Observer, Jan. 1, '76. Of the place and purpose of Baptism as an ordinance of divine appointment I hope to write in my next. Meanwhile I beseech those who are disciples indeed to study simply the Word of God by the help of a concordance on the subjects of faith and salvation; read slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, and prayerfully Rom. iii., iv.; Gal, iii.; Heb. xii. We will have need to refer to them ere this discussion closes. Jesus said, "If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." With respect to C. Abercrombie's defence of the genuineness of Mark xvi. 16, I would simply state that when granted opportunity at the close of this discussion, I will undertake to produce good evidence why we should refuse to acknowledge it as containing the very words of Jesus. Whatever Dr. Davidson may have said in the past, he says now, 1875, "General opinion inclines to the rejection of this passage." THE NEW (Thoughts of Many Minds.) THE kingdom of glory is the kingdom of consummation; of the consummate development of all human capabilities of mankind, as born again through Christianity. The Palingenesia of the human world, founded on the birth and resurrection of Christ.-Langé. This great hope of humanity dates from the Fall itself. It rises out of the promise that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. It is announced to the shepherds by the angels as good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. It is the last vision of the Apocalypse, and the concluding glimpse given us of a world that is yet to come. It is this anticipation which gives the Bible at large that hopeful, victorious, triumphant character. To one far-off divine event, slowly, it may be, and uncertainly, but still steadily onwards, the whole creation moves.-Dr. Stanley. It is a blessed thing to take up and ponder the scattered notices through God's Word which tells us anything about the home above; and if we are to become strangers and pilgrims, and hold all earthly things with a loose hand, that is, give up in a measure the present for the future, we must acquaint ourselves with all that is revealed about that future, and the city which God hath prepared for His people. Abraham became a stranger on the earth, not from any sorrow or pressure in Mesopotamia, for we read of none such, but because the Lord had spoken unto him in the language of pro A Sequel to the Fulness of Time. mise. He was drawn out from kindred, and home, and country, by something before him, and not urged or driven out by anything behind. him.-British Herald.) The bride who is about to go to her new home feels that she has a personal interest in the descriptions which her friends give her of its site, of its appearance, and of its furnishings, for she has the hope that it is there she will spend her future life. And how very natural it is for us to take delight in enquiries concerning any foreign country where we expect to make our abode; and as we, as Christians, hope to be admitted into the glorious city above, it is both a laudable and useful curiosity to get what information we can of it, whilst we make God's Word our guide. When its everlasting doors shall be open to us, we may be sure that the pleasures and beauties of this place will infinitely transcend our present hopes and expectations. "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth; such an one caught up to the third heaven. I knew such a man, how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter." By which is meant that what he heard is so infinitely different from anything which he had heard in this world that it was impossible to express it in such words as might convey a notion of it to his hearers.-Addison's Spectator, No. 580. O, glorious vista! when shall be revealed The beauties of that state so long concealed? When shall Thy ransomed ones, O Lord, behold That world the half of which has ne'er been told? He who built even for natural man a fine structure, founded on granite, and roofed with stars, builds a nobler edifice for the glorified, where the streets are golden, and the foundations are precious stones, which needs no candle, nor lamp, nor sun, nor moon, the light all proceeding from the face of God.-Greenwell. We believe in the resurrection of the body. Can we conceive a body without a place? If God gives a body He will assuredly give that body a suitable habitation. There must even now be a local and material habitation, into which Enoch and Elijah have ascended, carrying their bodies with them, and into which the resurrection bodies of all the children of God have to rise; and where the Lord Jesus now appears in the presence of God. It is the city of Abraham's hopes and expectations. "He hath prepared for them a city." But it may be asked, How is it that the New Jerusalem is called "The Bride, the Lamb's Wife?" This is easily explained. Throughout Scripture we see the connection between men and their dwelling places. When mankind tried the long-suffering of God in the days of Noah, it is said "the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." Here, undoubtedly, the earth is used to represent its inhabitants. The name of a city, likewise, stands frequently in the Scriptures, as in the language of every day life, for the people of that city. Hence we read in Isaiah, "How is the faithful city become a harlot." Again, "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stoneth them