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Prefented to

The Cornell University, 1869, ©
BY

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ALPHA AND OMEGA

OR

THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST

AS THE WORD OF GOD

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR
EDINBURGH
1867

@
/ CORNELL’
UNIVERSITY,
‘\ LIBRARY 7

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
THE accompanying volume, entitled ‘ ALPHA
AND OmeEGA; or, The Life and Mission of Christ as
the Word of God,’ is presented by the Author for the

acceptance Of ooo. cccceeseecesseseess ces eee ceeeeees

CDM aed

It has been printed for private circulation only, in the

  

mean time.
The nature of its contents will, in all probability,
fully explain, if it does not also justify, the motive for

the adoption of this course.

EpinsurGH, 49717 1867.
INTRODUCTION.

“Is anything too hard for God?” is probably
the most appropriate motto under which to
introduce this little volume. The subject of
which it treats is vast and great beyond all
comparison. Volumes might have been writ-
ten, and without weariness, in its illustration.
Libraries of volumes will yet be devoted to its
increasing explanation ; for it is like a holy
. fire of infinitude infolding itself, and incapable
either of being exhausted or extinguished. It
is like a fountain of living water, growing into
a river, and emptying itself into a sea, having
the divine essence as its source, and the visible
revelation of the divine glory as its unending
aim. It passes all finite comprehension, and
yet it is to enlighten human understanding.
lv INTRODUCTION.

The vistas of its knowledge are illimitable in
number and extent and variety, still they are
to be the intellectual nourishment and delight
of man. It has, nevertheless, been deemed
expedient to compress within small literary
space the treatment of it in this volume, and
to present only a true and faithful epitome of
the life and mission of Him who is the Word
of God, “clothed with a vesture dipped in
blood.” And this is the great theme to the
consideration of which the reader is invited
by the author.
ALPHA AND OMEGA;

oR,

THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST
AS THE WORD OF GOD.

CHAPTER I.

ACCORDING to Scripture, the life of Christ as the
Word was a life “with God,” and a life “as God;”
it was also “the light of men.” The life of Christ
was before the foundation of the world, for He had
a glory with His Father before the world was. This
uncreated self-existence of Christ was voluntarily
yielded up by Him from the foundation of the world,
when He became the Word of God, by whom all
things were made, and without whom was not any-
thing made that was made. There are three great
past epochs indicated in Scripture in connection
with the history of Christ’s revelation of Himself as
the Word of God. The first was the foundation of
the world, when His uncreated self-existence was
A
2 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

voluntarily yielded up; the second was the laying
of the corner-stone of this earth’s preparation to
become the abode of men; and the third was His
advent in a single human form, when the Word was
made flesh. He is yet to be revealed as the Word
of God, “clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.”

The book of life of the Lamb, slain from the
foundation of the world, was written in the act of
self-sacrifice by which Christ was constituted “ the
Word of God.” Nothing has since transpired in
the history of creation and the things created at
variance with the Word of God written in the Lamb’s
book of life from the foundation of the world. The
mission of Christ as “the Word of God” was, first,
to reveal His life with God; second, to reveal His
life as God; and, third, to reveal His life as the
light of men. His life with God was the substance
and essence of the invisible things of God. From
the creation of the world these are clearly seen, even
the eternal power and Godhead, being understood
by the things that are made. In Christ, who is the
beginning of creation, God created the heaven and
the earth. By Christ, as the Word of God, the
creation of the heaven and the earth was completed ;
for He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the ending of the creation of God.

The heaven and the earth, or the material uni-
verse, are a revelation of the Word of God, and they
declare the invisible things of Christ’s life with God
before the world was. From the foundation of the
world, the eternal power and Godhead were visibly
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 3

manifested in the creation of the heaven and the
earth by the Word of God. The things created were
of God by His Word ; but the uncreated self-existence
of God was before all things, and distinct and sepa-
rate from them after they were created. In the act
of creation the Father and the Word were one, the
Father in the Word and the Word in the Father; but
the existence of the Creator was apart from, and
not in any form identical with, the things created.
The visible work of creation was not limited to the
producing of a world of inanimate matter. This
earth contains in its strata a record revealing the
past existence of living forms, innumerable in their
diversity, yet regular in their successive gradations,
commencing with those of a low, and terminating
in those of a higher, order. As the visible inanimate
universe is an expression of the invisible things of
God, so the multitudinous animate forms that have
appeared on this earth are a testimony to the infini-
tude of the life-giving power of the Word of God.

In the creation of the material universe and of
the living forms which have appeared on this earth,
Christ, as the Word of God, has revealed the life
which He had with God before the world was in its
infinitude both of wisdom and power. The incalcu-.
lable ages of the past history of the material universe
and this earth’s living forms, testify the incompre-
hensible duration of that life of Christ with God, in
and by whom as the Word they were called into
existence. How inconceivable in its grandeur and
majesty must be the life of Him who is the Alpha
4 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

and the Omega, and also the fulness of the heaven
and the earth, and the things that have lived therein
throughout the past ages of creation’s history! If to
all this be added the glory of that invisible world of
intelligent life concerning which little is made known
in Scripture beyond the fact of its excellent existence,
this combined revelation of the life of Christ as the
Word with God before the world was, surpasses
finite comprehension.

But above and beyond revealing His life as the
Word with God, Christ was to reveal His life as
God. The history of the revelation of His life with
God is briefly narrated in the opening sentence of
Scripture. “In the beginning,” or in Christ as the
Word, “ God created the heaven and the earth.”
The life which Christ as the Word had with God be-
fore the world was, although “ slain from the founda-
tion of the world,” was to be resumed by Him; and
the manner of the restoration of its glory to Him is
the great mystery of godliness. The beginning of
Christ’s revelation of His life as God was also the
beginning of the revelation of the mystery of iniquity.
The revelation in creation of the life He had with
God was one wholly external to Himself, and
excluded all knowledge of or belief in Him by
invisible intelligences then in existence. But the
revelation of His life as God is the revelation of His
personal glory as the Son of God. Until the Father
declared, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
Thee,” the angels were ignorant of His self-existence
as God. With this announcement there was conjoined
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 5

the command, “ And let all the angels of God wor-
ship Him.”

The visible things of creation, whether animate or
inanimate, in and through which the invisible things
of God were revealed, were not endowed with any
faculties or powers enabling them to understand the
glory of the life with God, whose wisdom and power
were manifested in their existence. The history of
the visible creation when completed was a volume
written by the Word of God, in which the knowledge
of the glory He had with God the Father was openly
disclosed. As yet, however, there was no visible
form of existence capable of acquiring or understand-
ing this knowledge. The end of the history of crea-
tion was also the termination of the exclusive reve-
lation by Christ of Himself as the Word with God.
From thence there was combined therewith a reve-
lation by the Word of Himself as God. The glory
which Christ had as the Word with God was the glory
of His Father alone. The glory which Christ had as
the Word who was God was His own glory as the
Son of God. The finishing of the revelation of the
Father’s glory alone by Christ as the Word of God
was also the conclusion of that long eternal day
during which the Father’s word was declaring in
and through the life of Christ, “Thou art my Son,
this day have I begotten Thee.”

This earth was selected as the stage on which
Christ was to reveal Himself as God, even the eter-
nal Son of the everlasting Father. The first act in
the revelation of the Father’s glory was the laying of
6 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

the foundation of the world. So the first act in the
revelation of the Son’s glory was the laying of the
corner-stone of this earth as the appointed stage of
its manifestation. The foundations of this earth and
its measures were laid during the history of the first
creation. The laying of its corner-stone as the stage
on which the glory of the Word as the Son of God was
to be revealed, was an event of such importance that it
is the only one in connection with prehuman history
made mention of in Scripture in juxtaposition with
the fact of the existence of angelic intelligences.
When the corner-stone of this earth was so laid, “the
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy.”

The foundation of the world was laid in Christ’s
sacrifice of His existence as the Word with God. As
the Word of God He proceeded forth from His Father
to commence and complete the work of creation. In
the continuous act of revealing His Father’s glory in
the visible creation, the Word was simultaneously
giving evidence of the power and glory of His own in-
visible life as the Son of God. By His becoming the
Word of God in and through whom the heaven and
the earth were created, it was declared that in Him
there dwelt both the fulness of God and the fulness
of creation. The words, “Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten Thee,” proclaimed the invisible exist-
ence of the divine life of Christ, the visible testimony
to the wisdom and power as well as the fact of which
was furnished in creation when its history was com-
pleted. Having revealed the divine life He had with
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 7

God by creating the heaven and the earth, or material
universe, He was from thenceforth to reveal the
divine life He had as the Son of God in the creation
of a new heaven and a new earth. The corner-stone
of this new creation was laid in the self-sacrifice of
His divine life as the Son of God.

To the morning stars and all the sons of God
there was revealed the mystery of the first or visible
creation on its completion. That mystery was the
divine life of Christ as the Son of God in which they
believed, and whom they worshipped as God, and
thereby kept their first estate. But all the angelic
intelligences did not believe in and worship the
Son of God, who was the Alpha and Omega both of
the first or visible creation and of their own created
existence. A great star fell from heaven. In his
fall he drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and
did cast them to the earth. The consequences, so
far as concerned the order that prevailed on the earth
previously, are narrated in the second verse of Scrip-
ture: “And the earth was without form, and void ;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” In
this chaotic condition of the earth, the corner-stone
thereof was laid as the first act of the new creation,
“when the morning stars sang together, and all the
sons of God shouted for joy.”

In these events, the great mystery of godliness
and the mystery of iniquity were both originated.
the one in Christ’s self-sacrifice of His life as the
Son of God, when He became the corner-stone of the
new creation; the other, in the self-will of the great
8 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

star and those who fell with him to the earth, when
they refused to believe in and worship the Son of
God, as revealed in and to them by the Father at
the close of the first and beginning of the second
creation. It was the third part of the stars that fell
from heaven to the earth when the mystery of in-
iquity was originated. It was also the third part,
or one of the three participants in the glory of the
Godhead, who gave up His life as the Son of God, to
become -the corner-stone of the new creation, when
the great mystery of godliness was originated. Both
the fallen angels and the Word as God made choice
of this earth as the scene of the great conflict be-
tween the powers of light and darkness then entered
upon. The Word as God voluntarily exiled Himself
from His Father, whose daily delight He was, be-
cause His rejoicing was in the habitable parts of God’s
earth, and His delights were with the sons of men.
The stars who, of their own choice, fell to the earth,
were imprisoned in the darkness that was upon the
face of the deep, for “the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.”

The earth was then standing out of the water and
in the water, its order being destroyed; but the
heavens were of old; their order, as established from
the beginning to the end of the first creation, con-
tinued unchanged. The Scripture record contains a
narrative of the manner in which the Word as God
proceeded to restore order on this earth, and to re-
people it with living inhabitants. The effects which
were produced by the Word as God were limited to
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 9

this planet and its surrounding atmosphere, and
occupied six days in their accomplishment. If “one
day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day,” then each day of the
work of restoration would be a thousand years; so
that the space of time that elapsed from the begin-
ning to the end of the new creation was six thousand
years. :

Although the history of the new creation was of
comparatively short duration, it was much more ex-
cellent in itself than the first creation, and more
glorious as a work of God. Throughout the history
of the first creation, the will of God, as revealed by
the Word, was unresistingly paramount in all things
created, whether visible or invisible. Throughout
the history of the second creation, the will of God, as
revealed by the Word, was resisted by the angels who
kept not their first estate. One object of the first
creation was to express in visible created things the
invisible uncreated things of Gud. One object of
the second creation was to produce a visible, living,
and intelligent yet finite, image of the Son of God.
The first creation revealed the glory of the Father ;
the second creation was a living, human tabernacle,
within and through which the glory of the Son
might be revealed. The first creation was objective,
and its existence apart from the living glory of the
Father, which it visibly demonstrated; the second
creation was subjective, and capable of being iden-
tified and ultimately united with the living glory of
the Son, which was made manifest in it. The first
10 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

creation was a spontaneous and unopposed eman-
ation from the eternal power and Godhead. The
second creation was the result of an invisible con-
flict between the Word as God and the self-will of
the angels who kept not their first estate.

It is the divine account of the results of this
spiritual conflict, that is contained in the opening
chapter of Scripture. The powers of darkness
usurped dominion over this earth, thereby destroying
the light and life giving power which had been im-
parted to it in the first creation. This light and
life giving power the Word as God gradually re-
stored. He first gave light, and divided the light
from the darkness—that which God willed through
the Word, from that which the fallen angels had pro-
duced and strove to retain. He next divided the
waters from the waters—those to which he gave a
heavenly influence, from those which had been made
bitter and deadly. He then gathered together the
waters under the heaven into one place, and the
dry land appeared, unto which He gave.a grass-
growing, an herb - yielding, and a fruit - bearing
power. He thereafter so transformed the atmo-
sphere that the sun, moon, and stars became visible
from the surface of the earth; and to the atmo-
sphere He at the same time gave a life-sustaining
power. He finally gave to the waters and to the
earth a life-producing power, causing them each
to bring forth living creatures after their kind.

All this was something more than a mere restor-
ation of this earth to the state in which it existed
.

THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 11

during the history of the first creation. In the in-
terval, the Word as God had become its corner-
stone, and the third part of the angelic hosts
had made choice of it as the sphere within which
their intellectual and spiritual influence was in-
visibly exercised. It had been the scene of the war
that was waged for six thousand years between the
Word as God and the fallen principalities and
powers of heaven. The powers of evil prevailed not,
but were discomfited, and entirely dispossessed of
the dominion they had usurped over the earth, the
sea, and the air. Light had dispersed the darkness
which at the beginning of the conflict was upon the
face of the deep. Life was substituted for the deadly
stillness which pervaded this planet after it became
the chosen sphere over which the fallen angels ex-
ercised their invisible influence. Order reigned where
confusion had been all-prevalent. And these things
were the results of Christ’s successful execution of
His mission, in preparing this earth as the material
stage on which to reveal the glory of His life as the
Son of God.

At the foundation of the world, the Word who
was “with God” came forth from the Father, He
being the brightness of His glory, and the express
image of His person. This image and glory the
Word revealed in a visible and objective form, in
the creation of the heaven and the earth, or mate-
rial universe. The history of this the first crea-
tion was thus constituted the visible and objec-
tive counterpart of Christ’s life as the Word with
12 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

God before the foundation of the world. At the
termination of the history of the first creation, the
invisible things of God were clearly visible, being
understandable by the things which were made;
therefore the appositeness of the declaration,
“Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.”
Christ gave up the existence He had as the Word
with God, and reproduced a visible yet objective
image of it in the creation of the heaven and the
earth. When Christ, at the foundation of the world,
came forth as the Word that was with God, His
Father reproduced an invisible image of Him in
a world of angelic intelligence. The history of each,
the visible and invisible, progressed, and was com-
pleted, simultaneously. The glory of the Father was
specially manifested in the visible world, through
Christ as the Word that was with God. The glory
of Christ was specially revealed in the world of
angelic intelligences by the Father.

At the termination of the history of the creation of
the visible and invisible worlds, the Word gave up
to God the dominion of the material universe which
He had created, and God proclaimed Him to be His
Son in the world of angelic intelligences. The glory
of the Father, even His eternal power and Godhead,
was alone visibly revealed in the creation of the
heaven and the earth. The glory of the Word as
the Son of God was only revealed invisibly at the
close of the first creation. Thereupon the corner-
stone of this earth was laid, as the stage on which
the glory of the Son of God, even His self-submission
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 13

and His self-sacrifice to the will of His Father, was
also to be visibly manifested, accompanied by an in-
visible revelation of the glory of the Father. When
Christ completed the creation of the heaven and the
earth He gave up their dominion unreservedly to His
Father, and thenceforth there were originated the
germs of a new creation, even a living visible, as well
as intellectual, heaven and earth. In connection with
this earth their living and intellectual seed was sown.
-- It was a combination of divine and angelic existence
in equal proportions, one-third part of each, both being
voluntarily self-sacrificed,—the divine, in order to the
accomplishment of the holy purpose of the Godhead
—the angelic, in order to thwart and oppose it.

At and as the beginning of the new creation, this
earth became surcharged with divine and angelic
spiritual and intellectual existence, the divine war-
ting against the angelic, and the angelic against the
divine. But another third part of God, even His
Spirit, moved upon the face of the waters, guiding
and directing the visible results of the great invisible
conflict between the Word as God and the angels
who kept not their first estate. These results were
threefold,—the restoration of inanimate order and
beauty on this earth—the giving of animate existence
to creatures on the earth and in the sea—and the
advent of man as a living soul, made in the image
of God. These results were a visible revelation of
the glory of the Son of God; but in the nature of
man alone was the divine seed sown of an invisible
revelation of the glory of the Father of all. The.
14 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

adaptation of this earth in its restored state, and of
its living creatures, to the wants and requirements of
man, has been a continual visible testimony to the
wisdom and goodness of the Word as God. The
innumerable myriads of human beings that were
virtually brought into existence in the one person
of the first man, have been an indisputable evidence
of the infinitude of the resources of the life of Him
in whom, as the Son of God in the act of contending
with the powers of darkness and death, their being
was originated.

In Adam the second creation was completed ; but
its existence was not perfected in him. Adam and
Eve were “the fountains” of the waters of human
life; and in the act of giving them being. Christ
finished the second part of His mission, which con-
sisted in the manifestation of the living image of the
life of the Word as the Son of God. Of this new
creation the Word as God was the Alpha and
Omega, even as He had been the Alpha and Omega
of the first creation in His life as the Word who was
with God before the foundation of the world. So
soon as He completed the second creation, He thence-
forth entered upon the fulfilment of the third portion
of His divine mission as the life which was “the
light of men.” The Word came unto His own—the
persons of Adam and Eve—and His own received
Him not. Nevertheless He was the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
That which had occurred among the angelic hosts
and on this earth when He was laid as the corner-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 15

stone of the second creation, was reproduced in the
new world of human existence when He commenced:
to reveal Himself as the light of men to Adam and
Eve in the garden of Eden. The new creation be-
came a moral and intellectual chaos, and the dark-
ness of death encompassed its physical existence.

The light of human duty toward God, and of divine
truth in man, given by the Word when He said, “ Of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt
not eat; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die,” could not be extinguished in human
nature. But by its disregard the Word became a
dead letter, and the spirit of disobedience was sub-
stituted for His Spirit in the new creation. The
state of human nature became an exact image of the
state of this earth when the fallen angels made it
the sphere in which to exercise their invisible influ-
ence. And the history of the new creation since its
completion in Adam has been a visible reproduction
of the great conflict waged between good and evil dur-
ing the six thousand years which preceded it; the
world of human existence being superadded to this
earth as a new portion of the usurped dominion of the
powers of darkness and death. Just as the history of
the first creation revealed visibly the invisible things
of, or the life of the Word with, God before the world
was, so the history of the new creation, or the human
race, has revealed, and is still revealing, the invisible
things of that great spiritual and intellectual conflict,
by which its coming into existence was preceded on
this earth.
16 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

Human history is not only a visible manifestation
of the great conflict by which the giving of life to
man was preceded, but it is to accomplish the pur-
pose involved in that otherwise incomprehensible
struggle. That holy purpose is one of inconceivable
glory. Within its infinite folds it embraces the re-
surrection to visible life of the glory of the Word as
the Son of God, the redemption of a new world of
human existence in everlasting union with the visible
life of the glory of the Word as God, and the utter
destruction of the spirit of disobedience both in
angels and men. The invisible conflict which pre-
ceded the fulfilment of the second part of Christ’s
divine mission terminated in man being made a living
soul. The conflict waged in human history is to
terminate on this earth in all nations, and kindreds,
and tongues, and peoples being made partakers of
the divine nature, through the resurrection of the life
of the Word in them as the light of men.

The Mosaic account of the first conflict, both in
its successive stages and their characteristics and
results, is therefore a divine outline descriptive gen-
erally of the successive stages of the second conflict
in human history, including their characteristics and
results. When, after the Fall, the spiritual and in-
tellectual existence of man was without form and
void, and darkness was upon the face of its deep, the
Spirit of God also moved upon its surface. The
Word, as the light of men, said, Let there be light;
and there was light given, when He announced to the
Serpent that the seed of the woman should bruise
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 17

his head. This occurred in the morning of the first
day, or at the commencement of the first thousand
years, of human history. Towards its evening He
gave further light concerning the glory of His pur-
pose to man in the life of Enoch, who walked with
God. He confirmed the truth of His first revelation
to Adam by his death before the termination of the
first day, or first thousand years, of human history.
And He made a marvellous separation of the light
from the darkness into which Adam descended, when
He translated Enoch without tasting of death, giving
light thereby, moreover, respecting the high destiny
of man, notwithstanding the degradation and humil-
iation to which his nature had been subjected by
the spirit of disobedience.

During the second day, or the second thousand
years, of human history, “ God saw that the wicked-
ness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually.” In the morning of this day Noah
came into existence. He also walked with God.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters of human life, and let it divide the
waters of Noah’s life from the waters of the life of
wicked men. And Noah made an ark, and went
into it. After seven days the waters of the Flood
were upon the earth, and all flesh died: Noah only
remained, and they that were with him in the ark.
Thus God made a firmament in human existence,
dividing irrevocably between the wicked lives of
those under it, and the righteous life of Noah above

B
18 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

it; and He called the firmament the heaven of hu-
man existence on earth, constituting it a figure of the
manner of human redemption by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ as “the light of men.” The beginning
and the end of Noah’s life were the morning and
the evening of the second day, or the second thousand
years, of human history.

During the third day, or third thousand years, of
human history, God separated Abraham from the
rest of the human race, making of his descendants a
peculiar people, among whom to reveal the life of the
Word as “the light of men.” In them the dry land
of the human race—which God called “the earth *—
appeared, and all other nations became “the seas.” As
a nation, the lineal descendants of Abraham were the
human soil which brought forth “the grass,” or im-
proved specimens of mankind; also “the herb yield-
ing seed after his kind,” or the earlier source of
intellectual enlightenment ; and “the tree yielding
fruit,” or the later and higher form of divine know-
ledge revealed in and through the history of the
nation towards the close of the third thousand years.
In the morning of the third day of human history
Abraham came into existence. The word of God
came unto him both in the form of a command and
a promise. Abraham obeyed, and the promise began
to be fulfilled about mid-time of the day in the
exodus of his descendants from Egypt, and their
advent as a nation. From thence until the days of
David, at the close of the day, God was fulfilling
His promise, and putting the Israelites in possession
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 19

of their territorial inheritance, the entire of both
being accomplished during the reign of David. The
birth and call of Abraham were the morning, and
the life and reign of David as King of Israel were
the evening, of the third day, or third thousand
years, of human history.

The end of the third, with the commencement of
the fourth, day of human history is marked by an
event of no less significance than the dedication of
the material temple of God built at Jerusalem by
Solomon. God having thus made a heaven and an
earth of human existence, of which the ark of Noah
and the temple of Solomon were visible signs, next
proceeded to cause the Word, as the light of men, to
shine with greater fulness and clearness in the human
heavenly firmament. “God made two great lights ; the
greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
rule the night : He made the stars also.” Elijah was
the morning star of the fourth day of human history,
he being the first and brightest of the line of Hebrew
prophets. The vision and prophecy as the lesser light
to rule the night of human history, or the written
volume of the Word as the light of men, was com-
pleted during this day. It was as alight shining in
a dark place. It was a complete written revelation
of the Word as the light of men, and became the
moon of the human heavenly firmament, reflecting
by anticipation the invisible glory of the Sun of
Righteousness, until His advent in a living human
form. The dedication of Solomon’s material temple
was the morning, and the advent of the Word in His
20 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

living temple of humanity was the evening, of the
fourth day, or fourth thousand years, of human his-
tory.

God’s manifestation of Himself as the Word made
flesh reflects a retrospective flood of light on the
four thousand years of human history by which it
was preceded. This portion of human history—of
which the formation of Adam the first man was the
beginning, and the advent of Christ the second man
was the end—is distinct and complete in itself. The
four thousand years of human history thus ilumin-
ated by the manifestation of God in the flesh, re-
flects back a clearer and fuller light upon the six
thousand years’ spiritual and intellectual conflict by
which the advent of the first man was preceded;
and both combined also reflect a fuller and clearer
light upon the history of the first creation from its
beginning to itsend. The man Christ Jesus was a
visible image of the life the Word had with God
before the world was, so that in His mysterious per-
‘son there was concentrated the one grand result of
all that had transpired in the universe both of mind
and matter from the foundation of the world until
He was born of Mary at Bethlehem. He was the
Alpha and the Omega of all that had happened. <As
the Word with God He was the beginning; and as a
human being, whose life was in God and with God,
He was the end.

In many important respects the first man Adam,
and the second man Jesus Christ, resembled each
other; but there was one distinction which incon-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 21

ceivably separated between them. Adam’s was a
human life in God yet without God; Christ’s was a
human life both in and with God. This distinction
in the nature of man as possessed by Christ, in con-
trast with that possessed by Adam, produced an
equally wide divergence in the life and conduct of
each. The rule of Adam’s life was resistance to the
word and will of God ; the rule of Christ’s life was a
perfect submission to both. If Christ’s human nature
was a visible image of the life He had as the Word
with God before the foundation of the world, then
Adam’s human nature as created was a visible image
of the life angelic intelligences had in God during
the history of the first creation. It was a created
invisible life in God yet without God. All things
visible and invisible were created, and had their
being in God through the Word. But the glorious
life of God as God was uot revealed, either in or to
any of the creatures He had formed by the Word,
until the end of the history of the first creation.
Then, however, and in the act of completing the first
creation, God brought forth His only-begotten Son,
saying, “ Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
Thee.” The Word thus manifested in and by the
history of the first creation made known to angelic
intelligences the existence of His life as the Son of
God, to whom it was further said, “ Let all the angels
of God worship Him.”

The revelation of the life of the Word with God,
throughout the entire history of the first creation,
was a prolonged act of incomprehensible homage
22 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

offered by the Word to the one God, His Father. In
the volume of the book it was written of Him from
the foundation of the world, “Lo, I come; I delight
to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law is written
within my heart.” This state of perfect submissive-
ness in everything to the will and law of God was
not changed when He began to be revealed as the
Son of God at the close of the history of the first
creation. He was still the Word with God, although
His mission from thenceforth was to manifest Him-
self as the Son of God also. Of Himself He did
nothing, and could not do anything, because He
would not. In disclosing the glory of His life as
God, He was still the Word of His Father; and from
the fact of His perfect voluntary submission as the
‘Word, He was powerless in and of Himself either to
will or to do. It was the one God and Father of all
who worked in and by Him, to will and to do of His
good pleasure. He was one of the three participants
in the power and glory of the Godhead; but in the
act of becoming the Word that was with God, He
voluntarily denuded Himself of His divine power
and glory. Except as the Word executing the divine
mission which the Father had intrusted to Him, He
was absolutely powerless of Himself. And although
“without Him not anything was made that was
made,” the work from beginning to end was per-
formed by the power, and in perfect obedience to the
will, of His Father.

The life of the Word as He was with God before
the foundation of the world, began to go forth from
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 23

God when creation commenced. When His mission
in the creation of the heaven and the earth was
finished, this life became an independent, uncreated
self-existence as God; for this is the import of the
saying, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
Thee.” This manifestation of the independent and
uncreated self-existence of the Word as God, produced
a wonderful transformation in the state of angelic
being. Previously, their life was a life in God, yet
without God; because, throughout the entire history
of the first creation, the one God was revealed ex-
clusively in the Word as the living and true God, of
whose invisible things the material universe when
completed was only an objective expression. But
from the hour of the manifestation of the life of the
Word as God, angels became a subjective impersona-
tion of the invisible things of God.

The third part of the Godhead had voluntarily left
His estate “with God,” and in the act of doing so
He revealed the invisible things of God in creation ;
and when He finished this part of His work He
became as God Himself. That which Christ accom-
plished in the visible creation for the Godhead, the
Father effected for His Son as God in the angelic or
invisible creation. The self-existence of God as mani-
fested in the Son was one that had proceeded from
the Father by the Holy Spirit. It was not His own
but the Father’s gift through His Spirit, and in the
very act of receiving it He had to lay down His own
self-existence as the Word who was with God. The
glory of God is His holiness, and this glory was first
24 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

manifested by His Son in the first creation. When
it was finished it was again manifested by Himself
through His Spirit in the angelic world. And simul-
taneously therewith the corner-stone was laid for its
third manifestation in a new creation by the Spirit
of Holiness Himself through the Word as God.

Man was made an image of the glory of God as it
was revealed previous to his creation. In Adam the
glory of God, as the one living Father of all, was
visibly declared in a subjective, living, and intelligent
form. In Eve, when made out of Adam, the glory
of the Son as the express image of His Father was
also visibly declared in another subjective, living, and
intelligent form. This was the image and likeness
of God as revealed at the time of their creation. It
gives light concerning what transpired in the angelic
world at the close of the first creation. God was
then revealed in two persons, as Father and Son,
by His Spirit of Holiness. The Holy Spirit, in re-
vealing the glory of the Father and the Son in and
to angels, was Himself unknown; and the result
was, that only two-thirds of the angelic hosts sang
together as the morning stars, and shouted for joy as
the sons of God, when the corner-stone of this earth
was laid. The remaining third rejected the Word
as God when revealed in and to them, and thereby
despised, and refused to be guided by, the Spirit of
Holiness. The angels who kept not their first estate
virtually slew the life of the Word as God within
themselves, and, to the extent of their spiritual and
intelligent existence, robbed Him of the glory of the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 25

life as God which He received from His Father.
The holy angels, by imitating the example of Christ,
through whom, as the Word with God, they were
created, entered on a new and glorious state of being,
not only in God, but with God and as gods.

In the life and conduct of the first two descendants
of Adam and Eve, light is given concerning the
nature of this great transaction, and the part which
the fallen angels voluntarily took in it. Abel re-
ceived and believed the Word when revealed to him,
and he was accepted of God. Cain was of the seed
of the wicked, and rejected and despised the Word.
He manifested a murderous hatred of his brother
Abel, because “the Lord had respect unto Abel and
to his offering, but unto Cain and his offering he
had not respect.” Abel was the living human taber-
nacle of the Word; and Cain, being influenced by the
spirit of the fallen angels, therefore hated and slew
him. Thereafter Cain went out from the presence
of the Lord. In like manner the angels who kept
not their first estate hated the Word when revealed
to them as the Son of God, and slew His divine life
within themselves. In the act of doing so they fell
to the earth, of which the Word as slain was made
the corner-stone, in order to raise up a new race of
beings in whose history His life as God would be
restored through the Spirit of Holiness, whose pre-
sence moved upon the face of the waters of spiritual
life that had fallen to it. As in Eve the seed of the
slain Word was sown, so to Eve in the birth of Seth God
gave another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew.
CHAPTER IL

THE continuous history of the new creation dates
from the birth of Seth, and it is the history of human
redemption. It is also the history of a threefold yet
united visible manifestation of the glory of God in
the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.
It is further the history of the visible manifestation
of the spiritual powers and principalities of darkness.
All men are the lineal descendants of Adam and
Eve in their physical and intellectual nature, but
there are two distinct spiritual seeds. “He that
soweth the good seed is the Son of man. The tares
are the children of the wicked; the enemy that
sowed them is the devil.” During the first thousand
years of human history the two seeds were kept dis-
tinct, and inhabited separate localities on this earth.
After the translation of Enoch, the sons of God
intermarried with the daughters of men. The results
were that all flesh became corrupt before God, the
earth was filled with violence, and the human race
was destroyed by a flood of waters, Noah and his
family alone being saved alive.
ALPHA AND OMEGA. 27

Adam and Eve were “ the fountains of waters.”
The three sons of Noah became the sources of “ the
rivers” of human life subsequent to the flood. The
great star that fell from heaven, burning as it were
a lamp, when the corner-stone of this earth was laid,
afterward fell also “ upon the third part of the rivers,
and upon the fountains of waters.” The effect was
that “the third part of the waters became wormwood,”
and resembled in their spiritual state the great star
himself whose name is called “ Wormwood.” But in
addition to one third part of men becoming volun-
tarily partakers of the spirit of resistance to God’s
Holy. Spirit and rejection of His Word, many men
died in spirit not willingly, but because the waters
of human existence had been made bitter at their
fountainhead in the persons of Adam and Eve. The
curse pronounced upon Adam fell with its full force
upon his descendants until the days of Noah. After
the Flood, it was intimated that the then future of
human history would witness a gradual mitigation
of its power through the interposition of the Word,
and a corresponding diminution in the universality
of human wickedness. The effects of this promised
blessing were first to be experienced by descendants
of Shem, and thereafter by descendants of Japheth.
The curse in its visible consequences was, however,
to remain in the lot of Ham’s descendants, specially
of those in the line of Cain; so that the third part of
the rivers continued to be lineally as well as spiritu-
ally smitten—the outward state and condition of the
one being thus constituted a visible demonstration of
28 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

the invisible state and condition of the other, the
individual persons not being necessarily identical.

The first-fruits of wickedness in the line of Canaan,
and of righteousness in the line of Seth, were rip-
ened simultaneously in human history. For on the
day that God appeared unto Abraham in the plains
of Mamre, in three human forms, to reward his faith
by giving him the promised son, there came two
angels to Sodom at even, to destroy it and the other
cities of the plain, because their sin was very griev-
ous. This law of human history was also made
known to Abraham in these words: “Know of a
surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land
that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they
shall afflict them. But in the fourth generation they
shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet full.” One of the great principles
which has regulated the divine procedure is here an-
nounced. The only way of human improvement is
through suffering. Human agents are God’s hand in
the infliction of the necessary chastisement; and the
ripening of the wicked for judgment keeps pace with
the meetening of the righteous for reward.

God’s declared intention was to make of Abra-
ham’s descendants a nation, in and through whom
His glory was first to be revealed in human history.
For this purpose they were subjected to an appointed
course of suffering in the land of Egypt, in order to
prepare them as a people for the reception and belief
of the Word, who was to reveal Himself at sundry
times and in divers manners in their national history.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 29

They were also to receive the land of Canaan for
their territorial inheritance ; but before the nations
of Canaan could be dispossessed of it, they had to
fill up their iniquity. The correcting and improving
affliction of the Israelites, in the interval between the
birth of Isaac and their receiving possession of the
promised inheritance, was the divinely-appointed
counterpoise of the increasing iniquity of the Amor-
ites unto their destruction. And not until both had
run their separate courses, the one in the line of
Shem through Abraham, and the other in the line of
Ham through Canaan, were the human embodiments
of the good and evil produced in national history
permitted to come into hostile collision.

The Flood as the consequence of human wicked-
ness, and its accompanying good fruit, the saving of
Noah by the ark; the destruction of Sodom and its
accompanying good fruits, the deliverance of Lot
and the birth of Isaac; and the overthrow of the
nations of Canaan, with their accompanying territorial
dispossession by the Israelites,—are three of the most
remarkable events in early human history. They are
frequently alluded to in subsequent portions of Scrip-
ture as great examples, full both of warning and en-
couragement to men in their individual, social, and
national capacities. The wickedness of the antedi-
luvians was individual, for every imagination of the
thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually ;
the grievous sin of Sodom was'social as well as in-
dividual ; and the iniquity of Canaan had a nation-
al ingredient intermingled with its individual and
30 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

social qualities. The faith of Noah was made the
instrumentality of saving alive the natural seed of
human existence. The faith of Abraham was made
the medium of communicating a new intellectual
seed to human nature, of which the supernatural
birth of Isaac was only the visible sign, the com-
mencement of the incarnation of the Word being
the invisible reality.

Taken in connection with the form of Sodom’s
sin and the type of Canaan’s iniquity, there is a
peculiar significance in the terms of the promised
blessing to the human race through the event which
the birth of Isaac signified: “In thy seed shall all
the families of the earth be blessed ;” and “in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
Through Christ, “the seed,” as the Word, all the
families and all the nations of the earth were to be
blessed ; but of individual men no mention is made.
The principal fruits of human redemption on this
earth are to be social and national. The principal
fruits of the redemption of men as individuals are
to be made manifest in a future state of existence.
Although individual men die and pass away, one
generation succeeding another, social and national life
is preserved, and is susceptible of continual improve-
ment. It is through the social and national in human
history that the glory of God, Father and Son, and the
divine community of their love and interests, are to
be made visibly manifest through the operation of
the Spirit of Holiness. Hence the selection of the
family of Abraham and the nation of Israel as the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 31

first recipients of the double blessing which was in
the end to flow unto all families and all nations.

The variety in the mode of destroying human
wickedness, exhibited in each successive instance
named, is no less significant. The agency in the
cases of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom was
divine, and in that of the Canaanites human. The
antediluvians perished by water, the Sodomites by
fire, and the Canaanites by war. The wickedness of
the antediluvians was the consequence of individual
isolation from God; and it was so great as to be
absolutely incurable, every avenue through which
divine influence could have obtained access to human
nature being hermetically closed up against it. Their
individual state and its almost universal prevalence,
are an enduring testimony of the degrading and
miserable results to humanity of the unrestrained
supremacy over it of a spirit of disobedience. But
they are also a signal illustration of the nature of
that conflict which was waged on this earth before
the creation of man, between the Word as God and
the fallen principalities and powers of angelic exist-
ence. Every imagination of the thoughts of their
hearts was only evil continually also; and the war
waged was on their part an aggressive war, in order
to maintain a usurped dominion, founded on the
virtual extinction of the life of God’s Holy Son, and
persevered in for the perpetuation of confusion,
darkness, and death on this earth.

The state and condition of the human race at the
time of the Flood are a visible manifestation of the
32 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

invisible state and condition of the fallen angels in
their own nature, Noah being the solitary human
tabernacle of the Word preaching righteousness, but .
in vain, to the spirits of disobedience. In the ante-
diluvians the extreme of spiritual wickedness was
manifested in its actual nature, and its power over
living men was exercised to its utmost possible
limit. One human being alone was preserved from
the all-prevalent influence of its power. This isa
faithful representation of the condition of that spirit-
ual existence which originated the first great con-
flict between the Word and the fallen angels on this
earth. The latter were all-powerful within their own
nature, and resisted successfully the entrance of the
Word as a divine law for the regulation of their in-
visible existence. To destroy this spirit of disobedi-
ence, and to give life to the Word as God, was the
great design of the creation of man; and human
history is the history of the progress of the accom-
plishment of the twofold design. The Flood marks a
great epoch in the evolution of the divine purpose.
The overthrow of spiritual wickedness in the form of
its manifestation among the antediluvians was final,
complete, and irrevocable. Beneath the waters of the
Deluge there were buried in an unchangeable oblivion
the fragments of the spoiled dominion of wickedness
that had usurped all but universal supremacy over
every living individual of the human race. The
dominion of the fallen angels was founded in the
first deluge made mention of in Scripture, and it was
virtually overthrown in the last.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 33

The Flood was the first great act of God in the his-
tory of human redemption, for by it He delivered the
antediluvians from the violence and misery that were
the fruits of extreme spiritual wickedness. By it
also He gave avisible sign of a more excellent way
of human redemption in the saving of Noah. In
this view of the great transaction, Noah was a visible
sign of the condition of the Word as God in His
relation to wicked human nature, which was abun-
dantly embodied in the persons of the antediluvians.
The men of that age had become mere physical
existences in union with great spiritual wickedness.
By the Flood this unholy union was divorced, and in
the Ark the new creature formed out of this wicked
human nature by the Word was saved from destruc-
tion. And this is a divinely-appointed figure of the
manner of individual human redemption. By the
Word, or preaching of Jesus Christ within the man,
an ark is constructed in his heart and mind, while by
the baptismal water of regeneration, through a flood
of afflictive suffering unto death, the new creature is
delivered from the presence and prevalent power of
spiritual wickedness, even as Noah was.

The great star that fell from heaven had fallen
upon the fountains of the waters of human existence,
making them at length universally bitter and deadly,
with the single exception of Noah. After the Flood,
however, his evil power was limited in its successful
exercise to one third part of the rivers of human exist-
ence. Two-thirds of the human race were from thence-
forth to be delivered from the power of spiritual wick-

c
34 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

edness as it had been exercised over the antediluvi-
ans, and they were to have cause to say with Noah,
“ Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and God shall
enlarge or persuade Japheth.” But in addition, they
were in due time to be elevated to the glory and
dignity of sons of God. The history of human re-
demption is not merely the history of the restoration
to human beings of the physical and intellectual
state of Adam and Eve when created, but it is the
history also of the restoration of the life of the Word
to Him as God, through its resurrection in those whom
He created in Adam and Eve for this very purpose.
The nature given to Adam was a mere earth-
en vessel possessed of intellectual faculties, within
which and out of which a new nature was to be
formed by the Word as God. It was only the human
seed, the Word being the divine seed of that new and
glorious nature which was to be revealed in the ful-
ness of the time by the power of the Spirit of Holi-
ness. The Word, as sown in Adam after his creation,
died when he partook of the forbidden fruit. Christ
became as lifeless in Adam and Eve when they dis-
obeyed the Word spoken, as He then was in the
nature of the fallen angels. Both the divine and
human seeds of the new creation became subject to
death, that through death the power of spiritual
wickedness might be destroyed in the person of the
great star that fell from heaven upon the fountains
of the waters of human life. The forfeited life of
human nature was preserved, and not instantly de-
stroyed, in order that through its prolonged exist-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 35

ence the spirit of wickedness might be unendingly
destroyed, and the Spirit of Holiness revealed as
universally and everlastingly prevalent in God’s
glorious creation, both first and last. The great end
of human existence is to reveal visibly the glory of
the Spirit of Holiness through the Word as God, and
thereby to produce a living human counterpart of the
invisible glory of the holy angels.

The Spirit of Holiness is the Spirit both of the
Father and the Word. Through the Word He re-
vealed the glory of God the Father in the visible
and invisible worlds of the first creation that re-
mained untainted by evil. Through the Word He is
also preparing a revelation of the glory of God the
Son, in the visible and invisible worlds of human ex-
istence not polluted willingly by the spirit of wicked-
ness. In the revealing of the glory of the Father
and the Son in the first and second creations, the
Word by His self-sacrifice provided the instrumental-
ity through which the glory of the Spirit of Holiness
as the Spirit of the one living and true God, yet in
His duality as the Spirit of the Father and the Son,
would also be for ever manifested. God only is holy;
and Christ as the Word is the great Revealer of this
fact in creation, both first and last. The fall of the
third part of the angelic hosts was the result of God’s
manifesting His holiness in the invisible world when
He gave to the Word an independent, uncreated
self-existence as the Son of God. God so revealed
His Son to angels as their God; but as Christ’s per-
sonal share in the glory of the Godhead was laid
36 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

aside when He undertook, as the Word who was with
God, the work of creation, the Sun of the triune
glory of the Godhead was from thence as if one third
part of it had been smitten.

Two third parts, therefore, of the triune glory of
the Godhead only remained within its original, divine,
essential existence from the foundation of the world,
Christ having voluntarily assumed a separate form
of existence as the Word who was with God, that in
and through Him the invisible things of God might
be revealed in other worlds of existence. When He
completed the first creation, the new form of divine
existence He assumed was fully revealed to be that
of the Son of God; and of this important fact His
incarnation as the man Christ Jesus was a visible
and indisputable evidence. For although He was the
image of the invisible God, and all the fulness of the
Godhead dwelt in Him bodily, yet His was an exist-
ence distinct from, although in and with, God. It was,
therefore, only two-thirds of the original essential
glory of the Godhead that was revealable in the an-
gelic world at the completion of the first creation,
so that only two-thirds of the heavenly hosts could
be made as God, holy. The fall of the remaining
third was the result of Christ’s divine self-abnega-
tion from the foundation of the world, and it was an
invisible living testimony of the fact that God only
is holy. From thence the sun and the stars of the
invisible world were as if one third part of each had
been smitten and their glory darkened.

A second aim of human existence was to give a
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 37

visible manifestation of the fruits of the spirit of
wickedness in contrast with the fruits of the Spirit
of Holiness, and in doing so to exhaust and annihi-
late its very existence. In the human vessels of
wrath fitted for destruction the spirit of wickedness
has been made choice of, freely and voluntarily, as
the ruling and all-pervading influence of their lives.
They were not originally created in Adam, but they
were an addition to those who were “the seed of the
woman,” as announced to Eve after the Fall in these
words, “I will multiply thy sorrow and thy concep-
tion.” Their human life was from God and in God,
even as that of the woman’s seed was. “The seed of
the woman,” in by far the greatest portion of their
number, have lived without God in this life (even as
“the seed of the serpent” have all done), because
the Word as God was not revealed within them.
But “the seed of the serpent” have all lived without
God, not because the Word as God was not revealed
unto them, but because, when so revealed, as He has
been in every one of them, they rejected and slew
Him, as the fallen angels had done.

The visible image of the glory of the Godhead, in
which man was first created, was in two distinct per-
sons, each possessing a mind and a body. And the
visible incarnation of the glory of the Godhead is to
be accomplished in two-thirds of the human race, by
the communication to them, and their reception
through the Word as God, of the Spirit of Holiness,
at the end of the history of the second creation ;
and by the communication to the remaining third of
38 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

‘the human race, through the Word as God, of the
Spirit of Holiness, and their rejection of Him and re-
fusal to receive Him while in this life, and His ever-
lasting revelation of Himself in them after the close
of the history of the second creation as the Spirit of
the one living and true God and a consuming fire.
Thus the third part of the divine Sun of glory, the
third part of the human moon of glory, and the third
part of the angelic stars of glory, have all been
smitten and darkened, and shone not throughout the
dark night of this earth’s history from the laying of
the corner-stone thereof.

