i. 20: "Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." Here "last times" only means "last dispensation." I will here ask this redoubtable perverter of God's word, why did Peter use the plural "times," when he only meant one dispensation?

6

His next quotation, which I will notice, is Heb. ix. 26: "For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." "The end of the world' here is used to signify the final or Christian dispensation." Then our text would properly read thus: "For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the Christian dispensation: but now in the end of the Christian dispensation, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Thus, according to his own construction, he saps his own foundation, and proves nothing. Although he brings a number of texts to prove his second head, they are all of them, strictly and literally, against him. A common schoolboy would be ashamed of arguments like these.

I will notice his argument about the sunrise, and any one may see how vain such an argument is, to overthrow plain Bible. He first assumes that the four thousand years was a night, and then the gospel must

be a day, and of course would be more than eighteen hundred years long. The only proof he brings is in Malachi iv. 2: "But unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." None who will read

the context, can for a moment believe that this prophecy has been fulfilled, or was at the first coming of Christ. He was represented by the prophets as a star, at his first coming: Num. xxiv. 17; Rev. xxii. 16. And this Sun of righteousness is to rise, when he makes up his jewels-when he shall return, and discern between the righteous and wicked-when the proud and all that do wickedly shall be burned up, and when they shall be ashes under the soles of the feet of the saints.

This day has not come yet. This day is the time when Christ and his saints will be glorified in the new heavens and earth, and stands opposed to the whole time of this life, which, notwithstanding our boasting of an increase of knowledge, is yet but a night of moral darkness, error, and ignorance. "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable." It can only be fulfilled when the saints inherit the earth, and when the sun is visible, and when Christ shall come the second time and dwell with his people in the new heavens and new earth, when he will drive away all moral

darkness, dispel all mists and fogs of error, shut up the prince and spirits of darkness, and purify his people and sanctuary, the place of his dwelling. Therefore Paul says, Rom. xiii. 11-14, "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." Every one will see that Paul did not reason like our blind watchmen in these days; but plainly shows us that we are in moral darkness, and that in his day we were drawing near to the close of this moral night. He might have said, four thousand two hundred years have passed, and only about eighteen hundred to come; then the six worldly working days will be spent, in which moral darkness has "covered the earth, and gross darkness the people." Then will the Sun of righteousness arise, and be succeeded by an eternal day, or day of the Lord.

To me, this looks more like sound orthodoxy, than the sophistry of our author, who will have a day of the Lord to run far into the future; and, long after the world en

joys a pure state, then to be burned up. This would, to me, be neither Scripture, reason, nor common sense. How could it be said, when the world has been evangelized, and has had a glorious day of 365,000 years, for then the end must come, according to his text and reasoning,-that it would be as the days of Noah and Lot? Ah! but, says our expositor, before Christ will come, Satan will be loosed, and go out and deceive the nations in the four quarters of the earth. How many? Why, an innumerable company, like the sand on the sea-shore.

Of

whom? These evangelized nations? Why, yes. Well, if those who live in the end of this 365,000 years may all, or nearly all, be deceived, I ask, might not those millions of millions, which are born, and evangelized during this 365,000 years, have fallen if they had been tried? Happy mortals! they have no trial of their faith; and they will all go to heaven without tribulation. But their descendants-unhappy beings! who are born and live at the end of this 365,000 years no help for you! you must be evangelized, fall from grace, and be forever lost!

So must our orthodox divine argue, if he is consistent with his doctrine in his text; for the world must come to an end as soon as it is evangelized, by his own showing; and yet he chooses the longest time given, which he says is 365,000 years, after the world is evangelized, before Christ will come.

What an expounder of prophecy! Christ and the apostles told us to watch, eighteen hundred years ago; and now we have more than 365,000 years to sleep before the resurrection. If this is not saying, "my Lord delayeth his coming," no time could proclaim it; at any rate, I feel perfectly satisfied that the prophecy, Matt. xxiv. 48, is literally fulfilled.

Under his next head, page 12, section III., he says: "An immediate judgment and end of the world seems unlikely, from viewing the condition of the world itself in regard to its natural developments. First argument: "Now does it not seem that the earth would continue in its present state till the children of men have had time to occupy it, and make proof of the resources it contains?" What an argument! "All things continue as they were, since the fathers fell asleep;" "no great improvements;" "not one half of the earth has been occupied by man;" "probably not one tenth part of the population has ever yet existed upon it, which it is able to sustain." What a pity the antediluvians did not think of this argument, when God brought in a flood upon them, and destroyed the old world! Surely, God would have listened to so powerful an argument, and not have swept them all off before they had occupied one half of the globe, or filled one tenth of the world with men. But our author is more than four thousand years too