which are sent unto thee!" Here again our Lord undoubtedly used the name of the city for that of its inhabitants. So also the risen saints as inhabiters of the heavenly city are represented in a two-fold manner; first, by a woman (a bride) arrayed in her beautiful garments; and second, by a gorgeous city. "And there came unto me one of the seven angels, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, and I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's Wife;' and he carried me away in the spirit, to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God." Observer, Jan. 1, '76. "Besides we know that all things work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also pre-determined to be of a form like the form of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And whom he pre-determined, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified."-Rom. viii. 28–30. ALL things work together for good to those that are called according to God's ancient purpose; and they are thus called by the gospel. Those who He foresaw in purpose would obey Him, He pre-determined to be, when raised from the dead, of like form with that of His Son. Those whom He thus in purpose pre-determined, He also in purpose called; and those whom He called in purpose, He justified in purpose; and those whom He justified in purpose, He glorified in purpose. Perhaps no passage in the New Testament has given rise to more extended controversy than the brief section embraced in the three verses now to be examined. It has been the theme of the most voluminous and conflicting criticism. It forms the creed of the Calvinist and the puzzle of the Arminian; and hot and long has been the battle they have waged over it. It would not be true to say that no good has come of this strife; but I must think that the good has been fearfully disproportionate to the evil. Into this profitless word-war it is not my purpose to enter. My aim is to present, in so far as I can discover it, precisely what was before the Apostle's mind when he penned the passage. This I shall do without even pausing to think whom it is favouring or disfavouring. Besides, we know that all things work together for good to those that love God. Besides the aid afforded by the Holy Spirit, and the stimulus of hope, all other things work together for the good of the redeemed. "All things" I take to be a popular expression, which we are not to construe too strictly; for surely sin works no good to any one. The reference, I doubt not, is especially to ships, and trials. All these, by God's overruling, the adverse events of life, to its calamities, hardwork his children good. "We know "-how ? Partly, no doubt, from experience and observation; but partly also, I apprehend, from revelation. For I do not see how the Apostle could make the broad assertion he here makes unless he knew the upshot of our ills. The final effect • From the New Translation and Commentary on Paul to the ROMANS, by M. E. LARD. Observer, Jan. 1, '76. of life's troubles must have been before him as well as their past effect. I, therefore think it safe to hold that he is here speaking as the Spirit gave him vision. "Work together for good," not the seeming, but the real good, good in the longest run, good in view of eternity. Those that love God are the regenerate, those that are led by the Spirit, God's children. others have any guarantee that the adverse events of life shall work them good. Such events may tend to bring the unrenewed to Christ, as no doubt in many instances they do; but only as they do this, do they work them good. No we To those that are called according to His purpose. By far the most important clause in the section, because furnishing the clue, as shall soon see, to its entire meaning. "Those that are called" is simply another mode of designating the saved. It and the expression "those that love God" are descriptive, not of different persons, but of the same. While denoting Christians, the two clauses also express important facts in their lives. Called according to his purpose. What do these words mean? The question is most important. Prothesis here rendered purpose is from protithemi, which means to place out or set before. Accordingly prothesis means a placing or setting before. Purpose, from the Latin propono, to place before, literally and exactly translates it. But prothesis is not predicated of men, but of God; and it denotes not His physical act of placing things locally before or in front of him, but His act of placing them before his mind so as distinctly to see them. The placing is before his mind, and the seeing is mental seeing. But at what time did this prothesis or placing before occur? No definite answer can be given. But it may be safely assumed that it occurred far back in eternity, and therefore long anteriorly to time and man. It occurred, so to speak, when the vision of man first arose before the Divine mind, or when man first took shape as man in the Divine idea. What next did the prothesis embrace, what entered into it and composed it; or what things were set and placed before? Man, including this world with all that in any way pertains to it, from his conception on, to say the least, until his glorification. Beyond this period, for the present, we need not attempt to look. God, as it were, set before him the whole human race, with their entire destiny. All that man is or shall be stood before Him-sin, redemption, glorification-all