Of all this God gave visible signs in the Flood
and its accompanying circumstances. The spirit of
wickedness was manifested to the utmost in the ante-
diluvians. Its final annihilation by the Spirit of
Holiness was presaged in the Flood, which over-
whelmed and destroyed its living human forms. The
ark was a figure of the ark of God’s testament;
and those saved in it, and who came forth out of it
when the waters were abated, are figures of the final
and enduring glorious results of God’s great work—
Noah from thenceforth the one father of all, with his
offspring, two-thirds blessed and holy, and one-third
cursed because of their wickedness in doing despite
unto the Spirit of Holiness.

The glory of the triune God, as it was before the
foundation of the world, will be everlastingly reveal-
ed in new worlds of intelligent existence; that of
the Father in the two third parts of angels; that
of the Son in the two third parts of men; and that
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 39

of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit both of the Father
and the Son, in the third part of angels and the
third part of men.

In the Mosaic account of the visible results of the
great spiritual conflict which preceded the appear-
ance of man on this earth, it is not said of the second
day’s work that God saw that it was good. In fact,
from the beginning of the first day, when God said,
“Let there be light,” until towards the close of the
third day, evil appears to have been in the ascend-
ant. This gives light concerning the divine view of
human history, from the giving of the promise of
human redemption in Eden until the dedication of
Solomon’s temple. Of the second thousand years of
human history Scripture is not silent, but reveals
in clear language God’s feeling in regard to it. The
expressions recorded are most remarkable and pain-
fully solemn. “It repented the Lord that He had
made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His
heart.” And again, “My Spirit shall not always
strive with man.” The import of these sayings is
incomprehensible by any finite intelligence ; but they
display a height and a depth of divine compassion
and forbearance without a parallel either in the pre-
ceding or subsequent history of the universe, although
they were embodied in the living human form of
Christ in His life of unspeakable sorrow, and His
death of unutterable anguish, endured for the pur-
pose of destroying that spirit of wickedness which
corrupted all flesh, and filled the earth with violence
in the days of Noah.
40 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

Although the power of the spirit of wickedness
was broken at the time of the Flood, and its subse-
quent exercise diminished and restrained, it was not
wholly annihilated. But so much of it as was there-
after permitted to exist, God placed under the regula-
tion of a law that would make it praise Him. In the
lives of Canaan’s descendants its disastrous results
were first brought forth in obedience to this divine
law. The sin of Sodom was very grievous, and the
men thereof were wicked, and sinners before the Lord
exceedingly. The form which the wickedness of the
antediluvians assumed outwardly was one of physical
violence ; that of the men of Sodom was one of the
basest social pollution. It evidenced all the corrupt-
ness of human nature physically that was disclosed
in the antediluvians; and conjoined therewith was
manifested the perversion of those mental faculties
which distinguished man’s nature from that of the
lower animals. Creatures unendowed with intellect
never have, and could not have, descended to such
pollution. The mind of man, created that it might
be made an altar on which the sacrificed Word of
God would be laid, as its appointed divine light and
nourishment, became, in the men of Sodom, a cage of
every unclean and hateful bird.

Physically and mentally, the spirit of wickedness
produced in them as wide a departure from God as
it had done in the antediluvians physically. Had
there been even ten inhabitants of the cities of the
plain untainted by this grievous leprosy, so great is
the mercy and compassion of God even to wicked
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 4)

men in this life, that He would have spared the vile
and vicious multitude for their sakes. One man only,
and he a relation of Abraham, and of the descendants
of Shem, was found righteous in this respect in God’s
sight, And to deliver Lot the two angels came to
the gate of Sodom at the even of the day that God
appeared unto Abraham on the plains of Mamre in
three human forms. As the form of wickedness
manifested in the men of Sodom differed from that
of the antediluvians, so also did the manner and the
accompanying circumstances of their and its destruc-
tion. Noah was saved in the ark which he himself
had built; Lot was rescued from the impending de-
struction by two divine spiritual messengers. The
antediluvians were overwhelmed in a deluge of waters;
the men of Sodom were destroyed by fire. The
Word to Noah was, “Make thee an ark of gopher-
wood ;” the Word to Lot was, ‘‘ Escape for thy life ;
look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the
plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be con-
sumed.”

The fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham in
the approaching supernatural birth of Isaac, and the
divine deliverance of Lot, are one side of this instruc-
tive picture in human history; and the divine de-
struction of the cities of the plain with their inhabit-
ants is the other. Man’s mental subjection to the
Word of God, as the rule of his life, is his primary
duty as an intelligent being. But the Word as God
was not to be revealed in all the men who are, never-
theless, of the seed of the woman. Moreover, the
42 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

mental submission of man to his fellow-man in things
concerning the Word as God, is a form of intellectual
wickedness prefigured in the grievous sin of Sodom ;
and its fruits have been as disastrous to mankind as
those of the sin of Sodom were to its inhabitants.
The manner of preservation from its defilement is
illustrated in Abraham’s faith in the Word when re-
vealed unto him. The mode of deliverance from
contact with its defilement to those of the seed of
the woman in whom the Word has not been revealed
as God, is demonstrated in the destruction of Sodom
and the deliverance of Lot therefrom. The agency is
divine and spiritual. The carnal mind is the first
intellectual state of every man. The divine seed of
the woman is implanted with it in the same human
tabernacle. It is watched over and preserved from
harm by “the two angels” who come at the even of
the man’s existence to convey it to a place of safety,
while the carnal mind and the body of sin are,
through the destruction of death, beg consumed by
God and His Spirit of Holiness.

It is to the spiritual existence of the seed of the
serpent that God is specially revealed as a consuming
fire. But it is only in the carnal mind and the sin-
ful body of the seed of the woman that He is so
manifested, the divine seed in them preserving their
spiritual existence from any voluntary contact with
sin or the spirit of disobedience. All men are alike
in their first nature, carnal in mind and sinful in
body. But the seed of the serpent superadded to this,
by their own voluntary act, an evil spirit, in theit
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 43

rejection of the Word and their despisal of the Spirit
of Holiness, when revealed within them. They are
in this way born again, but not of God; and a new
nature is produced within their first nature, and this
of their own free and deliberate choice. “He that
committeth sin is of the devil. Whosoever is born of
God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in
him.” There is thus a sin unto death. And there is
also a sin not unto death. All who commit the sin
unto death do so in the body in this life; and their
state of existence, although in God, is not only with-
out God, but also in wilful and direct hostility both
to the Word and Spirit of God. They resemble the
spiritual state of the antediluvians, with whom God’s
Spirit strove in vain, and every imagination of the
thoughts of their heart is only evil, or opposed to
God, continually.

The peculiar iniquity of the nations of Canaan was
national idolatry. They were in the end not less
wicked individually than the antediluvians; and
their sins socially were as grievous as that of the
men of Sodom. But their crying evil in God’s sight,
as nations, was their total departure from any na-
tional recognition of the true God, and their being
wholly given to the worship of idols. Their iniquity
being national in its form, their overthrow, although
from God, was through human instrumentality. The
Israelites, after a course of appointed afflictive dis-
cipline and mental enlightenment, appeared as the
nation chosen for this work. Their history, from
Abraham onward to Joshua, resolves itself into an
44 ALPHA AND OMEGA}; OR,

account of their preparation as a people to receive
into the national mind a rudimental knowledge of
the one living and true God, who became familiar to
the men of Joshua’s day as the God of Abraham and
of Isaac and of Jacob; the God who performed such
mighty wonders in presence of their fathers in the
land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness ;
and as the God in heaven above and upon the earth
beneath. They were well warned by Moses before
his death, and in the name and by command of God
Himself, as to the danger of their lapsing into idol-
atry. “Take ye, therefore, good heed unto your-
selves,” said Moses, “for ye saw no manner of
similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you
in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt
yourselves, and make you a graven image the simili-
tude of any figure.”

The command given to the nation of Israel was a
stern, and, as their subsequent history proved, a
merciful one. The iniquity of the nations of Canaan
had come to the full—so much so, that the inanimate
earth itself is described as being ready to vomit them
out of it. Their destruction as nations was as much
an act of mercy as of judgment, for their kind of
existence was most debased and miserable. To the
nation of Israel the divine command was, ‘“ Thou
shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy
God shall deliver thee, thine eye shall have no pity
upon them ; neither shalt thou serve their gods, for
that will be a snare unto thee.” And again, “The
graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire;
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 45

thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on
them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared
therein, for it is an abomination to the Lord thy
God.” The Israelites were to consume the people,
and utterly to destroy and burn with fire their graven
images. Both the iniquitous nations and the sym-
bols of their national iniquity were to be put out of
existence. The chosen nation was not all at once to
obtain possession to the full extent of the promised
territorial inheritance ; but at the end of the forty
years’ journeying in the wilderness, they entered
upon and succeeded in its first partial conquest
under the leadership of Joshua.

The iniquity of the nations of Canaan was a na-
tional exhibition of the invisible effects produced in
an individual man by the spirit of wickedness, when
it is voluntarily accepted by him as the ruling influ-
ence of his nature. It always has been, is still, and
ever will be, impossible in this life for one man to
know the hidden things of any other man’s spirit in
this respect, for the state of each man is known only
to God and himself. The seed of the serpent and
the seed of the woman inherit the same human and
sinful infirmities ; and whether the outward act or
general conduct, be it ever so vile and vicious, pro-
ceeds from a human being whose spirit is evil in the
sight of God, or the reverse, no other human being
can know in any degree or to the least extent. Further,
neither are a man’s opinions any guide whatever to
his actual spiritual state in God’s sight; for he may,
in his thoughts as well as expressed opinions, com-
46 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

mit sin against the Word as the Son of God, and yet
be forgiven. None but the Spirit of God can search
and try the spirit of the man; and except in the
cases recorded in Scripture, which He has made
known in His wisdom for high purposes, nothing is
known in this life of the actual spiritual state either
of the departed or those still in existence.

But that which is undiscoverable respecting the
actual state of any man in this respect, is revealed
concerning the nature of the spiritual state itself.
This was first disclosed in human history through
the national idolatry of the Canaanites. True, many
communities coexistent with them practised idol-
atry ; but they were the first nations whose conduct
is recorded as an example of the abomination that
maketh desolate, supplied by the Word, as the light
of men. In no other but a national form could the
invisible things of a human spirit be visibly mani-
fested in their nature and character. It is only the
outward fruits, divinely interpreted, that individual
human existence can reveal; but the thing itself is
inaccessible to the knowledge of any, except the
being whose spiritual state it is. By the national
iniquity of the Canaanites the spiritual state of the
seed of the serpent is declared to be in its nature
the actual and wilful deposition of God from His
throne in man, which is his spirit; and the setting
up instead of the demon of evil. The committing of
idolatry by an individual is no evidence of his invis-
ible state. But the practice of idolatry by a nation
is a visible manifestation of the nature of sin unto
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 47

death in an individual; for it is a national dethrone-
ment of God, who is King of nations, as well as Lord
of individual spirits ; and the inconceivable iniquity
of the state signified is declared in the grotesqueness
and absurdity, not to say blasphemy, of the idolatrous
national substitutes set up in the place of the living
and true God.

Wickedness in body and mind God can and will
destroy in the nature of every human being, both of
the seed of the serpent and of the seed of the woman.
As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made
alive. And the resurrection of the just and unjust shall
have one point of resemblance bodily and mentally,
for it will be a resurrection without sin. This great
truth is visibly declared in God’s direct intervention
to destroy the antediluvians by water and the Sodom-
ites by fire. But the evil spirit, which man volun-
tarily and wilfully gives birth to within himself in this
life, is as God; and this God cannot and would not, if
He could, destroy. This is that divine fire of heavenly
origin in man that is unquenchable ; this is that crea-
ture worm of human immortality that dieth not.
This is the spirit to be eternally imprisoned and
deprived of its glory, which is its freedom. This is
the torment to be endured without end, in the pre-
sence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the
Lamb morally and mentally, voluntarily and self-
inflicted by its victims, their choice gloried in to
their shame, and unrepented of to their everlasting
contempt.

The agency and the manner of the overthrow and
48 ALPHA AND OMEGA.

expulsion of the idolatrous nations of Canaan, are the
agency by, and the manner in, which alone the spirit
of disobedience in an individual man can be subdued
and expelled from his nature in this life. Like the
nation of Israel, the man must be chastened in per-
son, and thereby prepared for mental enlightenment
in the knowledge of the one living and true God.
Thereupon, in obedience to God’s command intimated
through the Word and by His Spirit, he must enter
upon the life-long task of subjecting his entire nature,
spirit, body, and mind, to the Word and will of God,
by the gradual expulsion therefrom of its idolatrous
spiritual and self-willed tenant. Some tribes of the
true Israel of God are destined to obtain the victory
and acquire possession of their promised spiritual in-
heritance—the fulness of the life of God’s Son—even
on this side of the river Jordan. But by far the
larger number have had to cross the Jordan of death,
which divides between time and eternity, ere they
became the spirits of just men made perfect.
CHAPTER III.

Tuus, through the Word as the light of men, God
created the heaven and the earth in the history of
the new creation. In the destruction of the ante-
diluvians by water, and the consuming of Sodom and
Gomorrah by fire from heaven, God declared the
heavenly or divine share in the work of human re-
demption and the manner of its performance. In
the overthrow and expulsion of the nations of Canaan
by the Israelites in the act of entering into posses-
sion of the promised inheritance, God intimated the
earthly or human share in the work of its own re-
demption and the mode of its realisation. The dry land
which God called “ the earth” commenced to appear
in human history when Abraham was separated from
the rest of mankind as the founder of the chosen
nation. The grass and the herb yielding seed began
to grow in the birth of Isaac as the reward of Abra-
ham’s faith ; for all flesh is grass, and Isaac was the
first of the new chosen seed of men whose flesh is
grass. His supernatural birth was also an herb yield-
ing seed for human intellectual nourishment and en-
D
50 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

lightenment; for, being the result and reward of
Abraham’s faith, it was constituted an enduring
testimony of the power and faithfulness of God
working in conjunction with the faith of man when
He laid the human foundation of man’s redemption.

The dry land, which God called “the earth,” with
its grass-growing and herb-yielding power, was gradu-
ally increased and enlarged as the lineal descendants
of Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, multiplied in
number. “The earth” appeared when the Israelites
had reached the appointed period in their history
which witnessed their advent as a new nation sep-
arated from all other nations, which God called “the
seas.” Then God said, Let the earth, or nation of
Tsrael, “bring forth the fruit-tree yielding fruit after
his kind, whose seed is in itself.” Previously the
history of Abraham and his descendants brought
forth only grass and herbs. The largest increase
of each was brought forth among the generation
which witnessed the wonders in Egypt preceding
and accompanying the exodus of the Israelites there-
from. Theiradvent as a new and independent nation
chosen and set apart by God, was effected that in
and through its history He might reveal the Word as
the light of men. This was the fruit-tree of divine
origin and appointment which the nation of Israel,
as “the earth” in the history of the new creation, was
to bring forth during the latter portion of its third
day, or third thousand years.

God planted this fruit-tree in the national mind
when He appeared in Horeb, and from Mount Sinai
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 51

revealed the Word as the light of men in an audible
voice. This fruit-tree, when planted, He fenced round
and protected by the law of Moses. He instituted
the tabernacle, with its altar and holy place. He
established a high priesthood in Aaron and his family.
That which He Himself revealed in an audible voice
of the Word as the light of men He engraved on two
tables of stone. That which He gave through Moses
as the human mediator He caused to be written, and
it became the book of the law. The tabernacle with
its altar and holy place were figures of God’s design
in the nation’s history, to prepare for the erection of
a living human temple, with its living intellectual
altar and holy or spiritual worshippers. The priest-
hood and the appointed animal sacrifices were visible
illustrations of the manner of the accomplishment
of this design, the slaying of the carnal mind in the
true seed of Abraham by the divine high-priest, the
Word as the light of men.

The generation of Abraham’s lineal descendants,
including Moses, who took part in the exodus from
Egypt, and in whose presence God appeared on the
mount, and among whom this divine fruit-tree, so
. fenced round and protected, was planted, all perished
as the grass, or in the flesh, except Joshua and Caleb,
and were not permitted to enter into possession of
the promised inheritance. The Word of God, as the
light of men, remained, and the nation of Israel was
preserved in existence ; but a new generation of the
descendants of Abraham supplanted the individual
people in whose time the nation was born, and the
52 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

divine fruit-tree planted in its midst. This new gen-
eration was trained and disciplined by the hardships
and sufferings which were inseparable from the jour-
neyings in the wilderness, for entering with faith
and fortitude upon the war with the nations of
Canaan, which was to have for its issue their wasting
and expulsion, and the placing of the nation of Israel
in partial possession of the promised territorial in-
heritance.

This new generation of the descendants of Abra-
ham performed their appointed work in the national
history of the manifestation of the Word as the light
of men, and it also passed away. Of the people of
this generation, it is recorded in Scripture that they
“served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the
days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen
all the great works of the Lord that He did for Israel.”
Of their successors in the next generation of Abra-
ham’s descendants, it is written that they “knew
not the Lord, nor yet the works of the Lord.” And
again, “The children of Israel did evil in the sight of
the Lord, and served Baalim.” The Word, as the
light of men, was thus slain by the nation, and the
tree planted whose seed was in itself died. “ Verily,
verily, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth
forth much fruit.” The light which the Word had
given to the two immediately preceding generations
of Abraham’s descendants, was external to and from
without themselves. It was nationally extinguished
when the last of the people who received it died.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 53

God never, either before or since, in the history
of the universe, has revealed Himself as He did
to the men of the two generations (fathers and chil-
dren) of Abraham’s descendants, who stood before
Mount Sinai when God’s Word, in an audible voice,
shook the earth, and made all the people tremble with
fear and quaking. This great sight, preceded as it
was by the signs of Egypt and the wonders of the
Red Sea, did not produce any abiding beneficial
effect on the first generation. And this great sight,
even combined with the hardships and sufferings of
the wilderness, and the success of the war with the
nations of Canaan, did not produce a knowledge of
the Word as the light of men, capable of enduring
beyond the earthly existence of those in whose history
and experience it was revealed.

The Word of God endured, but the nation’s know-
ledge of it perished with the last of the generation to
whom it was communicated in an audible voice, and
by visible signs and wonders. The first and second
generations of the new nation passed away, and in
the third generation the knowledge of the Word, as
the light of men, was extinguished in the nation.
The grass, the herb, and the fruit-tree thus died, in
order that they might be revived again; for the third
generation of the new nation “ forsook the Lord God
of their fathers which brought them out of the land
of Egypt, and followed other gods of the people
that were round about them, and bowed them-
selves unto them.” In this way the successors of
Joshua’s generation lost the characteristic of the grass
54 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

or fleshly nature in which the knowledge of the Word
as the light of men was received and believed. So
situated, “the earth” or nation ceased for a time to
bring forth the herb. And the fruit-tree, planted in
the nation, yielded no fruit that was either good for
human intellectual sustenance, or pleasant to the eye
of God.

When the nation forsook the service of God, they
substituted for it the service of Baalim. They de-
spised the law of Moses, and believed and practised
the doctrine of Balaam. They were the intellectual
antipodes of each other, yet both were destined to
exercise a marvellous influence, first among the
Israelites as a nation, and afterwards among all na-
tions and kingdoms, until the end of the history of
the second creation. Moses and Balaam were the
prophets of good and evil respectively. They were
confronted in the flesh, face to face as it were, when
the children of Israel had encamped in the plains of
Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho. Moses, the
servant of God, was leading the people of Israel on
the way to their promised inheritance. When they
reached the plains of Moab, the people of Moab be-
came sore afraid and distressed because of the chil-
dren of Israel, and Balak their king sent messengers
to Balaam, saying, “Come now, therefore, I pray thee,
curse me this people.” In this way the prophet of
good and the prophet of evil were brought into per-
sonal contact in visible human forms. Moses was
the individual intellectual incarnation of the great
mystery of godliness, the law of which was to be
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 55

gradually unfolded in Hebrew national history, in
juxtaposition with the doctrine of the mystery of
iniquity, of which Balaam was the individual intel-
lectual incarnation.

Balaam knew the one living and true God. He
openly professed to have respect unto the divine will;
but he refused with the most obstinate determination
to submit to God’s will when his own desire pointed
in an opposite direction. And in the end, after
God’s will was revealed to him, he actually reversed
the human prayer of holiness, by praying in effect to
God, not Thy will but mine be done. His conduct
was the intellectual fruit of the state of spiritual
wickedness which constitutes the sin unto death;
for he is one of the very few individual men con-
cerning whose state in this respect divine information
is communicated in Scripture. The knowledge of
God and of His purpose revealed in and to Balaam,
as recorded in Scripture, was equal to, if not in excess
of, that which Moses was previously in possession of.
The appalling fact is thus established, that divine in-
tellectual knowledge of the highest kind may coexist
in an individual human being with that state of
spiritual wickedness which constitutes the sin unto
death. God had voluntarily come to Balaam—for
Balaam did not in the first instance ask guidance
from God—and said unto him, “Thou shalt not go
with them ; thou shalt not curse the people, for they
are blessed.” It was after this clear intimation of
the will and purpose of God, voluntarily given by
God Himself to Balaam, that he pretended to Balak’s
56 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

second messengers a deference to the will of God
which he knew had no existence in his nature, and
dared to appeal to God Himself by professing to wait
for further divine guidance.

All that Balaam did might be done, and may
have been done, by men according to God’s heart in
everyday life. Even Paul the apostle besought the
Lord thrice that the thorn in the flesh, sent him
from God in the form of a messenger of Satan to
buffet him, might depart from him. It was the
spiritual state of Balaam that imparted to his con-
duct a deadly virus. It was Balaam’s fixed and
unalterable determination to do the very opposite of
what God commanded; and in this great transac-
tion a visible evidence is given, not only of the
intellectual condition of a self-willed creature, but
also of the manner in which God is pleased to deal
with it when manifested in action. The creature
will prevails when actually in direct and wicked an-
tagonism to God’s known will, and the Creator of
all things submits to the apparent humiliation, and
says to Balaam, “Ifthe men come to call thee, rise
up and go with them.” The movements of Balaam’s
visible form, God could not control without the
active concurrence of Balaam’s own volitions. These
being perverse in God’s sight, God permitted Balaam
to go, but the Spirit of God went out to withstand
him.

This intellectual form of wickedness, or the doc-
trine of Balaam, was revealed in the nation of Israel.
The living knowledge of the true God died out with
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 57

the last of Joshua’s generation, yet the nation pos-
sessed the book of the law, which contained that
knowledge in a written form. The people served
Baalim, and at the same time professed to be serving
God in their national tabernacle, and by their sacri-
ficial offerings. The conduct of the Israelites as a
nation was a visible manifestation of the effects pro-
duced by compliance with the doctrine of Balaam.
In permitting Balaam’s perversity to manifest itself
openly, God made it subservient to the accomplish-
ment of His holy purpose. So, in permitting the
national apostacy of the Israelites, God made it in-
strumental in working out in the national mind a
new and more glorious knowledge of Himself, as the
one living and true God. The book of the law and
the service of God were disjoined from the life and
practice of the nation, and they were for a time the
discordant opposites of each other. Both were to co-
exist, the former in a written and lifeless form with
the nation, and the latter as a visible national mani-
festation of the doctrine and service of Balaam.
Another important principle which has regulated
the divine procedure in the history of human re-
demption, was disclosed in the individual example
of Balaam and the national apostacy of Israel.
The spirit of evil that ruled in Balaam’s conduct
usurped an ascendancy over the chosen nation in
whose existence the seed of the Word as the light of
men was sown, and opened up the bottomless pit of
intellectual error in their history. So far as a living
knowledge of the true God was concerned, death and
58 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

darkness prevailed, out of which, however, life and
light were to arise at the appointed time. The work-
ing of the spirit of evil was as indispensable to the
production of the intended end, as was the seed of
the Word as the light of men. The divine know-
ledge previously possessed by the nation was imparted
by external means alone, and its preservation in the
national mind was only possible by their continu-
ance. They partook of the nature of outward com-
pulsion, which when withdrawn, the fear and the
knowledge of God inspired by them ceased also.
All that had existed was from God and without the
nation. And the resemblance thereof was that of the
two tables of stone which God Himself had pre-
pared, and on which He had engraven the words
uttered in an audible voice at Mount Sinai.

That which happened when the Israelites forsook
God and served Baalim was a national illustration or
the act of Moses in breaking the two tables of stone
he received from God, in presence of the people’s
idolatry, when he came down from the mount. That
which was now to be done was to be a further
national illustration of that which Moses did when
he prepared two new tables, on which God re-en-
graved the words spoken at the mount, in presence
of all the people. The nation was to be prepared,
by the training and discipline of many generations,
for the incorporation of the book of the law, with its
aggregate existence, and the restoration to and within
the people of a knowledge of God by invisible means.
God, through the seed of the Word as the light of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 59

men, and the nation, in many successive generations,
became fellow-workers, God giving by little and little
increasing power to the invisible seed, and the nation
gradually and voluntarily preparing itself for the full
disclosure of its fruits, as the Word of the Lord which
would be inwardly received and believed.

In the plan adopted the nation was actually
and absolutely free in all its volitions. Coercion,
or external compulsion, was not resorted to in the
least degree. The seed of the woman, in learning
submission to the Word as the light of men, were de-
monstrated to be, in their spiritual state, as completely
beyond God’s direct interference as were the seed of
the serpent in forming their determination to reject
Him. A new conflict was commenced between the
Word as the light of men and intellectual error in
the mind of the nation, in addition to the external
war they had to wage with the remnant of the other
nations still in possession of the land which was
their promised inheritance. The visible and in-
visible conflicts kept pace with each other. There
were alternations of partial success and temporary
reverse in the visible war; and these were signs of
the gradual progress making, or transient hindrances
interposed, in the way of their invisible enlightenment.
The Canaanites without, and the doctrine of Balaam
within, were the visible and invisible enemies of
the nation. In seasons of intellectual backsliding
its armies were subjected to defeat in battle, and
in seasons of returning zeal for God they were suc-
cessful. The little leaven hid in the nation’s invisible
60 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

existence, was slowly but increasingly leavening the
national mind. The growing invisible influence of the
Word as the light of men within, persuaded the people
to contend unceasingly with the power the doctrine
of Balaam had usurped over them, and not to give
up the conflict until they had consumed and ex-
pelled the idolatrous tenant from the national mind.
At length a visible sign of the approaching termi-
nation of the intellectual conflict was given in a great
national disaster. The army of Israel had suffered a
serious defeat in battle with the Philistines, and the
ark of God was taken from them and carried away
by their victorious enemy. The daughter-in-law of
Eli the high-priest, on hearing of this calamity, said
in her dying agony, “The glory is departed from
Israel, for the ark of God is taken.” The ark had
-hitherto been the sole visible symbol of God’s pre-
sence as the Word with the nation; and its removal
by the Philistines intimated the end of its glory in
this respect. A new and living human image of the
presence of the Word of the Lord with the nation
had appeared, however, in the person of Samuel; for
“the Lord had revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh
by the Word of the Lord.” The termination of the
high-priesthood in connection with the family of Eh,
and the removal of God’s ark by the Philistines, were
a visible sign given in duplicate of the end of the
old and the beginning of a new glory in the nation
of Israel. That which had been revealed in Samuel
as an individual by the Word of the Lord, was the
precursor and type of the manner in which God was
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 61

from thenceforth to reveal Himself in and to the
nation by the Word of the Lord, after it had been
prepared for the reception and belief of His invisible
knowledge.

The seed sown in the days of Moses and Joshua
now began to bear abundant fruit, as a national tree
of the new living knowledge of God revealed
through His Word. “Then the children of Israel
did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the
Lord only.” Then also “Samuel took a stone and
set it between Mizpeh and Shur, and called it Eben-
ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. So
the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more
into the coast of Israel.” The long intellectual con-
flict in the mind of the Israelites as a nation, between
the knowledge of God and the worship of idols, has
its termination recorded in the foregoing Scripture
passages. The grandeur and glory of its invisible
results to the human race are not even yet cognisable
fully, and cannot be so until they are revealed along
with the even greater glory of the Word as the living
Son of God, in all nations and kindreds and peoples
and tongues on this earth. The nation of Israel was
then nearing the summit of its greatness, and every-
thing had been done for and in the people that was
possible to be accomplished for a nation of men, as a
distinct and separate form of existence not in union
with Christ as the living Son of God, in addition to
being the recipients of the knowledge of God reveal-
ed by the Word of the Lord. But the nation was
not perfected, something better having been pro-
62 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

vided and appointed to be revealed in and to all
nations at the time of the end.

These events in Hebrew history were the external
accompaniments of the foundation of God’s intellec-
tual kingdom in human nature, and declared the
actual advent of a new world of invisible existence
in connection with the nation of Israel. The do-
minion then established was divine in its origin and
essence, although human in its embodiment. Free-
dom without and within was the vital principle of
its existence. The material heavens in their incom-
prehensible extent and variety were the measure
of its invisible immensity and diversity ; and the
Word of God was its light and never-ending life.
As in Abel’s death the seed of the woman died and
was afterwards revived in Seth, so the seed of God’s
intellectual dominion in human nature died with the
men of Joshua’s generation, and was revived in
Samuel and his generation. Can the arithmetical
difference between the innumerable myriads of Seth’s
descendants and the single life of Abel be computed ?
So may the intellectual disparity of the divine know-
ledge possessed by Joshua and his generation as
compared with that revealed in and to Samuel and
his generation be appreciated. But more marvellous
still, the limits, or rather the illimitable invisible
dimensions, of this dominion are the precise counter-
part in intellect of God’s only-begotten Son and all
the fallen angels combined.

Because Christ as the Word with God gave up His
divine life with His Father, and thereby created all
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 63

things, visible and invisible, He was proclaimed to be
the Son of God at the termination of the history of
the first creation. The third part of the angels who
fell because they rejected Him, were nevertheless
conjoined with Him on this earth; and the ap-
pointed mission of both was to reveal in a visibly
intelligent form the inconceivable intellectual glory
of Him by whom the material universe and the angelic
world were simultaneously created. The voluntarily
sacrificed uncreated intellectual existence of the Son
of God when He became the Word of His Father,
and the selfishly retained, and thereby forfeited, creat-
ed intellectual existence of the fallen angels, were
sown together in this earth’s state of chaos when its cor-
ner-stone was laid; and the first-fruits they produced
in living forms were the individual nature of Samuel
and the aggregate existence of Israel as a nation.
If Christ had not given up His life as the Word with
God, there could have been no angelic world of ex-
istence; and if Christ had not voluntarily sacrificed
His intellectual existence as the Son of God, and if
the fallen angels had not wilfully and obstinately
forfeited their intellectual existence, there could have
been no visible intellectual world in human nature,
and,the invisible glory of God’s eternal Son could
never have been revealed. Verily the material, the
angelic, and the human “worlds were framed by the
Word of God, so that things which are seen were
not made of things which do appear.”

It was, however, only the earthly or creature-form
of this enduring intellectual dominion which was re-
64 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

vealed in Samuel and his generation. And the first
use the people of Israel made of their new-born
national intellectual freedom was to imitate the ex-
ample of the fallen angels, and reject God as their
King. The elders of the people came to Samuel
and said, “Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk
not in thy ways; now make us a king to judge us
like all the nations.” Samuel was displeased at this
request, and he prayed unto the Lord. The solemn
and significant reply of God was, “ Hearken unto the
voice of the people in all that they say unto thee;
for they have not rejected thee, but they have reject-
ed me, that I should not reign over them.” This
event was an intellectual reproduction in human
history of that which transpired in the angelic world
when the Lord revealed Himself to the hosts of hea-
ven by the Word of the Lord as He had done to
Samuel and the nation of Israel. The only angels
who received freedom intellectually when God re-
vealed His Son, rejected Him as their King; so the
only people on earth who in Samuel’s day had a
similar freedom bestowed upon them in human form
nationally, also rejected God as their King.

The humiliating facts concerning men of God’s own
selection and training, disclosed in Scripture history,
are not the least important or instructive revelations
of the sacred volume. The wickedness of either Noah
or Lot after his marvellous deliverance appears inex-
plicable. And what seems peculiarly aggravating in
Noah’s case is the fact that his own inebriety occasion-
ed the offence which apparently entailed the curse upon
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 65

his son Ham and his descendants, that has clung to
their destiny throughout all subsequent history. It
was even the king of Lot’s descendants in the line of
Moab who summoned Balaam to curse the descend-
ants of Lot’s friend and relative, Abraham. Here are
two of the sons of God in human nature, specially
favoured by their heavenly Father at two of the most
remarkable epochs of the display of divine wrath
against human wickedness, so conducting themselves,
immediately after their divine rescue, as to originate
the two sources of physical and intellectual curse that
have not even yet exhausted themselves among men.

These startling facts of human history, written by
God Himself, and attested by fire and water from
heaven in the experience of men themselves, are of
great and momentous significance. They demonstrate
unanswerably that the only redemption from wicked-
ness, of which humanity, as an existence in and by
itself, is susceptible, is a redemption conjoined with
visible servitude to creature existence like itself,
and associated with invisible intellectual control
from without its own intelligent existence. Of these
things the experiences of Ham and his descendants,
and of Balaam and his Moabitish disciples, have been
the individual visible signs in human history. God
is the Saviour of all men from the power of wicked-
ness ; but He is a special Redeemer to them that
believe. And this special redemption of believers
is that very thing which the revelation of Christ
the Word as the light of men has accomplished in
the history of the new creation. The manner of it,

E
66 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

both individually and nationally, was so far disclosed
in Hebrew history from Abraham to Samuel. The
individual afflictions of Joseph, and the national
tribulation of the Israelites in Egyptian bondage,
illustrate its physical aspect. The national history
of the Hebrews from Joshua to Samuel, and the in-
dividual experiences of Samuel himself, explain its
invisible intellectual, in conjunction with its physi-
cal, aspect.

Notwithstanding all that had been revealed of
God in Samuel by the Word of the Lord, the natural
offspring of Samuel was wicked. He had two sons
whom he made judges over Israel, but they perverted
judgment. It was the indwelling invisible power of
the Word of the Lord that made Samuel individually
the good and great man that he was in his day. It
was the divine restraint which he constantly be-
sought the Lord to exercise in and over him by His
Word, that changed the very character of his human
nature and purified the issues of his own life. But
His original created self-existence was not destroyed,
or even diminished in its vital power. Samuel the
man still lived, just as the Son of God did not cease
to exist in His original divine essence when He be-
gan to reveal Himself as the Word with God from
the foundation of the world. Samuel combined in
his new nature a human self-existence and the Word
of the Lord intellectually revealed; and the union
was effected through the mutual self-submission
voluntarily imposed upon themselves by the created
self-existence of Samuel and the uncreated self-exist-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 67

ence of the Word of God. Samuel was the first
complete intellectual incarnation of the Word of God
manifested in an individual human form ; and in him
the invisible glory of the Word as the light of men
was first openly disclosed in the history of human
redemption.

And what is the testimony jointly given by Samuel
and his two sons concerning his actual state and con-
dition? Not that his nature had been absolutely
perfected, otherwise his offspring would have resem-

-bled him in this respect. Not that his own original

self-existence as a man had been destroyed or im-
paired because its natural image was reproduced
by him in his two sons. But that Samuel, by his
voluntary self-sacrifice to the Word of the Lord, had
received a divine power of self-regulation and self-
government which it was impossible to transmit
from human father to human sons, but which every
creature, whether angelic or human, must receive
from God Himself through the Word, and by per-
sonal self-submission thereto. The heaven and the
earth of the Hebrew nation had been created by the
Word of the Lord, and they were a living image of
the first creation at the epoch, when the Word, who
was with God, began to be revealed as the Son of

‘God. The political and ecclesiastical institutions of

the nation God had Himself given birth to through

the Word as the light of men, just as He had created
the material heaven and earth through the Word who
was with God. But there was a visible world of in-
dividual created intelligences brought into existence
68 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

from Abraham to Samuel, to enable God, through
the Word, to create the human heaven and earth ina
national form. So for a like purpose, along with the
creation of the material heaven and earth, an invisible
world of individual created intelligences was brought
into existence by God through the Word during the
history of the first creation.

The history of the creation of the Hebrew human
heaven and earth is a living reproduction of the
manner of the creation of the material universe. It
conimenced in the Word of God and a created invis-
ible intellect, the first and the greatest among the
angelic hosts. It ended in the advent of the Word of
the Lord and His full revelation as the Son of God
invisibly in the angelic intellectual world, and visibly
in the material universe. One feature in the history
of the first creation was the existence of conflicting
material forces as the secondary instrumentality in
producing those visible things which, although made,
were not made of things which do appear. There
were created intellectual workings within the sub-
stances, and uncreated intellectual workings from
without them, in combined yet independent co-oper-
ation. At length the visible and invisible work of
the first creation was finished. And what was its
image? In the material universe beauty, law, and
order reigned. In the invisible world the state of
the individual angelic intelligences proved that they
required a King to rule over them. So long as cre-
ation was in progress, God by the Word exercised
extraneous control over them, both individually and
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 69

in the aggregate, The instant that God finished the
work of the first creation, His Son was fully revealed as
the Word of-God in the invisible world, and by this
act the angels were emancipated from external con-
straint, in addition to being free within themselves.
The angels who kept their first estate submitted
voluntarily within their own nature to the Word of
God, and made Him their everlasting King, and of
their happy state the nature of Samuel was a human
although not perfected illustration. The angels who
fell did so because they could not be retained in
their intellectual orbits without collision, but by
substituting internal submission to the Word of God
for that external divine constraint that had been
withdrawn in the act of giving them freedom ; and
this glorious substitution of God within, for God
without, them they would not consent to make. The
effect of the operation of the law of gravitation in
the material universe was the effect of the divine
law which, working from without themselves, at one
time kept the angelic intelligences each in his own
sphere. But this was a very inferior kind of intel-
lectual existence; and it only continued so long as
the manifestation of the Word of God was incom-
plete in the history of the first creation. When God
made all angels free by the full revelation of Him-
self in them through His Word, their need of a king
or a law to preserve order and prevent confusion
both individually and collectively, was experienced
by every one of them. The first and the greatest of
them thought he was able to rule himself, and he
70 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

was the first to fall as a star from heaven burning
as it were a lamp.

Those who kept their first estate, warned and
deterred by the consequences that ensued on the
instant, and enlightened by the living presence of
God through His Son within them, proclaimed their
allegiance to the King of Heaven, and worshipped
Him as their God. The glory of the happiness of
holiness which was then revealed in them for the
first time constituted them the morning stars of the
intelligent world, as which they sang together; and
also declared them to be the sons of God in created
angelic existence, as which they shouted for joy. One
third part, however, of the angelic hosts desired not
a divine, but a created, King, and in doing so rejected
God as their King. They in effect said to the Word
of God when He was revealed within them as their
King, “Make us a king.” It was not their inten-
tion to deny God’s sovereignty. It was a necessity
of their nature as free intelligences that made them
ask for a creature or created king to be placed over
them. And this because the divine King offered
could not exercise among them the kind of dominion
they required without ceasing to be holy. They
were content to remain as they had been, and con-
tinue to be ruled from without their own nature,
rather than place its internal government voluntarily
under the holy control of even God Himself.

An extraordinary light is thrown upon the actual
nature of Christ’s relationship as the Word to His
Father in the conduct of Samuel when the elders of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 71

Israel said unto him, “Make us a king ;” for it isa
living historical explanation of what transpired when
the fallen angels rejected God as their King. Like
Samuel, the Word of God was displeased with the
angels, and appealed to His Father. He was alto-
gether unprepared for what had happened, and
positively did not know how the difficulty was to be
met. He is anointed King over the invisible intelli-
gent world, and He comes to begin His holy reign in
the nature of angels; but to His surprise He finds
one-third of their number desire another kind of
king, and will not have Him to reign over them.
This was the first interruption or obstacle He encoun-
tered in the execution of the divine mission which
He undertook at the foundation of the world. He
was then revealed as the Son of God with invisible
power and great glory, and also as the Creator of the
existence of these very angels. So far as they were
concerned, it was His divine prerogative to do with
and to them what seemed right to Himself. He had
finished the work which the Father gave Him to do
in the creation of the visible and invisible worlds
then existing; and He had testified all throughout
its history the entire submission of Himself as the
Word to the will of His Father. Might He not now
act for Himself as God in punishing the rebellion of
His own creatures ?

This was impossible, from the very fact that the
law of His nature and conduct was holy. To have
acted according to His own will would have been to
do in spirit what the rebel angels did. The holy.
72 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

law of liberty, of which He communicated the know-
ledge to all the angels, was the law of the holy exist-
ence of God. And it could not be relaxed in its
operation even for the purpose of punishing or cor-
recting its flagrant transgression in the persons of
intelligent creatures. In whatever way this rebellion
among God’s creatures was to be suppressed, Christ
resolved it should, so far as His independent exist-
ence was concerned in it, only be in strictest har-
mony with the holy will of the Godhead. And as
the light He had then received from His Father as
the Word of God did not include information on this
point, He returned to His Father as the Soh of God
to learn His holy will in the terrible emergency that
had arisen in the invisible world. He then received
a new revelation and a new commission from His
Father, in the unfolding and execution of which He
was to “ finish transgression, make an end of sins,
make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in ever-
lasting righteousness.”

The divine faith of Christ in His Father, and His
unquestioning and cheerful obedience to His will, as
and when revealed, will be the everlasting marvel
disclosed in the history of the first and second crea-
tion. Every thought of His divine mind, and every
act of His divine life, were exhibitions of His incom-
prehensible faith in His Father. His life on earth is
a visible manifestation of His invisible state of exist-
ence in relation to His Father from the foundation of
the world. His life as God was as real and indepen-
dent in God as His life as man was. But His un-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 73

alterable resolution, as in the days of His flesh, was
to do not His own will, but the will of Him who
sent Him forth to create the heaven and the earth—
to think not His own thoughts, but the thoughts of
Him whose Word He was—to do not His own works,
but to imitate the works which His Father performed
through Him in the progress of creation’s history—
to rest contented with the amount as well as the
kind of knowledge which His Father was pleased to
communicate unto Him. In fact, He undertook His
mission with sealed instructions, and at its commence-
ment He knew as little of the glory that was to be
revealed through Him, as the Babe of Bethlehem in
its human nature knew of the world into which it
had entered. But He knew His Father, and He loved
His Father, and He had the most unbounded trust in
His Father. It was His divine desire to reveal the
honour and glory of His Father. And in undertak-
ing His great mission, He determined to enter upon,
and prosecute, its execution unto its final consumma-
tion, relying wholly upon the remembrance of the glory
which He had with His Father before the world was,
and His divine faith, to sustain and uphold Him.
This great transaction in Samuel’s day is a living
voice in Hebrew history, revealing what transpired
in the invisible world when the fallen angels re-
jected God as their King. The two events are even
more intimately connected. For the corner-stone of
Christ’s new intellectual dominion was laid on earth
in the invisible world when the fallen angels rejected
God as their King. And the corner-stone of the
74 ALPHA AND OMEGA.

same new dominion was laid in human history when
the elders of Israel came unto Samuel, saying, “‘ Make
us a king.” God permitted Samuel to do for the
people as they had asked. So, in like manner, when
the great star fell, Christ returned again from His
Father as the Word who was God, and permitted the
fallen angels to make him their king, in which
capacity he became the god of this world, the prince
of the power of the air, and the spirit of disobedience.
But God declared, nevertheless, both to the fallen
angels and people of Israel, that their conduct in
asking a king of their own making, and rejecting
Him, was wickedness. For He testified this to the
fallen angels by a watery deluge and consuming fire
on this earth, supernaturally produced, and destruc-
tive of its previous order and beauty; and to the
people of Israel, by sending, for the very purpose,
thunder and rain from heaven in answer to Samuel’s
prayer.
CHAPTER IV.

THE difference between the manner. in which Christ
revealed Himself as the Word of God before and
after the fall of angels was vast and humanly incom-
prehensible. His divine life has been the same all
throughout, for He is “the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever.” But His mission of “ yesterday,” be-
fore the fall of angels, and His mission of ‘ to-day,”
subsequent to their fall, are as widely divergent from
each other as two opposite extremes can be, save
and except the one prevailing law of His whole exist-
ence as the Alpha and the Omega—the most perfect
submission to His Father’s will. Their distinguish-
ing features, however, are comprehensively defined in
the brief Scripture phrases, that prior to the fall of
angels He was manifested as “the Word who was
with God,” and subsequently thereto His mission
was that of “the Word who was God.” As the
‘Word who was with God, His work in the first crea-
tion was one prolonged succession of experiences of
unalloyed happiness and delight. Nothing tran-
spired throughout its whole history that was not.
76 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

calculated to increase the intensity of His filial
divine love, and confirm the steadfastness of His
holy confidence.

