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nature of the Papal apostacy. Besides, although the Church of Rome does not in so many words deny the existence of the Father and the Son (nor, indeed, did the heretics here referred to), yet the virtual repudiation of the God of gods, as well as of the divinity and sacrifice of Christ, by the Papacy, are too notorious to require proof. In the language of an eloquent writer:-" Popery has not indeed formally apostatized from the creeds of the true faith,-she has not rejected the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, but in the worship of the blessed Virgin she sanctions blasphemies, which trench even on the sanctuary of Christianity,-she has not denied. that Christ is the Lord and King of men, but she has practically dethroned him from the heart, and raised a Queen of Heaven in his place, she has not openly repudiated the divinity of our Lord, but she has Socinianized his character, has elevated his human saints to more than a level with him, as in the rightful parallels of the Franciscans." And, again, "It is to be an Anti-christ, and an Anti-christ does not mean an enemy different and opposed in all outward forms, but a mock and spurious image of the true Lord professing to be Christ himself, veiled in a garb like his, calling himself Christ, and surrounded with the attributes of Christ, and in this way denying Christ, and refusing to acknowledge his history and his power; and such a power cannot come except in the form of Christianity, and in the name of a Church ; and such is the exclusive pretence of Popery, at the very time when it is violating, by its principles and its actions, the very fundamental laws both of Christianity and the Church.”* Hence, the Anti-christ of John is a power that should practically deny, rather than openly profess disbelief in the Father and the Son. The language resembles that of Daniel in describing "the king who does according to his will,"

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* Quarterly Review, December, 1842.

since he too, while disregarding every god, "honors gods, protectors, and a god whom his fathers knew not, shall he honor with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and desirable things."-Dan. xi. 38.

The passage in 2 Thes. ii. 4-11, has been adduced also to prove the future revelation of an individual Anti_ christ. This passage, however, distinctly points out the Papal hierarchy, and the restraining influence of the Civil power in the West, "And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way ;" and the marks of Anti-christ set forth in the prophecy so clearly belong to the Papacy, that no doubt can be entertained upon the subject. Whilst the statement that "he sits in the temple of God, and shews himself that he is God," instead of pointing out a material place of worship, refers to the visible Church, in which the Roman Pontiff does sit as God, by claiming the incommunicable powers and perfections of the Great Supreme.

The theory of the Infidel king of Daniel, as well as that of a still future and final stage of Anti-christ, I have now, I think, shewn to be purely ideal, destitute of any support from the testimony of inspiration, and directly opposed to some of its plainest statements. If the arguments I have employed for its refutation are conclusive, those hypotheses will no longer turn away men's eyes from what has truly been called Satan's master-piece, to an imaginary monster; nor will one of the plainest and most striking predictions of the Papacy, which fixes upon that Apostate Church so many fearful crimes, be perverted to an object altogether foreign to the purpose, and thus become-for all practical ends,-totally lost to the Church.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.

Present state of the question-Palestine still the property of the Jews by right of divine bestowment-Direct promises of a future restoration-These were not accomplished in the return from Babylon-They cannot be understood of the propagation and triumph of the Gospel-Inconsisting mixture of these two notions to form another theory-The probable period of the future restoration of the Jews-Their conversion to Christianity subsequent to their restoration-Objections to the doctrine of a literal restoration answered by a quotation from Dr. Henderson.

Although the doctrine of the literal restoration of the Jews to their own land, is that of the majority of commentators on the Old Testament Scriptures, it is still far from being generally received by the Church of Christ. For my own part, I had long indulged the common prejudice against the opinion, as being at variance with the spiritual character of the Christian dispensation. I looked upon the prophecies which speak of a future restoration of the descendants of Abraham, as descriptive of the spiritual conversion of that people, or else of the future increase and glory of the Church of Christ. Upon examining, however, the testimony of Scripture on this subject, I have had the conviction forced upon my mind, that the only opinion which can be supported upon any fixed principles of interpretation is, that the majority of prophecies which speak of a restoration of the Jews, do foretel a literal resettlement of the Israelites in the land of their fathers.

It is certainly no insignificant proof of the doctrine in

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question, that the land of Canaan still belongs to the descendants of Abraham by the right of divine bestowment; nor can they be in justice deprived of it except for a time. In support of this position, I refer to Gen. xii. 1-3,—“ Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." This grant was repeated afterwards in the following terms :-" And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.' Gen. xiii. 14, 15. And, again, Gen. xvii. 7, 8,-" And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

These passages clearly describe a gift,-an unconditional gift of the land of Palestine to the descendants of Abraham; and to remove all doubt as to the real nature of the grant, it is expressly said to be "for ever," "for an everlasting possession.” Such a grant as this, must therefore, in the very nature of things, constitute an inalienable right to the possession of the territory referred to. It may be consistent with justice to expel the possessors from the land for a time, by reason of long-continued and aggravated transgression; but a total and final banishment does to my mind appear wholly inconsistent with the fact of an absolute unconditional grant having taken

place, by which the land was secured to Abraham and his seed for ever. Hence Jehovah speaks by Moses :-" And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD."-Lev. xxvi. 44, 45.

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Accordingly, each time the Almighty has scattered his ancient people, he has also at the appointed season again restored them; and thus will it again be on the arrival of the period spoken of in Dan. xii., " When he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people." The original covenant made with Abraham is still binding upon the Almighty, and this secures the land of promise to his descendants as their rightful inheritance. The language of the Most High still is :-" Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.”—Jer. xxxi. 35-37.

And not only has God secured the land of Canaan to the Jews as their inalienable possession, He has also given the most full and explicit promises that He will eventually restore them to their inheritance. The Scriptures of the Old Testament abound with predictions of a future resettlement of that nation in the land of their forefathers, which upon no definite and fixed principles of interpretation can be referred

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