were naked and open to His eye. It was there that the Logos was foreordained before the foundation of the world (1 Peter i. 20), to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the word; and from that point There the forward He was ever viewed as slain. whole Gospel was ideally perfected; in a word, the whole of time, with all that shall transpire in it, was in vision as completely before God as it will ever be in fact when it is past. To us this is utterly incomprehensible; and yet we cannot conceive how it could possibly have been otherwise. In that prothesis, accordingly, each man was as distinctly before God, as saved or lost, as he will be when the judgment is past; not because God decreed that this man should be saved and that one not, but because, leaving each absolutely free to choose his own destiny, He could and did as clearly foresee what that destiny would be, as though He Himself had fixed it by unchangeable decree. To assume that God must foreordain what a man's destiny shall be, in order to foresee it, is a profound absurdity. He can as unerringly forecast the end of a perfectly free agent as He can that of a being to whom His decree has left no more of volition than belongs to the merest machine. Can any one be found so daring as to deny that He can do this? Now it was the complete view of the future presented in this prothesis, that enabled the Apostle to say so confidently, "all things work together for good to those that love God." In that view it was determined that such should be the case; and from there it passed into time by revelation. Observation serves merely to demonstrate the truth of the determination. We have now but little difficulty in explaining the clause "called according to His purpose. In the prothesis all things pertaining to man's redemption were set before God, and among them His predetermination that man should be called by the Gospel. "To which (salvation) He called you by our Gospel." Hence to be called according to God's purpose, prothesis, is to be called by the Gospel. It is, therefore, not to be called by some secret impulse of the Holy Spirit; neither is it to be called "effectually" or "ineffectually," as the schoolmen phrase it. It is simply to be called by hearing the Gospel preached. preached. This call we are also absolutely free to accept or reject; and accordingly as we do that or this, we will be saved or lost. For whom He foreknew. To foreknow is to know relatively: that is, it is to know previously to some assumed or real date or period. Now let this period be located far back before time, before creation. The act of fore-knowing took place before that period; it took place, in other words, simultaneously with the prothesis, and formed a part of it. When God set before Him the human race, long before their actual existence, it was then that He foreknew. He foresaw in the prothesis, that certain persons would, of their own choice, obey Him or His Son; that they would comply with the conditions of justification, and so be saved. These were the persons "whom He foreknew." They were, therefore, ideal not actual persons. They existed in prothesis, not in fact; still all that God did of them was as real as though they had been actual persons. "Foreknow" is here to be taken with a single qualification. It must denote more than the naked act of being cognizant of. For in this sense, of course, God foreknew everybody; yet He did not predetermine everybody. It must denote both knowing and accepting. God foresaw that certain persons in the prothesis would obey His will. These were the persons He foreknew. But besides foreknowing them, He also approved and accepted them. The Saviour thus uses the words in the following passage: "Then will I profess to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you that work iniquity." (Matt. vii. 23.) Besides mere knowing, the word here also means approving and accepting. He also predetermined. He predetermined at the period when He foreknew and predetermined the persons whom He foreknew. All this occurred in prothesis. The persons whom He foreknew were the persons who He foresaw would do His will, whether before Christ or under Him, the redeemed. But He did not foreknow these and accept them because of His predetermination that they should obey Him. In the matter of their obedience, He left them wholly uninfluenced by any predetermining act of His; that is, He left them free. Yet He foresaw that they would do His will; and it was because of this, their own voluntary act, that He predetermined them. In other words, their obedience was not determined by His act of predetermination; but His act of predetermination was determined by their voluntary act of obedience. Had He not foreseen their act, His act would never have taken place. To be of a form like the form of His Son. The reference is to the resurrection. When the prothesis was before God, He foresaw that certain persons would, when the opportunity was presented, become His children. These in purpose He accepted. Moreover, He then determined, which of course was an act of predetermination relatively to the thing determined, that in the resurrection their bodies should be of the same form as the glorious body of His Son. As He was predetermined to be like them before He went into the grave, so they were predetermined to be like Him after they come out of it. Thus it will be seen that in the prothesis the