A dark cloud overshadowed Him when, on finish-
ing the work of the first creation, and receiving its
reward from His Father in the declaration, “Thou art
my Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” the fallen
angels rejected Him and disobeyed His Father by
refusing to worship Him. The Father had proclaimed
Him to be the object of His supreme love and de-
light; but the fallen angels received the announce-
ment with contempt, and despised Him. He knew
previously that He had a further mission to perform,
but then for the first time its appalling magnitude and
terrible difficulty were presented to His infinite mind.
He shrank not back, although, as in the days of His
flesh, He groaned in spirit and was troubled, saying
in effect, “ Father, save me from this hour; but for
this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify
Thy name.” His Father strengthened Him, and gave
a new foundation for His divine faith to rest upon,
by also saying in effect, “I have both glorified it, and
will glorify it again.” In the first creation the
Father and the Son alone were engaged in the work.
But in the new creation, the agency of the Holy
Spirit was called into operation in the fierce conflict
with wickedness through which it was to be carried
forward unto perfection,

Christ entered upon His new mission resisted by
the mystery of iniquity without Himself, and con-
strained within Himself by the purpose of His Father
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 77

as to what He was to do and suffer in striving unto
blood against sin, and also by the influence of the
Spirit of Holiness as to the precise manner in which
alone He could accomplish His Father’s design. Grief
and sorrow, infinite in amount, protracted in dura-
tion, and diversified in kind, were substituted for
the happiness and delight which were His con-
stant experiences in fulfilling His first mission. The
causes of this grief and sorrow were incalculable in
their force and power over His mind. He loved His
Father, and His chief delight was to glorify Him.
With what anguish, therefore, did He contemplate
the dishonour that had been done to His name! He
loved all the creatures He had made, and endowed
with intelligence first and freedom afterwards. He
also pitied and had compassion on those of them who
refused to share with Himself the glory of His Father's
Spirit of Holiness, preferring a dominion of darkness
and shame to God’s kingdom of light and glory. He
knew His Father, and therefore He felt, for God’s
honour, acutely distressed ; whereas the fallen angels
knew not God except in His works, and cared nothing
for His personal honour and glory. The fallen angels
knew not the infinite gift of happiness they had de-
spised, and therefore had no regrets concerning its
loss; but He knew it full well, for He was Himself
its Alpha and Omega.

Christ thus suffered and was wounded in His
divine Spirit both for His Father’s sake, and in His
pity and compassion for those beings who were the
occasion of His infinite and double sorrow. But
78 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

there were other bitter ingredients in the cup which
was put into His hand as His appointed portion
during the accomplishment of His second mission.
His delights were with the sons of men from of old,
and He was filled with surpassing anguish when the
degradation and suffering to which they were to be
subjected, through the spirit of disobedience, and
His own uninterrupted contact with sin in redeeming
them, were revealed to Him. He faltered not in
His submission to His Father’s will, but entered
upon the great struggle with spiritual wickedness in
high places, and laid the foundation of a new divine
dominion in the self-sacrifice of Himself, as the
Word who was God. He saw the joy that was set
before Himself; He knew the glory that would accrue
to His Father; and He delighted in the prospect of
that inconceivable happiness which He would eter-
nally inherit by consenting to share men’s sorrows
with them,—clothed in their nature, and by making
them partakers of His own divine nature as the Son
of God; so He resolved to endure the Cross, despis-
ing the shame. Two dominions, therefore, were to co-
exist on this earth in human history; one, the king-
dom of the god of this world, having for its sovereign
the spirit of disobedience ; and the other the king-
dom of God, of which Christ was the anointed King.

The two dominions first came into direct collision
nationally in human history when the Israelites
asked for and obtained a king. That transaction was
the visible sign of the actual commencement of the
invisible conflict in national existence, and it was
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 79

preceded by the creation of a human heaven and
earth in Jewish history. When the angels who kept
not their first estate fell to this earth, and through
their wickedness occasioned the overthrow of its then
existing order, the holy angels entered upon a new
and glorious state of existence; and the material
heavens ceased not to praise Him whose handiwork
they are. The material heavens were constituted
visible signs of that invisible world of angelic intel-
ligences which had become God’s spiritual dominion ;
and the majesty, beauty, and orderly movements of
the one illustrate the glory, the excellence, and the
submissiveness to God’s will of the living subjects
of the other. The kingdom of God, as it has been
established among the holy angels, was also to come
in human history. As the will of God is done in
heaven by the holy angels, so also is it to be done on
earth by redeemed men. This new divine dominion
is to be visibly revealed among men with power and
great glory; and yet it cometh not with observation.
God’s will is to be visibly done on earth; and yet
those in whom it is to be so done are themselves to
reign on the earth.

The human seed of the new divine dominion—
freedom of choice—was sown in the nation of Israel
when they of their own accord, without consulting
Samuel, in whom was the Word of the Lord, asked
fora king. God by granting their request intimated
that this national freedom of choice was His gift to
them through His Word. But in the kind of king
He set over them, and also by thunder and rain from
80 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

heaven in answer to Samuel’s prayer, God declared
that the act which embodied the first exercise of
national freedom of choice by the Israelites after the
Word of the Lord was invisibly revealed in the his-
tory of the nation, was an act of wickedness. The
request of the people being made without any regard
to, or inquiry after, God’s mind upon the subject,
and God’s sanctioning of it nevertheless, was an act
of national sovereignty originated independent of
God. There were from thenceforth two kings in
Israel—the will of God and the will of man—the
Spirit of God and the spirit of the nation’s human
sovereign.

God selected Saul as the first human king of Israel,
and Samuel the prophet of the Lord anointed him in
God’s name. God, moreover, gave Saul another heart;
and, what is more remarkable still, the Spirit of God
came upon him. This was the most marvellous
transaction that had then occurred in the history of
human redemption. Saul was the first human being
upon whom the Spirit of God, as the Sovereign Spirit
of universal and everlasting dominion, came ; and He
was given to Saul because he was the first human
sovereign of God’s chosen nation. The divine and
the human sovereigns met in the single nature of
Saul; and what was their conduct toward each other?
The Spirit of God left Saul absolutely free within
himself ; for he was informed that after the Spirit of
the Lord came upon him, and he was turned into
another man, that he might “do as occasion served
him.” And the reason assigned for his receiving this
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 81

absolute freedom is thus recorded—‘ For God is with
thee.” God first gave Isaac to the human world by
supernatural agency, and out of his descendants He
constructed a living or human earth, the nation of
Israel. He then raised up Moses, and through him
as a mediator gave the nation His law in a written
form; and after many generations of appointed
training and discipline, He produced its invisible
image in the national mind by revealing the know-
ledge of Himself as the Word of the Lord. Thus He
created a human earth and heaven.

When so prepared, God crowned the national
edifice by the gift of spiritual freedom. The signs
of this holy act of God were, the visible sove-
reign act of the nation of Israel, asking and obtain-
ing a king, and the invisible gift of the Spirit of God
to Saul, the first king of Israel. The divine Spirit as
God and the human spirit of Saul as king met face
to face, as it were, in Saul’s humanity, each a sove-
reign. The very presence of the Spirit of God in Saul
was to him an evidence of his possession of the most
unlimited freedom, not only within, but without
himself. The Hebrew kingdom visibly, and God’s
spiritual dominion invisibly, were both conferred on
Saul as the first king of Israel; and with what results?
In the simplest possible manner God tested the
human spirit of Saul, and proved its nature and kind.
When Saul was anointed by Samuel, he was told of
all the good that God would do to him; and in con-
clusion it was said to Saul, “Thou shalt go down
before me to Gilgal: and I will come down unto

F
82 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

thee, to offer burnt-offerings and to sacrifice sacrifices
of peace-offerings; seven days shalt thou tarry till
I come to thee, and show thee what thou shalt do.”
The simplicity of this test is unexampled in human
history, for it was less exacting than even the prohi-
bition addressed to the first man in the garden of
Eden; but it was of tremendous significance, and
unending consequences were involved in the issue.

What God in effect said to Saul was this, I have
made you king of Israel, as the sun in the heaven of
the nation, to enlighten and rule the national earth.
I have given you up my own dominion in human
nature by giving you my Holy Spirit. Now then,
as the king of Israel in whom the Spirit of God is,
imitate my holy example by yielding submission to
my Word spoken to you by my prophet Samuel.
In compliance therewith wait for special direction
both as to the time and the manner of offering
up your body as a burnt-offering, and your mind as
a peace-offering, so that my sovereign Spirit as God
may be as free to work in and by your human spirit,
as your sovereign spirit as king is to work in and by
my Holy Spirit. God even further said, The obliga-
tion I ask you to undertake voluntarily I also place
myself under. “The Word” shall be our one Medi-
ator, and shall judge between me and thee. I shall
do nothing except in and through the Word; you
follow my example, and the counsel of Him who is
the Prince of Peace shall be between us both for ever
and ever.

This transaction is a visible reproduction in human
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 83

history of that which occurred in the angelic nature
of the great star before he fell from heaven as a
lamp burning. All the circumstances were substan-
tially alike in the angelic and the human cases; the
one set being invisible in their nature, and the other
visible. Saul had reigned two years over Israel, so
that his lamp of sovereignty had begun to burn, and
he had experience of the happiness of possessing the
Spirit of God, and of the dignity of sitting upon an
earthly throne. He went to Gilgal, and he tarried
seven days, according to the set time Samuel had ap-
pointed. But Samuel came not to Gilgal. Samuel’s
delay was made the testing-point of Saul’s human
spirit in God’s sight. It was the gift of God’s Holy
Spirit that originated Saul’s free human spirit, but
the spirit was Saul’s own. It was, in fact, the very
essence of his own conscious self-existence, and de-
rived its nature and character from the nature and
character of Saul’s free and absolutely unconstrained
volitions. But the delay of Samuel, although it did
not originate Saul’s spirit, furnished the occasion
for its manifestation in the flesh, What was Saul’s
duty in the circumstances? To wait for Samuel, who
was the individual human incarnation of the Word
of the Lord as then revealed in human history.

In what he did not do, and in what he proceeded
to do, Saul revealed both in a negative and a posi-
tive form the nature and the work of wickedness in
the highest or spiritual state of human existence.
Saul would not wait for Samuel; this was negative
disregard of the Word of God revealed to him through
84 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

Samuel. Saul “offered the burnt-offering ;” this was
positive disobedience, and upon a point which struck
at the very root of God’s dominion in human nature.
For Samuel, as the Word of the Lord incarnate, alone
was competent and divinely authorised to offer the
sacrifice of burnt-offering, which was typical of the
manner in which humanity as a visible form was to
be consecrated to the service and glory of the Word
as God. Thus the great human star that had been
set in the heaven of the Hebrew nation fell from its
place, burning as it were a lamp ; and forfeited not
merely an earthly kingdom, but also that everlasting
dominion of which God from thence commenced to
sow the royal seed in human nature. For all that
God did and gave to Saul the self-willed king would
give nothing in exchange; no, not even the shadow
of a recognition of God’s rightful sovereignty over
him, Within God’s Spirit, Saul’s spirit was made
free to will and to do agit pleased, subject to the
Word of the Lord; yet God’s Holy Spirit, subject
to the Word of the Lord, was absolutely prohibited
from any communion with Saul’s spirit; and this by
Saul’s own voluntary determination in presence of the
Spirit of God, and in direct disobedience of the Word
of the Lord.

Saul’s spiritual state was a visible illustration of
that state of spiritual wickedness in high places,
which occasioned the fall of the great star, and with
him the third part of the heavenly hosts. Samuel
announced to Saul, “Thy kingdom shall not con-
tinue; the Lord hath sought Him a man after His own
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 85

heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be
captain over His people, because thou hast not kept
that which the Lord commanded thee.” The spirit-
ual kingdom, or freedom of angels, was not taken from
them when they fell ; neither was Saul’s life or king-
dom terminated when he gave evidence of the kind
of spirit by which he was ruled. Yet a new king
over God’s dominion was selected in Christ, when
spiritual wickedness was manifested in the angelic
world; and a new king of God’s human kingdom
was selected in David, of whom Christ was the root
and offspring, when Saul gave visible evidence of his
spiritual state in God’s sight. But after a long in-
visible conflict the leader of the fallen angels was
tried again, when the new creation appeared in
Adam; and so was Saul at the time appointed for
the Spirit of God passing from him to David.

When Satan became king of the fallen angels’ do-
minion, in his fall, this earth was the appointed
sphere for the exercise of his and their power; and
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
of their spiritual existence, and guided and controlled
the results until man appeared. Then Satan was
tried again. God in effect said unto him, Your self-
will is the Amalek of your history since your fall. I
have made a new world of intelligent visible exist-
ence in human form; go now, slay the enmity of
your spirit, and imitate my Son’s example by carrying
forward my work in human history; and for this
purpose I give the human race into your hands. So
God tried Saul once more, saying unto him through
86 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

Samuel, “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy
all that they have, and spare them not.” The first
trial of Satan was within his own nature; so was that
of Saul. The second trial of Satan was external to
himself, in human nature; and so was that of Saul,
in relation to the Amalekites. Saul certainly went
forth, and so far did as the Lord commanded; but
again he was perverse, for he spared Agag the king,
and the best of the flocks and the herds. Satan also
went forth, and so far did what the Lord desired, but
in a way which an evil spirit alone could have done
it. He insured the utter destruction of the human
race in their first nature, according to God’s will;
but he spared the king of their spiritual existence,
and did not provide for the restraint of their carnal
passions and propensities while they lived.

“Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel,
saying, It repenteth me that I have set Saul to be
king; for he is turned back from following me, and
hath not performed my commandments. And it
grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night.”
This is an historical illustration of God’s interview with
His Son as the Word after the fall of man; the grief
of Samuel being a sign of the effect produced on the
mind of Christ, when the result of this second trial
of Satan was made manifest in the garden of Eden.
The Word had again been revealed to Satan in
the prohibition God expressed to Adam after his
creation, On this occasion He was manifested in an
existence external to Satan’s own, and after the Fall
He appeared again. The great star himself made use
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 87

of the serpent, thus imitating God so far as he could.
Saul’s statement, when Samuel appeared unto him,
discloses the state of Satan’s mind on that eventful
day in the world’s history. ‘Blessed be thou of the
Lord ; I have performed the commandment of the
Lord.” This delusion is a painful evidence of the
ruin which a perverse or self-willed spirit had
wrought in the mind of the greatest created intellect.
He actually believed he had done God’s will; and
one of His persuasive suggestions to Eve confirms this
fact, for He said unto her, “God doth know that in
the day ye eat thereof, then shall your eyes be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

It was not in regard to any want of man as a phy-
sical being that Adam was tried in Eden; for “ out of
the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that
is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” “And
the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.” So that
man and his surrounding circumstances were exactly
adapted to, and in most perfect harmony with, each
other, in so far as the sustenance of his bodily life was
concerned. But God also made provision for his
spiritual and intellectual training and nourishment ;
for there were “the tree of life in the midst of the
garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
It was not possible for man to be tempted in his
physical existence as God had made him and placed
him; and even if it had been so, Satan was a spirit-
ual and intellectual being, and could not therefore
tempt him in connection with an existence which had
88 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

been just created, and of the cravings and require-
ments of which he was in utter ignorance. But the
image of God in man was a facsimile of Satan’s own
spiritual and intellectual nature; and with its pro-
perties and faculties he was intimately acquainted.
No doubt God commanded Satan, as He did Saul,
through His Word. And he had six thousand years’
invisible experience of that which the spiritual Ama-
lek did to him and his followers after God emanci-
pated them from divine tutelage at the close of the
history of the first creation. Therefore, because the
seed of this same spirit was inevitably and unavoid-
ably sown in man’s visible existence as an intelligent
being, God mercifully gave Satan another trial, and
in such circumstances, that if repentance were pos-
sible a wide door was opened to him.

Satan had access to Adam’s nature, and if in the
exercise of his spiritual sovereignity he had fulfilled
God’s command to him by taking entire possession of it
for the purpose of slaying within man all resemblance
to his own self-willed career in the past, he would
have retained the enduring dominion over earth and
man. In the act of rescuing man’s nature from the
power of the self-existence it necessarily received
when made in the image of God, he would have
had to sacrifice his own self-willed spirit, and thereby
have removed all cause of enmity with God. And
had this been possible, man would never have
risen higher in the scale of existence than the visi-
ble nature he received in Adam. God knew Saul's
spirit before He tried it; so also did He know the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 89

manner of Satan’s spirit. But neither Satan nor
Saul knew himself until his second trial and second
failure. But, marvellous to say, both received light
then, although previously they again expressed
their belief that they had done no wrong, saying,
“Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.” Saul
blamed the people for having taken the spoil of the
Amalekites. Satan blamed man for the carnal en-
mity of his mind towards God, and urged that he re-
tained man’s self-will in order to sacrifice it unto the
Lord. This was an unconscious utterance of God’s
truth, as it has since been revealed in human history.
But Saul could not, because he would not, restrain
the people. He would have had the power to con-
trol the people if he had been willing to obey God.
And so had Satan the power to influence man to obey
God, but he was unwilling to exercise it.

Spiritual evil was thus manifested in its double
character. The being who will not submit to God’s
Spirit in his own person, will not influence any other
being external to his own todo so. “Rebellion is as
the sin of witchcraft,” it is a monstrous delusion.
This was one characteristic of the mystery of ini-
quity. “Stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”
This is its other characteristic. The solemn an-
nouncement was made in each case, to the serpent
in the garden of Eden, and to Saul by Samuel, “ Be-
cause thou hast rejected the Word of the Lord, He
hath also rejected thee from being king.” The humi-
liation and degradation of Satan and Saul being thus
completed by themselves beyond recall, each for the
90 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

first time professed to perceive what he had done
saying, ‘‘I have sinned; for I have transgressed the
commandment of the Lord.” This confession was
extorted from them ; and as the sequel of the history
of each proved, it was insincere.

God did not at once destroy the usurped dominion
of Satan on this earth and over man; neither did He
terminate immediately the life and kingdom of Saul.
He gave each a third trial, and in circumstances
even more favourable than had existed previously.
The Spirit of God was present with Satan throughout
the six thousand years that preceded man’s appear-
ance on this earth. And although powerless to regu-
late Satan’s own volitions, He exercised considerable
external restraint upon him. So was it also in Saul’s
case. But from thenceforth the Spirit of God de-
parted from each, and went in the one case to the root
of David, whose seed was then sown in Eve; and in
the other case to David himself, the man according
to God’s heart. Thus freed from all divine restraint
even from without themselves, they were enabled to
give yet more overwhelming evidence of the inde-
scribable nature and fruits producible by a free spirit
unwilling to subject its volitions to the holy influence
of God’s Spirit. Human history is a prolonged
demonstration of the nature and fruits of Satan’s
spirit. And the remainder of Saul’s life and reign
testifies to the character and fruits of the evil spirit
which troubled Saul. It came from the Lord, be-
cause it originated, as Satan’s did, in God’s manifesta-
tion of Himself in Saul through the Word when the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 91

Spirit of God came upon him, and in Saul’s obstinate
determination not to allow himself to be influenced
by Him in a single volition of his nature. When
God’s Spirit left him, the spirit of Saul’s own crea-
tion remained with him; and it was thus “an evil
spirit from the Lord that troubled him.”

The invisible world of human history, from the
fall of man to the entire destruction of iniquity in
God’s universe, is epitomised, and a visible illustra-
tion given of it, in the subsequent conjoined history
of Saul and David. The spirit and the fruits of the
invisible dominion in human nature, founded in
Satan’s self-will, is demonstrated in Saul’s history ;
and the spirit and fruits of the invisible dominion
in human nature, founded in the holy will of the
Son of God in opposition to Satan’s dominion, is
revealed in David’s history. David was a subject
of Saul’s dominion, and he occupied a place of ser-
vice in Saul’s royal court. Saul the king and David
the subject visibly demonstrate the relation of Satan
and Christ to each other throughout human history.
Saul knew that David was his rival, and Satan knew
that Christ’s dominion over the human race was to
be founded on his personal destruction, as the spirit
of wickedness, and the overthrow of his dominion.
Saul was frequently perplexed and made unhappy
by the evil spirit that ruled him; so has it been with
Satan. David soothed and ameliorated Saul’s un-
happy condition by the music of his harp; so did
Christ’s beniguant influence in human nature occa-
sionally soften the asperity and enmity of His great
92 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

adversary. Saul hated David; and Satan hates
Christ. Saul repeatedly sought to take David’s life ;
so has Satan striven from beginning to end to pre-
vent the resurrection of Christ’s divine life as the
Son of God, in human nature. David returned good
for evil, so has Christ. David could have taken
Saul’s life on one occasion, and he preserved evidence
of the fact. Satan’s personal existence was continu-
ally in Christ’s power, and yet He has preserved and
will continue to preserve him for ever. It is not
the nature which God gave to the greatest of the
heavenly hosts that Christ has been revealed in
human nature to destroy ; but it isthat nature which
he has created within himself, and which is named
Satan or the Devil, that Christ has been commis-
sioned to destroy.

And, most marvellous of all, Christ will destroy
the spirit of disobedience in the fallen archangel;
but “not by force or by might, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord.” God’s Spirit revealed in Christ
cannot violate the holy law of His own existence.
He would not interfere compulsorily at the begin-
ning, to prevent the free volitions of the great star,
when he begat within himself the spirit of evil.
Neither will He interfere compulsorily at the end
to destroy that spirit. As it came into existence
voluntarily, so will it go out of existence through its
own agency. Its mission throughout human history
has been twofold ; to destroy the spiritual freedom
of the third part of men, and in the act of doing so
to put an end to its own existence. Its power has
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 93

been great, and its invisible agents have been the
third part of God’s created invisible intelligences.
But great though its power has been, and innumer-
able as have been its invisible agents, it and they are
only created and limited; God alone is inexhaustible
in the resources of power and life. Satan and his
angels have done their uttermost, and the pit of their
influence, although bottomless to the conception of a
single finite mind, is fathomable by the Spirit of God.

The possibility of their abused freedom originated
in Christ’s self-sacrifice of Himself to become the
Word of God. God is just. He reaps not where
He has not sown. He did not sow the divine life of
His Son in the third part of angels, because as the
third part of God that Son was slain from the foun-
dation of the world, that His own glory as the one
Father might be revealed in the two third parts of
angels by the Spirit of Holiness. He did not sow
the life of His divine Son in the third part of men, for
that Son’s life was sacrificed to redeem the two third
parts of men, also by the Spirit of Holiness. But He
permitted the seed of the fallen angels to be sown
in the third part of men, in order that the dominion
founded on self-will might be destroyed. The glory
of God’s dominion consists in the mutual self-sub-
mission and everlasting union in free volition of two
self-existent independent and sovereign spirits. The
shame, and the source of the destruction, of Satan’s
dominion are the mutually destructive antagonism
and everlasting wilful separation of two self-existent,
independent, and sovereign spirits. Every invisible
94 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

spirit’s power in Satan’s dominion is against his
brother spirit in man. And as each individual of
the human seed of the serpent ceased to live, by so
much was the limit of Satan’s power curtailed and
diminished.

If Christ originated the possibility of the coming
into existence of the spirit of evil in angels and men,
He has also originated the certainty of the annihi-
lation of its power. If by His self-sacrifice from
the foundation of the world He permitted the advent
of Satan’s dominion over angels and men, then by
His death in human nature He has accomplished its
utter destruction. The duration of Satan’s power,
and the spiritual slaying of the third part of men,
are to be coterminous in human history with the
resurrection of the life of God’s Son in all nations
and kindreds of men. This restored life of Christ as
the Son of God is to be in indissoluble union with
two-thirds of the human race. He came forth from
the Godhead to do the will of His Father. He will
return to God, but He will take with Him as an
integral part of His own everlasting mediatorial
nature all whom the Father gave Him to redeem
from among men. He will for ever dwell in union
with them as His Father dwells in Him. “Jin them,
and Thou in me,” are as His own words addressed
to His Father. He will be their spiritual divine life
of holiness, and their infinite living knowledge of
mind, even the Word of God; and they will be the
clothing, or the vesture dipped in blood, by means
of which His invisible glory as the only-begotten
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 95

Son of God, full of grace and truth, will be eternally
revealed.

The angels of Satan and his seed among men have
hitherto mutually destroyed each other’s self-willed
spiritual existence. And they are to continue to do
so until the third part of angels have so slain the
spirit of disobedience in the third part of men, and
thereby also destroyed their own individual self-
willed spirits by exhausting their finite individual
power. God could not, because He would not, des-
troy even one ofthem. But the very principle which
actuated their resistance to the one God, when re-
vealed as the Sovereign Spirit of the universe, in the
individual nature of each, has prompted each to the
extent of his power to lord it over a creature spirit
of a similar kind in another state of existence. God
furnished the human vessels made of earth in which
iniquity was to destroy itself; but the creature spirit
of disobedience in every fallen angel, and in every
man of the seed of the serpent, was self-begotten, in
wilful opposition both to the Word and Spirit of
God. They were thus self-begotten and self-destroy-
ing, leaving only of the nature of angels that which
God originally gave them, without its perfected free-
dom, and of the nature of men that which Christ
created in Adam, and has redeemed by His death,
but in a state of divine servitude involuntarily
rendered. .

Christ is never to resume the self-existence which
He has twice voluntarily sacrificed. His original
divine life as the Son of God is to be fully restored to
96 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

Him, just as the original natures of fallen angels and
disobedient men are to be restored to them. But
His free and sovereign spirit or will in Himself as
a self-existent, uncreated participant in the essence
of the Godhead, is only to be restored to Him in a
state of union with the free and sovereign spirits of
redeemed men. The everlasting state of the holy Son
of God will be in spirit a state of double self-subjec-
tion; on the one hand, to the will of His Father ;
and on the other hand, to the spirits of just men
made perfect. But because He has so humbled
Himself voluntarily, He will also reign as the Divine
King over the spirits of holy angels and redeemed
men. This is to be the terminating glory of the
great mystery of godliness, God in holy angels and
redeemed men through His Son; and holy angels
and redeemed men with God through His Son, de-
lighting, and being delighted with, each other world
without end.

The self-willed angels and men will have a divine
companion, unwelcome to them, in the Spirit of
Holiness. It was His gracious and happy influence
they throughout their creature existence despised and
contemned. It is that influence they will then be
involuntarily constrained to submit to. Not the pos-
sibility of a single volition contrary to His will can
they then exercise, just as in the day of their dis-
obedience He could not exert the smallest influence
over them by any volition of His adverse to their
will. In the day of their power, wickedness pre-
vailed. In the day of His power, holiness will be all-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 97

prevalent. And their great king and leader, who
had no equal either among angels or men, like Saul,
when wounded in his last great struggle, may in vain
beseech his standard-bearer to slay his self-created
spiritual existence. Perceiving the end of his do-
minion, and recalling to remembrance the desola-
tion he has wrought, like Saul, he may then for the
first time take into his hand the sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God, and voluntarily expiate the
wickedness of his inconceivable career by slaying
himself—thus ending as he began, in utter spiritual
defiance of God, by preferring self-destruction to self-
submission.
CHAPTER V.

Gop is a Spirit, and God is one. This is the truth
revealed in all worlds, human, angelic, and material.
But they also proclaim another truth, that the nature
of God is equally participated in by three. The three
are the one God ; and therefore in the works of God
external to His own essence each of the three is to
be made manifest as the one God. To accomplish
this great result, one of the three participants in the
glory of the Godhead voluntarily became the Word of
God, that in and through Him the mystery of God’s
existence might be visibly disclosed. From the
foundation of the world, when He entered on His
great mission, He, as one of the three who was “ with
God.” and who “ was God,” was self-sacrificed in the
divine essence. From thenceforth the image of God
was one Spirit in two: the Father in the original
invisible divine essence, with the Spirit of Holiness ;
the Son in the works of creation, and the Spirit of
Holiness also with Him. God’s essence was from
thenceforth divided between the Father and the Son,
each in an independent state of divine existence.
ALPHA AND OMEGA. 99

The Father, nevertheless, continued in the Son, who
was His Word; and the Son continued in the Father,
who was His God; and the invisible bond of union
between them was the Spirit of Holiness.

When God gave His Son the commission to create
all worlds, He made over to Him all the power and
glory of the Godhead. In His new form of existence
as the Word who was with God, and who, because He
came forth from God, was His Word, the Son under-
took to will and to do as the Father was pleased to
direct, and the Father intrusted the entire accom-
plishment of His purpose to the Son alone. Thus
the visible image of God in action beyond His own
essence was one; and the invisible image of God in
His own essence ceased to be three and became two.
In the work of creation the Father and the Son were
one in two—in the divine essence the Father and
the Spirit were two in one; therefore unity in
duality and duality in unity were the image and
likeness of God from the foundation of the world.
Of this the visible and invisible things created were
an identical image. In things visible there were
substances animate and inanimate, declaring the
living Father and the self-sacrificed Son in the Word.
In things invisible there were life and intellect,
testifying to the Father and the Spirit. The living
unity of God in two was demonstrated in the animate
and inanimate visible things created. The living
duality of God in one was revealed in the twofold
existence created in the one nature of angels, who
were the things invisible.
100 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

The end of the first creation of things visible and
invisible was the sign of the complete manifestation of
the Word as the Son of God. Then the image of God
became three in one and one in three in the divine
essence—the Son of God, as the Word who was with
God, having returned to His Father after finishing
the work of the first creation. Thereafter the Father
gave His Son a new commission to reveal the living
image of the one God in three as He had disclosed
that of the one God in two. In order to accomplish
this, the Father revealed His Son as the one God;
and in doing so produced in the angelic world a
living image of the one God in three, in the precise
form He had manifested Himself throughout the
history of the first creation—two out of three ac-
knowledging and worshipping the Son as God, and
one out of three declaring themselves to be their own
God. The relation of Father and Son in creating
the world was that of sovereign and subject—the
‘Father sovereign and the Son subject. It was the
divine sovereignty of the one Father of all that the
Son undertook to make known as the Word. And
this He accomplished without any kind of hindrance
or obstruction so long as His own divine sovereignty
as the Son was merged in His mediatorial mission as
the Word.

But when the Father declared, “Thou art my
Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” the Word was
openly made known to all angels as God. God is one,
and His Spirit is sovereign; God is also three, and
His Spirit is holy. Therefore the image of God then
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 101

evolved in the angelic world was that of two-thirds,
or two out of three, submissive; and one-third, or
one out of three, as the Spirit of the one God, sove-
reign, within their own angelic essences. This living
yet invisible image of God produced among angels
was an exact representation of the past twofold
state of God’s existence after the foundation of the
world. In the new state of the holy angels God
was intelligently revealed and believed in as the one
God—three in one and one in three. In the new
state of the fallen angels He was revealed but re-
jected as the one God through the Word—one in two
and two in one. And the spirit of this new state of
existence was sovereign, like the Spirit of God, but
without and in opposition to the Word as God. The
spiritual dominion of fallen angels originated in the
self-subjection of the Word from the foundation of
the world ; and that which they voluntarily usurped
as gods was the precise counterpart of that which
He had voluntarily relinquished as God.

All things have not continued as they were from
the beginning to the end of the first creation ; and the
condition of this earth after the fall of angels, as de-
scribed in Scripture, was the material effect and sign
of the changes then effected in the things created, and
also in God’s relation to them. The material heavens
continued as of old, declaring the invisible things of
God, even His eternal power and Godhead. But the
invisible heavens, or angelic state of being and ani-
mate existence on earth, were revolutionised; and the
occasion of this was the revelation in creation of God’s
102 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

Spirit through the Word as the Spirit of Holiness. This
earth became a chaos, standing out of the water and
in the water ; and “the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.” The Spirit of God thus en-
circled both this earth, and the spiritual dominion of
the fallen angels established upon it, when all was
visible death and darkness and invisible desolation.
As the Father through the Word had called the first
creation into existence, so the Spirit of God through
the Word was out of this earth, and by the instru-
mentality of fallen angels, to recreate a new world
of sentient and intelligent beings. This earth had
been peopled with living forms before the angels
fell; but the nature of the life given to them, as
compared with that given to angels, was as wide
asunder as the nature of God and the nature of
angels then were.

When the angels fell they became as God yet
without God. This earth had previously possessed
a life-producing and a life-sustaining power, infinite
in its variety of form, yet a mere animal existence in
every form. Its elements were decomposed ; its life-
giving and life-sustaining power was thereby inter-
fered with destructively ; and in these things its state
visibly demonstrated the nature of the revolution
which had been effected in the angelic world, through
the change accomplished in the manner of God’s
manifestation of Himself from the beginning of the
creation. But in its state of chaos, encircled by the
Spirit of God, it contained the uncreated corner-
stone and the created intellectual substance and ani-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 103

mate material of a new world of beings. In the first
creation the Father did all things not only in and by
but through the Word. But in the new creation all
things were of the Father in and by the Word, but
through the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit of Holiness
alone could have begotten the self-submission of the
Son of God, could have tolerated within creatures
of angelic existence a spirit of disobedience, and
could have permitted the utter desolation of this
earth as the appointed habitation of living organic
forms. And not any one, far less all, of these things
would ever have been manifested, only that the
glory of the one God as the Spirit of Holiness could
not otherwise have been revealed beyond His own
essential and invisible existence, except thereby.

God revealed His holiness when, at the foundation
of the world, His Son began to fulfil His mission as
the Word who was with God. He again revealed
His holiness in the angelic world when the morning
stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for
joy. These, however, were both invisible revelations
of His holiness. God desired a living temple, in
which this many-sided and all-embracing attribute
of His nature might be everlastingly displayed in
active operation. His Son’s delights were with the
sons of men from of old, even before their creation
in Adam. And when the corner-stone of this earth,
as the stage on which the glory of God’s holiness
was to be revealed, was laid by the Father, in the
self-sacrifice of the Word as God, the Spirit of Holi-
ness encompassed the earth, thereby pledging at the
104 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

beginning the peculiar glory of God as three in one,
and identifying with the end the divine honour of
the one God in three, who is over all, blessed for ever.
What depth is there lower than that of this earth in
its chaotic state of animal extinction and intellectual
darkness, to which God as the Word could have
descended? And what moral state of being could
exceed in dissimilarity to God’s Holy Spirit the
spirit of the angels who kept not their first estate?
Yet unto actual and indissoluble union with the one,
in a new form of existence, Christ, as the Word who
was with God, descended. And into a temporary
contact with the other, ending in an enduring exter-
nal association with its possessors, God’s Holy Spirit
has not disdained to enter.

Out of this depth to which the Word as God de-
scended, He wasto ascend, and His ascension was
to be effected in and through a new world of intelli-
gent visible existence. By the power of the Spirit
of Holiness He descended, and by the same power
He was to ascend. Things that are made were not
made of things which do appear; but the worlds
were framed by the Word of God. He framed the
first world of intelligent invisible existence, and its
visible counterpart, the world of animate and inani-
mate matter. He also framed the world of human
existence, combining within itself the essential ex-
istence of angels as intelligent beings in union with
the substantial properties of material life. For the
reception of this new world of existence He prepared
this earth, and made it the habitation of the human
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 105

race. On this earth, and in the nature of man, His
ascending glory as the Word of God has been gradu-
ally and progressively unfolded, inseparably identified
all throughout with the descending glory of God’s
Spirit of Holiness.

Human nature was the subject first to be produced,
and afterward to be operated upon. Conjoined in
this great work of human creation and human re-
demption there were the self-sacrificed Spirit of the
Word as God, the self-denying and Holy Spirit of
God, and the self-asserting and self-destroying spirit
of the fallen angels. The divine agents, although
communicating the power and controlling the results,
were nevertheless passive. The spirits of the fallen
angels, although the active agents, were ignorant of
God’s design, and unwilling co-operators in so far as
its accomplishment was involved. They were in-
dulging and gratifying their own spirit of disobed-
ience ; and although actually powerless of themselves
to produce anything but a chaos, they deluded them-
selves into the belief that the returning order and
beauty of this earth, and even man’s creation, were
their works exclusively. The living nature of man
was the product of the active co-operation of the
self-asserting spirit of the fallen angels with the self-
sacrificed Word as God, and the self-denying Holy
Spirit of God. They were the builders of this new
temple, which was to be dedicated to the service and
worship of God, through His Son, whom they had
despised, and by His Spirit, whose influence they
had quenched and extinguished within themselves.
106 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

Soon after its creation, the great star, who had
fallen, claimed and asserted his right of dominion
over the first of the human race. But its undisputed
possession was of brief duration; for immediately
thereupon the Word of God was sown as “the seed
of the woman” in human nature, in direct antagon-
ism to the spirit of disobedience, who had usurped
dominion over the world of human existence. By
the resurrection of the Word of God in human
nature on the one hand, and the descent of the
Spirit of Holiness to human nature on the other
hand, the carnal enmity of the human mind was to
be destroyed, and the evil and imperfection of the
human body effectually removed. These were to be
the great results effected in the history of human
redemption ; and the spirit of disobedience was to
be an active co-operator therein, conjoined with the
Word of God and the Spirit of Holiness. The great
star, by the power he acquired over human nature
at the threshold of its history, succeeded in impart-
ing to every descendant of Adam his spirit of dis-
obedience, and thereby subjected the first-born nature
of each of the race to the power of death.

The darkening of the human mind and the slaying
of the human body were the fruits of the dominion of
the spirit of disobedience in man. The divine enlight-
enment of the human mind and the holy redemption
of the human body are to be the enduring results of
the joint and self-submissive working of the Word and
Spirit of God in human nature. The one God in two
was revealed through the Word in human history
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 107

by the Father, in the divine abhorrence of evil,
manifested by permitting the destruction of man’s
first-born nature, both in its sources of present happi-
ness and in the very essence of its vital power; also
by permitting and enabling the fallen angels, or the
invisible impersonations of the spirit of disobedience,
each to destroy the power and presence of that spirit
within himself, in the act of visibly subjecting to the
power of death a similar number of its human em-
bodiments. Of the state and condition and end of all
these self-willed beings as spiritual kings, whether
human or angelic, including the great star himself,
Saul, the first anointed king of Israel, was the ap-
pointed figure. In this way God is to eliminate
from, by self-destroying in, the third part of angels
and men, the evil spirit from the Lord, which has
troubled them throughout the history of human
redemption.

The work of human redemption is a work of a very
different kind, and the manner of it, as well as its
necessity, are illustrated in the life and history of
David as king of Israel. David was a man according
to God’s own heart; and he was the first in human
form to whom the Spirit of God was given, and in
whom He found a prepared human resting - place.
When the Spirit of God came upon David, He left
Saul; thus testifying to the unity of God; for He
could not, as the Spirit of the one God, be then re-
vealed in more than one living human form. As the
Spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus,
He was given to all in whom the Word of God was
108 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

revealed at sundry times, and in divers manners,
before the first advent of Christ. But as the Spirit
of God, who is One, living and true, He was only
given, first to Saul, who despised Him, and thereafter
to David, who received and worshipped Him in his
human heart. It was in this, the highest state of
human nature, that Christ was both the root and the
offspring of David. For it was through His self-
sacrifice as the Word of God that such a spiritual
existence was given to David, accompanied by the
gift of the Spirit of God; and it was through ‘David
that Christ received such a spiritual creattre exist-
ence as the son of David.

This was the greatest event that had then tran-
spired in the history of human redemption. David’s
experiences were twofold after the Spirit of God
came upon him. He was tried in his spirit as a
subject, and also as a sovereign; and the spiritual
excellence Godward that was proved to be in him,
was equally made manifest by his conduct in both
capacities. The knowledge of God’s Word was also
communicated to his human mind in unexampled
fulness of light. As a spiritual and intellectual
being, David was one of the very highest order of
mankind in God’s sight. The writings he has left
on record attest to this day the divine excellence of
his human spirit, and the heavenly greatness and
humility of his human mind; and they have been a
priceless treasure to God-fearing men in all subse-
quent ages. In his conduct to Saul as his subject, he
carried his self-submission to what some might think
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 109

the verge of human imprudence, in manifesting the
Spirit of God that was in him. In his conduct as
king, he did the very reverse of that which Saul did
in relation to God; for at the commencement of his
reign he voluntarily inquired of God, and did not
move from where he was until he received both
general and special divine directions.

David's history, as recorded in Scripture, presents
a picture of the most startling contradictions in
human character. In spirit he was the living image
of the Spirit of God; in mind he was the living in-
carnation of the Word of God. Thus in two parts
out of three, his complex nature as man had fulfilled
the great object of man’s creation. But in spite of,
and in direct opposition to, the divine excellence of
his spirit and heavenly enlightenment of his mind,
he exhibited his humanity in the most vile and wicked
of aspects. His conduct in the matter of Uriah dis-
plays a depth of iniquity quite unparalleled in the
history of the human race, from the fact of its being
the conduct of a man upon whom the Spirit of God
had come, and in whom the Word of God had been
so gloriously revealed. There may have been greater
monsters of iniquity, destitute of God, in this life ;
but a more degrading, humiliating, and vile exhibition
of humanity was impossible, in the circumstances in
which David was placed. David's spiritual and in-
tellectual state in God’s sight, and his degraded and
wicked state in man’s sight, are, in their explanation,
the key to the greatest of all divine mysteries.

David’s state proclaimed the impossibility of the
110 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

adoption—to wit, the redemption of the human body
—being effected, either by the Spirit of God coming
upon a man’s heart, or by the Word of God enlighten-
ing his mind, or by both combined in the utmost
perfection, as they were in David’s case. David's
invisible state was that of the holy angels; and his
visible state was that of the fallen angels, openly re-
vealed in the very living presence of the Spirit of
God within him. But for the self-sacrificed Word of
God revived in His mind, such an incongruous union
in a living form would have been impossible. But
Christ was the mediator between the Spirit of God
and the vile body of David, preventing their colli-
sion, and the irrecoverable destruction of the latter.
In David there was practically disclosed the import
of the saying, “Save from going down to the pit, for
T have found out a ransom.” It is the body which
constitutes the difference between the nature of men
and that of angels ; so that the destruction or redemp-
tion of the human body is in fact the destruction or
redemption of that which is the peculiar and distinc-
tive characteristic of man.

It is in the body, moreover, that the special source
of human wickedness resides, just as it is in the
spirit that the special source of angelic wickedness
originated. And the great difference between spirit-
ual and human wickedness is, that from the former
there is not and cannot be any redemption other
than self-destruction, whereas from the latter there
is a redemption provided of a wholly different kind,
The great mystery of human redemption is how to
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 111

preserve or restore man’s individual identity to him,
which is inseparable from his body, in the act of its
destruction because of its wickedness. This cannot
be done for the spirit of angelic wickedness. And no-
thing of the Word of God intellectually or the Spirit
of God morally, remains to be visibly revealed in man
that has not been fully revealed invisibly in angels
previous to his creation. It is therefore the human
body, and that body only, which is the new thing in
God’s creation, and for the making and redeeming of
which, as a temple of God’s invisible glory in Him-
self and in the holy angels, the Father permitted the
rebellion of angels, the Son sacrificed His divine life
as the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit endured
the contradiction of sinners in human nature.
Every human body is naturally a vile body, and,
in addition, its existence is unequally yoked with
that of the intellect. Man’s nature is a living illus-
tration of the antagonism consequent upon the union
of two distinct created naturesin one. Even although
both flesh and mind are carnal, yet the flesh wars
against the mind and the mind against the flesh, and
in the struggle the inferior nature, when man is alone
and unaided, prevails, and brings the higher under
subjection, as it did in the cases of the antediluvians,
the Sodomites, and the Canaanites. But this inferior
nature, which is the only distinctive property of
man, either in comparison with the nature of angels
or in contrast with the nature of God, has been
made, for a little, lower than the angels, that it might
be crowned with glory and honour, and that man
112 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

might be set over the works of God’s hands. The
reconciliation of man’s nature in body and mind
within itself, preserving the distinct personal iden-
tity of each from the shadow of infringement by
the other, and the self-submission of both as two in
one to the spirit of the man, is the great design of
human redemption; and that design is further the
divine preparation of a living, visible, and intelligent
image in human nature of the one living and true
God, as a Spirit three in one and one in three, reveal-
ing the glory as well as the eternal power of the
Godhead.

In David the state of his mind and the state of
his body were the moral antipodes of each other. It
was a nature divided against itself, the antagonism
existing in which it was impossible, even for the
Spirit of God dwelling in David’s spirit, to reconcile
and bring together. And David was the appointed
figure of the very best that could be made of hu-
manity as a separate and distinct state of being. In
him the power of the Spirit of Holiness and the
Word of God were revealed spiritually and intel-
lectually unto the utmost; but in his body, that part
of his nature which is to constitute his everlasting
personal identity, the spirit of wickedness was mani-
fested also unto the uttermost. The self-sacrifice of
Christ as the Word permitted the revelation of the
spirit of wickedness both among angels and men,
and also permitted its self-destruction in both. But
in order to the accomplishment of human redemp-
tion, Christ as the Son of God had to exchange His
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 113

own divine nature for that of man, and give to the
human race His own divine nature as their exclu-
sive inheritance and everlasting possession. When
He undertook His mission of creation He was re-
vealed as the Word with God ; when He undertook
the mission of human redemption He was revealed
as the Word made flesh; but when He comes to
finish the work of redemption He will be revealed
as the Word of God, clothed with a vesture dipped
in blood. Mystery of all mysteries, the Son of God,
who was the Word with God, and who was God
throughout the eternal ages past, has become man,
and is to be the Word of God with man throughout
the eternal ages future; thus exchanging with man
His divinity for their humanity, that He might save
from destruction the individual personal identity of
the human race, and reveal in them visibly the
invisible glory of God, with Himself as the third
part of the Godhead, smitten and darkened in His
own self-existence in the divine essence.

