he will not advance a step towards accomplishing it. Unfortunate adventurer, that he did not see that the device with which he wrenches Moses so easily in one direction may be made to wrench himself with equal effect in the other.

How destructive this theory is to the truth of the divine word, is seen also from the assumption on which it proceeds, that no creative acts were exerted, after the materials of the universe were spoken into existence, till the creation of man; that all the intermediate effects were the mere work of natural forces, acting according to their respective laws.

"What is called the nebular theory, is the only theory which attempts to explain the great facts of astronomy"--such as the formation of the sun and other orbs-" as the result of the operation of natural laws."--P. 157.

And he applies this theory to the formation of vegetables and animals, as well as to the worlds.

"The expression that we find used to indicate the creation of the plants and trees, would lead us to suppose that they were not produced by miraculous interposition, as was the case with man, but according to some law at present unknown to us.”—P. 145. "It is by no means discordant with the analogies of nature, to suppose it quite possible that the successive creations of the pre-Adamite world were not the products of miraculous power, but the natural results of some great law, of the nature of which we are at present ignorant, and of which we cannot perhaps form even a conception."-P. 148. "The Mosaic narrative rather encourages, than otherwise, the idea of a normal origin of all the lower animals, as well as of vegetation. Let the sea bring forth,' and 'Let the earth bring forth,' are the phrases which are used on these occasions; and if we be permitted, without being subjected to the charge of infidelity, to discover in the works of the first and second days of creation the action of natural laws, there can be no particular reason why we should deny the possibility of a similar explanation of the work of the days that follow."-P. 149.

But that is to extend the theory to the origination of man as much as of the beasts; for though he attempts to evade the fact, it is as expressly asserted that God,"created great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth after his kind, and every winged fowl after his kind," as it is that he created man. On his theory,

accordingly, that contemplated as effects of material forces, in contradistinction from creative acts, they are symbols or types, it follows that that which they symbolize or typify must also be the effect of mere natural material forces, not in any measure of immediate acts of divine power; and thence it results according to him, that the whole work of redemption is a mere process of natural forces, in opposition to sovereign acts of divine power. The revelation of the divine will, the enactment of laws, the appointment of sacrifices as types of Christ, his incarnation, the renovation of the mind, forgiveness and justification through his blood, and resurrection from death in glory and immortal life, all were and are mere processes of nature, the work of forces that belong inherently to the constitution of man, and of the world; and not of the sovereign and miraculous power of God! Man is, accordingly, to all intents, his own Deity and his own Redeemer! He has no lawgiver but his own nature; he needs no other Saviour than himself! Such is the blank naturalism in which this vaunted reconciliation of revelation and science terminates! Is it credible that the writer is not aware of it?

Our author now passes from "the stars to the angels," and advances theories respecting them that are equally unauthorized and mistaken. He first affects to show that all created intelligences in the universe belong to the human species.

"Scripture interpreted by science will be found to teach that human nature is the very highest type of created intelligence; and we shall endeavor to show that all the moral and intelligent creatures that people the universe belong exclusively to the human species. The physical constitution of men, angels, and devils, is represented in Scripture as in every respect identical, their apparently different natures being nothing more than the different states of development of which it is susceptible."-Pp. 156, 157.

The pretext that science or revelation teaches such a doctrine, is too preposterous to merit a formal refutation. It is a dictum of Swedenborg; not of reason or the Bible. That angels exist is known to us only by faith. They are not within the sphere of our perceptive powers. The Scriptures, through which we gain our knowledge of them, give no intimations that they belong to our race. So far from it, they not only exhibit them as existing before our race was called into being; represent them as of numerous orders; and ascribe to them acts, to which men, unless endowed with supernatural powers, are wholly incompetent; but they expressly show in the affirmation that Christ did not lay hold of angels in becoming incarnate, but laid hold of the seed of Abraham, that their natures are not the same. This writer's doctrine implies not only that Christ became incarnate in the nature of angels, as absolutely as he did in the nature of man, but that he died also and rose for them, as absolutely as he did for men; and for the unfallen angels as well as the fallen; for the Scriptures teach that he died for all mankind. This implies that all moral creatures have fallen; yet in other passages he represents a portion of the angels as never having sinned. Nor does reason, experience, or observation, furnish any ground for the belief that they were cnce men. The fact that man is the only intelligence of our world, is no ground for the conclusion that all other created intelligences are men; any more than the fact that our earth is of the peculiar constitution it is, is ground for the assumption that all other worlds are of identically the same nature. And no indications appear here of a tendency in men to develop themselves into angels of light. The antediluvians, whose lives extended through eight or nine centuries, exhibited no more signs of such a tendency than the short-lived generations of the present age.