Father placed before Him, not only the resurrection of Christ, but also the very form He should wear Observer, Jan. 1, 76. after it. Nor was this all. He there also determined that this form should be the bodily form of all His children. The reader will notice that I am a little free in rendering the clause in hand. My object is, while trying to be true to the original, to present the thought in a form which shall be intelligible to the ordinary reader, which is what he does not find in many translations of the passage. It is quite common to be so slavishly literal as to be hopelessly dark. This extreme I am willing to avoid. That He might be the first-born among many brethren. The eis here is certainly telic; and the word first-born is designed to express, not so much the mere fact of being the first-born, as the honour and distinction of the fact. In all things pertaining to the family of God, Christ is to have the pre-eminence. He is the first-born from the grave; and to Him therefore belongs the honours of the first-born Son. Among these honours is that of giving the form of His glorified body to all the redeemed. His body is the type; and all their bodies will take shape after it. And whom He predetermined, them He also called. Let the reader keep in mind that nothing here said is said of actuals. Every thing yet is in the prothetic form. The purposing is real; but, both the things purposed and the things to be affected by them, were all yet far in the future. "Them He also called: that is, He called them in purpose. Not that He called them in any special sense or special way, or that He called them and not others; for this is neither asserted nor implied. But He called them, if before Christ, by the preaching of prophets and other righteous men; or if under Christ by the Gospel; and just as He called them, so He called all, the difference being that they voluntarily accepted, while the others wilfully rejected. But why, it may be asked, call those who God foresaw would reject? That it might appear in the judgment that He had made no difference; that He had made the same provision for all, the same tender to all, had left all alike free, and that each of his own accord, and with no discriminating influence from Him, had chosen his own destiny. Otherwise, God could not be vindicated against the charge of arbitrary partiality. Again: all must be called to enable Him to foresee who would accept and who not. But it has been said, that it would have been better not to create man than that any should be lost and, accordingly, the question has been sharply put. Why did God create, if He foresaw that some would reject the call and be lost? But the objector does not know that it would have been better not to create; and he is estopped Observer, Jan. 1, '76. from making his ignorance the test of the fact. As to why God created the human race, I do not know, and not knowing, shall not affect to say. And whom He called, them He also justified. Still spoken, not of actual, but of prothetic persons. "Whom He called," and called just as He called those whom He did not justify." "He called "--this was God's act, what He did in carrying out His predetermination; but this done, He paused. And now those called accepted; while the others in precisely the same circumstances willed to reject. Upon this acceptance, which consisted in the obedience of belief, God justified them, remitted their sins, and henceforward held them as just. Now what here took place prothetically far back in eternity, is precisely what is now actually taking place every day under Christ. : And whom He justified, them He also glorified. He glorified in purpose, not actually but the justification is just as certain as though it had occurred of actually existing persons. All things stood prothetically before God-the Redeemer, the Gospel, the human family, the saved, the lost. As to the saved, the first act was the act of foreknowing, the act of pre-cognition and acceptance; and the last act, that of glorification. To exhaust these extremes, together with all the intermediate steps, would be to exhaust the Gospel. Of course nothing of this sort can be attempted here. The two great errors into which many expositors have fallen, who have undertaken the interpretation of the present section, consist, first, in assuming that an act of foreknowledge necessarily implies an act of unalterable pre-fixture by decree of every fact of human life; and, secondly, that the predicates of the section, as called "justified," "glorified," are said of actual human beings. If the reader will only consent to free his mind from these two errors, he will find no serious trouble in discovering the meaning of, perhaps, the sublimest passage in the letter; but unless he does this, he will find it an hopeless enigma. The ordinary modes of explaining the passage neither extract a ray of light from it, nor shed a ray of light upon it. The word prothesis, as already said, is the clue which leads us into the whole secret of the passage. The moment we lose sight of this word, the passage ceases to be explicable; while with it, its meaning opens brightly out. THE THRONE OF POWER. THE God whose splendour of essential light Where glories, which no mortal eye could bear, A voice out from the Highest did proceed: And through the harness joints the arrow tore, Spirits of force malignant still inspire, One cries, "We have a Church, so old and grand, |