The self-existence of an intelligent being is his
free spirit or moral nature; and that whether it be
the self-existence of the divine, angelic, or human
being. In the divine nature this self-existence is
shared in by three—the Father, the. Word, and the
Spirit; and the law of their union in one is holi-
ness. The glory of this law of God’s nature is the
glory that is being visibly revealed in human form
in the history of human redemption. All things
originated in the Father, but in self-subjection to the
self-existence of His Son. All things have been

H
114 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

made by the Son, but in self-subjection to the self-
existence of His Father. The human race is in-
cluded in this category of all things. Thus the
counsel of peace prevailed between God, Father and
Son; and the reign of the Spirit of Holiness was
established as the law of God in action among
beings or things external to Himself. To the opera-
tion of this divine law of holiness human nature is
not made an exception ; on the contrary, it has been
made the living sphere within which the grandest
and most enduring visible evidences of its glorious
existence have been, and are to be yet more abun-
dantly, furnished. In all other existences, including
the divine, it is the glory of the Father as the one
God that is revealed by the Spirit of Holiness ; but
in the human race it is the glory of the Son as the
one God that is in process of being revealed by the
Spirit of Holiness.

Man’s nature alone of all existences furnishes
visible evidence of the possibility of two distinct
substances and essences having their intelligent and
conscious sensations of being united inseparably in
one nature; and this is one portion of the image of
God in which man has been made. But in so far as
regards the operation of the law of the Spirit of God’s
Holiness within it, it is lifeless and dead, even as was
exhibited by David, who was a specimen of humanity
in its best estate. The indissoluble union established
by God in human nature between its visible and in-
visible properties, and the irreconcilable antagonism
which their extremely opposite qualities engendered
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST, 115

and perpetuated within itself and towards God, were
the sources of the power of the mystery of iniquity
in and over man. It was impossible for man in his
own nature, as created in Adam, to obey the law of
holiness, for such obedience is the very distinguishing
glory of God Himself; and this is the glory which He
will not, because He cannot, give to any human being
in his own nature as a separate and distinct state of
existence. All that God could do for any man, as a
man merely, and as a free spirit in an intelligent
nature consisting of body and mind, was done for
David, the king of Israel; and with what results the
Scripture history of David's life and conduct reveals.

Of all this the temple of God built by Solomon
was a public declaration and a visible sign. The
only visible expression of God’s true glory then pos-
sible in human nature was, like the visible things of
the first creation, material and inanimate. As man
could not obey the law of holiness in the life of his
body, he was subjected to the law of death, which is
its opposite and counteracting extreme. “ Howbeit,
the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with
hands. Heaven is My throne, and earth is My foot-
stool: what house will ye build Me? saith the Lord ;
or what is the place of My rest? Hath not My hand
made all these things?” The temple built by Solo-
mon was not the kind of house which God desired;
but it was a figure divinely appointed to give light
in human history, both retrospectively and prospec-
tively. It was the visible sign of a completed phase
of human history, in which God had declared that it
116 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

was impossible for man to obey the law of holiness
through the weakness of the flesh. And it was also
a material figure, intended to make known the fact
of the commencement in human history of the full
unfolding of the divine plan devised for the accom-
plishment of the adoption, to wit, the redemption of
the human body.

This redemption was to be both individual and
national; and the social properties of human exist-
ence were to be the link through which the individual
and the national extremes were to be drawn together
and made to meet in one harmonious dominion.
God’s throne of holiness was to be established in the
heaven of individual human spirits, and the earth of
national existence was to become His visible foot-
stool... The Word as the light of men was from
thenceforth to be completely revealed in the firma-
ment of the human heaven; and at the end of the
fourth day, or fourth thousand years, the Sun of Right-
eousness was to arise in human nature with healing
in His wings. God made two great lights,—the sun
of the divine glory as the Word made flesh, and the
moon of the divine glory—this being the Scripture of
truth, or the written testimony of Jesus, which was
the production of holy men of old, who spake as they
were moved by the Spirit of Holiness. All were
visibly revealed in the human heaven in their or-
der, until at length, in the fulness of the time, the
Word was made flesh. The sun, the moon, and the
stars were all set in the human firmament; but ere
human redemption could be effected, the sun had to
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 117

be darkened and the moon had to be turned into
blood. Thus the human heaven as God’s throne, and
the human earth as God’s footstool, were finished, and
all the host of them, when the Word was made flesh ;
but in order to the opening of heaven and the going
forth of the Word of God clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood, the sun had to be darkened and the
moon had to be turned into blood.
CHAPTER VI.

Tue kingdom of Israel during the reign of David's
son, Solomon, was a living illustration of the utmost
that could be done for the perfecting of national ex-
istence by and in itself. The greatest glory that
could be attained by man, as man, was manifested
in David as an individual, and in Israel as a nation
when Solomon was its king. When Solomon died
the kingdom was rent in twain, the antagonism of
David’s individual nature receiving two living em-
bodiments in the disjoined and separate kingdoms of
Israel. In the divine destruction of the antedilu-
vians by water and the Sodomites by fire, the firma-
ment of heaven was set up in human history. In
the birth of Isaac, and the overthrow of the nations
of Canaan by the nation of Israel, the waters were
gathered together, and the dry land or earth of
human history appeared. Thereafter, from Joshua
to David, God’s throne was set up in the national
mind of Israel, and the kingdom of Israel became
His footstool. After the death of Solomon His
footstool was divided between the kingdoms. of
ALPHA AND OMEGA. 119

Judah and Israel; but His throne remained with
Judah alone.

The tribes who became the kingdom of Israel re-
peated in human history the act of their forefathers
in Samuel’s day, in their revolt against King Reho-
boam. Without regard to what the will of God
might be, they demanded that the burden of govern-
mental authority should be lightened; and on this
being refused, they revolted, and made Jeroboam
their king. Thus the antagonism that prevailed in
David’s nature was manifested in the two hostile
kingdoms of Judah and Israel existing among the
people of one nation, and it the chosen human sphere
in which God’s great purpose was to be further re-
vealed in human history. David’s wickedness as a
man, and God’s holiness, were continuously unfolded
in the history of the kingdom of Israel from its be-
ginning to its end. And David’s good and evil as a
man, and God’s holiness, were in like manner alter-
nately disclosed in the history of the kingdom of
Judah, from the death of Solomon until its overthrow
by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The kingdom
of Israel departed wholly from God,—its first king,
Jeroboam, having made and set up two molten calves,
saying, “ These be thy Gods, O Israel.” The will of
the people, without reference to the will of God, set
up Jeroboam as king ; and the will of the new king,
without reference either to the will of God or the
will of the people, set up the molten calves, for the
very purpose of preventing his subjects from having
a reason to go up to Jerusalem to worship God in the
120 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

manner of His appointment. Thus was disclosed for
the first time in human history, the godless and rebel-
lious will of the people, and the godless and despotic
will of the sovereign, as the equivalent counterpoise of
each other in the government of a nation whose exist-
ence was of God, and in God, and yet without God.
Not one of Jeroboam’s successors in the kingdom
identified with any of its numerous dynasties ever
rose higher in the spirit of his government than him-
self. He was its fountainhead, and the waters which
issued forth from it were bitter from beginning to
end of the kingdom’s history. But there was one
during whose reign a new and a last form of wicked-
ness was originated, and it has been designated the
teaching of Jezebel. Contemporary with Ahdb, king
of Israel, there arose Elijah, the prince of the Hebrew
prophets that appeared from the time of David to the
time of Christ. In Ahab and Jezebel the spirit of
wickedness, in its governmental form, and in Elijah
the opposite spirit of and from God, also became in-
carnate. The knowledge of God was not destroyed
from among the people, although the doctrine of
Balaam was the doctrine which guided the king and
his government. Many signs and wonders were per-
formed by Elijah in the name and by the power of
Israel’s God. The natural heavens were closed, and
there was no rain in all the land for three years and
a half At the termination of this period Elijah
prayed to God, and the rain came in copious and
abundant showers. Again, the prophets of Baal were
assembled, and they and Elijah each prepared a sac-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 121

tifice to prove whether Jehovah or Baal was God.
God honoured His servant and confounded the pro-
phets of Baal in the presence of the people by fire
from heaven.

But neither the preaching nor the miracles of
Elijah produced any permanent beneficial effect upon
the mind and heart of King Ahab, and they only
stirred up to greater activity the hatred and enmity
of Jezebel. At length the climax was reached, and
the full limit of human iniquity was made manifest
in the persons and conduct of Ahab and Jezebel, as
the king and queen of Israel. There was a subject
of Ahab, named Naboth the Jezreelite, who had a
vineyard, possession of which was coveted by the
king. The king’s proposal to Naboth was to give
him another vineyard in exchange for it, or its value
in money. There is an appearance of justice and
fairness in this alternative offer. But, according to
the divine law, an Israelite was forbidden to part
with his inheritance ; and Naboth had respect to this
law. In this way the self-will of the king came into
collision with God’s holy law, practically embodied
in Naboth’s refusal to part with his vineyard even
to please the king. Here the matter might have
ended in Ahab’s deep mortification of spirit and the
temporary illness it occasioned to him.

But Jezebel came to visit him in his trouble and
vexation, and on learning the object on which he had
set his heart, she devised the way of obtaining it for
him, by planning the death of Naboth. The crime
she committed could not have been attempted except
122 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

among the people of a nation who knew God. Jezebel,
who was the greatest enemy in Israel of Elijah, God’s
prophet, commenced the effecting of her wicked
scheme by causing a fast to be proclaimed, pretend-
ing a reverence for God which was insincere. She
then without cause accused Naboth of blasphemy
and treason, and suborned false witnesses against him.
The princes and people of Naboth’s city adjudged him
guilty, and put him to death. After these things
Ahab went down to take possession of the coveted
vineyard; and while he was in it Elijah appeared
unto him, charged him with the wickedness he had
perpetrated, and pronounced the doom both of Jezebel
and himself. The covetous self-will of Ahab, and
the faithful observance of God’s law by Naboth, gave
rise to the circumstances in which the transgression
that desolateth nations was first brought forth on
this earth. But it required the wicked spirit of
Jezebel’s teaching, revealed in multiform action, to
produce the appalling result.

The wickedness of Cain was great; the doctrine of
Balaam was even more sinful; but the teaching of
Jezebel included both these, and evolved, in addition,
a new, and the most grave of the three characteristics
of the mystery of iniquity. God said in effect to
Ahab, in the terms of Naboth’s reply, precisely what
He said to Balaam when the messengers of Balak
came unto him with the rewards of divination, de-
siring him to come and curse Israel: “God forbid,”
said Naboth, “that I should give thee the inheritance
of my fathers.” The divine inheritance of the true
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 123

seed of Israel is a free spirit, and of this Naboth’s
patrimony was a type. Their spirit was to be God’s
throne, and no other sovereign was to be permitted
to exercise dominion over it except His Holy Spirit.
Ahab’s state of envy was a visible incarnation of a
self-willed and despotic spirit, regardless alike of the
Spirit of God and the spirit of his neighbour, man.
It was also the self-willed spirit of a human ruler
exercising authority over other men in Ahab’s case.
He listened to the voice of Jezebel when she re-
minded him that he was the king, and permitted her
to use the royal prerogative in furtherance of her
design to destroy Naboth, in order to gratify his
wicked desire.

The bane and the antidote were in this as in pre-
vious cases revealed siunultaneously in human history.
In the conduct of Ahab and Jezebel, man’s way of
human government was manifested. The spirit of
despotic and self-willed dominion, which had its full
fruits ripened in them, has had a long reign over the
human race, and its sway is not even yet extinguished.
But the more excellent way of human government
then also began to be made known, in the spirit and
teaching of Elijah. From thenceforward the manner
of human deliverance from this new and last form of
iniquity was gradually revealed by the spirit of pro-
phecy in the Scripture of truth, preparatory to the
coming of the true King of Israel, who was to be the
Governor among the nations, all of whom were, in
the fulness of the time, to experience the blessedness
of His divine and beneficent government of mankind.
124 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

The form of iniquity which is the offspring of Jezebel’s
teaching is a form not more degrading and injurious
to man than it is dishonouring to God. It is a form
of iniquity, however, which can only grow up in con-
nection with human authority, the exercise of which
is founded professedly in the knowledge of, and re-
spect for, the true God.

The kingdom of Israel had a disastrous existence,
and was finally and irrevocably overturned by Shal-
manezer the king of Assyria. The experiences of the
kingdom of Judah were checkered—a commingling
of good and evil; in the end, however, evil became
predominant. It also was overthrown by Nebuchad-
nezzar, king of Babylon. All was done for the Israel-
ites as a nation merely human that could possibly be
done for its improvement and permanent elevation,
from the time of Joseph’s death until the time of Solo-
mon’s death. Thereafter they were put upon their
trial. Saul failed as an individual because he would
not practise self-submission to the Spirit of God. The
kingdom of Israel failed nationally because both rulers
and ruled, kings and people, refused to practise either
self-submission to God, or self-subjection to one
another. David failed as an individual because he
was powerless to restrain and control his bodily pro-
pensities and passions. The kingdom of Judah came
to an end because the seed of carnal evil sown
in the visible life of the nation, brought forth fruits
that were humanly irresistible in their deadly in-
fluence upon the nation’s destiny. The overthrow
in succession of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah,
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 125

proclaimed the great truth that the nation most
favoured by divine training, enlightenment, and
direction, could not of itself, when placed upon its
trial, bring: forth the fruits of God’s dominion in its
history.

The independent existence of the remnant of the
nation of Israel, represented by the kingdom of
Judah, was merged in the one universal dominion of
Babylon. When the kingdom of Babylon was over-
turned by the Medes and Persians, the Jews were
liberated from captivity, and permitted to return to
their own land and rebuild the temple at Jerusalem,
which had been cast down by Nebuchadnezzar. The
history of Israel and Judah, from the time of Elijah
and Ahab until the vision and prophecy were closed,
after the return of the remnant of Israel from cap-
tivity, has supplied one living material out of which -
that portion of Scripture written by the prophets has
been produced. The circumstances and experiences
of the chosen nation, while the books of the prophets
were coming into existence, were extremely diversi-
fied. One portion of prophecy was written when the
two antagonistic kingdoms of Judah and Israel were
both in existence within the limits of the chosen
nation. Another portion was written when the
kingdom of Judah alone remained, and while the
temple was standing at Jerusalem. A third portion
was written during the Babylonian captivity, after
the kingdom had been overturned and the temple
destroyed. And a fourth portion was written at the
time of, and subsequent to, the return of the people
126 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

from captivity, and the rebuilding of the temple at
Jerusalem,

Hebrew history, previous to the erection of Solo-
mon’s temple, was made subservient by the Word
to the giving of a living and visible intelligent
illustration of the invisible things of God from the
foundation of the world; and Hebrew history sub-
sequent thereto was made subservient, by the Spirit
of God, to the giving of a light shining in a dark
place, concerning the then future of the divine pur-
pose towards the human race in general, and the
true seed of Israel in particular. The written vision
and prophecy of Scripture contained in the sixteen
books of the prophets are one in their divine origin,
manifold in their human agency, and fourfold in
their distinguishing characteristics. The circum-
stances of each phase of Hebrew history, in which
each portion of the prophetical books was written,
are impressed upon its contents; and they supply
most of the imagery employed in them for the illus-
tration of the invisible things of God then future.

Although written by Hebrew prophets, and found-
ed upon the circumstances of Hebrew history, the
revelations were not all made to Israelites exclusively.
The spoiler of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, had dream
after dream; and his life and personal experiences
were largely mixed up with the giving of the vision
and prophecy. The Persian kings Cyrus and Darius
were also identified with the release of the people
from captivity. Cyrus decreed the restoration of
the temple, and gave material assistance towards its
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 127

reconstruction ; and Darius confirmed the decree of
Cyrus, and the temple was dedicated to the service
of God in his day. The spirit of prophecy, which
is the testimony of Jesus, was therefore not revealed
among the Hebrews exclusively after the fall of the
kingdom of Judah. And as that kingdom was not
restored, the dominions whose history was associated
with the preparation of the moon of the human
firmament were the successive dominions of Babylon
and Persia. Unto the Hebrews the custody of the
Scripture of truth was committed after its comple-
tion ; so that, as a nation without a kingdom, they
had a written testimony in Scripture prophecy, and
a visible sign in the restored temple, of the glorious
destiny of all nations, and of the prolonged human
suffering by which it had of necessity to be pre-
ceded.

But the knowledge of God revealed in Scripture
was not to be the only source of intellectual en-
lightenment and mental culture to the nations and
families of mankind. All that related to God and
His purpose had to be revealed by express divine
manifestation. But there were other sources of in-
tellectual enlightenment and mental elevation ac-
cessible to men, which were intended to be resorted
to, and the explorations of which were to supply
important levers for the lifting up of the human
race, and the placing of its destinies upon a higher
pedestal. The particular training of the Hebrews
for the accomplishment of the special object of their
existence and history as a nation, was not calculated
128 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

to encourage that freedom and fearlessness in thought
which alone can give breadth and comprehensiveness
of grasp to the human intellect. Except the Hebrew
prophets and some remarkable men who appeared
at various crises of their history, they produced few
specimens of intellectual greatness. The things to
be apprehended by the human mind they possess-
ed in the Scripture of truth; but the intellectual
power that would enable them to apprehend them
in all their immensity and variety, they were de-
ficient in.

In their experience there was historically wrought
out unto perfection a living faith in the one God,
who is a Spirit; but anything practical beyond that
they did not acquire. On the contrary, the strength
of the hold which this fundamental truth took of the
national mind, associated with the prejudices that
originated in the divine favour shown them as a
nation, prevented the Jews from realising the fulfil-
ment of the Scripture prophecies intrusted to their
keeping, Christ’s claims as the Son of God being in-
consistent with their idea of the one God, and His
catholic spirit being an offence to their prejudices.
Had they been the only nation in any way prepared
for the coming of the great event of past human
history, the glory that is yet to be revealed would,
in this life at least, have been much diminished or
long delayed.

But the powers of the human intellect were vigor-
ously at work both among Greeks and Romans, and
on different subjects connected with the amelioration
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 129

of human evil, and the progress of human civilisation.
Greek learning and Roman law have been twin bene-
factors of the human race—only second in value to
Hebrew Scripture itself. The elements of intellec-
tual culture and expansion were abundantly supplied
by the Greeks; and the foundation of just and equal
human laws was securely laid in Roman history.
The great thinkers of Greece, in their search after the
unseen and infinite, approached as near their confines
as it was possible for unaided human intellect to do.
In the case of the Hebrews, the Unseen and Infinite
descended and revealed Himself to the finite; but in
the case of the Greeks, the finite had to ascend in
quest of the unseen and infinite.

The Hebrews knew God, but the Greeks did not
know Him. The Greeks subjected themselves to
severe intellectual discipline, in order to sustain the
strain to which they put their mental faculties
in their elaborate philosophical reasonings. The
Word Himself, as the light of men, bridged over the
intellectual chasm which separated between the
knowledge of God and the Hebrew mind. The mode
of operation was unavoidably contractive, and not ex-
pansive, in its effects upon the mere intellectual power
of the Israelites. In the case of the Greeks, He drew
out their finite mental capacity in all directions, en-
larging the comprehensiveness of its grasp unto the
utmost; so that, while to the Hebrews He gave the
divine knowledge, He gave to the Greeks those vast
intellectual powers, and that extensive range of human
learning, which would be found as part and counter-

I
1380 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

part of each other when the fulness of the time for
their union was come. Hebrew divine knowledge
and Greek human learning were both alike committed
to writing, and preserved as the legacy to future
generations of the good minds of the one nation, and
the great minds of the other.

But the practical application of the principles of
human justice and individual liberty was a feature
of national existence as essential to the order and
happiness of mankind on this earth, as the Hebrew
Scripture knowledge and Greek learning. For cen-
turies these principles were receiving life in the
history of Rome. God gave the Israelites a code of
laws; but He made the Romans work out for them-
selves, by long and difficult experiences, the prin-
ciples that should regulate the doing of justice be-
tween man and man, and preserve from encroach-
ment the sanctuary of individual freedom. The dif-
ference between the Hebrews and the Romans in
this respect was very great. Hebrew common law
was written law ; Roman common law was the law
of the nation’s continuous life. Law was to the
Romans what the knowledge of God was to the
Hebrews; it was the very essence and substance of
their national existence. It required no special
divine revelation to beget and nourish its national
growth ; but the Word, as the light of men, being the
originator of its existence, superintended its gradual
development, equally with the religious culture of the
Hebrews and the intellectual expansion of the Greeks.

The training of an individual man, such as Moses,
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 131

or Joshua, or Samuel, or David, for the accomplish-
ment of a national purpose, is comparatively simple
and easily effected. It is very different, however,
with a nation of individuals. The maturing of col-
lective human opinion in a good and right direction
is a slow process. The Hebrews, the Greeks, and
the Romans, each effected for the regeneration of
humanity as much as a single nation was capable of
prior to the first advent of the Son of God. No one
nation could have done all that required to be done,
even although the mode of procedure adopted had
been a combination in it of that which was done in
each of the three. The basis of the moral and reli-
gious enlightenment of nations Godward was laid
in Hebrew history ; their mental culture or intellec-
tual development was richly provided for in the
great attainments of the Greeks; and the seed of
their social and political progress unto freedom and
justice of the most perfect human kind was abun-
dantly sown in the history of pre-Christian Rome.
All three were indispensable, each in its own order ;
and the absence of the national historical fruits
of any one of them would have been as injuriously
obstructive of the intended object as the absence
of all.

The knowledge of God revealed in Scripture has a
height and a depth that are immeasurable. It is to
be received into the world of human intellect, the
length and breadth of which in its individual units
are to be innumerable. Thus the infinite knowledge
of God and the innumerable finite minds of men
132 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

will be for ever the equivalents of one another from
the time that the world of human intellect is filled
with all the fulness of God’s revealed knowledge.
The volume of Scripture was almost wholly a sealed
book to the Hebrews, although its contents were
written in and through their national history. The
contents of Scripture were veiled from the He-
brew national mind; and even the men employed
to write them were not more enlightened as to their
actual meaning than the mass of the nation. The
great practical lesson which the Hebrews were
taught, was reverence for, and obedience to, the one
God, who is a Spirit; and when tried upon this very
point they failed. Both kingdoms of the nation
were proved, and in succession each fell because of
its failure either to learn or practise this lesson. The
national existence was preserved, but it ceased to
be even a kingdom of this world. The volume of
Scripture and the temple rebuilt at Jerusalem were
all that remained with the nation of the past glory
of its history.

The Greeks, after a long preliminary intellectual
training, succeeded to universal empire on the fall
of the Persian kingdom. It might have been ex-
pected that the effects of highly-cultivated intellect
would have been chastity of thought, purity of
manners, and the subordination of the physical to
the intellectual in man. But the experience of the
Greeks was of a very opposite kind. They had no
knowledge of the true God, and therefore the fruits
of their great intellectual power were godless. The
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 133

mythical deities which they substituted were many
of them, as represented by themselves, monsters of
impurity and licentiousness. Self-indulgence, not
self-denial, was the rule of life. Revenge, not love,
was a motive of action. If the knowledge of God
possessed by the Hebrews did not preserve them
from the sin of idolatry, neither did the great in-
tellectual capacity of the Greeks enable them to
rein up their lascivious imagination, or purify their
visible life. They were also tried with the possession
of supreme power as a dominion of this world; and
the results were such as to prove their unfitness in
their then state to be intrusted with the permanent
control of the world’s destiny, either political or
intellectual.

The history of the Roman Republic in its best
days supplies a faithful illustration of the utmost
that could be made of human nature by itself in the
form of a commonwealth. Public virtue, individual
patriotism, and personal liberty, were all products
which had their root in the institutions of Republican
Rome. But the law of liberty was a law based on
selfishness, and was limited in its beneficial opera-
tion to the citizens themselves. All beyond was
bondage and oppression. Their own freedom was
associated with the most degrading servitude of
aliens and conquered tribes and nations. The re-
public was a tree of good and evil, all the good
fruits of which the Romans reserved for themselves,
and all the evil of which was the portion of those
who had the misfortune to be their alien subjects or
134 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

slaves. The power of Rome was essentially an
aggressive power; so that while the good of its ex-
istence was not capable of great or rapid extension,
being limited to Roman citizens, its evil was con-
stantly increasing the domain of its power.

Had the knowledge of God been combined with
the love of God in the Hebrew national mind, had
the great intellectual capacity of the Greeks been
filled with the word of God, had the dominion of
the Roman Republic been influenced by the Spirit of
God in its dealings with the outside tribes and na-
tions, and had the three thus associated been united
in one kingdom, there would have been witnessed
historical results of a very different and unending
description. But the Hebrew nation by itself, the
Greek intellect by itself, and the Roman Republic
by itself, brought forth no good fruits that were of
an abiding nature in themselves. The Hebrews and
the Greeks both forfeited their dominions in this
world, and became the subject nations of Republican
Rome. And Republican Rome was itself cast down
by one of its own citizens, and ultimately transformed
into the iron despotism of Imperial Rome. That of
the history of each nation which could not be de-
stroyed was committed to writing, in the form of
Hebrew Scripture, Greek Literature, and Roman
Law; and they became the full moon, in three parts,
of the human firmament, reflecting visibly, but not
participating invisibly in, the glory of the Sun of
Righteousness, for whose appearing also in the hu-
man firmament full preparation was now made.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 135

The fulness of the time was come, and the angel
Gabriel made known to the Virgin Mary that she
was to give birth to the Son of God in human form.
At the close of the fourth day, or the fourth thousand
years, of human history, “the Word was made flesh,”
and a man was born in whose nature there dwelt all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He combined in
one person the seed of the woman, of which Seth
was the first-born human progenitor; the seed of
Abraham, of which Isaac was the first-born human
progenitor ; and the seed of David, of which Solo-
mon was the first-born human progenitor. He was
the Son of Man in the physical nature of Eve, the
intellectual nature of Abraham, and the spiritual
nature of David; for He was sown in each of the
three, as its root, and finally became their united
offspring as the Son of Man. But he was also the
Word, who “was with God” the Father; who “was
God” the Son; and whose life was the life of God
the Holy Spirit, who is “the light of men.” As the
representative of the triune God, in the form of “the
Word,” He was made flesh.

The Babe of Bethlehem was not the inheritor of
any of the three human seeds by itself—of Eve, of
Abraham, or of David—but He inherited all three.
He was not the impersonation of any one of the three
participants in the power and glory of the nature of
the Godhead by Himself, but in Him there dwelt all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He was not man
by himself or God by Himself, but He united in one
new nature that both of God and man. And the self-
136 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

existence or personal identity of this new Being was
from thenceforth and for ever to be “the Man Christ
Jesus.” Christ then entered on the last and closing
portion of the mission that devolved upon Him,
when He came forth from God at the foundation of
the world. This mission had two distinct aspects
given to it, the one divine and the other human.
The divine aspect commenced to unfold itself at the
foundation of the world, and during its first phase,
from the beginning to the end of the first creation,
Christ was revealed as the Word who was with God.
The second phase of the divine aspect commenced in
His self-sacrifice as the Son of God, when He was
laid as the corner-stone of this earth; and it termin-
ated in the creation of the human race in Adam, and
during its continuance He was revealed as the Word
who was God. The third phase of the divine aspect
of Christ’s mission originated in the fall of man;
aud from thence He was revealed as the life who is
the light of men, shining externally to their own
nature ; and this came to an end when He was made
flesh, and was born of Mary.

The first thirty years of Christ’s life on earth were
passed in comparative seclusion, for it was only
when He began to be about thirty years of age that
He entered upon the second or human aspect of
His holy mission. He was introduced to it by the
voice from heaven, declaring Him to be the Son of
God, when He was baptised in the river Jordan; and
at its very threshold He was: assailed by the great
adversary, for which purpose He was led up of the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 137

Spirit into the wilderness. The points on which
He was tempted were three in number. The first
was in regard to His trust in God in circumstances
of privation, and He refused to supply His wants by
supernatural means. The second related to His duty
as a man, not to place Himself wilfully in peril in
order to prove the faithfulness of God. And the third
was connected with God’s exclusive claim to the
homage of His natnre. In all, the tempter was suc-
cessfully resisted. But they prefigured precisely the
threefold character of the seductive influences he
was permitted to sow successfully in the subsequent
history of Christianity.

The receiving of God's attestation, when the Spirit
of God like a dove was seen descending upon Him
from heaven, and the resisting of the devil when
led up into the wilderness to be tempted of him,
were the two-leaved door of active entrance upon the
second or human aspect of His mission. His whole
public life was a continuous manifestation of Him-
self in human nature, as the Word who was with
God. He reproduced in human history a living
visible illustration of that perfect submission and
obedience to the will of His Father, which ruled all
His procedure in the history of the first creation,
from its beginning to its end. That which neither
Adam nor any other man could do, in his own
nature, because it was weak through the flesh, Christ
accomplished as aman; for His whole life was one
prolonged act of obedience to the will of His Father ;
in fact, it was the Word of God made flesh, And He
138 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

yielded this undeviating obedience in a nature, the
substances of which were, in their separate states of
existence, opposed and antagonistic to each other.
By His self-submissiveness to God, and His resist-
ance of evil within Himself, at the beginning of His
public life, He composed the jarring elements of His
nature, and enjoyed that divine rest internally which
enabled Him to strive meekly and humbly with the
evil in the world around Him, and to endure pati-
ently the contradiction of sinners against Himself.
His public life was apparently of short duration,
but it was long to Him. If a thousand years of
human history are as one day with God, viewed from
His own essence, every day of Christ’s life, as God
made man, would be as a year of human history with
Him. In the three years and a half of His public
life He epitomised predictively what would be the
characteristics of one long portion of subsequent
Christian history. As the hour drew nigh which
was to unveil the second phase in the second or
human aspect of His holy mission, “ He lifted up His
eyes to heaven, and said, Father, I have glorified Thee
on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou
gavest me to do.” When He uttered these words the
second creation was then completed in the nature
and the perfect obedience of the man Christ Jesus.
The work He undertook to perform as the Word
who was with God in the first and second creations,
He had finished before His agony in the garden of
Gethsemane commenced. In His nature as the second
man, and in the obedience of His human life to God,
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 139

He had glorified His Father on the earth, and finished
the work that was given Him to do as the Word
who was with God. At the foundation of the world
He was revealed as “the beginning of creation ;”
and when He uttered these words, He was mani-
fested as “the end of creation.”

But the first and second creations were only pre-
liminary to, and brought into existence for, the very
purpose of revealing Christ as God, or the glory of
the Son in the Father, even as the glory of the Father
had then been declared by the Son in the first and
second creations, of the glory of which last, He was
himself at the time the Alpha and the Omega in His
own person. That which immediately followed the
utterance of the words, “ Father, I have finished the
work which Thou gavest me to do,” was no part of
that work. It was as the Word who was God that
He resolved to suffer and to die; and His sufferings
and death, both in their original conception and
actual endurance, were the fruit of His own spon-
taneous volition as the Son of God, concurred in by
His Father, who gave Him up that He might carry
His purpose into effect. The motives which con-
strained Christ were love for, and faith in, His Father,
combined with His delight in the sons of men.
The motives which constrained the Father were love
for men, and a desire to glorify His Son in and
through the human race. In this great transaction,
the duality of free-will, yet unity of spirit in God—
Father and Son—was visibly declared; and they
could not have been so made known in any other
140 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

manner. The fact of Christ’s death establishes beyond
doubt the fact of His free-will ; for He was God, and
except of His own accord His life could not have
been taken from Him; for He had power to lay it
down, and power to take it up again.

That which originated in the Father’s will of
Christ’s mission was finished before the agony of His
sufferings and death commenced. That which ori-
ginated in Christ’s own will as the Son of God, com-
menced and terminated in His sufferings and death.
The only exercise of His divine freedom as God,
which Christ permitted Himself, was the endurance
of humiliation and suffering, even unto the death of
the cross. The instant, as it were, that He finished
the work which His Father gave Him to do, He
ceased to live altogether, and that of His own free
choice. How marvellous the difference between the
Spirit of Christ and the spirit of disobedience! How
vast the moral distance between the free-will of
Christ in action, and the free-will of fallen angels
and wicked men in action! This was the manner
in which Christ fulfilled His mission in the second
phase of its human aspect as the Word who was
God. And great and marvellous as were the works
which God created by Him, the death which He
died in human nature excelled them all in glory;
for it was a visible manifestation of the personal glory
of the Godhead, subjectively revealed in Him, as it
had been previously declared objectively in the first
creation, If all that had been created from the foun-
dation of the world, in angels, in men, and in the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST, 141

material universe, had been annihilated on the day
Christ died, it would have been a sacrifice of infinite
insignificance contrasted with the death of Christ;
for He was not only the fulness of all beings and
things that were created, but He was God Himself.
And therefore the atonement which He made through
the Spirit of Holiness unto God in that death for the
sin of angels and men, the origination of which was
only possible through His voluntary self-submission
in the work of creation, was more glorifying to God
than if sin had never been permitted to deface and
destroy for a time the beauty and order of any part
of God’s creation, either intelligent or material.
Previously to this great atoning death it was im-
possible for God to reveal Himself in human nature,
except as One; consequently, when His Spirit, as the
Spirit of the One God, came upon David, He had to
leave Saul. This gives a remarkable insight into the
only relationship which could subsist between God
and men prior to the death of Christ. Man being an
intelligent visible existence, each individual of the
race was as God Himself; and if God revealed Him-
self through His Spirit as the One God in any man,
as He did in Saul first and in David afterward, the law
of His holy nature precluded Him from so revealing
Himself simultaneously in the nature of any other
man. Had Saul submitted to the Spirit of God,
David would not have known Him; and because
David received Him, upon no other man from Adam
to Christ could the Spirit of the One God come with
acceptance. Christ being God Himself as well as
142 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

1

man, and being also an independent, self-existent,
participant in the essence of God, the Spirit of God,
when He came upon Him, came as the Spirit of the
Son, the second in the Trinity, and not as the Spirit
of the One God in the Father upon David.

This was the sense in which Christ was literally
and truly both God’s Son and David’s Son in His
complex nature, both in the divine and the human ;
because He was the second of the human race upon
whom the Spirit of God came, as it had upon David.
The death of Christ as God in human nature not only
atoned for sin in a manner that was glorifying to
God in the extreme, but it for ever broke down the
partition wall which separated the nature of God
from the nature of man. By dying in human nature
the Son of God gave up His divine life, not only for,
but to men; and in this way opened up a way of
access for the Spirit of God to the nature of every
man. Christ was Himself the fulness of all humanity,
and also the fulness of God. In Him—that is, in the
man Christ Jesus, the One Mediator—there was the
fulness of the life of every human being created by
Himself in Adam; and there was also the fulness of
the One God, in whom they all lived. By becoming
man, Christ did what could not have been done in
any other way—He united the fulness of God and
the fulness of the human race in one living Being.

His death, therefore, was the death in Him of the
One God, and the fulness of all men, in the Son ; and
the union which He effected in Himself between the
One God and all men was as perfect and complete
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 143

as the union of the body and mind in one man as a
living soul. A future human life, without a body on
the one hand, or without a mind on the other, would
not be a human life at all. So a revived existence
of the man Christ Jesus after He died on the cross,
without the nature of the Son of God on the one
hand, and the natures of all whom He created in
Adam on the other hand, would not be Christ. The
Son of God is to be raised to life again, but His
resurrection in the nature in which He died is only
possible in and through the resurrection of the indi-
vidual natures of all the men He created in Adam,
each section of them in its own order. This is the
explanation of what Christ said, “It is expedient for
you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Com-
forter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will
send Him unto you.” Christ might have retained
His life and left this earth, as Enoch and Elijah did,
on the night He could say, “Father, I have finished
the work which Thou gavest me to do,” and the holy
law of God’s nature would have been magnified by
the perfect obedience of His human life.

But Christ was God, and to be the solitary human
participant in the glory of the Godhead through-
out the future was opposed to the Spirit of His holy
existence. Such a prospect would have harmonised
with the selfishness of the spirit of disobedience in
angels and men, whose sin was the refusal of Christ’s
meek and lowly spirit. But Christ’s Spirit of Holiness
moved Him to sacrifice Himself, so that a world of
human beings as innumerable as His glory is incom-
144 ALPHA AND OMEGA.

prehensible, might sit with Him on His heavenly
throne, and share equally with Him the divine glory
of the nature which He had with His Father before
the world was. Christ thus gave up His life as He
enjoyed it with God before the foundation of the
world, only to resume it as part of the redeemed
nature of the human race. And so the third part of
God was smitten and darkened in His own inde-
pendent self-existence as the Son of God. He first
exchanged the form of His independent self-existence
from that of God for that of man. And after so ex-
changing it, He demonstrated by His death that His
object was to give it away altogether, in order that
by His resurrection in men they might have eternal
life and divine light. In effect, Christ is for ever to
live the human life of all the redeemed of mankind,
and they are in like manner to live for ever the
divine life of the Son of God in all its power and
glory. And the incarnation, life, and death of Christ
are the way, the truth, and the life, or threefold
illustration of the manner of the historical accom-
plishment of this great redemption from evil, and
glorious exaltation of men to an unending future
participation in the holiness of God’s own nature, as
revealed throughout the past in His only-begotten
and well-beloved Son.
CHAPTER VII.

It was at the end of the fourth thousand years of
human history that the Sun of Righteousness arose
in the firmament of human existence. During this
day, or thousand years, of human history, “God made
two great lights, and the stars also.” The moon of
Hebrew Prophecy, Greek Literature, and Roman Law,
and the Sun of Christ’s living humanity, the former
reflecting prospectively the coming glory of the latter,
were fully manifested. Christ and Cesar became,
respectively, the individual incarnations of the Spirit
of God and freedom, and the spirit of disobedience and
bondage. It was intimated that before the coming
of the great and terrible day of the Lord, when ini-
quity is to cease and righteousness: prevail on this
earth, “the sun shall be turned into darkness, and
the moon into blood.” The Sun was turned into
darkness when Christ died on the cross; and the
moon will be turned into blood when Hebrew Pro-
' phecy, Greek Literature, and Roman Law, conjoined
with the divine life of God’s Son, become the spirit
and life of human existence, individual, social, and
K
146 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

national. The sun and the moon were the appointed
greater and less lights of the then future; and both
were extinguished in their original forms, in order to
the ultimate resurrection of their power and glory in
and through men, as nations and individuals.

These lights in the firmament of human existence
were “to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and years.” The dedication of Solomon’s temple
marked the termination of the third, and the com-
mencement of the fourth, day of human history ; and
the temple itself was the first of the appointed signs.
Its erection declared the completion of the human
earth, or kingdom of the nation of Israel; and it
was also in itself the first permanent visible sign that
was set in the human firmament. The signs given
thereafter were, in the order of appearing, the divid-
ing of the kingdom between Judah and Israel; the
extinction of the kingdom of Israel; the fall of the
kingdom of Judah, accompanied by the people’s cap-
tivity and the casting-down of the temple at Jeru-
salem ; the liberation of the people consequent upon
the overthrow of Babylon, and the rebuilding of the
temple as decreed by the king of Persia; the fall
of Persia and the rise of Greece; the fall of Greece
and the rise of Rome; and the fall of Republican,
and the rise of Imperial, Rome. These were all signs
set by divine appointment in the human firmament,
after the earth or kingdom of Israel had been fully
established in all its glory, with Solomon as its king.

The first of the appointed seasons was the season
which ended in Ahab and Jezebel, the light of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 147

which was Elijah. The next was that in which
the wickedness of Israel and Judah was matured ;
and it closed with the independent history of either
Israel or Judah as a kingdom ; its lights were Isaiah
and other prophetic stars. The third season was the
Babylonian captivity, the lights of which were Jere-
miah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The fourth season was
the period of restoration, and it closed with the com-
pletion of the vision and prophecy, the evening star
of which was Malachi. The days were the day ap-
pointed for Babylon’s ascendancy, succeeded as it was
by the days of Persia, Greece, and Rome. The years
were exactly one thousand from the dedication of Solo-
mon’s temple to the incarnation of the Son of God;
thus attesting the fact, that one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as
one day. This is the first, moreover, of the days of
human history which is precise in its time measure-
ment of one thousand years, further corroborating the
fact, that during its progress those lights were set in
the human firmament, which were to “be for signs,
and for seasons, and for days, and years.”

The temple built by Solomon at Jerusalem was
dedicated to God’s service three thousand years
after the commencement of human history, and 487
years subsequent to the erection by Moses of the
national tabernacle for God’s service after the exodus
from Egypt. The Word of God was made flesh four
thousand years after the commencement of human
history ; and in the thirty-fourth year of His earthly
life, which is the thirtieth of the Christian era, He
148 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

was cut off, but not for Himself. The Sun was then
darkened by a combination of the power of Czesar with
that of the Jewish Sanhedrim. Christ’s death was
also the sign of the darkening and deadening of the
light and power of the moon; for the inscription
placed over the Redeemer as He hung upon the cross
was written in letters of Greek, and Latin, and
Hebrew. In His grave, with His human body, there
were laid all the past good fruits of human existence,
whether those exhibited in His own spotless life of
obedience and benevolence, or those brought forth
in the national history of Hebrews, Greeks, and Ro-
mans. All were buried with Him in His death, but
only to be raised up again with power and glory in
Him, through the resurrection of His life as the Son
of God in individuals and nations of men.

In the work of the fourth day, or fourth thousand
years, of human history, the existence of a time law
regulating the signs and the seasons, as well as the
days and years, was disclosed, both in the vision and
prophecy, and in connection with its own orderly
evolution. The sign of the end of the first season,
and the full ripening of its fruits, was the iniquity
of Ahab and Jezebel in the matter of Naboth’s
vineyard. This transaction was of great significance,
for it prefigured in its most minute details the cir-
cumstances of the great decease which was after-
ward accomplished at Jerusalem. Like Naboth,
Christ held fast by His title to His Father’s inherit-
ance as the Son of God and King of the Jews. Like
Jezebel, the rulers of the Jewish Church charged
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 149

Him with blasphemy against God and treason against
Cesar. Like the people of Naboth’s city, the people
of Jerusalem gave their voices against Him, saying,
“ Away with Him! crucify Him.” As in Naboth’s
case the forms of a judicial trial were observed, and
false witnesses were suborned, so was it in the case
of Christ. And finally, as it was the self-willed envy
of Ahab, combined with his facile conduct as king,
that gave the occasion for Jezebel’s wicked teaching
being carried into effect ; so it was the selfish indif-
ference of the Roman governor of Judea, and his
culpable abnegation of his viceregal functions, that
permitted the accomplishment of the judicial murder
of God’s Son in human nature.

The divine will of God’s holy purpose, and the
spirit of disobedience in man, were for the first
time voluntarily associated and conjoined consentane-
ously in the accomplishment of Christ’s decease at
Jerusalem. The holy God and a generation of hu-
man vipers were for once united in their volitions
in human history; and the object effected by this
union in its joint action was the redemption of the
human race through the expiatory death of the Son
of God in the form and nature of man. God by this
voluntary co-operation of His Holy Spirit with the
spirit of wickedness actually triumphed over it in
the death of Christ ; and the spirit of wickedness,
by its unconscious yet voluntary co-operation with
the Spirit of Holiness, in planning and effecting the
death of Christ, actually destroyed its own existence.
The wisdom and the love of God, and the freedom
150 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

and destructiveness of the spirit of wickedness, were
both visibly demonstrated in the one act of Christ's
death, in a manner and with a fulness and clearness
wholly incontestable; and in no other way was it
possible to have produced such a glorious result.

The death of Christ is not only the source, but its
circumstances constitute the visible sign of the way
of the great redemption in its successful application
to living men. As the sinners of Christ’s generation
co-operated voluntarily with God’s Spirit in crucify-
ing and killing the Lord of Glory—the divine life of
redeemed men ; so the sinners of succeeding genera-
tions could only become partakers of the great salva-
tion in this life, by co-operating voluntarily with God’s
Spirit in the crucifixion and gradual death of their
carnal nature, through the resurrection of the divine
life of Christ, as the Son of God, in their mortal body.
The spirit of wickedness, with the voluntary co-oper-
ation of God’s Spirit, crucified Christ and took away
His life, in order that men in their spirits might volun-
tarily co-operate with God’s Holy Spirit in raising up
that divine life within themselves, by a similar pro-
cess of bodily crucifixion, even unto the death, of its
carnal enmity against God.

The death of Christ virtually finished the trans-
gression, made an end of sins, made reconciliation for
iniquity, brought in everlasting righteousness, con-
firmed the vision and prophecy, and anointed the
Most Holy. It was prefigured by the death of Naboth
and the wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel; and it was
also predicted, both in its preceding sufferings and
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 151

subsequent glory, in the vision and prophecy. Christ’s
death was the fulfilment both of the spirit of pro-
phecy and the teaching of Jezebel. While it thus
reflected light retrospectively on the past of human
history during its fourth day, or fourth thousand
years, it also, in conjunction with the spirit of pro-
phecy and the teaching of Jezebel, cast a great light
upon the then future of man’s destiny even on this
earth. The decease at Jerusalem was the great
reservoir of life in death, into which all the waters
of every kind of existence from the foundation of
the world were emptied ; in and through which they
were to be purified; and out of which, thereafter,
they were to flow as the great and pure river of
water of life, proceeding from the throne of God
and of the Lamb.