He passes from this theme to speculations on the unfallen angels, whom he regards as bodied beings, and devils, who he holds have become disembodied by death; on the spiritual body man is to receive at the resurrection, which he asserts is to consist of flesh and blood, and be capable of assimilating vegetable and animal food, though it is to be so sublimated as to be without weight, and to be

able to pass through solid substances without obstruction; on the distinction between the human soul and spirit; the nature of demoniacal possession; the state of the redeemed while disembodied, and the resurrection; in which he runs into a variety of wild and preposterous errors; such as that the spirits of the ransomed during their intermediate life, numerous as their millions are, all have their residence in Christ's glorified body; and that the change from mortal to immortal, that is to be wrought in living believers at Christ's second coming, and the resurrection of the holy dead in spiritual and glorified forms, are to be by natural processes, rather than a miraculous exertion of divine power; but we have not space to pursue him further; and we have already given sufficient proofs of his superficiality and unreliableness in theology as well as in science. With far higher attractions than Mr. Hequembourg's volume, Mr. Lee's, or Mr. Hudson's, his work is of essentially the same cast as theirs-an attempt to wrench the Scriptures into harmony with a science, falsely so called, the leading principles of which are wholly at war with their teachings and subversive of their authority. Whatever our author's aims may have been, the tendency of his book will be to unsettle the faith of his readers in the great truths of revelation, betray them into crude and false notions, and prepare them for a lapse at length into mere rationalism, naturalism, or pantheism, which have become so current in Europe, and are spreading with rapidity here.

ART. IV. THE APOSTASY AND THE MAN OF SIN.
2 Thess. ii. 1-12.

THIS prophecy has been regarded with great interest by the church from the time of its promulgation. In the first five centuries especially, the questions, What is the apostasy here foretold? Who is to be the Man of Sin? What is the scene, and still more, What is the age in which he is to appear? were subjects of earnest inquiries and discussions by the Fathers of both the Greek and Latin church. The coming of the Lord by which the son of perdition is to be destroyed, was universally believed to be Christ's second

personal coming, when he is to raise the holy dead, and establish his kingdom in its glory. The Man of Sin, they held, was to be one individual, instead of a series or combination of persons, and the destruction it is foretold Christ is to inflict on him they regarded as a destruction by which that usurper will be swept from the earth and consigned to perdition. Antichrist, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, was regarded as still future by Gregory the Great, at the close of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century. After the papacy had become a civil power, especially when, in the eleventh century, it entered on the career of persecution which it continued for so many ages, the Albigenses, Waldenses, and others began to interpret the prophecy of that hierarchy; and that construction was placed on it generally by Protestants in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and still is by most in Great Britain and this country. During the last fifty years, however, the wide differences of the characteristics of the Man of Sin from those of the papacy, have led not a few to doubt their identity, and to regard the Man of Sin as still future, and probably to follow the overthrow of the Catholic hierarchy. We propose to treat these and the other chief points of the prophecy. The following is a literal translation of the passage.

"Now we entreat you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him, that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For [it shall not come] unless the apostasy have come first, and the Man of Sin have been revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth, and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or an object of worship, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that while still with you, I told you these things? And now ye know that which hin-ders, in order to his being revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, only he who hinders [will hinder] until he be removed from the midst, and then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the breath of his mouth, and de

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