At this epoch, and in the death of Christ, the
importance of a time law as a regulating influence in
the evolution of God’s design in human history was
first demonstrated and confirmed. In the vision and
prophecy, as given to Daniel, there were two set
times intimated in connection with the decease at
Jerusalem ; and they were consecutive and continu-
ous, the second in succession to the first. Seventy
weeks, or 490 years, were determined upon the people
of Israel and the holy city. And also after three-
score and two weeks, or 434 years, Messiah shall be
cut off, but not for Himself. The first of these
determined times relates to the period allotted to the
preparation of the vision and prophecy, in which are
explained, as well as predicted, the time and the
152 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

manner of human deliverance from sin, and specially
from the form of iniquity which Ahab and Jezebel
embodied ; even by means of the very transgression
that maketh desolate, which they committed. From
the death of Naboth until the closing of the vision
and prophecy there were to elapse 490 years, and
from thence until the death of Christ there were to
elapse 434 years; in all, 924 years.

The temple of Solomon was dedicated 1004 years
before the year from which the Christian era is dated,
this being the fourth year of Christ’s earthly life. This
year was so appointed, because in it was fulfilled the
saying, “ Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” The
reign of Solomon ended, and the kingdom was divided,
in the year B.c. 975. The duration of the reign of
each of the kings of Israel, from Jeroboam to Ahab
inclusive, was :—

Jeroboam, ‘ : : 22 years
Nadab, . ‘ ; , 2 yy
Baasha, . - ‘ : 24 4
Elah, 3 : 3 . Dr ss
Zimri,  . : ‘ 3 a week
Omri, 5 3 ‘ i 12 years
Ahab, . : 5 : 22 ,,
In all, 84 years

After the death of Naboth “there were three years
without war between Syria and Israel.” At the close
of the third year war ensued, and Ahab was slain in
battle, thus ending his life and the twenty-two years
of his reign. The time of Naboth’s death, and of Ahab
and Jezebel’s crowning iniquity, was in the nineteenth
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 153

year of Ahab’s reign, and the eighty-first of the
kingdom of Israel, or 894 years before the commence-
ment of the Christian era. The death and the ini-
quity which were prefigured by Naboth’s death and
Ahab and Jezebel’s iniquity, were to be accomplished
924 years thereafter. So the Messiah was cut off,
but not for Himself, in the year A.D. 30, or 924 years
from the death of Naboth. The closing of the vision
and prophecy was to be at the end of seventy weeks,
or 490 years, from the year B.c. 894, or in the year
B.c. 404; and this important season in human
history is accurately determined by its being 490
years subsequent to the death of Naboth, and 434
years prior to the death of Christ.

The signs and the seasons, and the days and the
years, of human history, anterior to the advent of
Christ as the Messiah to suffer and die, were all
divinely appointed ; and they were specially identi-
fied with, and intended to prepare mankind for, the
accomplishment of that great event. From the
creation of the human race in the first man, Adam,
until the advent of the second man, the Lord from
heaven, all was designed, so that the necessity of His
mission and death in human form might be endur-
ingly and indisputably demonstrated. The Scripture
_of truth contains a record of the gradual evolution of
the divine design in human history from Adam to
Christ. And the history is so written as to prove
that for everything there was an appointed time, and
that everything transpired at the time appointed.
From Seth to Noah, each descendant of Adam in the
154 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

chosen line was born at his appointed time, lived his
allotted years, and died, or, as in the case of Enoch,
was translated, when the fulness of his time was
come. A set period of Noah’s life, its six hundredth
year, was, in addition, constituted the first remark-
able epoch in general human history; for in it God
destroyed the world that then was by a flood of
waters. The death of Terah, Abraham’s father, and
Abraham’s voluntary separation of himself from his
father’s house and kindred in obedience to God’s
command, were simultaneously evolved at the time
appointed for their occurrence in the divine plan.
There was a time appointed for the preparation of
Abraham’s descendants to become the human earth,
or chosen nation, in whose experiences God was
to give a disclosure of His purpose in a form
suited to man’s capacity as an intelligent being.
For “it came to pass at the end of four hundred and
thirty years, even the self-same dav, that all the hosts
of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.” There
was a time appointed for the sojourning of the new
nation in the wilderness ; and at the expiry of forty
years from the date of the exodus, the conquest of
the promised territorial inheritance commenced. As
it had occupied 430 years to prepare the Israelites
physically in number, and correctively by suffering,
to become the chosen nation ; so it also required a
similar period of 430 years for their intellectual
enlightenment in the invisible knowledge of God,
combined with the gradual extension by conquest of
the limits of their territorial possession, until the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST, 155

appointed extreme of each was reached in the days
of David. At the close of the wars of Israel, David
desired to build God an house; but as the set time
to do it was not come, and as David was not the
man to whom this work was allotted in the divine
plan, he was prohibited therefrom. But “it came
to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after
the children of Israel were come out of the land of
Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over
Israel, that he began to build the house of the Lord.”
In the eleventh year of Solomon’s reign the house
was finished. “So was he seven years in building it.”

From the separation of Abraham to the exodus
from Egypt the divinely-appointed period was 430
years ; and from the exodus to the finishing of Solo-
mon’s temple there was another divinely-appointed
period of 487 years. The period of 430 years was
specially identified with the history of the Israelites
as a nation; the period of 487 years was specially
identified with the giving of signs, illustrative of
God’s high purpose revealed in and through the
nation. At the beginning of the 487 years God com-
manded Moses to erect the tabernacle in the wilder-
ness; and at the end of the 487 years, Solomon, by
divine instruction and guidance, had finished the
temple at Jerusalem. The period of 430 years was
limited in its application to governing the leading
events transpiring in connection with the chosen
nation; the period of 487 years was one appointed
to regulate the times of history as they were evolved
in connection with God’s more comprehensive pur-
156 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

pose to all nations of men, of which the tabernacle
and the first temple were visible signs. Of the
temple, both first and second, and that of God’s
purpose which they successively typified, it is ex-
pressly written, “My house shall be called the house
of prayer for all people.” The existence of the king-
dom of Judah and the appointed duration of the
first temple terminated simultaneously. Nebuchad-
nezzar, the king of Babylon, began to overthrow the
kingdom of Judah at the commencement of his reign
as the first head of universal dominion; and in the
nineteenth year of his reign he burned the house of
the Lord, 587 years before the commencement of the
Christian era.

The wickedness of Judah was ripened at the com-
mencement of Nebuchadnezzar’s universal dominion,
nineteen years prior to the burning of the temple, or
in the year B.c. 606. The seed of the nation’s exist-
ence and the source of its history were the birth of
Isaac. Isaac was born when Abraham was an hun-
dred years old, or in the year B.c. 1896. The history
of the Israelites as a nation was divided into three
parts,—the first, its physical development; the sec-
ond, its territorial extension and intellectual enlight-
enment; and the third, its spiritual trial as to its
power of self-control and self-government. Al-
though thus divided, the history of the nation was one
history, in each phase of which all three characteris-
ties were present, although one of the three predomi-
nated in each successive phase. One complete phase
occupied 430 years exactly in its evolution; and all
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 157

three phases united in the continuous history of the
nation, from the birth of Isaac in the year B.c. 1896,
until the term of its trial, terminated in the year
B.C. 606, occupied three times the divinely-appointed
period of 430 years, or exactly 1290 years.

The captivity of the Jews continued for seventy
years, from the year B.c. 606, in which Nebuchad-
nezzar, the king of Babylon, came unto Jerusalem
and besieged it, and when “the Lord gave Jehoia-
kim, king of Judah, into his hand, with part of the
vessels of the house of God.” The temple at Jeru-
salem was not restored until the expiry of seventy
years from the date of its desolation by fire in the
year Bc. 587. In the interval the dominion of
Babylon had fallen, and was supplanted by that of
the Medes and Persians. The dominion of which
Nebuchadnezzar was the first head, came into ex-
istence as the one universal kingdom, when the
appointed triune period, or 1290 years, of Hebrew
history was finished. It was God who set up the
universal dominion of Babylon, and gave to its king
irresponsible power on earth. Its appointed time was
comparatively brief when Persia arose on its over-
throw. The Persian kings were inferior to Nebuchad-
nezzar, inasmuch as they were subjected in the exer-
cise of the royal prerogative to the control of the laws
of the Medes and Persians. Of this important differ-
ence between the irresponsible self-willed dominion
of Nebuchaduezzar and the responsible self-willed
dominion of Darius, examples are given in Scripture.

The dominion, as exercised by Nebuchadnezzar,
158 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

was the greatest of its kind ever witnessed on earth ;
and it was set up for the very purpose of illustrating
in the personal rule of its king the widest possible
contrast to the rule of God’s true dominion. Its god
was a great image of gold; and to this visible sem-
blance of the king’s self-willed rule all his subjects
were, by his own personal decree, commanded to bow.
The counsellors of Darius made the laws of the king-
dom, which, however, required confirmation by the
king’s decree. They substituted the king as a living
image of their god, so that their idolatry was less
degrading than that enforced by Nebuchadnezzar;
and the king’s despotic authority was by so much
weaker and inferior to that of the king of Babylon.
The Persian kings aided in the rebuilding of the
temple, which had been cast down by Nebuchad-
nezzar. During the existence of these two succes-
sive embodiments of the one universal dominion, the
vision and prophecy were being completed, partly
through the instrumentality of both; and the whole
was finished in the year B.c. 404, seventy-three years
before the fall of the Persian kingdom. Its over-
throw, and the rise of the Grecian dominion, were
the first historical fulfilment of Scripture prophecy
after the sealing up of the vision.

As a despotic power, that of Greece was inferior to
Persia. The form remained, but the substance was
changed, and the dominion of intellectual Greece
diminished the despotic splendours of the monarch’s
power. The dissimilarity between the uncontrolled
and irresponsible power exercised by the head of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 159

Babylon was as gold in comparison with the brass of
the Grecian monarch’s authority. But the Grecian
embodiment of the one universal dominion was dis-
solved, and succeeded by that of Rome. The power
of Rome was the strongest of all that had preceded
it; and the secret of its strength lay in its repub-
lican institutions. Its government, as a mere human
government, although inferior as a despotic power to
Babylon and its other predecessors, was the most just
and equitable the world had then ever witnessed. It
was in the history of the one universal dominion,
that which the closing years of David’s reign re-
vealed in Hebrew history—the highest attainable
state of human excellence in the circumstances. It
was only human, however, whereas the kingdom of
Israel was divine in its origin as well as human in
its form. In the case of Israel God interposed in an
intelligent form from the birth of Isaac until the
full conquest of the promised inheritance in the
days of David in the year B.c. 1021. In the case of
Rome His interference was wholly external, and in
no way influenced the Romans as intelligent beings.
The spirit of the one universal dominion in each of
its successive embodiments was equally opposed to
the Spirit of God, in so far as any intelligent recog-
nition of His will was concerned. Nevertheless, the
spirit of the dominion was gradually restrained, until
at length its fruits in Republican Rome became an
approach in human resemblance to the divine fruits
brought forth in the history of Israel in the days of
David and Solomon.
160 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

The history of the nations of men is a continuous
history, from the birth of Isaac, to the rise into as-
cendancy of the Roman Republic, as the one univer-
sal dominion. Its divine line is from Isaac to David;
and its human line is from thence through Judah,
Babylon, Persia, and Greece, to Rome as a Republic.
Judah, the most highly favoured of them all, when
made free from divine tutelage, yielded the most un-
satisfactory fruits of any. Each in succession to
Judah was inferior to its predecessor as to external
divine guidance; and yet each was superior to its
predecessor in the ameliorating effects of the exercise
of its dominion. In the latter respect the Roman Re-
public, on its advent to supreme dominion, excelled
all its predecessors. In Isaac all nations and fami-
lies were to be blessed ; and the promise to Abraham
was, to make of his descendants a great nation and to
give them a certain defined territorial inheritance.
The promise to Abraham began to be accomplished
in the birth of Isaac, and was fulfilled in his lineal
descendants to its utmost extent, in the days of
David. From thence, the Israelites were placed upon
their trial, and failed; so much so, that the kingdom
was taken from them, and is not even yet restored.

Other nations were thereafter selected in succes-
sion. And in comparison with the Israelites, the
human fruits were greatly superior to those produced
by the chosen nation subsequent to the days of
David and Solomon. There was a regular gradation
of inferiority, from Judah to Rome, as to favourable
circumstances ; and yet a corresponding superiority
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 161

of visible results. There were two epochs in the fall
of Greece and consequent rise of Rome; the years
B.c. 168 and 146. The former marks the actual de-
cay of the Grecian dominion, and the latter the actual
rise of the Roman. This prolonged period of human
history, so diversified in its numerous phases, from
the birth of Isaac to the rise of Rome, is divided into
two well-defined and widely dissimilar aspects. The
divine and the human were as far asunder then as
the nature of the things pertaining to each could
sever them. Therefore the things of each had to be
made manifest in aspects of human history as dis-
tinct as separate times could make them. The
divine aspect was revealed from Isaac to David, and
the human aspect from thence to the rise of the
Roman Republic. And such was the equality of
time allotted to each, that from the birth of Isaac in
the year B.C. 1896, to the termination of David’s con-
quests in the year B.c. 1021, which completed the
divine aspect, there was an appointed period of 875
years ; and from thence till the rise of Rome in the
year B.C. 146, which completed the human aspect,
there was the similarly appointed period of 875
years.

Good of their kind as the fruits of Roman history
were, they were nevertheless human, and, as such, of
uncertain continuance. All the work of God in Hebrew
national history from Isaac to David was imperish-
able. All the work of man in history from David
to the rise of the Roman Republic was perishable,
except in so far as God was pleased to make it a

L
162 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

means of revealing Himself through the prophets,
and of preparing human nature in general for the
advent of His Son. The dominion of the Roman
Republic was as despotic in action, beyond its own
citizens, as was that of any of its predecessors. The
Romans were selfish in the disposal of the excellent
products of their previous national history ; for they
in effect did what the king of Babylon did, they
being many and he one. They demanded the perfec-
tion of individual freedom for themselves, and at the
same time placed all the rest of mankind under an
oppressive and debasing servitude. In so far as the
actually subject tribes and nations were concerned,
they had to submit to a despotism wielded in the
name of and by consent of the many, which was as
iron in comparison with the golden, individual, abso-
lute rule of Nebuchadnezzar.

The great law which ought to regulate the conduct
of man to man, “Do unto others as ye would that
others should do unto you,” has its origin in the law
of the divine nature, and in the substantial moral
equality of all men in God’s sight. It was as obli-
gatory upon Cain and Abel, and every descendant of
Adam before the advent of Christ, as it has been
since. And its principle was not unknown in the
best days of the Greeks and Romans, although its
practical adoption as a rule of life was circumscribed,
when not wholly disregarded. Its neglect has in-
variably, when persisted in, disclosed in human ex-
perience the operation of another law, its opposite
extreme ; for if men will disobey it, it will be done
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 163

unto them as they have done unto others. And this
was evidenced in the history of Rome. As a Re-
public, the Romans would not do unto others as they
insisted on being done unto themselves; and the re-
sult was, that they were in the end placed under an
iron rule of despotism, as rigid and exacting as that
they had themselves enforced upon others. Imperial
Rome was founded on the ruins of the great Republic;
and the self-will of a Cesar was substituted for the
self-will of the citizen multitude.

The Republic came to its end in the year B.c. 31;
so that the first year of Imperial Rome was the year
B.c. 30. The great strength of the new Empire was
derived from the antecedent history of the Roman
people ; and the very power they had raised up as
a terror to others became an instrument of oppres-
sion to themselves. Imperial Rome was the sum
total of the human products of all past history ; and
a miserable visible sign it was of all that could be
done, either in or by humanity, as a distinct and
separate form of existence. God had declared it to
be His intention to make human nature His own
dwelling-place, first, in the erection of the tabernacle
in the wilderness, in the year B.c. 1491; again, in
the building of the temple at Jerusalem, in the
year B.C. 1004; and a third time, in its restoration,
after seventy years’ desolation, in the year B.c. 517.
But the united fruit of all human history, as revealed
in the Roman Empire in the year B.c. 30, proclaimed
the kind of living human temple which alone man
in and by himself could or would erect as God’s
164 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

dwelling- place. The first three signs occurred at
the times divinely appointed. Between the first and
second the period which elapsed was 487 years ; so,
also, between the second and third the interval was
487 years; and from the first, which came into
existence at the end of the appointed 430 years,
until the united national fruit of all human history
was manifested in the universal dominion of Imperial
Rome, in the year B.c. 30, the divinely-appointed
period was three times 487 years, or 1461 years.
Imperial Rome was the united visible embodiment
of the products of national history in its human
aspect. But it had also a divine aspect. The
Hebrews themselves brought forth no permanent
good fruit in their prolonged and favoured experi-
ences. But God, through His Word, prevented the
results from being wholly barren. He was sowing
and reaping all throughout; and the divine testi-
mony was treasured up in the Scripture of truth as
written in the law, the psalms, and the vision of
prophecy. He proved the impossibility of either the
perfecting or redeeming of human nature as a state
of existence apart from God. He foreshadowed the
manner in which alone this could be accomplished—
first, in the law of Moses. He gave additional light,
next, in the experiences of David and the psalms
which he wrote. And He finally completed the
testimony of Jesus by the Spirit of prophecy, who
disclosed, through human agency, a predictive view
of the sufferings of Christ and the glory which
should follow. By the prophets He intimated the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 165

object and the manner of Christ’s advent; He also
declared the time appointed for the accomplishment
of the great decease at Jerusalem. And all this
with a fulness, a clearness, and a comprehensiveness
that was unsurpassable.

The Greeks and Romans, like the Hebrews, were
of themselves equally destitute, in their separate or
conjoined history, of abiding good fruits. Yet al-
though they were without the knowledge of God,
their national existence was in God; and, uncon-
sciously to them, He preserved a testimony to His
holy purpose wrought out by them. The height
and the depth of God’s knowledge required a corre-
sponding length and breadth of human intellect for
its reception. This intellectual state could not be
bestowed as a gift, but was to be the product of
mental activity and self-culture. And these quali-
ties the eminent men of Greece displayed to the
utmost. The law of holiness which God could and
was to give birth to within men required its external
handmaid in a national law, based on personal free-
dom as the rule of man’s social existence. This law
the Romans developed among themselves. But the
helplessness of this mental culture and external
law by themselves to perfect human nature, or per-
manently improve human society, having been
demonstrated in the successive histories of Greek
and Roman ascendancy, the appointed time came,
when, by a messenger from heaven, it was intimated
to a virgin of Israel that God would begin in her by
His Holy Spirit His more excellent way of working
166 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

out human redemption. From the rise of Greek
ascendancy in the year B.C. 331, to its decay in the
year B.C. 168, there elapsed an appointed period of
163 years; and from thence until Gabriel announced
to Mary, in the year B.c. 5, the approaching advent
of the Messiah, there was asimilarly appointed period
of 163 years.

God is a Spirit, one in three and three in one;
and in the living form given to Christ at His birth,
there was revealed the great truth that each of the
three participants in the nature of the Godhead is,
in Himself, three in one and one in three; so that
the actual personal glory of the Godhead is as three
times three, or nine. It is a singular arithmetical
property of the number nine, that, multiplied by
any other single numeral, or by itself, the figures of
the product, when added together, invariably give
nine once; when equal dual numerals are multi-
plied by nine, the figures of the product added to-
gether give nine twice; and when equal triple
numerals are multiplied by nine, the figures of the
product give nine thrice. It occupied three times 430
years, or 1290 years, to evolve the history of Israel
from the birth of Isaac to the end of the Jewish
kingdom. So it was to occupy nine times 430 years,
or three times 1290 years, to evolve the entire of
human preparatory history appointed among all
peoples and nations, from the birth of the first of the
continuous seed of the woman in Seth, until the
Word of God Himself was made flesh, and born of
Mary in the fulness of the time. From the birth of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 167

Seth to the birth of Christ the appointed period was
3870 years.

The Messiah was cut off in the thirty-fourth year
of His earthly life. But He was raised from the
dead by the Spirit of Holiness in the identical
human body in which He died, and returned to His
Father after a long-protracted separation. He left
Him as the Word from the foundation of the world ;
He left, Him as God when He became the corner-stone
of this earth’s new history; and He returned to Him
in the nature of man, having indissolubly united
Himself therewith. By His death and resurrection
in human nature He laid the foundation of that
divine dominion which is to supplant all other do-
minions in the heaven and the earth of human exist-
ence. The form of dominion then all-prevalent was
Imperial Rome; and it was established in the year
B.c. 30. The new divine dominion was founded in
the year A.D. 30. They were the moral, intellectual,
and political antipodes of each other. And the com-
mencement of each was equidistant from the year
which has been appointed as the beginning of the
Christian era; thus intimating it to be the great
central or turning point between things old and
things new ; between that which was before Christ
came, and that which is to be, because of His coming,
first, as the Messiah to suffer and die—and, finally,
as the Messiah, the Prince, to reign as God and
King over all, blessed for ever. Thus the first
heavens and the first earth of human history were
finished, and all the host of them. And so it was
168 ALPHA AND OMEGA.

that God made two great lights, and the stars also,
during the fourth thousand years of human history ;
appointing them to be for signs, and seasons, and
days, and years, both in their retrospective and pro-
spective divine illuminating power.
CHAPTER VIIL.

THE epoch of Christ’s first advent was the greatest
evolved in universal history from the foundation of
the world. In Him was concentrated both the ful-
ness of the past and future. Of all that had been
effected He was the divine essence and substance;
of all that was from thence to be accomplished He
was the almighty and infinite Source. He was the
accumulated good fruit of all that had been done ;
and He was also the holy divine Seed sown in
human nature, whose reproductive power was to be
ripened in the great harvest of human redemption.
He might have remained alone, but He died that He
might draw all unto Him. That which had been
created He was to purify, reconcile, and unite in one
glorious, living, and visible image of the invisible
God. The second creation, or the human race, the
first. creation, or the invisible world of angels, and
the material universe, were all included, and were
each to participate in the effects of the great redemp-
tion, waiting for which the whole creation groaneth
and travaileth in pain together.
170 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

In the first creation the glory of God was invisibly
revealed in a world of created intelligences ; and the
eternal power and Godhead were made visibly mani-
fest in the material universe. In the second creation
the glory of God was both invisibly and visibly re-
vealed in a world of intelligent beings, the personal
identity of each of whom was inseparably associated
with a living material form. That which was in-
visibly revealed in the creation of angels, and ob-
jectively manifested in the creation of the material
universe, were both united and declared subjectively
in the creation of the human race in the first man.
But in the Man Christ Jesus, God Himself was in-
dissolubly united with human nature. He became
in one the fulness of the Godhead, and the fulness
of all things created, whether angelic, or material,
or human. When Christ returned to His Father,
after having, through the Eternal Spirit, offered
Himself up as a sacrifice to God, He took with
Him His human nature in enduring union with His
divine essence as the visible fulness of all things
created from the foundation of the world. And when
He so returned, there was restored to Him the glory
which He had with His Father before the world was.

He was made man that He might yield a perfect
obedience to God’s law in human nature, and give
His life to ransom the world. When He received
back the glory which He had with His Father
before the world was, He made that inconceivable
and inexpressible glory a gift to the human race.
As God, He is for ever to be clothed in the nature of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 171

man, and by His gift men are for ever to be made
partakers of the glory which He had with His Father
before the world was — Christ in them, and the
Father in Christ. Christ in the nature of God with
men, and in the nature of men with God, has be-
come the one Mediator between God and. man, and
the living divine bond of their everlasting union in
a joint existence, equally shared by the infinite
essence of the triune God, and the innumerable
spirits, minds, and bodies of the individual members
of the human race. This is to be the true and un-
changing living temple of the Most High God, of
which the temple at Jerusalem was a most inade-
quate yet appointed sign.

The great work of human redemption consists in
the transference of the glory which Christ had with
His Father before the world was, to the human race.
The manner in which it was to be accomplished was
fully made known before Christ resumed that glory
with His Father. In the history of the first creation,
from beginning to end, one comprehensive illustra-
tion of the manner of human redemption was given;
for it was to be by the revelation in mankind of the
Word who was with God. In the history of the
great mental and spiritual conflict waged between
the Word who was God and the spirit of disobedi-
ence, while this earth was being prepared as the
habitation of the human race, another element in-
dispensable in the work of human redemption was
disclosed. In human history, from Adam to Abraham,
a third illustrative demonstration of the manner of
172 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

human redemption was given; for it was to be by
the revelation of the Word’s life as the light of men.
And in human history, from Abraham to Christ in-
clusive, a fourth exhibition was given of its manner ;
for the Word of God, as written in Scripture, and
manifested in the man Christ Jesus, is to be clothed
with a vesture dipped in blood, or indissolubly united
with the visible lives of human beings.

These are the less and greater lights which, in
cumulo, were to rule first the night and afterward the
day of human history subsequent to Christ’s resurrec-
tion from the dead, and His return to His Father.
All that has since happened is, so far as evolved, a
combined reproduction of all that has transpired in
creation from the foundation of the world, when
Christ came forth from His Father as the Word who
was with God, until His return to His Father, after
His decease at Jerusalem, as the Word who was
made flesh. He was then set down at the right hand
of the throne of God, which from thence became the
appointed symbol of all power in heaven and in
earth. “And He that sat upon the throne said,
Behold I make all things new.” The beginning
of the going forth of this almighty, restoring, and
renovating influence was witnessed at Jerusalem in
the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon human
beings, as the Spirit of the sacrificed Son of God,
proceeding from and revealing the glory of the
Father. It was in this precise manner that the
foundation of the first creation was laid in the Word;
that the corner-stone of this earth was also laid in
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 173

Him ; that the foundation of human history was pro-
vided in the creation of the first man, who was made
in and by the Word; and that the typical holy seed
was born in Isaac. Each and all were the results of
new and supernatural manifestations of the eternal
power and Godhead in visibly created things. But
in the beginning of the restoration of all things, there
was conjoined a new and supernatural manifestation
of the eternal power and Godhead, with the gift of
the glory of God, as the incorruptible inheritance of
the human race.

The history of the first creation, from its beginning
to its end, although gradual, was of prolonged dura-
tion—so much so, that it cannot be calculated by any
known measures of time. It was a visible expression
of the invisible divine existence of the eternal power
and Godhead. But the individual worlds of the
material creation will be equalled in number by the
individual men in. whose redemption the glory of
the Father is to be specially revealed throughout the
incalculable ages of the future. The principalities
and powers existing among holy angels are invisible,
although excellent, both in. their work and their
glory; but their invisible glory is to be visibly re-
vealed in all those in whom, by their redemption as
nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and people, the
glory of the Son of God is to be specially revealed.
The ptincipalities and powers of darkness existing
among the fallen angels, also excellent in intellectual
gifts, have had their invisible shame and wickedness
specially made manifest in human history since the
174 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

return of Christ to His Father, in the results pro-
duced by their indescribable antagonism to the Spirit
of Holiness, in his glorious work of making all things
new. The unwilling human victims of their influence
will be constituted in their individual nature an ever-
lasting and special visible manifestation of the glory
of the Spirit of Holiness, by whose power they have
been, unconsciously while in this life, made par-
takers of the great redemption.

From Adam to Christ the fallen angels found
spirits congenial to their own in one third part of
men. So, from the return of Christ to His Father,
until He has made an actual end of iniquity, the
spirit of disobedience was to slay beyond redemp-
tion the moral freedom of the third part of men.
The combatants in the great triple conflict which
was originated on the day of Pentecost in human
nature, were, on the one hand, the Spirit of Holiness
from God, and the life of the Word of God as the
light of men, God’s two witnesses ; and, on the other
hand, the spirit of disobedience in fallen angels and
in the entire human race. The war was an aggres-
sive war on the part of God; and the principalities
and powers of darkness were placed on the defensive.
Previously the strong man armed kept his human
palace, and his goods were at peace; but from thence
a stronger than he came upon him, and is to overcome
him, taking from him all his armour in which he trust-
ed, and dividing the spoils among the three partici-
pants in the glory of the Godhead. His armour con-
sisted of the wicked spirit, the carnal mind, and the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 175

vile body of human beings. By quickening the hu-
man spirit through the Spirit of Holiness, by enlight-
ening the human mind through the once slain life of
the Word of God as the light of men, and by the di-
vine correction and chastisement of the Father, in His
providential arrangements, the stronger than he came
upon him, overcoming him, and taking from him the
armour in which he trusted as the invulnerable citadel
of his usurped dominion in and over the human race.

From the day of Pentecost until this hour the his-
tory of this war has been the history of one pro-
longed and perpetual defeat, without intermission or
interruption. In not a single human nature, and
not for a moment of time, has the adversary success-
fully withstood the assault made upon his dominion
in human nature. The third part of men were his
willing subjects, and they resisted God’s two wit-
nesses within themselves as obstinately as he un-
availingly attempted to do in others of the human
race who were made the willing subjects of the new
divine dominion. There was a large section of the
human family who neither received nor resisted
the Spirit of Holiness from God, because it was not
the divine purpose to reveal God’s glory to them in
this life; and therefore, not being for Christ in this
sense, they were against Him. They were, never-
theless, the twelve tribes of the true Israel of God,
all of whom, although predestinated and called, and
justified and glorified, because of their names having
been written in the Lamb’s book of life from the
foundation of the world, were not chosen unto
176 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

sanctification in this life; for while many are called
unto eternal life, few are chosen, through sancti-
fication of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ, during their lives on
earth, Their entire redemption—spirit, mind, and
body—will be wholly the work of God’s Holy Spirit ;
and their future state will begin in a spiritual in-
fancy, similar to that of natural childhood in this
present life.

But there is more joy over one sinner that truly
repenteth in this life, than over ninety-nine such
justified persons who need no repentance. The
sinners who so repented have been the individual
subjects of the great war that has been waged in
human nature since the day of Pentecost. They are
represented as a certain equal number, chosen from
among each of the twelve tribes of the true Israel.
They are the members of the church of the first-born
whose names were written in heaven, until each
became in succession the spirit of a just man made
perfect in heaven. They are the hundred and forty-
four thousand in whose individual and aggregate
human natures the name or glory of the Father has
been revealed. As in the case of the natural Israel
the twelve sons of Jacob became the individual
founders of the twelve tribes, so in the case of the
spiritual Israel the twelve apostles of Christ were
its appointed human founders. The history of the
natural Israel, from its commencement in the separa-
tion of Abraham from his kindred, is an appointed
succession of signs giving light as to the predeter-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 177

mined history of the spiritual Israel, dating from its
commencement when God called His Son out of Egypt.

The promise to Abraham was, to give him in his
descendants the land of Canaan, when the iniquity
of the nations then in possession of it was full; and,
further, in the interval to prepare the tribes of Israel,
by suffering and affliction, for their entrance into its
partial occupancy. The promise to Christ is, to give
Him all the kingdoms of this world as His universal
and everlasting dominion. And Christ’s word to
His disciples is, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Imperial Rome was the one universal dominion on
earth when God called His Son out of Egypt, and as
an empire it had existed thirty years. It was the
visible embodiment of that invisible power which
the spirit of wickedness had then acquired over the
human race; and it faithfully illustrated the terrible
strength of its iron despotism. Rome became the
visible focus of spiritual wickedness in heavenly
places ; and it has in one or other of the successive
phases of its checkered history maintained this char-
acter all throughout. Rome is the local alpha and
omega of embodied resistance to the Spirit of Holi-
ness, in the work of evolving visibly the beneficent
fruits of the divine scheme of human redemption.
That which the great adversary failed, from first to
last, in effecting to any, even the least extent invisibly,
Rome seemingly, but yet only in appearance, not in
reality, accomplished externally among the nations
and kindreds of men.

M
178 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

Suffering and affliction were even more needful and
essential to the preparation of the new heaven and
the new earth of Christian history, than they had
been to that of the Jewish heaven and earth; and
the heat of that furnace, into which the children of
the spiritual Israel were cast in order to the Son of
God being revealed in and through them, was seven
times more intense than the heat of the Egyptian
furnace through which the Hebrews passed. In
addition to the purification as by fire there was also
to be a cleansing by the waters of regeneration, of
the manner of which the saving of Noah by the ark
was an appointed sign. “As it was in the days of
Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man.”
Enoch’s walk with God and translation from earth
to heaven, Noah’s deliverance by means of the ark,
and Abraham’s faith and its results in subsequent
human history, were all signs appointed and re-
corded in Scripture for the very purpose of illus-
trating the effects and the manner and the times
of the manifestation of Jesus Christ through the
Spirit of Holiness in mankind as God over all,
blessed for ever.

On the day of Pentecost a new world of existence
was originated. Its constituent essences were the
sacrificed life of the Son of God, and the slain na-
tures of the human beings who were born of God.
In this new world there were things invisible and
visible to be revealed, so that its creation would in
its entirety be a reproduction of God’s work in the
first creation, with this important difference, that the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 179

Creator and the things created were to be one in
identity of nature. The glory which Christ had with
His Father before the foundation of the world, was
to be conjoined with both the visible and invisible
glory of the first creation in the new heaven and the
new earth of human existence. The material forces
whose repelling and attractive powers operated in
the development of the first visible creation were
non-sentient. The created intellectual agents em-
ployed were spiritual essences, incapable of suffering
as the result of any material cause. But in the new
creation the material forces and the created intellec-
tual agents were human beings—to whom a nature
of keen sensibility has been given, and in which
bodily, mental, and spiritual anguish can be expe-
rienced unto the utmost. The chief corner-stone of
this new creation was Himself made perfect through
suffering—yea, God Himself in human nature, as the
beginning of this new creation, suffered in the flesh,
and was agonised in spirit and mind as well as body,
apart altogether from His expiatory death on the
cross; and why? because in no other way could a
human nature, even that of the man Christ Jesus, be
made a possible receptacle of the glory which He
had with His Father before the world was.

Suffering has hitherto been inseparable from ani-
mal existence in every form, varying in degree
according to the kind of existence. The lower orders
of creatures possessing living organic forms suffer
least; but even among them there is a diversity in
the gradations of their sensitiveness to pain. The
180 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

partakers of human nature are much more suscep--
tible of pain than the lower forms of organic life,
even when exposed to bodily suffering only; but when
this is combined with mental anxiety and moral per-
plexity in them, the acuteness of their nervous sen-
sibility is intense. Among men there is also a wide
diversity of gradations in this respect, but the suffer-
ings of Christ were something altogether new in
human nature. The great peculiarity of them was,
that He suffered unto blood, striving against sin.
Other men had suffered in the flesh because of sin,
yet without resisting evil; but He was the first in
human form who suffered on account of sin, and for
the very purpose of destroying its power over the
human race. After He had so purged our sins in
His own body He sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty in the heavens, from whence He is to come
and be revealed in human nature a second time, but
without sin, unto salvation. After He was made
perfect through suffering, He returned to His Father
in a human nature capable of receiving into its
visible form the glory which He had as God before
the foundation of the world.

The first generation of mankind, from beginning
to end of its history, was fully created in Adam ;
so also was the new generation of the human race
created entirely in the second man, the Lord from
heaven, when He returned unto His Father. The
beginning of the new generation of men was the
coming forth of Christ’s divine life, raised up in
the first disciples by the outpouring of God’s Holy
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 181

Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the divine birth
of thousands. This new world of individual human
existence in union with the divine was, in its com-
mencement, the foundation of a new divine dominion
in human nature, invisible in its origin, spiritual and
intellectual in its progress, yet productive of corre-
sponding visible results in human history. From
thence the new generation of beings, combining in
one nature the divine life of the Son of God with
their individual humanity, was increased in number,
until, like the lineal descendants of Abraham, they
were prepared to enter upon the conquest of the
dominions of this world in order to their ultimate
and universal subjection to the Word of God and the
Spirit of Christ’s life.

For nearly three centuries the saints of God were
powerless on this earth—they were a suffering and a
persecuted race. The first-born of them had to con-
tend with the prejudices of the Jews and to encounter
the hostility of their Sanhedrim, in addition to the
enmity and violent assaults of Imperial Rome. They
had to fight a good fight within themselves individu-
ally in subjecting their entire nature, spirit, mind, and
body, unto the Word of God and the Spirit of Christ’s
life. And in the then depraved and demoralised
state of humanity in general this was a terrible war-
fare, not with flesh and blood external to, but with
the principalities and powers of evil enthroned
within, themselves. The weapons of this warfare
were not carnal, but spiritual, and the objects of
it were the bringing into captivity of every evil
182 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

imagination in their hearts and minds, and the keep-
ing of their bodies under. In this way they walked
with God like Enoch, and each as he finished his,
course was not, for God took him. They died in the
body unto Christ while living on this earth—they
crucified themselves, and were buried with Christ in
baptism by the resurrection of Christ’s divine life,
and the increasing power of the new nature thus
born, within them of God. The death of the body
was only the death of the last remnant of their
originally vile nature, disencumbered from which
they were clothed upon with their house, not made
with hands, but a building of God, eternal in the
heavens.

When they ceased to live in their vile body, they
did not permanently cease to take part in the great
work appointed to be done on this earth. They
rested for a season, until all who were to be self-
sacrificed in their individual natures as they were,
for the Word of God and the testimony which they
held, had been redeemed from among men. For
many centuries the work of salvation was indivi-
dual; and the increase of the number of the spirits
of just men made perfect was signified from time to
time by remarkable external events in human history.
The visible churches on earth were not at any one
time, after the fall of Jerusalem, a perfect embodiment ‘
of the intellectual and spiritual power of the church
of the first-born in heaven. On the contrary, their
condition is likened to seven golden candlesticks.
They had not the light in themselves as corporate
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 183

associations, for Christ had not entered into an in-
dissoluble union with them as churches; rather, He
is represented as standing by Himself, in a state of
existence apart from and external to them. Yet
they became exactly what the tribes of Israel were
in the days of their affliction and trial in Egypt and
the wilderness ; for they were the visible human
stage on which light was increasingly given concern-
ing the steady and uninterruptedly successful progress
of the great conflict between the Spirit of Holiness
and the spirit of wickedness in human nature.

The tribes of Israel in Moses’s time were not more
incompetent as a nation to apprehend the invisible
knowledge of God, than were the early Christian
churches to realise and reveal in an aggregate visible
form that unspeakable glory of God which was in
process of being unfolded in the individual natures
of the members of the church of the first-born. And
until fully disclosed in them, complete in one of its
divine phases, it was impossible to manifest its power
in either a church or a nation upon earth. By the
Spirit of Holiness, in His aggressive war upon the
god of this world, waged in and through the indivi-
dual natures of the elect number, chosen for this
purpose, increasing life and light were continually
given. And this great body of invisible life from
God, and true light from heaven, was being concen-
trated in the invisible church of the first-born, to
form, at the appointed time, that human imperson-
ation of exceeding brightness and glory represented
under the figure of a woman clothed with the sun,
184 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a
crown of twelve stars.

The moon of pre-Christian history, in its written
form, was gradually turned into blood by its living
fruits being brought forth in human history. The
resurrection of Christ’s life, as the Son of God, in in-
dividual humanity, kept pace with it. In like man-
ner, the doctrines taught by the apostles, under
divine inspiration, were extending the area of their
intellectual influence overmen. And at the appoint-
ed time, when all is finished in connection with the
redemption of the invisible church of the first-born,
the Word of God will then be “clothed with a ves-
ture dipped in blood,” and the resemblance of the
invisible church, thus redeemed and perfected, will
be that of a woman made out of the man Christ Jesus,
as Eve was made out of Adam. But she will then
be clothed with the sun of His divine glory, and be
standing on the moon, whose living embodiment
she will have become, and also be crowned with the
intellectual excellence of the apostolic doctrines, of
whose exceeding clearness and divine fulness she is
to be the first enduring ageregate fruit unto God and
the Lamb.

The decay and desolation of the early visible
churches were as inevitable and unavoidable as a pre-
paration for the visible manifestation of the glory
of God in human history, as were the decline and
fall of Imperial Rome. The first remarkable sign
of the decay of the one and the decline of the
other was their external union in the day of Con-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 185

stantine. Imperial Rome was a dominion of this
world, as unlike the dominion which Christ was
made manifest to establish, as two opposite extremes
of power can be. The Christian churches were of
the earth, earthen vessels, utterly incapable, as then
constituted, of either receiving or revealing in a cor-
porate form the invisible glory of the Son of God.
The Roman Empire was an iron despotism; and the
Christian churches were the mere clay, or human
seed, of those visible churches in whom, at the ap-
pointed time, the Son of Man is to be made manifest
as God, with power and great glory. Both the “iron
and the clay” had to be broken into pieces together,
and become like the chaff of the summer threshing-
floor, which the wind carrieth away.

The fall of Rome was an event coincident with
the commencement of the last stage in the work of
desolating the early Christian churches, for he that
hindered its completion was then removed out of the
way. It was also a visible sign of the great progress
that had been made in the invisible conflict, of whose
success the number of the spirits of just men made
perfect in heaven was another measure. The early
history of Abraham and his lineal descendants was
so written in Scripture as to make it an illustration
of the history of Christ and His spiritual seed. From
the call of Abraham, in the year B.c. 1921, until
his descendants, duly prepared, obtained rest as a
nation after the first partial conquest of their
promised inheritance, under the leadership of Joshua,
in the year B.c. 1445, there elapsed a time-interval
186 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

of 476 years. As this is the first application of the
law of parallels, in obedience to which Christian
history has been evolved both in circumstances and
in periods of time exactly corresponding with those
of pre-Christian history, it is of importance to estab-
lish with certainty the exact duration of this ini-
tial time-period, divinely appointed, in the history
of Abraham and his descendants.

It was at the end of 430 years from the call of
Abraham, even the self-same day, that the Israelites
came up out of Egypt. Of all the men who took
part in the exodus, Joshua and Caleb alone were
permitted to enter into possession of the promised
inheritance ; and this because of their faith and cou-
rage displayed in the report they gave of the land,
on their return with other ten men, who had been
sent to it as spies the year after the exodus. Caleb
was the last of the Israelites who received his posses-
sion ; and it was a special gift to him, in accordance
with the oath of Moses. Caleb, in claiming the ful-
filment of that which Moses sware unto him, is
recorded to have stated, “ Forty years old was I when
Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-
barnea to espy out the land.” And again, “ Now, lo,
I am this day fourscore and five years old.” Thus
the age of Caleb a year after the exodus, and his age
when he received Hebron for his inheritance, being
both given, establishes the fact, that 476 years
elapsed from the call of Abraham until the land
had rest from war after coming into partial posses-
sion of Israel.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 187

The separation of Abraham from the rest of man-
kind, and the history of him and his descendants
thereafter, as recorded in Scripture, were appointed
visible illustrations of that which was invisible in the
history of Christ and His spiritual seed. Those born
of Abraham in the line of Isaac prefigured those
born of God by His Holy Spirit, through the resur-
rection of His Son’s divine life in them individually.
The affliction to which the lineal descendants of
Abraham were subjected typified the suffering
through which alone the spiritual Israel could be
prepared for entering into possession of their incor-
ruptible inheritance. The nations of Canaan had to
fill up the measure of their iniquity; so also had
Imperial Rome. And the partial conquest of the
promised land by the Israelites under the leadership
of Joshua, had its exact echo in Christian history in
the fall of Rome, in the year A.D. 476. The fall of
Rome was a visible sign of the great progress the
invisible work of human redemption had then made.
The number of the church of the first-born then in
heaven was not less than the number of human
forms who had descended from Abraham at the time
of Joshua. In Joshua’s time, the Israelites, having
as a nation obtained their first great triumph, from
thenceforth entered upon a new course of train-
ing, that in due time the knowledge of the Word
of God might be fully revealed in them as a nation.
So the fall of Rome was a visible sign that one com-
plete phase of the divine plan was unfolded in
Christian history.
188 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

The sun had been darkened when Christ accom-
plished His decease at Jerusalem. From the day of
Pentecost the moon began to be turned into blood,
and the end of this process is to be the clothing of
the Word of God with a vesture dipped in blood, by
His revelation of Himself as God in and to successive
generations of men. To Joshua and his generation
the book of the law, or the first portion of the writ-
ten Word of God, was committed. But a new anda
different knowledge of God was to be revealed, and
also committed to writing, in Hebrew history. From
the date when the land of Palestine, as the inherit-
ance of Israel, first had rest from war, in the year
B.C. 1445, it occupied 1041 years of Hebrew history,
to give a complete written revelation of the Word of
God; for the volume of Scripture truth was not
closed till the year B.c. 404. In the preparation for
the transference of the Word from the page of Scrip-
ture to a living human tabernacle, an equal time-
period of Christian history had to be evolved sub-
sequent to the fall of Imperial Rome in the year
AD. 476. It was to take as long to prepare for
evolving visibly and nationally the divine power of
the living Word of God who is the Sword of the
Spirit in Christian history, as it occupied in Hebrew
history to reveal the written Word of God contained
in the Scripture of truth. The one is to be the exact
counterpart in the power of the living Spirit, of the
other in the dead letter of the written Word. So
that the duration of the invisible preparation for the
former in Christian history must of necessity have
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 189

been the exact equivalent in time of the duration of
the visible preparation for the latter in Hebrew
history. Consequently, the 1041 years of Christian
history commenced in the year A.D. 476 with the
end of the decline and fall of Imperial Rome, and
terminated in the year A.D. 1517 with the sign of
the resurrection of the living Word of God as the
Sword of the Spirit, combined with the commence-
ment of the decline and fall of the intellectual
successor and ecclesiastical inheritor of Rome’s self-
willed despotism.

But there were also Greek and Roman phases in
the moon of the human firmament. These were also
to be reproduced in Christian history. The original
Greek and Roman phases were both fully evolved in
the rise of the Roman Republic to universal dominion
in the year B.c. 146. A superscription was written
-over the Son of God when He hung on the cross, in
the act of making the great atonement which is the
divine source of human redemption. This super-
scription was written in letters of Greek and Latin and
Hebrew, and it ran thus, “This is the King of the
Jews.” These letters were all to be revived with
power and great glory in the new divine dominion, of
which the Holy Sufferer, in the agony of His death,
was crowned the everlasting King. The second
resurrection of Christ as the living Word of God, or
the letters of Hebrew, in the year a.p. 1517, was the
first in order; and the full revelation of Himself as
the Son of God is to be the last. Between the first
and the last, and preparatory to its accomplishment,
190 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

the written letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew
were to become spirit and life among all nations and
kindreds of men, and Christ universally acknowledged
as “ King of the Jews,” or “ King of Saints.” The sign
of the ripening of the harvest of preparatory Christian
history, connected with the resurrection of the living
Word of God in human nature, was witnessed in the
year AD. 1517. The sign of the ripening of the
harvest of preparatory Christian history connected
with the combined resurrection of the letters in
Greek and Latin and Hebrew, in one nation, was
given in the year a.D. 1775, in the termination of
the united existence of Britain and America, and
the foundation in the following year of the great
modern Republic.

The fall of Imperial Rome in the year 4D. 476; the
commencement of the great intellectual war among
men through the resurrection of the living Word of
God, as the Sword of the Spirit, in the year a.D. 1517;
and the advent of a new empire in the form of a
republic, are undoubtedly the visible signs of the
greatest and most momentous epochs in general
Christian history. The effects which have flowed
from each are the leading lines in the history of
Christendom from the times of their successive occur-
rence. The fall of Imperial Rome in the year aD.
476 paved the way for the rise of its duplicate in the
Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The second
resurrection of the living Word of God in the year
A.D, 1517 has exercised a weakening and a wasting
influence on the power of both. And the advent of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 191

the United States of America was the precursor of
the modern era of unprecedented change and convul-
sion in Christendom, and contributed in no small
degree toward their production. Hebrew history,
from the separation of Abraham, combined with
Greek and Roman history anterior to Christ, on the
one side, and Christian history from the time of the
act which fulfilled the saying, “ Out of Egypt have I
called my Son,” on the other side of the great central
epoch, are a dual representation in unity of God’s
holy design. Each is distinct from the other, yet
the one is the exact visible image of the other
invisibly ; and neither is complete or perfect, as a
manifestation of God, without the other.

Search is made in vain either in Hebrew or Greek
or Roman history apart, or in Christian history by
itself, for a solution of the mystery of God, that has
been, without doubt, disclosed in each separately,
and in both combined. But conjoined as two sepa-
rate aspects of the one divine plan, each reflects
light upon the other, and upon the work of God’s
Spirit, through His Word, in both. Abraham’s
history, and that of his descendants during its first
divine phase, ending with the partial conquest of the
promised land, when conjoined with the history of
Christ and His followers during its first divine phase,
ending with the fall of Imperial Rome, mutually ex-
plain and illustrate each other. The history of the
preparation for the full revelation of the written
Word of God in Hebrew history during its second
divine phase, ending with the completion of the
192 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

volume of Scripture truth, when conjoined with the
second divine phase of Christian history, ending with
the second resurrection of the living Word of God in
human nature, nationally as well as individually,
at the Reformation epoch, will also be found mutu-
ally explanatory and illustrative of each other. And
the third divine phase of pre-Christian history, cul-
minating in the rise to ascendancy of the Roman
Republic, when united with the third divine
phase of Christian history, ending in the advent of
the great American Republic, will give to and re-
ceive from each other great and marvellous illustra-
tive light.

The points of resemblance between the pre-Chris-
tian and the Christian, in the successive divine phases
of each, are numerous. And there is only one point
of difference between the pre-Christian and the
Christian throughout all the phases of each. It is
this, that in pre-Christian history, man, in a nature
external to and isolated from the divine nature, is
the visible agent in their production; but in Chris-
tian history, man, in actual and indissoluble union
with God in His divine essential existence, is the
visible agent in working out their evolution. The
final consequences will therefore vary in accordance
with the'infinite difference in the agency employed.
The Israelites were dispossessed of their acquired in-
heritance, and their dominion as a nation came to an
end; but the disciples of Christ have received an
everlasting kingdom, the first-fruits of which they
began to enjoy, even in connection with human
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 193

history, when Imperial Rome fell. The letter of
God’s Word was powerless in pre-Christian history ;
but the individual human tabernacles of its Spirit in
Christian history, from the fall of Rome until its
national resurrection at the commencement .of the
Reformation era, are to produce eternal and uni-
versal visible fruits among all nations, and kindreds,
and tongues, and peoples.

The visible state of America in a.pD. 1775, combin-
ing within itself, as it then did, the extremes of
human freedom and human involuntary servitude,
exactly resembled the state of the Roman Republic in
the year B.c. 146. In the Roman Republic, however,
the spirit of oppression and despotism finally pre-
vailed, because it was wholly a creature dominion.
But in the American Republic the divine Spirit of
freedom was irrevocably united with the national
created existence, and gave to it in perpetuity a
heavenly and holy influence, through the operation
of which the utter overthrow of the spirit of bondage
and oppression was inevitable. To each successive
phase, in duplicate, those of pre-Christian history,
being the appointed divine interpreters of their
invisible counterparts in Christian history, a time-
period of equal duration has been allotted in general
history, both in the pre-Christian and Christian
aspects. The first pre-Christian phase occupied 476
years, from the year B.c. 1921 to the year Bc. 1445.
So did the first Christian phase, from the year A.D. 0
to the year A.D. 476. The second pre-Christian
phase continued for 1041 years, from the year B.C.

N
194 ALPHA AND OMEGA.

1445 to the year B.c. 404. So did the second Chris-
tian phase, from the year A.D. 476 to the year A.D.
1517. The third pre-Christian phase was completed
in 258 years, between the year B.c. 404 and the
year BC. 146. And so was the third Christian
phase between the year A.D. 1517 and the year aD.
1775.
CHAPTER IX.

Human history was not only made subservient to the
revelation of the great mystery of God, it was also the
appointed channel through which the mystery of ini-
quity was to be manifested. The first general effects
of the working of the latter were demonstrated in the
days of Noah; and the first phase of its usurped uni-
versal power over the human race was completely
developed in the inconceivable wickedness of the
antediluvians. Its termination was the Flood, in
which one part of the divine method of destroying its
power was declared; while at the same time, by the
saving of Noah and his family in the ark, the divine
plan of human redemption in one of its phases was
also disclosed. When the waters of the Deluge were
dried up from the earth, a new phase of the mystery
of iniquity began to evolve itself in the history of
Ham and his descendants in the line of Canaan. Its
full fruit was matured in the great sin of the inhabi-
tants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Its termination was
the fire from heaven, by which another portion of the
divine method of destroying its power was declared,
196 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

while at the same time the deliverance of Lot and the
birth of Isaac accompanied it as signs of the plan of
human redemption in another of its phases.

A third phase of the working of the mystery of
iniquity thereafter commenced to evolve itself among
the Amorites, or nations of Canaan. They filled up
the measure of their iniquity at the appointed time.
In the manner of their overthrow a third and last
illustration was given of the divine method in which
the earth as a human habitation was to be delivered
from the presence of wicked men, and in which
also human nature itself was to be emancipated from
the debasing bondage of evil in the form of a spirit
of disobedience, ruling its volitions and its external
life, both individually and nationally. The manner
of the preparation of Abraham’s descendants in the
line of Isaac, to become the first chosen nation,
was intended to prefigure the manner of the prepara-
tion of the second chosen nation destined to be raised
up in Christian history, among whom, in their na-
tional capacity, the enduring fruits of God’s invisible
and everlasting dominion were first to be brought
forth in a visible form. The command to the first
chosen nation not to spare the wicked, was an inti-
mation of the divine method of human redemption in
its third and last phase. And the dispossession by
the Israelites of the nations of Canaan, and their
settlement in the territory from which the slaves
of wickedness were driven out, prefigured the final
issue.

Substituting the principalities and powers of spir-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 197

itual wickedness in high national and individual
places in Christian history, for the national and
individual wickedness of pre-Christian history, the
parallel is otherwise complete and perfect. The
divine war of nations and individuals in Christian
times has been a war, not with men as men, but a
war with the powers of spiritual and intellectual
iniquity, enthroned in the nations of mankind; and
a war, also, with the spirit of disobedience and its
intellectual and physical fruits in individual men—
these being ignorance of God and disregard of His
law in their life and conduct. In this divine war
the command of God is as stern as was that given to
the Israelites, before they entered upon the first con-
quest of their promised inheritance. “Thou shalt
not spare them, neither shall thine eye pity them,”
has been as obligatory a duty in the Christian war,
both nationally and individually, as it was in the
war against the nations of Canaan. Taking the
Sword of the Spirit, which is the living Word of God,
the chosen nation in Christian history, after its ap-
pointed preparation for the work, was to go forth,
and not to cease the conflict until every vestige of
the mystery of iniquity was destroyed in its institu-
tions. And in like manner, its individual citizens
were to war without cessation with the spirit of dis-
obedience within themselves, and each strive to bring
his whole nature, spirit, body, and mind, into a willing
subjection to the living Word of God and the Spirit
of Holiness, God’s two witnesses revealed within
him.
198 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

“ As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in
the days of the Son of Man.” It was in the six hun-
dredth year of Noah’s life that the first phase of the
mystery of iniquity was fully disclosed. A hundred
and twenty years previously, he received intimation
of the coming Flood, and commenced building the ark
of his salvation. The Son of Man was born of Mary
four years before the commencement of the Christian
era; and He was the manifestation in the flesh of the
great mystery of godliness. The mystery of iniquity
was then all-prevalent in human principalities and
powers; and Imperial Rome was its visible embodi-
ment. The representative of the Roman dominion
sought to take away His infant life, and the child
Jesus was therefore carried away into Egypt, in
obedience to the divine command. For a time in
Noah’s day the seed of the wicked and the seed of
the woman were preserved in a state of local separa-
tion from each other; but at length the sons of God
began to intermarry with the daughters of men. So
for a time, in Christian history, the Roman dominion
and the early churches existed in a state of isolation
and antagonism. But the close of the ten years’ per-
secution, in the year A.D. 313, witnessed the termina-
tion of their visible isolation and antagonism.

The mystery of iniquity embodied in Imperial
Rome had not changed its nature, but the early
Christian churches had fallen from their first love.
Rome had not been transformed by the Word of God,
and the spirit of its dominion renovated by the Spirit
of Christ; but the Christian churches, in departing
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 199

from their first love, were in this very act under-
going a process of assimilation to the spirit of the
Roman dominion; and thereby, to the same extent,
crucifying the Lord of glory afresh, and exposing His
Holy Spirit to open shame. The declension of the
churches, and the decline of Rome, were greatly accel-
erated after the union of “the clay” of the churches
with “the iron” of Rome. The invisible union
was in its nature a source of division and weakness
to both. The teaching of the churches, so far as it
retained its apostolic character, was calculated to
undermine the foundation of Rome’s imperial despot-
ism. And the external union of the churches with
the Roman dominion tended to subvert their faith in
their invisible King, and to encourage the growth of
lordly ecclesiastical pretensions.

Rome was the first to suffer the pangs of that dis-
solution which was inherent in the very nature of its
existence as a dominion of this world. A self-willed
despotism, like the spirit of disobedience in an indi-
vidual man, is utterly destructive of itself. No such
dominion could hold together at all except by divine
appointment, and this because of the service it alone
can be made to give in the accomplishment of the
glorious plan of human redemption. But for the
Jewish Sanhedrim and Imperial Rome combined, the
great atonement itself could not have been made.
But for the persecuting spirit of the first, so long as
it remained a power, and that of the second, so long
as it was in a state of visible isolation from and an-
tagonism to the Christian churches, the spirits of just
200 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

men could not have been made perfect on earth. It
was the mystery of iniquity that kindled the fire of
that great furnace, by the purifying power of which
the saints of God, chosen from among the twelve
tribes of the spiritual Israel, were to be indi-
vidually purified, and made white and tried in this
life. And by the same furnace, seven times heated,
was the chosen nation first, and all nations thereafter,
to be similarly purified and made white and tried as
nations and kingdoms of this world, ere they could
become, in succession, integral portions of the one
universal dominion of the King of kings.

The visible, ecclesiastical, and political union effect-
ed by Constantine was the practical application in
Christian history of the doctrine of Balaam. The
mystery of iniquity failed to curse the spiritual
Israel in their state of isolation, for they were bless-
ed. But the Christian Balak was taught to cast a
stumblingblock before them, which is not even yet
wholly removed out of the way. They received a
visible warning in the fall of Rome, the parallel of
that which the antediluvians received when Noah
commenced to build the ark. By that time the
Christian churches had sadly degenerated and cor-
rupted themselves in God’s sight. Yet the Spirit of
Holiness, through the living Word of God, strove
with them for an hundred and twenty years before
removing the candlestick out of its place. And it
was not until, as in the days of Noah, all possibility
of revival was destroyed, that in the six hundredth
year of Christ’s manifestation of Himself in the flesh,
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 201

the sign of the completion of the first phase of
the mystery of iniquity in Christian history was
given in the removal of the candlestick out of its
place. The beginning of the supremacy of the Bishop
of Rome, as the visible head of the nominally Christian
Church, or the Vicar of Christ on earth, as he has been
named, was the culmination of the first phase of the
mystery of iniquity. Then iniquity began to come
into the invisible world of human existence on earth
like a flood ; for the bottomless pit was opened, and
it sent forth a smoke which obscured the light of
God’s Word and quenched the life of God’s Spirit
in the corporate form of their visible manifestation
among the early Christian churches.

A national ark, in its first feeble and fragile germs,
was prepared; and among the most remarkable acts
of the Bishop of Rome, who placed the copestone on
the superstructure of Papal spiritual supremacy,
was the sending of a mission to England with what
remained in existence of the living Gospel of truth.
Augustine and his associates departed from Rome on
this memorable errand in the six hundredth year of
Christ’s manifestation of His divine life in the flesh,
or in the year A.D. 596. Thus at the end of the first
phase of the mystery of iniquity in Christian history,
as at the end of the third phase of the divine mystery
of godliness evolved in the year a.D. 1775, the Eng-
lish nation is prominently singled out, from among all
nations, as the chosen nation of Christian history. It
was only in a small province of the English Heptarchy,
that of Kent, that the Roman missionaries made any
202 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

attempt to convert the then barbarous natives of the
island. They were so far successful. But the national
ark was at first more a reproduction of the ark of bul-
rushes in which Moses was hid after his birth, than
that by which Noah was saved. The flood of ungod-
liness which from thence overflowed the invisible
world of human existence on earth, and of which
Rome became voluntarily the source and centre,
gave little promise of life to the infant church ; and
in nineteen years from the year a.D. 596, or in the
year A.D. 615, it reached the limit of its first exist-
ence. The people of Kent relapsed into their former
idolatrous practices, forsaking even an appearance of
Christianity.

Coincident with these occurrences at Rome and in
England there appeared a duplicate form of the mys-
tery of iniquity inthe East. The usurped supremacy
of Rome in the West was accompanied by the rise of
Mohammed in the East ; as if each were to be an ap-
pointed check and counteracting visible antagonist of
the other, all throughout their separate, yet, in its
beginning and determined end, united history. The
glory of the great mystery of godliness manifested in
the flesh is its spirit of submission to God, and regard
for the freedom of other spirits like its own. The
shame of the mystery of iniquity manifested in the
flesh is the pretensions of its spirit to be accepted as
God while in a state of disobedience towards Him,
and its utter disregard of the dignity of other human
spirits made in the image of God, and in all respects
the spiritual equals of its own. The one usurpation
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 203

in the West, and the other in the East, were set over
and against each other, and in this way an equitable
balance was restored. For the claim of each virtu-
ally extinguished that of the other; the invisible
state of the one was continuously demonstrated in
the visible condition of the other ; they were as part
and counterpart, which ought to be united, but which,
through the prevalence of the spirit of disobedience
in each, were placed in positions of irreconcilable
hatred and uncompromising enmity to one another.
Their prolonged existence has disclosed the terrible
fruits of wickedness even in Christian history; and
it has also been made instrumental, as a fiery furnace,
to prepare the descendants of Shem and Japheth for
the ultimate revelation in them of the glory of the
great mystery of godliness. Forty years after the
sign was given of the removal of the candlestick out
of its place in Western Christendom, the sign also
was given in the year A.D. 636 of the removal of the
candlestick out of its place in Eastern Christendom,
by the desolation of Jerusalem and the commence-
ment of the long period during which the holy city,
of which Jerusalem was but a visible figure, was to
be trodden under foot of those who were its aliens in
spirit and mind. These things, however apparently
disastrous, were but the visible echoes in an opposite
extreme of the glory which had even then been in-
visibly revealed in the church of the first-born in
heaven. He that was dead had become alive again
by the resurrection of His divine life in the human
natures of the spirits of the just then made perfect.
204 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

And so numerous were they, and so near an approxi-
mation had been produced in them of the invisible
glory which Christ had with His Father before the
world was, that the church of the first-born is from
thenceforth represented as a woman—a complete
aggregate yet individual embodiment of Christ’s in-
visible power and glory as the Son of God—who has
fled into the wilderness, where she was still to con-
tinue to be visibly fed on earth, notwithstanding the
rise and revelation in the East and in the West of the
duplicate embodiment of the mystery of iniquity.
This was an epoch of momentous change both in
the heaven and the earth of human existence; all
old things individually had passed away with those
who had become the heirs of Christ while living on
earth, But a new earth and a new heaven nationally
were to be erected, so glorious in their visible mani-
festation that the former earth and heaven of Hebrew
history were not to come into remembrance. All
that had then happened visibly was indispensable to
the accomplishment of the appointed end at the time
determined. The state of the new chosen nation was
the lowest in the scale of a semi-barbarous existence.
To construct out of such material a divine dominion
on earth was a work surpassing all created intellec-
tual power; and yet the very depth of the pit of de-
basement, out of which such a dominion was to be
raised up, would yield the greater glory to its divine
Architect. To prepare a kingdom out of a nation of
men such as the inhabitants of the British Islands
were at the close of the sixth century, in which the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 205

glory of the triune God was first to be everlastingly
revealed through His Son and by His Spirit, was
a work worthy of, and competent to, God alone.
This was in truth the great design of which the first
intimation was given in Christian history, when Gre-
gory the Great, as he has been named, despatched
Augustine and his associates on their mission to Eng-
land in the year A.D. 596. And in order to its perfect
accomplishment, and as indispensable thereto, the as-
sumption of Papal supremacy in the year AD. 606,
the apostacy of the Christian converts in England in
the year A.D. 615, and the rise of Mohammed, com-
bined with the desolation of Jerusalem by his fol-
lowers in the year a.D. 636, were not only the
permitted, but the appointed, preliminary, and effec-
tive means.

The Papal supremacy, the Mohammedan desolators
of Jerusalem, and the germs of the English nation,
were as the three sons of Noah after the Flood at
this epoch of Christian history. They became three
rivers of national existence, one of which has been
accursed in its influence all throughout. It has been
the embodiment of the mystery of iniquity in its
most injurious form to mankind. The dominion
founded by Mohammed, although associated with his
religion, has been utterly powerless as an instrument
of improvement, either to its own subjects or to other
nations of which it has been the scourge. Despotic
in its spirit, it in addition recognised no other agency
in enforcing its authority but the coercive power of
the sword. It has also been a great curse to its
206 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

human victims as social beings, desolating their
family and domestic ties. Its career has been a pro-
longed visible illustration of the effects that are the
only possible production of the spirit of disobedience,
when fully revealed as the ruling and pervading in-
fluence in a human dominion. It arose suddenly to
full power; and, with the exception of the transfor-
mations in its national embodiment, it is at this day
exactly what it was when the Saracens began to
tread the material holy city under foot.

It was very different with the power of Papal
Rome. Evil although its origin undoubtedly was,
and embodying, as it has done all throughout its
history, a compulsory and coercive spirit in the form
of exercising its authority, it has nevertheless been
made a blessing to the human race. The act of
Gregory, in the attempted conversion of England to a
form of Christianity by the mission of Augustine and
his associates, was a significant intimation of the
service ecclesiastical Rome was to perform for the
barbarous nations of mankind in Europe. The spirit
of ecclesiastical Rome became in course of time as
despotic in its visible acts and pretensions as was
that of the Mohammedan dominion itself from its
earliest appearance; but Rome, as the seat of a
spiritual supremacy over mankind, was, even in its
zenith, dependent upon others for the coercive power
of the sword to enforce its will, so that intellectual
elements entered largely into the constitution of the
power of ecclesiastical Rome. Unlike Mohamme-
danism, it ruled through intellectual and spiritual
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 207

influences wholly; although, when resisted, it sum-
moned to its aid the military or coercive civil power
of its national adherents.

It therefore occupied many centuries to develope
in human history the limit of Rome’s pretensions,
because of the intellectual and spiritual form they
were destined to assume among European nations ;
and this was the period allotted to the evolution of
the second phase of the mystery of iniquity. At
length its claims reached the height of sitting as
God in the human temple of the nations, declaring
the divine law for the unquestioning belief of all
rulers and people. This phase of the mystery of
iniquity was fully disclosed during the pontificate of
Alexander II. At the same epoch a corresponding
visible change was effected in the condition of the
English nation. The people of England had received
much benefit from the form of Christianity that was
re-established among them, very soon after the re-
lapse of the year aD. 615. An infusion of the
people of other nations, commingling with the island
inhabitants, had also been accomplished from time to
time, thus giving a new visible form to the amalga-
mated races of the nation’s humanity.

The first Jerusalem, from the time of its desolation
by the Mohammedan dominion, was rejected as the
appointed locality where God’s plan was to be further
disclosed ; and it became from thence “the court
without,’ which was to be desecrated by the foot
of a dominion irreconcilably inimical in its spirit to
the divine will. The people of Israel received the
208 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

sign of their final rejection as the chosen nation when
the armies of Imperial Rome desolated Jerusalem and
destroyed its temple. A place was to be prepared
in the wilderness where the divine plan was to be
further disclosed in human history after the desola-
tion of Jerusalem by the first Mohammedan dominion ;
and a new nation was to be raised up, and so trained
and disciplined that in and through it the fruits of
the kingdom, that had been taken from the Jews,
might be brought forth in due time. They were to
constitute the new local and human stages, or national
earth of Christian history, in substitution for the
land of Palestine and the nation of Israel that were
selected in pre-Christian history.

It occupied 430 years to prepare the first chosen
nation, and it would require 430 years, from the
desolation of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 636, to re-
veal the second chosen nation in a corresponding
state of preparedness for the work it was thereafter
to enter upon during the evolution of the third phase
of the mystery of iniquity. These 430 years expired
in the year A.D. 1066. The sign given of their com-
pletion was the Norman invasion and conquest of
England, and the founding of a new dynasty of
kings to reign over the nation. The new dynasty
was the embodiment of a self-willed despotism as un-
bending as that of Mohammed’s successors. But it
had a feeble element of gentleness in it, arising from
the civilising influence of even a form of Christianity.
The human seed of the new divine dominion had its
power considerably yet gradually enlarged; and the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 209

Norman Conquest, instead of being an unmixed evil
to the English nation, was the source of benefit and
blessing.

William’s invasion of England, and his subsequent
despotic rule of the nation, were visible exponents of
the intellectual and spiritual pretensions of Rome
at the time, as they were embodied in the ambitious
claims of Alexander II. That which the Roman
Pontiff desired to have done in the intellectual and
spiritual realms of human existence, was precisely
that which William effected towards England as a
kingdom of this world. William slew the nation’s
king in battle, and usurped the crown as his suc-
cessor. The Papal supremacy’s work had produced
a similar invisible effect; for the Word of God and
the Spirit of Holiness first had their power and
influence over men’s minds and spirits gradually
extinguished, and were ultimately dethroned and
supplanted by the human word and self-will of the
reigning Pontiff. The acts of William kindled a fur-
nace of suffering, in which the political state of the
English nation was to be gradually purified and im-
proved. The prolonged working of Papal supremacy
had also kindled an intellectual and spiritual fire,
in which all nations, including England, were to be
prepared for the time of the second resurrection of
the living Word of God, as the Sword of the Spirit.

This was the turning-point in European prepara-
tory history. From thence a war originated between
the Imperial and Papal claimants for the throne of
supreme human dominion. The chief of each was

0
210 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

desirous to divide with his opponent that opponent’s
power, but peremptorily refused to yield up in
return the smallest particle of his own. This was a
new and a third phase of the mystery of iniquity
evolving itself in Christian history. Previously the
Imperial and Papal chiefs of Christendom had each
his hands full in the building-up of his own peculiar
dominion. This accomplished, the second phase of
the mystery of iniquity was finished. Immediately
thereafter a fierce conflict ensued between the Emperor
and Pope Gregory VII, the Pontiff claiming exclusive
power over the Church in all matters,’and the Em-
peror resisting him. The form of the struggle has
varied. At first it was the Emperor who reserved
his own exclusive dominion to himself, but would not
give to the Pontiff a similar exclusive jurisdiction
within his peculiar domain. Afterward the position
of the combatants was reversed; for the Pontiff,
having secured his own dominion to himself exclu-
sively, was not therewith content, but strove to divide
the Emperor’s political power with him.

In this third phase of the mystery of iniquity the
very best fruits, or the least evil effects which a
spirit of disobedience can produce as the ruling
influence in human government, were fully disclosed.
A self-willed ruler cannot, if he has the power, per-
mit any division or participation in the exercise of
his authority; and this has been the character all
throughout of the Mohammedan government. From
the days of Hildebrand two equal potentates coex-
isted in Christendom, each having a dominion of his
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 211

own, and each capable, by the exercise of mutual self-
submission, of helping the other, and voluntarily bene-
fiting mankind. But this was impossible with a self-
willed spirit in the ascendant in both, so thata state of
internecine strife, originating in the temporary weak-
ness of the one inducing arrogant aggressions by the
other, was the law of their co-ordinate existence.
They were both, however, made benefactors to the
human race, although unwillingly and uncensciously
to themselves. The seed of human freedom was
sown through their contendings with one another ;
and their loss from time to time was gain to those
who would have been their victims, could they
have come to a permanent agreement between them-
selves.

They did at length agree, as Ahab and Jezebel
did; and the bond of their union was a determina-
tion, in the name of God and in defence of His
honour professedly, to wage a war of extermination
by sword and fire against all who dared to think for
themselves in the matter of religion, and to differ in
opinion from them. The persecution or slaying of
men because of their judging in their own minds
what they ought or ought not to believe concerning
God, and avowing their conclusions, and this perse-
cution practised ostensibly in the name of God, is
the very extreme limit of the power of wickedness
embodied in a human government. The Moham-
medan dominion was founded on this wicked prin-
ciple, and practised it from the beginning of its
existence ; but it required many centuries of Chris-
212 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

tian history to make a place for it, even within
either the Imperial or Papal dominion. This was
the teaching of Jezebel.

But, like truth, it had two edges, or an opposite
extreme. The power to punish inan earthly domin-
ion has always been associated with a prerogative of
pardon. The one unpardonable sin in a despotic
dominion, whether temporal or ecclesiastical, is to
assert the privilege of a free human spirit, and refuse
intellectual submission in God’s sight to any human
ruler. The temporal governments of earth are en-
titled to obedience externally. But there is no gov-
ernment on earth authorised to usurp God’s throne
in humanity, and demand, under pain of persecution
in any form, the power to regulate what a man may
or may not believe, more especially respecting God.
As if to crown the edifice of wickedness, and prove
unanswerably how little care for God’s honour was
the motive that influenced the Papal rulers in their
professed zeal to uproot and extinguish heresy, they
were permitted to run to the opposite extreme in
sanctioning the sale of indulgences, the effect of
which was the licensing of iniquity in the name of
God, with a guaranteed immunity from its penal
consequences. The monstrous abuse of this usurped
power was the finishing act of the third phase of the
mystery of iniquity ; and it was actually the occa-
sion of bringing about that intellectual collision in
which the Reformation of the sixteenth century was
originated.

As it was in the days of Noah, so has it been in
 

THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 213

the days of the Son of Man. The waters of the Flood
by which the antediluvians were destroyed, were a
figure of the manner of redemption in Christian
times; and these overtook and overflowed the germs
of the new chosen nation in the year a.p. 615. The
fire from heaven, which destroyed the Sodomites, was
a figure of the divinely-appointed Norman invasion
and conquest of England, which was as a fire kindled
for the improvement and purification of the nation.
The termination of the first conquest of Palestine by
the Israelites was the beginning of their long training
to receive the knowledge of God invisibly revealed
by His Word. The manner of the overthrow of the
nations of Canaan was a sign of the manner in which
the new chosen nation was, by the Sword of the
Spirit, which is the living Word of God, to bring
themselves individually under subjection, and also
to expel from their national institutions every vestige
of the mystery of iniquity.

Their invisible preparation was by water and by
fire, spread over a long period of their history. But
the visible results were to be wholly effected there-
after by the resurrection of the living Word of God
through the Spirit of Holiness. After the national
self-willed spirit had been broken and subdued, and
the national intellect had been tutored and expanded,
but not till then, the Word of God and the Spirit of
Holiness commenced their glorious work; and the
sign of this was the resurrection of the living Word of
God in human nature nationally, as well as individu-
ally, in the year A.D. 1517. That which was revealed
214 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

in figures of the plan of human redemption in com-
bination with the diverse fruits of wickedness, in
human history, in the Flood, the fire of destruction to
the Sodomites, and the overthrow and expulsion of
the Canaanites, was actually fulfilled in the history
of Christendom in both its aspects between the years
A.D. 615 and A.D. 1517; one of the phases occupying
451 years, from the year A.D. 615 to the year A.D.
1066 ; and the other a similar period of 451 years,
from the year A.D. 1066 to the year A.D. 1517. And
this was so also from the days of Noah; for from the
abating of the waters of the Flood in the year B.c.
2347, until the birth of Isaac in the year B.c. 1896,
the appointed period was 451 years. And from
thence to the first partial conquest of the promised
land in the year B.c. 1445, was in like manner 451
years.

Scripture history, from the saving of Noah to the
fulfilment in part of the promise to Abraham, is an
appointed illustration of the dark ages of Christian
history, ending in the era of the Reformation. God
did not drive out the nations at once from Canaan,
but He gave the Israelites possession little by little.
So has it been in Christian history since the dawn of
the Reformation. Progress has been constant and
without intermission all throughout. Nevertheless,
neither the spirit of political nor ecclesiastical des-
potism has yet been slain effectually and removed
from the earth. Nor can it be so until the revelation
of the Son of Man with power and great glory. The

‘manner of His so revealing Himself fully will
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 215

accord with the preparation He has been continu-
ously making for its accomplishment. It will be
both national and individual; and it had to be pre-
ceded by the gradual uprooting of the fruits of the
working of each successive phase of the mystery of
iniquity in past history. The last remnants of the
doctrine of Balaam, and the teaching of Jezebel,
existing even among the chosen nation, are only
removable by Himself through the brightness of His
coming and the glory of His power. That which
even the most advanced in the state of national or
individual preparation for His glorious appearing
have, they are to hold fast till He comes. For His
living presence alone, as the Son of God in human
nature, will supply the Word of God with that ves-
ture dipped in blood, at the receiving of which, hea-
ven is to be opened, and earth redeemed from every
vestige of the presence of evil.
CHAPTER X.

Tue dominion of Christendom was divided between
the Emperors and Popes for many centuries. A new
power was revealed from the year A.D. 1517. Its
influence was aggressive upon that of each of its
predecessors ; and its mission was to waste and
destroy both. The power of the Christian Czsars
was visible or political; that of the Pontiffs was
intellectual or ecclesiastical. The latter began to
rise in the year A.D. 606, but the former did not
appear till the beginning of the ninth century. The
Empire and the Papacy were nominally separate em-
bodiments of the two horns of the Lamb—the one
the earth, and the other the heaven, of the “all power”
that had been given Him over the human race in
order to the accomplishment of man’s redemption.
The Empire was “the temple” for the time being,
and the Papacy was “the altar.” But there were no
individual worshippers of God in spirit and in truth
permitted to exist openly within the dominion of
either. The spirit of the government of each was
that of the mystery of iniquity, which cannot even
ALPHA AND OMEGA. 217

tolerate the existence of individual human freedom
in any form.

The Empire was the successor of Imperial Rome,
and it inherited the political iron despotism of its
predecessor, commingled, however, with so much of
the principles of Christianity as could be unfolded
in human nature at the time of its establishment. It
was a vast improvement upon the state of Imperial
Rome, all throughout its history, either in its pagan
or Christian form, and for which it was a temporary
substitution, while the human materials of a new
and enduring living national temple of God were
being prepared elsewhere. It combined in one that
which was signified by the second temple at Jerusa-
lem and Imperial Rome. It was a national image
of that which was to come; but like the first man
Adam, although made in the image of God, it also
became subject to the spirit of disobedience. It was
the Persia of Christian history ; for, like the kings of
Persia, its kings professed to honour the God of hea-
ven, and to favour the restoration of a visible habita-
tion for Him among men.

From the completion of the second temple in the
days of Cyrus and Darius of Persia, there was an
interval of 487 years preceding the full rise of Im-
perial Rome. The power of Imperial Rome as a
pagan dominion was exhausted in the ten years’ per-
secution of the Christian churches, which originated
in the decree of the Emperor Diocletian in the year
A.D. 803, and did not terminate till the year A.D. 313.
In the year following its close, the visible alliance
218 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

between the Empire and the Christian churches
began to manifest itself. Thereafter the Empire
was divided between an Eastern and a Western
dominion. In the year A.p. 476, the Roman Empire,
in its Christian form, fell; and in the year A.D. 636
the Greek Empire, in its Christian form, lost its vital
power, the sign of which was the desolation of Jeru-
salem by 2 Mohammedan dominion. When Rome
fell, lawlessness and violence became all-prevalent
within its territory, thus declaring that the peculiar
distinction of Rome, in its best days, during pre-
Christian history, had entirely passed away. When
Jerusalem fell before the Saracens, the living intel-
lectual knowledge of God which existed among the
early Christian churches had also been extinguished.

Thus the letters of Latin and Greek written in
primitive Christian history, as well as the Word of
God, were again crucified unto extinction im living
humanity on earth. Not only were the signs iden-
tified with the phase of “the moon” in connection
with Hebrew history reproduced in Christian history;
so also were those identified with its Roman and
Greek phases. And as in pre-Christian history
there was a time allotted to the separate ascendancy
of each, so was it in Christian history. For, from
the year A.D. 314, the first of the alliance between
the Roman Empire and the Christian churches, until
the last years of Rome’s existence, in the year AD.
475, the appointed interval was 161 years. , And
the separate history of the Greek dominion from
thence until the desolation of Jerusalem, in the year
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 219

AD. 636, occupied a similar period of 161 years.
All the evil of Rome, as a persecuting pagan power,
was revived in the Mohammedan dominion, with this
aggravation, that it professed to do homage to the
one living and true God. Its hatred of the Chris-
tian name, and its violent persecution of individual
Christians, were on this account more deadly and
malignant than were those of pagan Rome. From
the full rise of Imperial Rome in the year Bc. 30,
until the exhaustion of its persecuting power was
manifested in the issuing of Diocletian’s decree in
the year AD. 303, the appointed period was 333
years ; and from thence until the advent of the new
desolator in the East, whose dominion has been one
of unmixed evil, in the year A.D. 636, there elapsed
a similar period of 333 years—in all, 666 years.

But a new dominion was to appear in Christian his-
tory, the characteristics of which were to be a combi-
nation of the leopard nature of the Persian kingdom
with that which was signified by the restoration of
the temple at Jerusalem. This new empire was to
be, for a time, the medium through which Heaven's
benevolent design to the nations of men was to be
revealed, to the extent their intellectual capacity and
moral training would permit. Its state and condition
were essentially dissimilar to those of the Moham-
medan dominion; and the design of its existence
was not less so. The suffering and degradation
which the Mohammedan power has occasioned to
mankind, resemble the unprofitable sorrow to which
the third part of men have been subjected because
220 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

of their voluntary election to be ruled by a spirit of
disobedience. It has been a visible illustration of
that kind of human invisible torment which self-
willed men inflict upon themselves, without deriv-
ing any benefit from its endurance. The effects of
the despotic power of the Holy Roman Empire
were improving, elevating, and purifying unto those
placed under its dominion.

There was an increasing gradual process of civilisa-
tion, identified with the history of the revived Persian
kingdom in its Christian form. For its kings acted
as did the first kings of pre-Christian Persia; they
professedly helped and aided the work of God, in
their own peculiar way. But the Mohammedan power
was the embodiment of wilful and obstinate anta-
gonism to the Spirit of God and the knowledge of
His Son. As the Holy Roman Empire was the
reproduction of ancient Persia, in its identification
with the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, so
was the time of its rise appointed, that it might in
this additional respect harmonise with its prototype.
It occupied 487 years from the restoration of the
temple at Jerusalem in the year B.c. 517, until the
full rise of Imperial Rome in the year B.c.30. Rome
existed as a pagan persecuting dominion until the
year A.D. 313. From thence the seed began to be
sown, the first imperial fruit of which in a new
embodiment was the Holy Roman Empire. It was
founded in the year A.D. 800, or 487 years after the
exhaustion of the persecuting power of Rome as a
pagan dominion. The ruling spirit of the new
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 221

empire was that of the mystery of iniquity. Never-
theless, out of its existence there were to spring up
independent kingdoms, in whose day, and among
whose people, at the time appointed, the spirit of
the new divine dominion was to be revealed with
power and great glory.

The Papal ally of the Empire appeared first as an
intellectual or ecclesiastical chief. But at the end
of 148 years from his rise, in the year a.D. 754, he
conjoined a temporal sovereignty with his previous
ecclesiastical supremacy. The temporal power of the
Pontiffs, founded upon their own territorial posses-
sions, was invariably feeble and limited. But a time
came when, through the temporal power of other
kings, the reigning Pontiff found himself seated on a
throne of almost universal temporal, as well as eccle-
siastical, dominion over European nations and king-
doms. The first-fruit of his great exaltation was
the revival of the persecuting spirit of Pagan Rome,
with the view of extinguishing all visible opposition
to his decrees as an ecclesiastical potentate. And
from thence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased
to find willing co-operators with them in their un-
holy endeavours toward this end among the rulers of
Christian kingdoms. The teaching of Jezebel, revived
by them, has had a marvellous success, and has been
practised by many royal disciples.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century the
Roman Pontiffs have been, in a Christian form, imi-
tators and exemplars of the Mussulman Popes. The
good, infinitesimal as it had been, that was previously
222 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

lingering in the Papal system was from thenceforth
wholly eradicated, and it became an unmixed em-
bodiment of the spirit of disobedience. On the day
the Roman Pontiff sanctioned, or rather originated,
the persecuting wars of the thirteenth century, he
gave the sign of the total departure of the Papal
system from even a semblance of identity with the
spirit of Christianity. The Crusades which preceded
them in the twelfth century were like them in kind,
but they had an apparent redeeming element. They
were ostensibly prosecuted to terminate the desola-
tion of Jerusalem, by retaking it from the open and
avowed enemies of Christianity. But the persecut-
ing wars of Christendom were undertaken against
fellow-Christians, and their undoubted object and
effect was to bring all Christian nations under a self-
willed despotism, the exact image of the Mohamme-
dan power, both in its political and ecclesiastical
aspects.

It occupied twice 451 years, from the time of
Noah’s salvation by the ark, to reveal simultaneously
in human history the working of the mystery of
iniquity, and the manner of human redemption from
its power by the manifestation of the great mystery
of godliness. It also required twice 451 years to
reveal the beneficial effects of the action of the
mystery of iniquity in Christian history, in preparing
mankind for the resurrection of the power of the
living Word of God at the appointed time. So also
there were twice 451 years allotted to the separate
manifestation of the mystery of iniquity, as a power
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 223

of unmixed and unmitigated wickedness in a Chris-
tian form. For from the date of the Emperor Dio-
cletian’s decree in the year A.D. 303, which finished
the persecuting power of Pagan Rome, until the rise
of the temporal power of the Roman Pontiffs in the
year A.D. 754, the appointed time-interval was 451
years. This marked the close of the first clearly-
defined phase in the growth of the new power of evil
in a Christian form. At the termination of other
451 years, in the year a.D. 1205, it began to be fully
developed unto its utmost limits.

The nations who from time to time, during the
course of history, had been subjected to the imperial
dominion founded in the year A.D. 800, were in suc-
cession emancipated from its yoke. The nations
continue to exist as kingdoms, but the Empire, as it
was, is gone. The spirit of the Papal system is un-
changed and unchangeable ; but its power to perse-
cute has been seriously and extensively diminished
since the year A.D. 1517. England at no time formed
a part of the Christian Empire; but from the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century it was subjected for a
time to the Papal dominion. The kingdom of Eng-
land, and its sister kingdom of Scotland, were in fact
the only entire nations of Europe among whom, at
the Reformation era, the revived Word of God was
furnished with an open door, and had free course to
run and be glorified. The spirit of its reigning dynas-
ties, in the lines of Tudor and Stuart, was, however,
despotic; and its opposite extreme was gradually
generated in the history of both nations. One fruit
224 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

of the self-willed rule of English monarchs after the
Reformation epoch was the expatriation of large num-
bers of the English nation to North America, where
they formed colonies, connecting themselves with the
mother country.

In the history of these colonies, and in the cir-
cumstances of their separation from England, a new
illustration was given of the working of the great
mystery of godliness in the act of human regenera-
tion. There is a limit even to the divine law of self-
submission in its national aspect. Communities of
men, under the influence of a free spirit, are not re-
quired’ to yield unquestioning obedience to human
rulers. God disclaims any such prerogative Himself
in His moral government. His way all throughout
human history has been to abstain from the sem-
blance of interference with the freedom of volition
either of individuals or nations. By the enlighten-
ing presence of His Word, which is altogether a per-
suasive power, and the quickening life of His Spirit,
which can only come into existence in individual
men or nations in concurrence with their willing and
cordial consent, God has from the beginning exercised
a divine and holy influence, controlling the visible
results of human history, in addition to disclosing at
the same time His own invisible and unspeakable
glory. And this is the heavenly principle, which is
the only true foundation of just and good government
among the nations of men.

The only kind of government possible, so long as
the spirit of disobedience held unlimited sway over
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 225

the human race, was despotic. The essence and the
substance of freedom is mutual self-submission—the
ruler to the ruled in the manner of his government,
and the ruled to the ruler as the impersonation of the
nation’s law and will. The spirit of freedom, when
prevalent in the minds of a community, will not
tolerate the exercise of self-willed authority. But
the growth of this spirit unto perfection is a slow
process, and the nature of its strugelings into exist-
ence is amply illustrated in the history of England
and Scotland, and also in the circumstances of the
separation of the American colonies, and the con-
sequent advent of a new empire, based so far, at its
outset, on human freedom. The rule of the Hano-
verian English dynasty was as silver in comparison
with “the iron” despotism of the Tudor and “the
brass” obstinacy of the Stuart. Still the monarch
was self-willed, and his self-will came into collision
with the matured spirit of freedom influencing his
colonists, and the result was the first-fruit of the
great struggle which from thence took its rise be-
tween the despotism of kings and the growing spirit
of freedom among European peoples.

The war commenced in the year av. 1517 was
principally intellectual and religious. But the letters
of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew were all equally to be
clothed with a new and enduring vesture of life and
power. The nations of Europe have made vast pro-
gress since the Reformation epoch in that mental
culture for which the Greeks were famous, and in
that civilisation for which Republican Rome was re-

P
226 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

markable. But in English and Scotch history chiefly,
if not wholly, the spirit of the Hebrew letters, or
Scripture truth, in conjunction with both the Greek
and Roman letters, has been raised to life. “ Judg-
ment must begin at the house of God.” And the
British Empire, although then in advance of all other
kingdoms in the knowledge and practice of human
freedom, was the first to suffer in the form of dis-
memberment, through the then limited action of the
spirit of disobedience in its government. The union
which Constantine formed between things visible and
invisible in human government, was the source of
prolonged human debasement and tyrannical govern-
ment. But the union between things visible and
invisible in human government, of which the separa-
tion of America from England has been the all-prolific
source, is a union which is destined to elevate and
dignify humanity on earth, and is also to endure as
the divinely-appointed co-equal of the material uni-
verse in its character as a visible means of revealing
the inconceivable and invisible glory of the triune
God.

The form of the new divine dominion is one, and
yet it is multitudinous. The unit and the multi-
tudinous aspects began to receive separate embodi-
ments when the rupture between Britain and America
was originated. It was impossible to illustrate in
one dominion both qualities, each being the opposite
extreme of the other. Therefore to America was
intrusted the work of demonstrating the principles
of human freedom in the multitudinous or republican
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 227

form ; and to Britain the duty was assigned of dis-
closing those principles in the unit or monarchical
form. Both the republican and monarchical elements
are indispensable in the constitution of a dominion
after God’s pattern. And the nearer Britain ap-
proaches America, retaining, however, steadfastly its
monuarchical form, and the nearer America draws to
Britain, in like manner holding firmly by its pecu-
liar distinctiveness of form, there will be a correspond-
ing unfolding of the national temple of God, whose
visible glory is destined to fill the earth, and bless
all nations and families of mankind.

The tabernacle of Moses erected in the wilderness
was republican, for God alone was the nation’s king.
It was reared immediately after the exodus from
Egypt, in the year Bc. 1491. The final national
fruit of pre-Christian history was witnessed in the
rise of Imperial Rome, in the year Bc. 30. The
multitudinous and the unit forms were both dis-
closed at the latter epoch, for Czesar’s power was
established on the overthrow of the republic. So
were they at the former epoch, for God was the
unit, and the people were the multitudinous, in the
Hebrew theocracy founded by Moses. Between these
two great epochs of pre-Christian history there
elapsed an appointed period of three times 487 years,
or 1461 years. The unit and the multitudinous
forms were reunited in Christian history, when
Constantine began to ally Imperial Rome with the
republican element of the early Christian churches,
in the year A.D.314. Then, however, all was human,
228 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

for “ the clay” was only “the seed of men.” After
the lapse of an equal period of 1461 years from the
year A.D. 314, in the year a.D. 1775, separate exist-
ence was given both to the unit and multitudinous
forms of human government. But, in the mean time,
the Word of God had been raised to life, and His
living power and light had been largely revealed in
the intended national embodiment of each opposite
form. So that, in each division of the once united
empire, the seeds of the divine and the human, and
the monarchical and the republican, have been abun-
dantly sown, and the final issue in both cannot fail
to be the production of a national visible image,
disclosing the marvellous power and unspeakable
glory of the triune God.

The declared purpose of the first creation was to
make known the invisible things of God which were
before the foundation of the world. The created
heavens, both visible and invisible, are an emanation
from God, and are also a revelation, external to Him-
self, of His self-existent power and glory within the
Godhead before the creation of the world. The in-
visible things of God, and all the things created, are
the equivalents of each other; the things created
being the exact counterpart of the invisible things
of God before they were created. In the first
creation, when it was completed, Christ was declared
to be the Son of God, thus evidencing the fulness of
the manifestation of the invisible things that had
been given through its existence. The duration of
the first creation is as undefinable as its limits are
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 229

unascertainable; and both are an incomprehensible
expression of that which is undefinable and unascer-
tainable in relation to the nature and existence of
God. “In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth” is a brief record, intimating, however,
that Christ is all the fulness of God, and that the
fulness of Christ, who is all the fulness of God, is the
fulness of the first creation.

An entirely new manifestation of the glory of God
was originated when the corner-stone of this earth
was laid, preliminary to its preparation as a human
habitation, The invisible things of God were a
second time manifested, and in a very different form,
in the great intellectual and moral conflict, of which
the restoration of order on this earth, and the crea-
tion of the human race in Adam, were the first
issues. The invisible things of God connected with
this great war were to be subsequently made known
in the history of human regeneration. Each day of
the preparatory work was to have its mystery clearly
unfolded in human history. The first four days of
preparation had their appointed counterpart in the
first four thousand years of human history, which
terminated in the birth of Christ as the Word made
flesh. The fifth day of preparation was devoted to
the giving of life to creatures in sea and air; and
the sixth witnessed the creation of living creatures on
the earth after their kind, and closed with the forma-
tion of man in the image of God. In like manner,
in the fifth and sixth thousand years of human his-
tory the sea of nations brought forth new forms of
230 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

national life and human dominion; the air of the
human intellect had its living birds of doctrine and
principle disclosed ; and the earth brought forth the
new dominions or living creatures after their kind.

The fifth day of this earth’s preparation was re-
markable for the giving of life in sea and air; and
so was the fifth thousand years of human history.
The sixth day of this earth’s preparation was re-
markable for the appearance of living creatures on
the earth; and so was the sixth thousand years of
human history. Before the close of the sixth day
man was formed in the image of God; so, before the
end of the sixth thousand years, man is to be regen-
erated, being transformed into the image of Christ,
who is the image of the invisible God. Thus the
six days of this earth’s preparation to become the
abode of man, and man’s formation towards their
close, are a divinely-appointed illustration of the six
thousand years of human history, towards the end of
which the invisible things of God in the creation of
Adam will be fully revealed in the entire regenera-
tion of living humanity, nationally, socially, and in-
dividually, through the manifestation of the Word in
all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and peoples, as
the Son of God, with power and great glory, by the
mighty working of the Spirit of Holiness. Thus the
invisible things of God connected with the prepara-
tion for, and the act itself of, man’s creation, have
been, and will continue to be, clearly seen in human
history, thus constituting them the exact equivalents
of each other.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 231

God’s declared purpose has been twofold in human
history, having reference to man’s created nature as
a physical and intellectual being. The intellectual
knowledge of God which Adam refused, it was the
divine determination to disclose in human nature, in
a continually increasing volume of light. The bodily
life which man forfeited by his rejection of the Word,
was also to be redeemed from the power of evil,
and its existence perfected in the chosen generation,
even on this earth. The double loss of intellectual
light and continuous bodily existence effected in
Adam, was repeated in Abel when Cain slew him.
To prepare the human race physically and intellec-
tually, both individually and nationally, for the re-
ception and visible manifestation in their nature of
the invisible glory of God through His Son and by
His Holy Spirit, was the appointed end of human
history. The working out of this marvellous pur-
pose had a divine and also a human aspect. Con-
nected with its gradual evolution there were two
rivers of existence, one bitter and deadly, having its
source in the great star who fell from heaven, and
the other appointed for the healing of the nations,
whose waters proceeded from the throne of God and
of the Lamb as their united source.

The seed of the continuous physical life of the
human race forfeited in Adam, and again slain in
Abel, was restored in the birth of Seth. The seed
of the continuous intellectual knowledge of God
refused by Adam, and destroyed in Abel’s violent
death, was restored in the birth of Isaac. The
939 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

form of its restoration in Isaac was a source of bless-
ing to men as nations, and also in their social, domes-
tic, and family relationships. The Hebrew human
aspect of both culminated in their evolution during
the days of David and Solomon. Of Solomon it is
said, that his glory was the greatest attainable by
man in his own nature apart from God. Of this
the temple of God he erected at Jerusalem was the
visible sign. Man in his own nature was proved to
be incapable of revealing God’s invisible glory in any
higher manner than that in which it had been made
known in the material creation previously to his for-
mation in the image of God.

From Solomon’s day, however, direct preparation
began to be made for the union of the divine and
human natures in one being, and, through this
union, the glorious accomplishment of God’s holy
purpose in creating man. The human aspect of
general history was as divinely arranged and super-
intended in the form of its evolution as was its
subsequent divine aspect, and the one was the
heavenly-appointed illustration of both the manner
and the time of effecting the other. The first thou-
sand years of the human aspect was employed in
the giving of light, of which the translation of Enoch
was the evening star. The first thousand years of
the divine aspect, being the fourth of human history,
was similarly employed; the translation of Elijah
being its morning star, the letters of Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew its moon, and the Word of God made
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 233

flesh its divine sun. The second thousand years of
the human aspect was identified with the life of
Noah. They were employed in the preparation of a
firmament, called the heaven of human existence, by
means of which an effectual separation was made
between the bitter waters of human life under it and
the sweet waters above it.

In the second thousand years of the divine aspect,
which were the fifth of human history, the members
of the church of the first-born in heaven were sealed,
and individually translated from this earth. They
became at the end of six hundred years the human
firmament, which is called heaven, in contradistinc-
tion to the bitter waters of human existence, which
from thence became all-prevalent under the firma-
ment. The third thousand years of the human
aspect were employed in the separation of the human
earth or Hebrew nation, descended from Abraham
through Isaac, and the making of their national ex-
istence, the only kind of temple which human nature
by itself could furnish as the living house of the
Most High God. The third thousand years of the
divine aspect, which are the sixth of human history,
have been similarly employed. The end is to mani-
fest a living national temple of God, in every way
suited for the reception and manifestation of the
divine glory, through the union in one visible ex-
istence of the Son of God and the human natures of
the chosen nation first, and of the entire chosen gene-
ration thereafter.
234 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

At the appointed time an entirely new generation
of human beings physically is to be made manifest.
The divine seed sown in Seth, and nourished by its
Author throughout all history, is to bring forth its
full fruits in a new race of men, combining in one
physical existence the life of God as well as the life
of man; each being the finite image of God’s Son,
and all being the innumerable multitude in whom
the infinitude of the divine glory will be fully and
enduringly disclosed. The transformation of human
nature determined, and certainly to be accomplished,
is the converse and the complement of the change
which God underwent when in the person of His
Son He was made man. As God was made a par-
taker of human nature, so men, as nations and
families and individuals, are to become a new gene-
ration of the human race, by being made partakers
of the essence and glory of the divine nature even
in this life and on this earth. It is not surprising
that so long a period has been required, and that
so much humiliation and suffering were ordained
in order to the complete effecting of this great
and marvellous transformation at the appointed
time.

The human and the divine aspects are part and
counterpart of each other, both in the manner and
the time of their predetermined evolution. The
time occupied in preparing for the full manifesta-
tion of the human aspect of God’s purpose in his-
tory, from the birth of Seth until its end was
signified by the erection of Solomon’s temple, was
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 235

2870 years. The number of the years is thus
ascertained :—

From the birth of Seth to that of Noah, . : 926 years.
From the birth of Seth to that of Arphaxad, ‘ 602 ,,
From the birth of Arphaxad to that of Terah, . 220s,
The death of Terah and call of Abraham, . : 205s,
The sojourning of Abraham and his descendants, 430,
In the 480th year thereafter the temple began to
be erected, . é é ‘ : 3 : 480 ,,
It was seven years in building, . 5 : z t 45
Inall, . 3 ‘ é - 2870 ,,

The evolution of the divine aspect was to occupy
an equal period of time, or 2870 years from the
completion of Solomon’s temple. “Howbeit, the
Most High dwelleth not in temples made with
hands.” This has been the declaration of God in
history from the days of Solomon until the present
day, as signified by the very fact of His repeated
rejection of all temples made by creature hands.
And the successive acts of rejection, and conse-
quent desolation, were also the visible signs of that
great invisible and divine preparation which was
constantly in progress, in order that God’s true
temple might be disclosed in human nature in the
fulness of itstime. And what must be said? “Shall
the Son of Man find faith on the earth?” ‘Will the
best of men believe that the work of preparation is
finished ; that all things are now ready; and that
the fulness of the appointed time has come for the
manifestation of God’s life through His Son, as the
everlasting and inseparable companion of, and indis-
236 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

solubly united with, man’s physical existence? The
appointed preparatory period of 2870 years com-
menced in the year B.c. 1004, and it consequently
came to an end in the year A.D. 1866.

Within God’s living temple, the materials of which
are human physical existence purified and made
white through the waters of regeneration, there is to
be “‘an altar” tried as by fire. The materials of this
altar are human intellectual existence united to and
enlightened by the Word of God, thereby constitut-
ing its joint and indivisible existence, “the mind of
Christ.” The preparation of the divine altar com-
menced in Isaac in its human aspect; for the history
of its development had also a human and a divine
aspect. In its divine aspect, the history of its pre-
paration is the history of Christianity, from the time
when God called His Son out of Egypt, and from
which event the time-reckoning of the Christian era
is dated. The human and the divine aspects are
also part and counterpart the one of the other. The
intellectual knowledge of God, which Adam rejected,
began to be restored in human history in an un-
broken line of continuity through Abraham’s de-
scendants; and of this the birth of Isaac was the
sign. In order to its visible manifestation, a national
embodiment was indispensable, and this was supplied
by the Hebrews. The temple of God and the altar
are thus one and indivisible in a nation’s existence;
the temple being the external institutional edifice,
and the altar being the invisible intellectual know-
ledge by which the character of the nation’s govern-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 237

ment, laws, and policy is framed and determined.
During the first eight hundred years of the history
of the altar’s human aspect, God was gradually dis-
closing the knowledge of His Word in Hebrew his-
tory, until He revealed Himself as fully as was
possible in a nation having an existence apart from
the divine essence.

In the days of Samuel, Israel was placed as a
nation upon its trial, precisely as Adam was in para-
dise when the Word of God came unto him. The
Israelites did as a nation exactly what Adam did as
an individual—they rejected God that He should
not reign over them as the ruling Spirit of their
national existence. This was the national fruit pre-
sented of God’s prolonged intellectual training of
the nation, and His full revelation of His knowledge
by the Word of the Lord. It was at the end of 800
years from the birth of Isaac that this event tran-
spired, for Saul’s reign as king of Israel commenced
in the year Bc. 1095. The Israelites were thereafter
tried as a nation for the long period of 70 weeks, or
490 years, until Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
was, because of their utterly unprofitable national
existence in itself, permitted to overthrow the king-
dom and destroy the temple. Although the nation
had corrupted its way, God’s purpose was steadily
evolved in a written form by means of Hebrew his-
tory. But between the nation’s intellectual life or
altar, and the Scripture of truth, there was no bond
of union, because of the absence of a divine power of
illumination. The intellectual capacity of man was
238 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

afterwards tried twice over in relation to subjects
the knowledge of which was not dependent upon a
special divine revelation. In this department of
knowledge the Greeks and the Romans were tried
in succession, and in separate ways, and the sum of
that which could be produced in human nature by
itself as an altar in the temple for God, was embodied
in Imperial Rome.

The substances of which the altar in the temple
of God is to be formed are, the living Word of God
and the human intellect. By their invisible and
everlasting union in the individual nature of the
members of the church of the first-born, Christ being
Himself its foundation-stone, the mind of Christ
has been gradually disclosed in Christian history.
Until Christ as the Word of God was in this way
clothed with a human vesture, the preparation for
the altar in a visible national temple would not
cease. But with the termination of the existence on
earth of the last member of the church of the first-
born, heaven will be opened, and its intellectual
armies, with the living Word of God leading them,
will go forth in righteousness to judge and make war.
The progress of this preparation for the altar has
never ceased in Christian history; but hitherto it
has been wholly invisible. In the year 800 of the
history of the divine aspect, corresponding in time
with that of the human aspect, a visible embodi-
ment appeared in the Holy Roman Empire, of the
best possible result attainable in the then state and
condition of humanity. Since then, in Britain first
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 239

as one empire, and in Britain and America thereafter
simultaneously as two empires, there have been
given visible signs of the invisible and divine intel-
lectual work going forward to perfection in each.

The visible aggregate fruits of the first portion of
the invisible mental conflict, which was occasioned
by the work of raising up the living Word of God
in indissoluble union with individual human intel-
lects, were the cessation of Imperial Rome’s external
antagonism to Christianity, the fall of Rome, and the
rise of the Holy Roman Empire. The interval allot-
ted to the second portion of the invisible mental
conflict, which terminated in the Reformation epoch,
was occupied in preparing the new chosen nation
for the revelation in them by the Spirit of Christ of
the double fruits of the mental conflict which had
been waged in the individual members of the church
of the first-born during their sojourn on earth. Until
the desolation of Jerusalem by the Romans, Chris-
tianity had the form of a national habitation, al-
though it was hostile and unfriendly. It was 730
years thereafter before it received a new form of
national habitation in the Holy Roman Empire, not
less hostile and unfriendly to the true knowledge of
Christ than was that of Judea to the true know-
ledge of God in Christ. At the expiry of the next
730 years a different national habitation was pre-
pared for it within the territory of the empire, the
sign of which was the famous protest of the year
AD. 1529.

The third portion of the great intellectual conflict
240 ALPHA AND OMEGA.

in human nature, between the reviving life of the
Word of God and the deadly mental errors propa-
gated by the spirit of disobedience, commenced in
the year A.D. 1517 in its individual phase, and in
the year A.D. 1529 in its national phase, both within
the teritory of the empire founded in the year A.D.
800. There are now existing three distinct, and in
some respects dissimilar, national embodiments of the
progress made in the preparation of the altar for
God’s temple. In Britain, in America, and in Prus-
sia, vast intellectual national progress has been made
in all kinds of useful and regenerating knowledge.
The letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew have be-
come in a high degree, and to a great extent, the
spirit and life of the intellectual existence of all
three kingdoms. Britain is the successor of and
substitute for the Hebrew nation; America is the
successor of and substitute for the Roman Republic;
and Prussia is the successor of and substitute for the
Holy Roman Empire. It occupied 1866 years, from
the commencement of pre-Christian intellectual pre-
paration, in the birth of Isaac in the year B.c. 1896,
to complete the human aspect of the altar for the
temple, in Imperial Rome in the year B.c. 30. So it
was to occupy 1866 years of Christian history in
preparing the national human materials for the altar
of God’s temple in its divine aspect, and these ex-
pired in the year A.D. 1866,
CHAPTER XI.

THE American Republic is of recent origin, and its.
separate history dates only from the declaration of
independence in the year A.D. 1776. The Prussian
monarchy was not established till the year «A.D.
1701; although the source of its national intellec-
tual history was the famous protest of the year a.D.
1529, which mortally wounded the empire it has
succeeded. Britain alone of the three is an empire
dating its rise far back in the annals of Christian his-
tory. As the successor in the divine aspect of the
position given to the Hebrew nation in the evolu-
tion of the human aspect of national redemption,
it has inherited the visible destiny promised to the
intellectual seed of Abraham. The first germs of
the divine and human seeds combined were sown
in its national existence in the year A.D. 596; and
having fallen into the national soil, they, like all
other seeds, died shortly thereafter, but to be re-
vived, and bring forth abundantly, at the appointed
time, the good fruits of the kingdom of God, in a
visible empire of great territorial and numerical ex-
Q
249 ALPHA AND. OMEGA; OR,

tent. Its beginning was like the grain of mustard-
seed, which has grown until it has become a great
national tree, having its branches extending unto all
the ends of the earth.

The invisible and therefore unwritten history of Bri-
tain was illustrated in the Scripture narrative of the
experiences of the first chosen nation. Its dominion
was a national embodiment of all the characteristics,
both of divine and human production, in some of the
principal kingdoms and corporate associations by
which its existence was preceded; and it contained,
in addition, the seed of the living Word of God, as

_noted in the Scripture of truth, both old and new.
The first written revelation of God’s Word was com-
pleted in the year B.c. 404, and the second was
closed in the isle of Patmos in the year A.D. 96.
Between the completion of the first and the close of
the second there intervened an appointed period of
500 years. It required another appointed period of
500 years to prepare for the sowing of the divine
seed, of the life and spirit of both, in the virgin hu-
man soil, of the germ of the English nation, in the
year A.D. 596. The kingdom of God was founded
among men in the year 4.D. 30. The last year of
the separate existence of “the iron” of Imperial
Rome, and “the clay” or human seed of the new
divine dominion, was the year a.p. 313. For an
appointed period of 283 years of primitive Christian
history, the divine seed of the new dominion, “the
clay” or its human seed, and “the iron” of the
then existing kingdom of this world, continued in
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 243

a state of disunion and antagonism. It required a
similar period of 283 years to prepare for the sowing
of the seed of all three, in the germ of the new na-
tion, in the year a.p. 596.

The next important epoch was the union of the
nation, which had previously been a heptarchy, in
one kingdom, in the year a.D. 827. New and impor-
tant elements in the nation’s existence were then
added. It was to resemble the Hebrew nation in the
manner and the objects of its training, and to provide
a local habitation, through suffering and humiliation,
for the unfolding of the divine purpose in Christian
history. It was also to inherit that feature of the
Persian kingdom, which consisted in the aid it gave
to the restoration of God’s visible worship, in the
rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, after its deso-
lation by Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon. The
entrance of the Israelites upon their grievous bondage
and servitude, in order to their national preparation
as “the earth” of the human aspect in the history of
redemption, dates from the death of Joseph, in the
year B.C. 1635. The object of the training of the
Israelites was to give, through their national history,
a written revelation of the Word of God; and this
was not completed till the year Bc. 404. From
beginning to end, the appointed period in the human
aspect was 1231 years. It required an interval of
1231 years from thence, to prepare for conjoining, in
the existence and experience of the new chosen
nation, the divine with the human aspects of national
redemption, so as to give spirit and life to that which
244 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

is noted in the Scripture of truth, and divinely writ-
ten in the history of the first chosen nation. This
appointed period expired in the year A.D. 827; and
the sign thereof was the union of the English nation
in one kingdom, to commence, as such, the work of
its gradual elevation and ultimate purification.

But another feature of this epoch was prefigured in
Hebrew history, when Moses set up the tabernacle
in the wilderness, after the exodus from Egypt, in
the year B.c. 1491. That temporary and movable
national dwelling-place of God was supplanted by
the temple which Solomon built at Jerusalem. It
was cast down, but restored again by the decree and
with the aid of the first kings of Persia, as the ascen-
dant dominion of this world. The Persian kingdom
fell, and the last year of its ascendancy was the year
Bc. 332. From the setting up of the first national
tabernacle of God in Hebrew history, in the year B.c.
1491, until the end of the kingdom by whose rise
into power the last temple of God was erected in
Hebrew history, the appointed interval was 1159
years. At the end of other 1159 years, in the year
A.D. 827, the new nation appeared as one kingdom,
through which a tabernacle of God was to be erected
in the wilderness-time of Christian history ; and by
whose willing co-operation the temple of God was to
be rebuilt, not merely in its human aspect, but in its
united divine and human aspects. In the year B.C.
404, seventy-three years before the rise to ascendancy
of the Grecian dominion in the year B.c. 331, the
volume of Scripture truth was completed. In the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 245

year A.D. 754, seventy-three years before the rise of
the united kingdom of England in the year a.p. 827,
the intellectual chief of Christendom became a
temporal potentate, through the subversion of that
which is noted in the volume of Scripture truth.

It is undoubted that both volumes of God’s
written word pre-intimate the rise of a Christian
dominion on this earth, combining in one the tem-
poral power of ancient Rome, and the intellectual
influences of the early Christian churches visibly in-
corporated therewith. The effecting of this was to be
the work of the mystery of godliness. The dominion
so to be raised up was to be, in its political constitu-
tion, and also in its final ecclesiastial organisation,
the very opposite extreme of what Papal Rome
became when its ecclesiastical supremacy was united
to a temporal sovereignty. The extension of the
influence of this new Papal dominion over the nations
of Christendom produced an external uniformity,
which was accompanied by an internal paralysis
savouring of the stillness and darkness of intellectual
death. It was then that the spirit of evil appeared
in the form of a great red dragon, who had usurped
all power in the heaven and the earth of national
existence, and, in the act of doing so, had exhausted
for a time his power to deceive the nations. The
Holy Roman Empire was seen ascending out of the
sea of nations, and the'dragon gave it power, and a
seat, and great authority. The new chosen nation
was seen coming up out of the new earth, having in
its existence the germs of two horns, or a united
246 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

political and ecclesiastical dominion, like unto the
power which had been given unto Christ in heaven
and earth.

At this eventful epoch of Christian history, and for
many centuries thereafter, the three dominions, the
Papal, the Imperial, and the English, so different from
one another in their origin, their constituent elements,
and their final destiny, were alike, however, in one
important respect ; for the ruling spirit of each was
the mystery of iniquity in the form of adragon. The
first ascended out of the bottomless pit of intellectual
error and wilful mental deception, and it goeth into
perdition ; the second rose up out of the sea, and
was established by the power of the sword. It
received a deadly wound in the sixteenth century,
which, however, it survived ; but it fell at length by
the power of Napoleon’s sword in the beginning of
the nineteenth century, and ceased to exist as an
empire exercising dominion over diverse European
nations and kindreds of men. The English dominion
came up out of the earth. Until the seventeenth
century, it in no respect differed in its visible charac-
teristics from the Holy Roman Empire, by which it was
preceded in the order of coming into existence. The
successive sovereigns of England were as despotic in
their rule as the Emperors were in their dominion. It
was not until the accession of the Stuart dynasty to
the throne of England that the greatest of all national
conflicts ensued in British history between the spirit
of the divine dominion and the spirit of the dragon.

For nearly eight centuries, therefore, the Holy
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 247

Roman Empire and the English kingdom were a
visible image of each other as powers of this world.
But from the accession of the house of Stuart to the
throne of England, a wide visible divergence began
to be made manifest in the intellectual and spiritual
character of the English nation, when compared with
those nations who were subject to the empire. The
English nation from thence began to bring forth the
good fruits of that which had been sown in all past
history, in both the human and divine aspects of it.
All that had been sown in the human aspect from
the birth of Isaac until the rise to ascendancy of the
Roman Republic, and all that had been sown in the
divine aspect from the birth of Christ at Bethlehem
until the rise of the Holy Roman Empire out of the
sea of nations, were now to begin to reveal their
glorious national fruits in the history of England.
From the birth of the intellectual seed of humanity
in Isaac, in the year B.c. 1896, until the best fruits
producible from it in its human aspect alone were
witnessed in the advent of the Roman Republic to
universal dominion, in the year B.c. 146, the ap-
pointed period was 1750 years. It required the lapse
of a similar period of 1750 years from thence to
prepare a new nation, in and through whose history,
at their termination in the year a.p. 1604, the
abiding fruits of both the human and divine aspects
would thereafter be gradually and fully revealed unto
perfection.

But this epoch of Christian history witnessed the
visible sign of an invisible occurrence, the most mar-
248 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

vellous in its nature, and the most momentous in its
consequences, of any that had previously transpired
in the history of all nations, even the advent of the
Son of God as a national man-child, by conjoining
the resumption of His divine nature with the com-
bined physical and intellectual existence of the three
nations, from thence united under one king. That
which occurred in an individual human nature when
Christ was born of Mary, was now accomplished in
a national form; and its visible sign was the union
of England, Scotland, and Ireland under one king.
Christ, as an individual man, bore the image of the
earthly as well as the heavenly, the human as well
as the divine, in His mysterious person ; so, in like
manner, His national incarnation partook of both.
For in addition to the union of the fruits of that
which was sown in Isaac and reaped in the Roman
Republic, there was, from thenceforth, the union also
of that which was sown in the individual incarnation
of Christ and reaped in the Holy Roman Empire.
The divine nature of the Son of God was, through
the Spirit of Holiness, raised to national life in the
advent of the triune kingdom, composed of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, in the year a.D. 1604. But, in
deadly antagonism thereto, there remained in the
seat of the kingdom’s sovereignty, the spirit of dis-
obedience and despotism, as embodied in the Holy
Roman Empire, from the year a.p. 800. From the
individual human advent of Christ, in the year B.c. 4,
until the rise of the Holy Roman Empire in the year
A.D. 800, demonstrating the best that could be made
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 249

out of humanity in the form of a Christian dominion,
apart from and without the divine life of Christ as
the Son of God, there was an appointed period of
804 years. It required other 804 years from thence,
ending in the year a.D. 1603-4, to prepare a kingdom
of this world, bearing the full image of the Holy
Roman Empire, to receive, in addition, the national
image of Christ, who is Himself the divine image of
the invisible God.

The human aspect of national history, from Isaac
until the advent of the Roman Republic to ascend-
ancy in the one universal dominion, had two phases
in itself. The one, divine in word but visibly dead
in spirit, from Isaac to David, occupied 875 years.
The other, human or earthly, both in its Hebrew
wicked fruits of freedom and its Roman good fruits
of liberty, occupied a similar period of 875 years.
The kingdom of Judah attained its utmost limits in
the year B.c. 1021, was rent in twain in the year
B.C. 975, and fell in the year B.c. 606. The fall of the
kingdom of Judah was the sign of the rise of the one
universal dominion of this world, having Nebuchad-
nezzar, king of Babylon, for its first head of gold.
Although entirely human or earthly in its composi-
tion, it was, like Adam as an individual, the national
creation of God. It was an embodiment all through-
out the phases of the first aspect of its history of the
very best kinds of dominion that were practicable
among the nations of men, as mere human beings. It
had four successive embodiments. The first appeared
in the year B.C. 606, and the fourth was evolved in he
250 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

year B.c.146, with a time-interval of 460 years between
them. The second aspect of the history of the one
universal dominion then began to develop itself, and
it ended in the union of “the iron and the clay,” Im-
perial Rome and the Christian churches, in the year
AD. 314. It occupied a similar time-interval of 460
years.

In the 480th year after the advent of the first
chosen nation, the sign of which was the exodus of
the Israelites from Egypt, Solomon commenced to
erect a national temple of God at Jerusalem ; and in
the 480th year after the advent of Him who was to
be the divine life of the temple of God, both in indi-
viduals and nations of men, the sign was given, in
the fall of Imperial Rome, that the nation had yet to
be selected in and through whom “the temple of
God and the altar” were to be disclosed in Christian
history. A new stream of human dominion arose in
the east and desolated Jerusalem in the year A.D. 636.
It was, nevertheless, a continuation in another form
of the power of the mystery of iniquity that had
been embodied in Imperial Rome after it professed
to do national homage to the living and true God.
The fall of Rome prepared the way for the rise
of the Mohammedan dominion in the east. There
were in these things, also, two equal historical phases,
—the one connected with the decline of Rome from
the year A.D. 314 until the last year of its existence,
A.D. 475, and the other connected with the preparation
for the full and sudden rise of the Mohammedan
dominion in the east, as one of the two divisions into
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 251

which the despotic dominion of the Czesars was to be
partitioned until the rise and full revelation, at the
appointed time, of the new divine dominion.

But the fall of Imperial Rome, in the year A.D.
476, also paved the way for the rise of a new domin-
ion in the west, differing from the Mohammedan in
being Christian and also intellectual in its origin.
The seed sown in England in the year a.p. 596 had
to die, which it did in the year aD. 615. Until it
could be revived again in national fruits, another
dominion, differing from all its predecessors, was re-
vealed in the year a.p. 754, when the Roman Pontiff
became a temporal sovereign as well as an ecclesias-
tical chief. There were two equal phases also in this
line of Christian history,—one from the fall of Rome
in the year A.D. 476 until the death of the good seed
sown in England, signified by the people’s apostacy
from the Christian religion and relapse into barbar-
ism in the year A.D. 615; the other from thence un-
til the civil sword of human dominion was united in
the Roman Pontiff with the invisible sword of ec-
clesiastical supremacy. The appointed duration of
each phase was 139 years.

For many centuries thereafter the Roman image
was the form of dominion established among the
nations of Christendom. It was a mere reproduced
transformation of the great image seen by Nebuchad-
nezzar, and combined in one “the clay, the iron, the
brass, the silver, and the gold,” of which its succes-
sive embodiments were composed in their first form.
The entire history of the successive embodiments of
252 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

the great image in its first form occupied, from its
beginning in Nebuchadnezzar in the year B.c. 606,
until its end in the fall of Rome in the year AD. 476,
the long period of 1082 years. Then the materials
of its first composition were all broken into pieces,
and became as the chaff of the summer floor which
the wind carrieth away; but they were all repro-
duced both in the Roman (Papal and Imperial) and
the English dominions, “the iron and the clay”
being predominant in each, while “the iron” aspect
was more prominent in the Imperial and English
dominions, and “the clay” in the Papal. There were
thus, also, two long historical phases, each the equal
in time-duration of the other, in the first and second
complete evolutions of the dominion represented by
the great image of Nebuchadnezzar ; and the second
dated from the close of the first in the fall of Rome
in the year A.D. 476, and ended in England, after the
expiry of 1082 years, with the final fall therein of
the dominion of Papal Rome, at the termination of
Queen Mary’s reign, and the coeval continuous estab-
lishment of a new Protestant dominion, signified by
the accession of Queen Elizabeth in the year AD.
1558.

Christ was then revived in the nation of England
as the living Word of God, who is the sword of the
Spirit, and by which alone, through the voluntary
intellectual co-operation of the people, the invisible
results were produced, of which the fall of the power
of Papal Rome in England was the visible sign.
Thus England is demonstrated to be the first inheri-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 253

tor among the nations of that divine dominion which
was prefigured in the kingdom of Judah before its
fall in the year Bc. 606; and of that universal
dominion which was prefigured in the history of the
great image before its fall in the year a.p. 476; and,
further, of that united ecclesiastical and political vis-
ible embodiment of the combined divine and human
dominion which Papal Rome prefigured in a sub-
verted form. The first work of the nation was to
destroy in its constitution “the clay and the iron”
elements of the Babylonian image ; and this was the
task appointed to the kingdom during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. From the end of David’s work of
conquest in the year B.c. 1021, and the full establish-
ment of the first chosen nation materially and intel-
lectually, until the last year of the existence of the
kingdom of David as a united kingdom, there was
only a brief interval of 45 years. England and
Scotland were the appointed independent national
dominions by whose union in one kingdom the first
divine dominion was to be established on earth; but
prior to their union the power of “the clay and the
iron” of the Babylonian image had to be broken
into pieces, and the time-interval was 45 years in this
case also, from the final fall of Papal Rome in Eng-
land in the year A.D. 1558, until the last year of the
disunited existence of the kingdoms of England and
Scotland, the year A.D. 1603.

The last year of the existence of David’s dominion
as a, united dominion was also the last year of the ex-
ternal union of the divine and the human in national
254 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

government in the manner of its manifestation through
Saul, David, and Solomon as kings of Israel; and
when it ceased, the two independent and antagonistic
kingdoms of Israel were substituted, that through
their rivalry and mutual contendings the lesson of
human freedom, based upon invisible subjection to
God, and mutual self-submission, might begin to be
taught, first to the chosen nation and thereafter to
others. The divine and the human in national gov-
ernment were not again united, even externally,
until “the clay and the iron” became one in the year
AD. 314. “The clay” represented the divine method
of human government through intellectual enlighten-
ment, and by persuasive rather than by mere physical
orcoercive power. “The iron” embodied the opposite
extreme of the divine method of human government;
and therefore “the clay and the iron” could not and
did not coalesce, and permanently amalgamate and
become one in substance. This union was, however,
revived in the Papal system of human government.
When it reached its zenith, “the clay,” or intellectual
element, had disappeared altogether, and the dominion
became actually and wholly dependent upon physical
or coercive external force in order to preserve its very
existence.

The work of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in English
history was therefore to break into pieces “the clay
and the iron,” as they were when brought into ex-
ternal alliance in the year A.D. 314, and afterwards
revived in a new united form in Papal Rome. And
in the act of breaking them into pieces, by the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 255

nation’s intellectual enlightenment in the knowledge
of the living Word of God, to reconstruct that which
they represented—the ecclesiastical and political in-
stitutions of the nation—in a form that would admit
of the advent in union with them of the Spirit of the
divine life, as well as the light of the divine Word
of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The two king-
doms of England and Scotland had each to be pre-
pared in their separate ecclesiastical and political in-
stitutions for the glorious event which was approach-
ing, and the accomplishment of which was signified
in the first year of their union under one king, the
year A.D. 1604. It occupied 1290 years from the
last year of David’s united dominion, the year B.0.
976, to raise up first the one universal dominion, and
to set up in it thereafter the abomination that
maketh desolate, in the year A.D. 314; and it re-
quired a similar period of 1290 years from thence
to prepare a new chosen nation for the setting up
in it of the united divine and human dominion of
David’s Son and David’s Lord, and for the removal
thereby of that unholy external union between the
despotic spirit of this world’s coercive power and
the intellectual sovereignty of Christ embodied in a
visible Church which is “the abomination that
maketh desolate.” The sign of the end of the 1290
years was witnessed in the first year of the union of
the English and Scotch kingdoms under one king,
the year a.D. 1604.

That which is named “the abomination of desola-
tion,” is the total subversion of God’s order in human
256 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

government, and more especially in its Christian form.
Christ is, in God, the only foundation on which a
permanent and benevolent dominion can be set up in
one or more nations. And He became this sure foun-
dation in the act of the decease which He accom-
plished at Jerusalem. In addition to the invisible
church of the first-born, He planted the apostles as the
nucleus of a visible church on earth, and committed
to it the double duty of gathering in the chosen
members of the invisible church, and of leavening
human society with the principles of Christianity.
The double result, to be simultaneously manifested at
the appointed time, is the individual redemption of
those included in the hundred and forty-four thou-
sand spirits of just men made perfect, and the national
redemption of one of the kingdoms of this world in
its temple and its altar. The divine method was
wholly persuasive, and was operative entirely through
the intellect of individuals and nations. It was “the
altar” on which the sacrificed Word of God was to
be laid; and by the invisible union of the national
intellect with the Word of God, thereby raised to life
and power, the mind of Christ was to be gradually
revealed, both in the political state and sovereign
spirit of the nation. God’s method was, from its very
nature, slow in the process of its development; but
the delay was turned to good account in enabling
the contrast to God’s method to be fully disclosed
in Christian history.

Man, under the influence of the spirit of evil, tried
his hand, and the result was, the setting up of “ the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 257

abomination that maketh desolate,” in the year A.D.
314; and the exhausting of its whole strength in
the struggle with, and subjugation of, England in
the year AD. 1212. Its character was then fully
developed. The visible source of its existence was
Imperial Rome primarily. Instead of the Christian
Church indoctrinating and regenerating the Roman
State after their external union, the latter became
the predominating power, and made the Christian
Church subservient to its transient political neces-
sities. Because of this the distinctive character of
the Church, as the pillar of divine truth among the
nations, was forfeited; and it became, instead of the
divine light, the debased creature of a mere temporal
government. The Church in this way parted with
its secret intellectual strength, and destroyed its vital
moral influence. When Imperial Rome fell, it had
become grievously corrupt. Still a season was there-
after given for repentance.

Amendment, however, proved to be impossible.
The Church ceased to be in fact, although it con-
tinued in name, that which its divine Founder had
planted, when the appearance of a visible head in
the person of the Bishop of Rome declared that Christ
had ceased to walk in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks. This was the first step towards the
setting up of the one universal dominion in the only
way which could suggest itself to some of the wisest,
and probably in not a few cases the best, then living
of the human race. The second step in the ascent
was the assumption of temporal power. This act

R
258 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

was a direct subversion of the order of God’s method.
For instead of the intellectual, through the Church,
enlightening and persuasively directing the political
government, the latter became its correlative and co-
equal intellectually. The third step in the ascent
was the natural product of the second, and was a
further subversion of God’s order, but in a converse
form. For when the Roman Pontiffs in the eleventh
century claimed a visible independence of the tem-
poral dominion of the Empire, they gave to their
own external authority a new sphere of exercise,
and transformed the Papacy into a mere worldly
hierarchy, destitute of any actual invisible intel-
lectual influence.

The summit of its ascent was reached in the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century, and it was through a
struggle with the King of England. That which had
its origin in the self-submission and the self-sacrifice
of the Son of God, was gradually changed and cor-
rupted, until he who claimed to be the visible im-
personation of Christ on earth was revealed as the
embodiment of a self-willed and externally despotic
spirit of the most cruel and tyrannical character.
The vicar of the meek and lowly Jesus, whose king-
dom is not of this world, scrupled not, after exhaust-
ing all the resources of his spiritual and intellectual
armoury, such as they were, to demand the military
support of France, not to protect him from ageres-
sion, but to enforce the desires and mandates of his
imperious and aggressive self-will upon the King of
England. The abomination consisted in the rise of a
THE LIFE “AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 259

power named after Christ the Son of God, and pro-
fessing to promote His glory, which is identified with
the political amelioration, the intellectual enlighten-
ment, and the moral elevation of nations, yet employ-
ing its whole influence and authority to coerce man-
kind into unquestioning obedience to its self-willed
commands, regardless alike of the will of God and
human happiness.

The subjugation of England by Rome in the year
AD. 1212, was the sign of the zenith of the power of
the abomination, and also of the deepest depth of Eng-
land’s humiliation. But it was the cause of bringing
forth the first-fruits in English history of the divine
seed which had been sown in the year A.D. 596, and
had died in the national soil in the year A.D. 615.
The very greatness of the degradation to which the
English king submitted at the hands of the Roman
Pontiff, reacted upon the minds of his subjects, espe-
cially those of the aristocracy. If the king could not
resist the Pontiff, neither could he refuse the claims
of the barons of England. And the net result of
Papal ambition and aggression was, through the hu-
miliation of King John, to lay the foundation, in
Magna Charta, of England’s constitutional govern-
ment. Christ’s true dominion was wholly subverted
in the Papal system. The sign of its full accomplish-
ment was the coerced subjection of England to the
Roman Pontiff. But in the crowning of his edifice
the Pope actually sapped its foundations ; for in this
very act originated the birth of English freedom,
and the first visible fruits in Christian history of the
260 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

new divine dominion, the everlasting life of which in
the nation as the temple of God is to be the Word of
God raised to life in the national intellect, and there-
by clothed with a visible vesture dipped in blood.
The history of the rise of the Papal system of
human goverment is unique. It had no parallel in the
past, and it is not to have any successor in the future.
Not so with the rise of the divine system of human
government. All past history was an indispensable
preparation for its disclosure, and its glory is to be
the glory of the unending visible temple of God in
the future. The manner of its progress, as well as
the times thereof, have been prefigured in bygone
history, and they are imperishably noted in the Scrip-
ture of truth. The history of the temple erected by
Solomon, and that of its successor; the history of
the unfolding of the vision and prophecy both old
and new, subsequent to the erection of Solomon’s
temple ; and the Spirit of Christ manifested in His
life and im His death, are respectively the divinely-
appointed types and figures of the true temple of
God, and the altar, and the spirit of them entitled to
worship therein. All three were sown as seed in the
national soil of England in the year a.p. 596, and
thereafter died in the year A.D. 615. The parallel
histories of the first and second chosen nations date,
the former from the year B.c, 1004, and the latter
from the year A.D. 615.
From the completion of Solomon’s temple, in the
year B.c. 1004, it required 600 years to reveal
fully in Hebrew history the Word of God as
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST, 261

written in the vision and prophecy. The slain
life of the Word of God was to be, in its national
resurrection, one of the constituent elements of the
new dominion; the power of which was not, how-
ever, to be communicated with observation. The
act of producing the written vision and prophecy
in Hebrew history is illustrative, however, of the
manner of sowing the slain life of the Word of God
in the national intellect of England. Individual
Hebrews were selected, that in and through their
minds the knowledge of God’s invisible things might
be recorded in a written form. It was the history
and the experiences of the Hebrews as a nation, and
their collision with Babylon and contact with Persia,
that were made the groundwork of all that was
revealed in and through the prophets of the in-
visible Word of God. Thus the vision and prophecy
are the product of the union in co-operation of
God’s Spirit with the experiences of the nation, the
prophets being the individual human mediators.
The product was written in Hebrew history, but it
was to become living in English history. It was
the same Word in each instance; but it was the
Word of prophecy in the former, whereas it is the
spirit and power of historical accomplishment in
the latter.

Isaiah and the other prophets wrote as they were
moved by the Spirit of God. He and they were
preceded by Elijah their prince, They were sepa-
rated from the rest of the nation in order to their
fulfilment of the special mission assigned to each in
262 ‘ ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

God’s purpose. The members of the church of the
first-born in heaven were the successors of the
Hebrew prophets in Christian history. From the
day of Pentecost until the death of the divine seed
in England’s national soil their experiences were
wholly individual and personal in their character.
From the year A.D. 615 they began to change. The
ascent of the Pontiff to temporal power in the year
AD. 754, the rise of the Holy Roman Empire in the
year A.D. 800, and the coming up of the kingdom of
England, were each so many visible signs of the
progress of divine enlightenment going forward unto
perfection among the members of the church of the
first-born in heaven. The work of which the
Hebrew prophets were made the subjects was an
invisible work, which exerted but a very transient,
if any, influence upon the world’s external affairs.
They were, in fact, providing the divine seed in a
written form, the glorious fruits of which were not
to be disclosed in human history until the lapse of
long ages.

This was the precise position of the members of
the church of the first-born in heaven, with two
exceptions: first, they were individually much more
numerous; and, second, the product of their work
was in the form of the living spirits of just men
made perfect. When the kingdom of England was
formed in the year A.D. 827, the first or exclusively
individual resurrection was finished, and one phase
of the preparation for the second or national resur-
rection had been simultaneously evolved from the
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 263

year A.D, 615 to the year a.p. 827. Thenceforward,
the mystery of iniquity having received no less than
three separate Christian embodiments—in the Papacy,
the Empire, and England—the intellectual training
and enlightenment on earth of those who were mem-
bers of the invisible church of the first-born included
things national as well as things individual. The
intellectual conflict assumed a more comprehensive
form. The very extravagance of the errors propa-
gated were not without benefit, in the fact that their
existence constrained the faithful to exercise their
mental faculties in an opposite direction, in quest of
divine truth wherewith to slay in their own minds
the giants of delusion.

Another phase of the effects of this intellectual
conflict in relation to national things was completed
in the days of the Norman Conquest of England,
accompanied, as it was, by a violent collision be-
tween the Pontiff and the Emperor. A new field of
intellectual enlightenment was furnished by the great
controversy which then originated, as to the proper
relations which ought to subsist between the Church
and the State among the nations of mankind; and
which the Pontiff at the beginning of the thirteenth
century solved according to his own will, by de-
manding the unconditional subjection of all nations
and kings to him as the representative of Heaven
on earth. In this way the reception of the living
knowledge of God’s method of solving the diffi-
culty was fully prepared for. The granting of
Magna Charta by the recently-humiliated King of
264 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

England was the commencement of the visible
manifestation of that which had, until the year A.D.
1215, been as the dead letter written in a sealed
book. There was an appointed period of 600 years,
from the completion of the temple until the finish-
ing of the volume of prophecy in the year B.c. 404.
And there was a similarly appointed time-interval
between the death of the divine seed in English
history in the year a.D. 615, and the manifestation
of its first visible fruits in the nation’s existence,
witnessed in the year A.D. 1215.

The will of King John and the will of the barons
of England came into collision, and that of the latter
prevailed. The issue of this transaction was the lay-
ing of the visible written foundation of constitutional
government and personal freedom in England. But
this was, after all, only a human and a temporal
basis ; before it could become a living reality in the
nation’s experience, it had to be conjoined with the
invisible and divine life of the Son of God. It is
this which constitutes the second or national resur-
rection. The foundation of the two resurrections
was laid in the death of Christ; and the infinite
source of each, in their order, is His divine life as
the Son of God. After threescore and two weeks,
or 434 years from the closing of Scripture in the
year B.c, £04, He accomplished His decease at Jeru-
salem in the year A.D. 30. The sign of the com-
mencement of His second advent, in the form of a
national infant, was given in the effecting of the
union of England and Scotland under one king. In
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 265

the interval the intellectual conflict had increased
in its intensity. As a twofold sign of its progress,
along with others, the fall of the Papal power both
in England and Scotland was singularly significant.

But the war was about to enter into a still higher
region of strife and contention. During the reign of
the first Stuart king the spirit of the infant divine
dominion was quiescent, and little of importance in
the evolution of the great struggle appeared on the
surface of English history. But during the reign of
the unhappy Charles I. the war broke out with
intense fury, and took the form of a struggle for the
mastery between the Parliament of England on the
one hand, and the King, the Church, and the aris-
tocracy on the other hand. The Parliamentary forces
prevailed: the king was made a prisoner, and finally
judicially martyred; and the Church as it had been,
and the aristocracy, fell temporarily with the mon-
archy. The day of King Charles’s martyrdom was a
great day in the world’s history, and his death was
the sign of an occurrence in the invisible world only
second in importance to that of the great and incom-
prehensible decease which Christ had accomplished
at Jerusalem. The latter proclaimed the full advent
of the era of individual human redemption from the
power of evil; the former declared the full advent
of the era of national human redemption from the
debasing and enslaving power of the mystery of
iniquity as embodied in erroneous and despotic sys-
tems of human government.

The relation which ought to subsist between the
266 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

people and those intrusted with the governing power
in a nation, was the great question that commenced
to be solved in English history from the days of
Charles I. Previously the nation had been sub-
jected to the iron rule of the Tudor dynasty while
effecting its deliverance from intellectual bondage
to Rome. The “iron” rule of the Tudors was suc-
ceeded by the less despotic “ brass” government of
the Stuarts. But self-willed government in the most
modified form, whether regal or republican, was
doomed in England; and the double sign given of
this was the fall in succession of the self-willed
monarchical and republican governments—the one
on the death of Charles I., and the other on the
death of Cromwell. If there was any king equal
to Charles I. in the Europe of his day, there were
certainly many inferior to him in the very point on
which he was tried. But he was the only existing
and the first monarch of Christendom whose will (un-
consciously to himself) was brought into collision
with, and was actually obstructing the progress of,
the Spirit of the Messiah in the act of His coming
through the English nation as the Prince of the
kings of the earth. When He came the first time, it
was to suffer and to die; but in His second coming
He is to overthrow all opposition, and reign over all
kings and rulers, and through them over all nations
of men.

The despotic will of Charles I. provoked the resist-
ance of his Parliament and the revolt of his subjects.
But they into whose hands the king fell proved
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 267

themselves as despotic in their will as Charles him-
self. In the death of the king the mystery of ini-
quity as a power of human government received a
fatal and unhealable wound in England, and it was
inflicted by itself in the act of organising a futile
opposition to the progress of the second resurrection
of Christ as the divine King over the nation. The
king’s death was also a sign of the actual progress of
the second resurrection, which commenced when Eng-
land and Scotland were united under one king in the
year A.D. 1604. The abomination that maketh deso-
late, which had endured for 1290 years, then came to an
end in so far as England and Scotland were concerned.
This is one of the Scripture periods given in the
vision and prophecy, and associated with it there is
another thus recorded, “Blessed is he that waiteth,
and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five-
and-thirty days.” The thousand three hundred and
five-and-thirty years in connection with the history
of the chosen Christian nation terminated in the
year of Charles’s death, the year a.D. 1649.

From David’s completion of his conquests as king
of Israel and the man according to God’s own heart
in the year B.c. 1021, until the first setting up of the
abomination that maketh desolate in the year A.D.
314, there was an interval of 1335 years, during
which long period there arose no king of any do-
minion, not even his son Solomon, who resembled
David in that submission of spirit to God for which
he was so distinguished in God’s sight. After an-
other long interval of similar duration, during which
268 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

no such king as David appeared, a sign is given
of the invisible national revelation of Him, who is
both David’s Son and David’s Lord in this very
respect, in His character as King of kings and Lord
of lords. Hitherto the sovereign spirit of England
had been that of a dragon. The death of King
Charles was the sign of the overthrow of its suprem-
acy, and of the coming substitution in its room of
the sovereign Spirit of Him who died on the cross
that He might effectually deliver men as individuals
and also as nations from both the ruling power and
the degrading presence of the spirit of disobedience ;
for the death of Charles as king of England was
the human counterpart of that divine decease which
Christ suffered as the King of the Jews.

Charles’s death intimated the end of English pre-
paratory history in order to the resurrection within
the nation of the divine power of Christ as King of
nations, just as Christ’s decease intimated the end of
Jewish preparatory history for the resurrection of His
life as the divinely-appointed occupant of the throne
of every individual man’s nature. Christ’s death was
a visible demonstration of the destruction of the devil’s
power over individuals of the human race. King
Charles’s death declared the destruction in England
as a nation of the dragon’s power and spirit, which
had been from the year a.p. 827 the ruling power
and sovereign spirit of the nation. Christ’s death was
the precursor of a new era of happiness and delight
to individual men through the internal and invisible
manifestation of Christ’s divine life to them. So
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 269

the death of King Charles was the precursor of a new
era in England’s national history, from which may be
dated the rise of its great intellectual and moral
influence in human affairs. And during the struggle
which preceded it, the germs of the great, American
Republic were originated.

The death of Charles, like that of Christ, was ju-
dicial. But there was only one other point of resem-
blance between them. Christ was divine, without sin,
and a voluntary sufferer unto death to expiate the sin
of the world and redeem the human race. King
Charles was only a man, not without sin, and an invol-
untary sufferer unto'death. Nevertheless, his decease
partook of the nature of an expiation for the sin of
the nation in so long subjecting itself to the sovereign
spirit of a dragon, and that in circumstances much
more advantageous than were those of the Hebrews
subsequent to the days of King David. Charles was
a divinely-appointed victim in his humanity, and
upon him as the king at this momentous epoch
the sin’ of the nation was laid. It is as true of him
as it is of Christ, that “he was cut off, but not for
himself.” He was in all probability the best king
that had then reigned over England. But the nation
had been tutored and influenced to break finally and
for ever with the dragon as its sovereign spirit. And
by no other visible act was it possible to proclaim
this great truth of history, than by the act of the
people slaying in a judicial manner their reigning
sovereign.

This is perhaps the most affecting episode in
270 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

English history. No man dare affirm that King
Charles deserved the fate he met with, so far as his
subjects were concerned. And the very solemnity
of the event, and the impression it has made upon
earnest and thoughtful men in the nation from that
day even to this, is a testimony that something
greater and higher and holier than the will of Crom-
well and his colleagues was identified with the trans-
action. The death of King Charles indicated the crisis
and the issue of the great conflict in English history,
fought between Michael and his angels and the
dragon and his angels, in the heaven of the nation’s
existence, when the dragon prevailed not. And it
will be like God, to learn that the martyred king was
met on the threshold of the invisible world with the
salutation, “ Now is come salvation, and strength,
and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His
Christ ;” and that he then received a crown of glory,
for which he would not take in exchange a crown of
despotic dominion over all the kingdoms of the world.
That this was the glorious nature of this painful
episode, the parallels of Jewish and English history
seem to demonstrate. From the completion of Solo-
mon’s temple to the closing of the volume of prophecy
there was an appointed period of 600 years; and
from thence until the accomplishment of the great
decease which it predicted and prepared for there
was another appointed period of 434 years. So also
from the year A.D. 615 to the year ap, 1215, in
English history, there was the like first appointed
period of 600 years; and from thence, when King
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 271

John yielded, until King Charles was judicially slain
in the year A.D. 1649, there was a like second ap-
pointed period of 434 years, thus fulfilling in English
history that national expiation for sin which was
impossible of accomplishment until the indispensable
period of national preparation for it had run its
appointed course.
CHAPTER XII

THE great epoch in the invisible history of Eng-
land, of which the death of King Charles was the
visible sign, resembled most closely, in a national
form, the time of Christ’s decease at Jerusalem in its
individual effects upon the human race. Heaven,
or the invisible world, had a door opened in each
case, through which the influence of the Spirit of
Holiness passed out beyond the limits of the divine
essence ; and by which mankind entered to partici-
pate in the life, the light, and the happiness of God
revealed in His Son. The preparation of humanity
was similar in both instances, combining in each a
parallelism of times and circumstances. That which
the completion of Solomon’s temple signified in
Hebrew history was exactly that which the apostacy
of England declared in the year a.D. 615. In neither
nation at either time was there any invisible com-
munion between the Spirit of God and the spirit of
the chosen nation. For six hundred years in the
history of each nation the seed of the Word of God
was sown. Its fruit among the Hebrews was a
ALPHA AND OMEGA, 273

volume of Scripture prophecy, and in England a
written charter of national freedom.

The English nation of the year a.D. 1215 under-
stood just as much of the value and meaning of the
Great Charter as the Hebrew nation of the year
B.c. 404 did of their divine charter contained in the
Scripture of truth. To each the written scroll of
human freedom produced in its own history was a
- dead letter, and remained so for many generations,
even for an appointed period of threescore and two
weeks, or 434 years. The divine aspect of the writ-
ten charter of human freedom given to the Jews re-
ceived a bloody baptism in the death of Christ at the
end of this appointed period, in the year A.D. 30, as
the sign of the advent of the epoch in which its
letter was to begin to become spirit and life in in-
dividual human existence. The human aspect also
received a bloody baptism in the death of King
Charles at the end of the second appointed period
of 434 years, in the year A.D. 1649, as the sign of the
advent of the epoch in which its letter was to begin
to become spirit and life in the nation’s existence.
The divine and the human aspects of the written
testament of men’s freedom, or their emancipation
from the all-prevalent power of the spirit of disobe-
dience, were both ratified by blood; for without the
shedding of blood there is no remission, and can be
no deliverance.

““Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his
blood be shed,” is a divine law of much more com-
prehensive significance and application than to man’s

8
274 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

life on earth. The sin of the antediluvians was dis-
obedience, and the form of its manifestation was
violent. This violence was directed against the life
of fellow-men, and indicated on the part of those who
practised it an utter disregard of God, in whose
image all men were made, and a selfish recklessness
in respect of the equal self-existence of fellow-men.
This form of iniquity was expiated in the death of
all the men who composed this wicked and violent
generation of the human race. And to those saved
in the ark it was made known that from thenceforth
in human history wilful homicide was an offence
cognisable by human law, and that the penalty was
death. But this, as well as the severe enactments of
the Hebrew code in relation to other offences against
God and the wellbeing of human society, had a
much higher end to subserve, and a much grander
truth to illustrate.

If the human destroyer of a fellow-being, and the
human corrupter of social and national existence,
were deemed worthy of death even in barbarous and
uncivilised states of national existence, how much
more is the great destroyer of the entire human race
spiritually, intellectually, and physically worthy of
destruction? The blood is the present life of man,
and it is the source within himself of his visible
existence, and thereby, also, the substance and the
essence of his conscious personal identity. Because
of this it is encircled with this divine law for its
protection against external violence at the hands of
fellow-man. Wilful homicide, the result of personal
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 275

malignity, is a visible manifestation of the hateful
spirit of iniquity in its true nature. And the fact of
God having authorised man to visit this crime with
death upon its perpetrator, is intended to demonstrate
divine truth of a much higher and more comprehen-
sive range. If the human man-slayer is to be put
to death by human hands, how much more binding
is the obligation, so to speak, upon God to destroy
the angelic man-slayer? Every divine law that has
been promulgated in human history is but the reflex
of the law by which God has voluntarily constrained
His own action in the moral government of the
universe.

It was not until after God had Himself acted
in accordance with this law in the destruction of
spiritual wickedness by the Flood, that He promul-
gated it through Noah for human guidance as one of
the means thereafter to be employed in preventing
the recurrence of an age of universal personal violence
in human history. It was to continue in force until
the end of iniquity and the full establishment of the
divine power, as an influence of self-regulation and
self-control, both among individuals and nations of
men. Cain and Abel were the individual visible
antipodes of each other in this respect. So are
Christ and Satan in the invisible world of human
existence. And it was that through death He
might destroy him who had the power of death that
Christ took on Him, not the creature nature of
angels, but the seed of Abraham. By the spirit of
wickedness the blood of man was shed; so by Christ
276 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

in human nature the blood, or invisible power of
him who had shed man’s blood, is to be effectually
destroyed.

The sacredness of blood is the only part of patri-
archal or Mosaic special divine teaching which has
been continued as a Christian precept other than the
principles of immutable justice and eternal morality.
The great controversy among the overseers of the
apostolic churches was summed up and terminated
in the decision pronounced by James in these words,
“That we trouble not them which from among the
Gentiles are turned to God; but that we write unto
them, that they abstain from pollution of idols, and
from fornication, and from things strangled, and
from blood.” The peculiar social and national sins,
fornication and idolatry, which constituted the ini-
quity of the Amorites, are alone prohibited in con-
junction with abstinence from blood either strangled
or otherwise. This judgment of James strikes at
the very root of those things, indulgence in which
openly, proclaimed subjection to one or other of the
three forms of spiritual wickedness. It is not good
for man to be alone in his human spirit, but its
appointed helpmeet is divine, even God’s Spirit of
Holiness. Man cannot be alone in his human spirit,
for its very existence consists in duality. It must
have a spiritual companion, or it is extinct; for the
very source and essence of its existence is the co-
equal existence of another spirit in union with it.
Invisible fornication is the rejection of and infidelity
to God’s appointed helpmeet for a human spirit, His
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 277

own Spirit of Holiness, and the substitution therefor
of the spirit of wickedness.

Man as a created existence has within his nature,
in its most debased form, instinctive mental percep-
tions of an existence higher than his own. All kinds
of human experience, both among those most civilised
and those the furthest removed from them, have con-
tinuously testified both the fact and the necessity of the
existence of a supreme object of human worship and
reverence. The sin of idolatry feeds on this universal
law of human nature, and it demonstrates the wick-
edness of that intellectual dominion of darkness
which has divorced the mind of the creature from
the divine Word of the Creator, the appointed created
part and uncreated counterpart of each other. The
divine mode in which spiritual fornication and in-
tellectual idolatry were to be destroyed in human
nature, both individually and nationally, began to
be disclosed in the war of extermination with the
nations of Canaan engaged in by the Israelites in
the days of Joshua; and its illustration was con-
cluded in the reign and also in the person of David,
as the king of God’s chosen nation.

Jewish history, from the completion of Solomon’s
temple onward to the time of Christ, was designed to
furnish a second illustration of the divine mode of
deliverance from spiritual fornication and national
idolatry through the knowledge of God’s written
Word and the obedience of God’s living Son in
human nature. And there was yet a third demon-
stration of the manner of this great deliverance given
278 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

in English history from the year A.D. 615, ending
with the reign and also in the person of King Charles;
for “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall
every word be established.” The source of the failure
of David, the man according to God’s own heart, was
in his blood, or the substance of his physical life. He
was thoroughly emancipated from the power of the
mystery of iniquity in two out of three of the forms
of its manifestation in human nature—spiritual
fornication and intellectual idolatry. But in his
blood or bodily life he was the slave and the victim
of the third. David’s wickedness was twofold, for it
embodied his individual passions as a man, combined
with the national abuse of his power as the king of
Israel in compassing the death of Uriah.

The twofold character of David’s wickedness ori-
ginated in the life of his body, which was its blood ;
and he violated the second and the last of the three
prohibitions announced by James as the divine law
for the guidance of Gentile converts to the faith of
Christ. David’s sin with Bathsheba was the occa-
sion of David’s subsequent sin against Uriah. In
David’s entire experiences, divine and human, holy
and wicked, and individual and national, the impos-
sibility of man’s redemption, except by an expiatory
death, was fully and unequivocally testified. This
impossibility had two aspects; one in David as an
individual man, the other in David as the king of
Israel. Uriah was doubly wronged by the mystery
of iniquity as revealed in the life and conduct of
David ; first in the person of Bathsheba, and again
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 279

in his own person. Without shedding of blood there
could be no remission of either kind of sin. And
the atoning blood or life must needs be coextensive
with the character of the particular form that wick-
edness assumed in each case. The sin of David as a
man was the fruit of the state of every descendant
of Adam as a visible form of existence, and its char-
acter was therefore universal. The sin of David as
a king was practisable only by kings, and its charac-
ter was thereby restricted to men similarly circum-
stanced, so that its expiation in human history was
incomparably less difficult of accomplishment.
Christ in His decease at Jerusalem made the one
great atonement for all sin of human kind in God’s
sight. All forms of human wickedness are sins
against God, and all of them except one are sins
against God, and God only. The disregard of wxo-
rial, parental, fraternal, filial, and all other social or
domestic obligations, is sin against God only ; but the
abuse of sovereign power vested in a human king is
sin against a nation, in addition to being sin against
God as King of all nations. In cases of individual,
or domestic, or social transgression, vengeance is
mine, saith the Lord, I will repay; but in kingly
wickedness, the divine must associate itself with the
human in the act of retribution. To an individual
human being God has direct access through himself.
To a nation His only mode of access is through the
aggregate intellect and multiform spirit of the nation,
of which last the king is the individual impersona-
tion. The experiences of David and Charles were the
280 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

converse, and yet the complement, of each other. Unto
David as the king the Spirit of God came, whereas unto
England as the nation, in Charles’s day, He came.

David’s human body was his assailable and vul-
nerable point as king of Israel. The human spirit
of Charles was his assailable and vulnerable point
as king of England. To each the knowledge of
God’s Word had been made known, and by each
it had been received and believed. In David's time
preparation was from thenceforth to be made for the
redemption of the human body nationally and indi-
vidually, and its foundation was laid in the death of
Christ. In the time of Charles preparation was
finished for the commencement of the visible reign
of Christ on the earth in and through the English
nation. The sin of David demonstrated the necessity
of a divine atonement in order to man’s deliverance.
The death of Charles declared the beginning of the
full advent, in nations as well as individuals, of the
divine life which Christ as the Son of God had
given for the very purpose of revealing its invisible
glory, first in redeeming England as a nation, and
thereafter in the redemption of all nations and kin-
dreds of men.

The line of national sovereignty ran continuously
from David to Constantine, and it returned, as it
were, from Constantine to Charles. It occupied 1335
years in running from David to Constantine, and 1335
years in returning from Constantine to Charles.
Every national sovereignty in the line of running
fell after rising to its zenith, and in its overthrow
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 281

expiated the sin of its existence. That sin was alike
in every successive dominion, commencing with
David's kingdom, and ending with the Roman Empire
in its pagan form ; and David’s sin against Uriah was
its appointed figure. In order to his own self-gratifi-
cation, the king shed the blood of his subject. If
Uriah had fallen into the snare set for him by
the king to conceal his iniquity, his life might have
been spared at the cost of his honour as the husband
of Bathsheba. But like Naboth in the matter of his
inheritance, so Uriah in his conduct to Bathsheba
was preserved from voluntary participation in the
king’s iniquity ; and because he was so, the shedding
of his blood was resolved upon by David. The words
of Nathan to David after the death of Uriah an-
nounced the existence of a divine principle of exact
justice in connection with the history of national
sovereignty: “The sword shall never depart from thy
house.”

“He that killeth with the sword must be killed
with the sword,” is the precise counterpart in a
national form of the law promulgated through Noah
in its individual form: “Whoso sheddeth man’s
blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” After the
close of David’s wars, the new kingdom had forty-five
years’ rest; but in the forty-sixth year the words
of Nathan, which had been previously fulfilled in
David’s kingly and domestic experiences, began to
be verified in the history of national sovereignty.
Although the Spirit of God came upon David, and
found David as a man all that He desired in an
282 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

individual human heart, yet the form of the national
sovereignty of which David as a king was the per-
sonal embodiment, was self-willed or despotic, and a
national embodiment of the mystery of iniquity. In
the heart and mind of David as a man, the Spirit
of God exerted supreme influence, through David's
voluntary submission thereto spiritually and intellec-
tually. But in the body, as in the kingdom of David,
the spirit of wickedness was supreme, and held un-
disputed possession. “The adoption” included the
redemption of the individual human body, and also
the deliverance of national sovereignty from the pre-
sence as well as the prevalent power of evil.

For 1290 years after the termination of the brief
united history of David’s kingdom, the abomination
that maketh desolate ran its course from Judah to
Babylon, and thence in succession through Persia,
Grecia, Republican and Imperial Rome. The likeness
of David’s kingdom was the resemblance of its history
all throughout. The Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the successive national sovereignties, produc-
ing an invisible line of results, which were recorded
and treasured up in the written Word of God, old
and new. The rule of every successive sovereignty,
whether that of the people or that of the monarch,
was despotic and unholy. To this rule there was
not one solitary exception from the time of David
to the time of Constantine. All kinds of national
sovereignty had killed with the sword by founding
their government upon the principle of slaying the
freedom of every will in the nation except that of
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 283

the reigning sovereign; and the dominions were each
in succession nothing but physical national forms,
without either divine intellectual light or spiritual
life. Accordingly, their national resemblance was
that of the beasts which perish; and of this great
truth the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar, and his
long degradation, were the appointed figures.

In the life and death of Christ, the manner in
which the spirit of the abomination would be killed
with the sword, and national sovereignty delivered
from its power and presence, were prefigured. Christ,
by becoming all the fulness of the Godhead in a
national body, as He did in an individual man, and
the nation, by sacrificing its national sovereign life
to receive that fulness of the Godhead, even as Christ
had shed His blood in order that it might become the
divine life of individuals and nations of men, were in
their joint action to effect the nation’s full emancipa-
tion. “The clay and the iron,” as the human seed of
this glorious union between all the fulness of the God-
head in Christ and visible national existence, were
brought into alliance by Constantine, and added a
new, even an intellectual, element to the existence of
the abomination as previously manifested in the his-
tory of the successive national sovereignties. At this
epoch the message of Nathan to David was repeated
—“The sword shall never depart from thy house”—
with the important addition, that the overturnings
were to be only three in number until the coming in
a nation of the kingdom of God. For it is written,
“T will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall
284 ALPHA AND OMEGA, OR,

be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I
will give it him.”

This threefold overturning is connected with the
physical or political, the intellectual, and the spiritual,
in national existence. Like the three children of
Israel who refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s
golden image, and were cast into a burning fiery fur-
nace seven times heated, so the component physical,
intellectual, and spiritual elements of God’s kingdom
in nations were cast into the bottomless pit of suffer-
ing and affliction opened by the spirit of disobedience,
and detained in that state and condition of national
existence until sufficiently purified and made white
and tried, for the appearance of one like the Son of
God in their midst. The Spirit of God, from the
days of David, ran and returned again like lightning
in human history. That which He prefigured nation-
ally in the kingdom of Israel in the days of David,
He began to accomplish fully in the kingdom of
England in the days of Charles. By coming upon
Saul and David in succession as the anointed king of
Israel, the Spirit of God declared Himself to be the
true sovereign Spirit or King of national existence.
And in the days of Charles He began to be in fact
that which He was only in figure in the days of David,
the sovereign Spirit of the English nation, who had
been, by long previous national training, intellectual
enlightenment, and spiritual discipline, so far pre-
pared that the sovereign life of the nation was slain
in the act of receiving the Spirit of God as its in-
visible King; and of this great national self-sacri-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 285

fice, the judicial martyrdom of the king by his subjects
was both the visible effect and the appointed sign.

It was the Spirit of Christ, as all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily, that became the Spirit of England
nationally in Charles’s day, just as He became the
Spirit of the first disciples individually on the day
of Pentecost. He had communicated much intellec-
tual knowledge to, and had sown the divine seed of
more in, the minds of His chosen followers while on
earth. So had the nation of England been enlightened
in the knowledge of the living Word of God after His
resurrection as the Sword of the Spirit in the year
A.D. 1517, by which sword it was that the spirit of
disobedience was slain in the nation, and its power as
effectually expelled from the heaven of the nation’s
existence as Charles, its unwilling impersonation, had
been removed from the occupancy of its visible throne.
But the state of the first Christian disciples individu-
ally, and the state of England nationally, were never-
theless only a reproduction of the state of David in
their individual physical, and national political, em-
bodiments. Paul, the great apostle, carried about
with him a vile body of death. And the political state
of England, after the death of Charles until the end
of the Stuart dynasty, was an exact similitude of the
visible condition, of the primitive Christian Church
from the day of Pentecost until the overthrow of
Jerusalem. Intellectually, moreover, the resemblance
of the one to the other was perfect.

Mental culture and intellectual enlightenment are
human plants of slow growth. In early Christian
286 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

history, their progress in a divine form was hindered
by the opposition of Judaism, the corrupt state of
human society, and the sovereign spirit of the Roman
Empire. In English history, after the death of
Charles, the sovereign Spirit of the nation was divine,
just as the sovereign Spirit in each individual dis-
ciple of the early Christian Church was so. But the
progress of the intellectual development and visible
embodiment of God’s Spirit, in either case, was the
result of a great struggle. For the dragon, when cast
out of the heaven of England’s national existence,
still retained for a season his power over its earth, or
human intellectual and political condition. In this
double field of conflict, intellectual or ecclesiastical,
and physical or political, the spirit of disobedience
resisted God’s two witnesses in the work of reveal-
ing the mind of Christ through the union of the
living Word of God with the national intellect, and
in the work of preparing the temple of God through
the union of God’s Spirit of life with its political
institutions or national physical edifice.

But his resistance was as indispensable to the gra-
dual revelation of God’s national glory in England as
was the divine share in effecting the appointed end.
The rule of Cromwell was an iron rule, both ecclesi-
astically and politically. He enforced an external
uniformity in things ecclesiastical, and he vainly
attempted to check and overcome social vice and im-
morality by the strong arm of the civil power. These
were the two things determined to be accomplished
in English history, not external uniformity, but sub-
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 287

stantial unity, yet diversity, in things ecclesiastical or
intellectual; and public virtue, social morality, indi-
vidual freedom, and personal purity. Intellectual
enlightenment in the divinely-appointed principles
of human government and external political progress
were to be the invisible and visible measure, the one
of the other. The rule of Cromwell came to an end,
and the monarchy, the Church, and the aristocracy
were restored, and a reaction set in, in the opposite
direction. Enforced ecclesiastical uniformity was
continued as the governing principle of the restored
king and Church, although that which Cromwell had
oppressed became dominant. An age of licentious-
ness in public manners, and a reign of royal folly,
succeeded the stern Puritanical rule of Cromwell.
When the next important epoch was evolved in
English history, vast progress had been made both
intellectually and politically; for in the crisis origi-
nated by the infatuation of King James IL abundant
evidence was furnished, in the conduct of some of the
bishops, and also of members of the aristocracy, that
their principles had undergone a remarkable change
since the death of Charles I.

The overthrow of the Stuart dynasty commenced
in Charles I., was accelerated by the acts of James
II, and was finished when the Hanoverian dynasty
supplanted it on the throne of the then legislatively
united kingdom of England and Scotland. The vis-
ible signs of the three stages in the overturn of the
Stuart dynasty were the judicial death of Charles
I. in the year a.p. 1649, the deposition of James IT.
288 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

in the year A.D. 1689, and the unsuccessful rebel-
lion in favour of his son in the year A.D. 1715. In
the latter year Christ had so far disclosed Himself in
the national mind and history, in a manner resem-
bling that in which He appeared unto John in the
Isle of Patmos to close the written revelation of Him-
self as the Word of God. Each event was the last
of a long historical series in duplicate first evolved
in Hebrew history, and afterward reproduced in
English history. The signs given of the great epochs
in English history corresponded with those given in
Hebrew history. The apostacy of England in the
year A.D. 615, the grant of Magna Charta in the year
A.D. 1215, the judicial martyrdom of King Charles
I. in the year ap. 1649, and the overthrow of the
Stuart dynasty in the year 4.D. 1689, confirmed and
ratified in the year a.D. 1715, were reproductions of
similar events in Hebrew history, commencing with
the erection of Solomon’s temple in the year B.c. 1004,
passing on to the completion of the first volume: of
Scripture truth in the year B.c. 404, the decease of
Christ in the year a.D. 30, the overthrow of Jerusalem
in the year A.D. 70, and its confirmation and ratifica-
tion in the closing of written divine revelation in the
Isle of Patmos in the year a.p. 96. From beginning
to end, the duration of the historical series was 1100
years in each case. And from the first to the second
epoch of each, the appointed period was 600 years ;
from the second to the third of each, 434 years ;
from the third to the fourth of each, 40 years; and
from the fourth to the fifth of each, 26 years.
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 289

The process of breaking into pieces of “the clay,
the iron, and the brass” of the great image, and the
simultaneous setting up of the new divine dominion,
in the history of England, were carried forward till
the ascendancy of the “silver” or Hanoverian dy-
nasty began in Britain. Like the “silver” dominion
of the Medes and Persians, the British Empire, as the
new kingdom of God, was divided between two, the
British monarchy and the American Republic, in the
year A.D. 1776. Everything was produced in dupli-
cate. The principle of conformity in the ecclesiastical
world had its counterpoise and corrector in the prac-
tice of nonconformity. The political party in power
for the time being had a strong opposition in a rival
political party. The self-will of the sovereign as
king was broken, and its power gradually weakened
in the government of the nation, from the time of the
declaration of American independence. That event
was the sign and precursor of the then coming divi-
sion of the power of government between the people
and the reigning sovereign, both being submissive
to God in the nation’s existence, and each submissive
to the other, the people in framing the manner of
the government which the sovereign is to exercise,
and to which they are to yield a perfect obedience.

The republican form of government set up in
America actually exists in the limited monarchical
institutions of Britain; and the monarchical form of
Britain, without its aristocracy and Church establish-
ment, is in reality the principle of the Federal union
in America. They are countervailing national checks

T
290 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

appointed to counterbalance each other as integral
portions of the new divine dominion until each is
perfected. The mutual rivalry and jealousy which
have actuated Britain and America in their national
conduct to one another throughout their entire sepa-
rate history, are the visible evidences of the remain-
ing imperfection of each dominion. As this is
gradually removed and taken out of the way, the
growth of a better spirit will be manifested in the
mutual attitude of both nations, and will disclose
itself in acts of kindliness and forbearance, combined
with the prevalence of equal respect for the inde-
pendence and freedom of each other, as the two first
imperial embodiments of the universal and everlast-
ing visible dominion, in which the glory that Christ
had with His Father before the world was, as the
Son of God, is to be enduringly demonstrated.

The mutual experiences unfolded in the separate
history of Britain and America as rival dominions
of this world, are an external illustration of the inter-
nal rivalries and jealousies that have also subsisted
contemporaneously in Britain. Opposing political
parties and contending intellectual and ecclesiastical
combatants are each in error in precise proportion
to the power of their respective rivals. The prin-
ciples and opinions of each will be perfected simul-
taneously, and then they will see eye to eye, and be
of one mind and of one faith in the one Spirit of
Christ, whose Spirit is the Spirit of the one indi-
visible yet triune Godhead. It is towards this end
that Britain, in the training and discipline of its past
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 291

history, has been steadily progressing, straightfor-
ward and without wavering or faltering, under the
divine guidance. The great Redeemer is not only
the one Mediator between God and man—He is
also the living bond of national union among men
themselves ; without Him all is political, intellec-
tual, and moral chaos. In Him the human temple
of God, and the altar, and the individual wor-
shippers therein will be perfected in every part, and
become the great and marvellous works of the Lord
God Almighty, visibly declaring the justice and truth
of God’s ways as King of saints.

The wilderness -journeyings of the first genera-
tion of the human race have been long and painfully
wearisome. The way has been through overflowing
waters of affliction and suffering and fiery trials. But
the divine truth and heavenly life of the Godhead
have been continuously unfolding themselves in
human nature. And, like the sojournings of the
Israelites, the times of their duration were predeter-
mined and appointed by God Himself. The hour of
deliverance must come—the day of complete human
redemption draweth nigh. Until then it is to be said,
“Of that day and that hour knoweth no man; no, not
the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but
the Father.” The state of entire self-submission to
the will of His Father in which Christ entered upon
His work at the foundation of the world, which He
visibly illustrated in His life on earth, He was stead-
fastly to maintain until the momentous hour evolved
in human history when God, by the act of trans-
292 ALPHA AND OMEGA ; OR,

lating the last member of the church of the first-
born from earth to heaven, will have repeated in men
that which He did among angels when He said, “ Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” accom-
panied by the command, “ And let all nations, and
kindreds, and tongues, and people worship Him.”

The knowledge of the past is accessible, and it is
a knowledge the height and depth of which pass
all understanding. The knowledge of the future is
a sealed book, except in relation to one particular
epoch. The light given respecting its great outlines
is clear and precise, and it has been given for the
purpose both of warning and encouragement to those
whose lot is cast in the last days of the great tribu-
lation. It is also the epoch in which the new
generation of the human race is to begin to be
effectually emancipated from the power and presence
of evil, and of its characteristics the history of Eng-
land is the divinely-appointed illustration. English
history had its national counterpart in one of its
aspects in Hebrew history; but it has another aspect,
which had its rise at the epoch when Republican
Rome appeared as the fourth and last of the original
embodiments of the one universal human dominion
in the year Bc. 146. This was the form of human
dominion that resembled “a lion, and had eagles’
wings.”

It was to be changed or revived in another form.
First, the wings thereof were plucked: and this
happened in the year A.D. 314, when one wing was
plucked; and in the year a.D. 476, when the other
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 293

wing was plucked. Thereafter “it was lifted up
from the earth,” from the time England as a united
kingdom was seen “coming up out of the earth,
having two horns like a lamb, yet speaking as a
dragon,” in the year 4.D. 827. It was next made to
“stand upon the feet as a man,” and this began to
be done unto it in the year a.D. 1558, when the
power of the great image was broken in English
history. And, lastly, “a man’s heart was given to
it,” and the sign of the commencement of this last
change was witnessed in the legislative act which
entirely and indissolubly united in one dominion
England, Scotland, and Ireland. The end of exter-
nal disunion in any form was not possible until the
three nations had been prepared to receive a new
national heart, triune, even in the image of God
Himself.

Between the first and second stages of transforma-
tion narrated, a new revelation was given from God
in the person of His Son; and He also appeared unto
the apostle John, in the island of Patmos, to finish
this written volume of the Word of God, in the year
A.D. 96. From the year B.c. 146 the history of this
transformation was downward or descending, until
the year A.D. 827. From thence its history was re-
versed ; and it began its upward or ascending career,
taking with it in one national embodiment the seed
of human liberty revealed in the Roman Republic, in
union with the seed of divine truth, the springing up
of which in the national mind was to make it a free
dominion. The period appointed for the duration of
294 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

the descending history, from the year B.c. 96 until
the year A.D. 827, was 731 years. At the end of 731
years of its ascending history, the visible sign was
given of the resurrection of the living Word in the
nation, by the fall of the power of the great image in
England, in the year A.D. 1558. The entire history
of the descent occupied 973 years—from the year B.C.
146 until the year A.D. 827; and the entire history of
the ascent also occupied 973 years—from the year
A.D. 827 until the year Ap. 1800.

England received the written charter of its political
freedom in the year a.p. 1215. The living Word of
God, by wltich it was to be intellectually influenced
in its upward progress, was revived in the year AD.
1517. The appointed period between these two all-
important occurrences was 302 years. The bond of
union between the political and ecclesiastical institu-
tions of a human kingdom is its sovereign spirit. It
must have an individual human tabernacle as the one
spirit of the dominion. This living human tabernacle
was provided, not in the form of a man, but in that
of a woman, born in the year 4.D. 1819. The written
and living sources of the nation’s transformed political
and ecclesiastical institutions appeared in the years
AD. 1215 and A.D. 1517, having an interval of 302
years between them. After the lapse of a similar
period of 302 years, life was given to the individual
human being, to whom, as to David, the spirit of the
new divine dominion was to be given, after a new
human heart had been given to the nation, as it had
been to Saul, but with very different and opposite
296 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

ly to the fall of Imperial Rome, and for which that
fall prepared the way. The two first were founded in
intellectual doctrines, those of the Mohammedan do-
minion and Papal Rome. The third and fourth, in
the order of their appearance, were the Holy Roman
Empire and the English kingdom; and both were
political or temporal dominions. The first and second
remain in existence. The third has ceased to exist,
but numerous and independent kingdoms have arisen
in its stead. The fourth also remains; and English
history, in connection with general human history,
dates from the year a.D. 827; for its rise was the
closing event of early Christian history, and was the
sign of the end of the first, or exclusively individual,
aspect of the resurrection of Christ’s life as the Son
of God in human nature. From thence the second
or national resurrection was conjoined with the first.
But none of the nations, or “the rest of the dead,”
were to be fully quickened in the divine life until
the expiry of a thousand years from thence.

The spirit of disobedience having set up the intel-
lectual embodiments of oppression and bondage at
Rome and Jerusalem; having raised up the Holy
Roman Empire out of the sea of nations, giving it a
seat and power and great authority; and having
given his despotic spirit to the new kingdom of Eng-
land,—thereby exhausted the limits of his construc-
tive intellectual power, in apparent and intended
opposition to the accomplishment of the divine pur-
pose. From thence he was restrained, as if chained ;
and the seal of God was set upon all that happened
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 297

in human history during the thousand years. Within
the limits of the invisible dominion he then acquired
he was strictly confined, so that they could not be
overpassed. But there were infinite regions beyond
those within which his influence was circumscribed,
and in these Christ and those who were individually
redeemed from among men reigned during this thou-
sand years in human history. Not only was he so
bound and circumscribed, by having exhausted him-
self for the time, but that which was left to him he
was gradually deprived of, and the national fruits of
his great and irrecoverable defeat were to begin to
be visibly manifested at the end of the thousand
years, from whence, also, divine life was to commence
to be fully given in a national form unto “ the rest
of the dead.”

Human degradation and bondage were the only
fruits producible among men by the exercise of his
power. These were to be gradually destroyed during
the thousand years, and at their termination the
opposite fruits of the kingdom and power of God—
human elevation and freedom—were to spring up
out of the national earth. These thousand years
having begun in the year A.D. 827, came to an end
in the year A.D. 1827, and he was then liberated.
He is now transformed into an angel of light, pro-
fessedly zealous for the preservation of religion, order,
and established institutions, and determinedly op-
posed to all beneficial reform everywhere. The evil
that still exists—and it is abundant enough—he has
set himself to preserve from destruction as long as
298 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

he can. But his divine Lord has gone forth invis-
ibly to subdue all nations to Himself, and even in
his liberated condition his work will in the end
praise God. It is the going forth of Christ invisibly
among all nations that has loosened his bonds, in
order to the production of that time of great tribula-
tion such as never was since there was a nation, out
of the watery deluge and fiery trials of which alone
a great multitude of all nations can be brought in a
regenerated state of complete redemption, after having
washed their robes, and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb.

One sign of this invisible going forth of Christ as
the King of all nations is thus written: “Lo, when
I am gone forth, the prince of Grecia shall come.”
The end of the thousand years and this going forth
are coincident occurrences ; and the visible sign of
both was to be the revival of a Greek principality.
This was witnessed on 6th July 1827, when the in-
dependence of Greece was revived by a tripartite
national treaty. Another sign is thus written : “ But
the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me
one-and-twenty days.” The revived Persian domin-
ion, in Christian history, was the Holy Roman
Empire, and its successors are France and other
European kingdoms, including the temporal sover-
eignty of the Roman Pontiff. They were the kings of
Persia in the year A.D. 1827, whose invisible sover-
eign prince, or spirit of government, was to withstand
Him one-and-twenty years from thence. These
were terminated in the year a.D. 1848, which will
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 299

be ever memorable in the annals of human existence.
The exact date of their termination was 6th July
1848. Precisely 133 days prior thereto the throne
of the French monarchy was cast down—on 24th
February 1848; and exactly the same number of days
subsequent thereto the Pope’s temporal government
was overturned on 16th November 1848. Both cata-
strophes were the result of insurrectionary tumult—
the waves and the sea of human existence roaring,
and men’s hearts failing them for fear, while looking
on those things that were coming on the earth.

God’s two witnesses had been prophesying, clothed
in sackcloth, among Continental nations from the
year A.D. 606, when the woman fled into the wilder-
ness, where she was to be nourished a thousand two
hundred and threescore days. These 1260 days are
42 months, each month consisting only of 30 days.
The 1260 years, if ordinary years, would terminate
in the year AD. 1866. But the days were to be
shortened, for the elect’s sake; and the extent to
which they have been so shortened is the difference
in time-reckoning between 1260 ordinary years and
1260 years of 360 days each. The shortening pro-
cess is therefore a little over 18 years, giving 1242
years as the duration of the period during which
God’s two witnesses were to prophesy, clothed in
sackcloth, among Continental nations. Accordingly,
they came to an end in the year a.D. 1848.

It is further written, that after the power of the
prince of Persia to withstand Him had exhausted
itself, at the end of the twenty-one years, in the
300 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

year A.D. 1848, He “remained there with the kings
of Persia.” And a comparison of European Chris-
tendom in the year A.D. 1866 with its condition im-
mediately preceding the year a.D. 1848, will supply
abundant testimony of the great and marvellous
working in the interval of Him who is the Lord God
Almighty. The history of Britain has been less pro-
minent during the nineteen years now drawing to a
close. They have been a reproduction of the nine-
teen years of Jewish history in Elijah’s time, which
culminated in the iniquity of Ahab and Jezebel, in
the matter of Naboth ; and also of the nineteen years
of Jewish history which intervened from the over-
throw of the kingdom in the year B.c. 606 until the
destruction and desolation of the temple in the
year B.c. 587. But they are finished also. The sum-
mation of their results in Europe may be briefly
stated as a restored French Empire, a revived Italy,
and a new Germany; and, in America, the downfall
of negro slavery, and with it the giving of a great
sign, that the restricted form of the primeval curse,
as continued among Noah’s descendants in the line of
Ham, and that of which it has been the divinely-
appointed figure in human history, are also nearing
their end.

The dragon was cast out of the heaven of Britain’s
national existence in the year A.D. 1649, after the
lapse of 1335 years from the first setting up in
Christian history of the abomination that maketh
desolate in the era of Constantine. The last visible
appearance of Christ on earth was unto the apostle
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 301

John in the Isle of Patmos, in the year a.D. 96; and
so great was His glory that the beloved disciple fell
at His feet as dead. This was a manifestation de-
monstrating predictively to John the great power
and glory with which He was, in the fulness of the
time, to reveal Himself in the clouds of heaven or re-
generated individual men. The interval from thence
until the setting up of the abomination—by the
purifying operation of which, however, human nature
was to be gradually purified and made white, and
tried so as to become the vessels fitted for the recep-
tion and visible revelation of the divine glory which
Christ had with His Father before the world was—
extended to 218 years, from the year A.D. 96 to the
year A.D. 314. From the close of the 1335 years in
English history, of which the sign was the martyrdom
of King Charles on 30th January 1649, the parallel
period of 218 years expired on 30th January 1867.
There is one future and not distant epoch concern-
ing the time of which clear light is given in Scrip-
ture. It is the time of the final overthrow of Nebu-
chadnezzar’s great image in every form, preparatory
to the Christian enlightenment and civilisation of all
nations. The continuance of Nebuchadnezzar’s de-
gradation was for seven times, or twice 1242 years,
in its application to that kind of dominion of which
he was the head. It commenced in its universal
form with the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah in
the year B.C. 606; so that the 2484 years terminate
in the year AD. 1878. During its entire period of
degradation, the fiery furnace seven times heated,
302 ALPHA AND OMEGA; OR,

into which the three children of Israel were cast,
was to continue to burn with increasing intensity of
heat until the termination of the 2484 years, when,
as the grand result, there is to appear a visible
dominion, having three human forms, and one like
the Son of God in their midst. This is the manner
and the time of the preparation of humanity in the
aggregate to become the living temple of God.

“The altar,” or the sanctuary of truth, dates its
separate history of preparation from the closing of
the vision and prophecy in the year B.c. 404. The
Mohammedan dominion in the east was to be its
special and visibly national antagonist, treading both
“the host,” or spirit of truth, and its sanctuary,
under foot. And this was to continue unto the
end of 2300 days or years from the year B.c. 404,
or to the year A.D. 1878, deducting the eighteen
years by which the days have been shortened. The
holy city Jerusalem was to be trodden under foot
forty and two months, or 1242 years, from the year
A.D. 636, and these also terminate in the year A.D.
1878.

The individual worshippers were to be oppressed
and afflicted by the abomination that maketh deso-
late in its western intellectual form for 1290 years
from the rise of Papal supremacy in the year A.D.
606. These, deducting the eighteen years by which
the days have been shortened, also give the year
A.D. 1878 as the appointed time of its end in nations
other than Britain. The Papal dominion reached its
zenith in the year A.D, 1212, and the sign thereof
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF CHRIST. 303

was the subjugation of England to its supremacy,
both political and ecclesiastical. England has been
long since emancipated from direct or indirect sub-
jection, in any form, to Rome. But its offspring has
still a remnant of polluting and ensnaring power in
the national institutions, the entire removal of which
may require till the year A.D. 1878, or the mystical
number applied to time (which is not, however, its
principal form of application), from the year a.D.
1212, six hundred threescore and six years.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.