TllMSTis-.(JOMIN(i Him, ' .. ■ y The jyfSTO^ApON of the pCIENT lilNIVERm- CHURCH. PART VI. Christ the Glorious King over the Whole Earth. WILL BE PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1874. THERE was a certain man who -was greatly in debt — very poor, utterly incapable of paying even a very small portion of the debt. He was in constant danger of being cast into prison, and there remaining until the debt should be paid to the uttermost farthing, accord- ing to the unchangea,ble law of the realm. Very poor, very miserable, very cold, very hungry — spiritually — w^as he, because of the great load of debt that was pressing upon him — a debt increasing quickly every day. In process of time there came a kind one towards him, vsrho bade him search in a certain place for a purse of untold wealth, w^herewith he might pay the debt, and have a large surplus. Joyously the poor man searched, and found the purse i with a part thereof he paid the great debt, and with the residue became rich and joyous for ever. JVIy Christian Brother — my Christian Sister — that poor man was as you and I : our many sins virere the great debt we owed to the holy justice of God, from w^hich no money could release us, neither could any child of Adam. That kind One was the Mighty Gracious God, and the purse of untold wealth was Christ our Ransom. By simply believing the words of that kind One, and taking the purse of untold wealth and offering it to Him who bade us search for the purse, we are free from all spiritual debt, and we become spiritually rich for ever. If. tL. o^. ^ .»#^ ^^ ttit ®hw%ja/ ^ ^tti PRINCETON, N. J. ** % Presented by CCv T^ . Cj \\'^V^. o\ A OT '^A^A^"^ • ^ BT 77 .C465 1871 Christ is coming! " The Boils on the Souls of Men have come to a Head — lance them." CHRIST IS COMING! Part I. — EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND OF THE TRUTH OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. Published March 2nd, 1868. Parts II. & III.— THE HOLY SCRIPTURES AND THEIR DESCRIPTION OF THE MIGHTY PLAN OF GOD. Published September 1st, 1868. Parts IV. & V.— THE HOLY TEACHINGS OF GOD, AND THE RE-ORGANIZATION OF THE ONE HOLY UNIVERSAL CHURCH OF CHRIST. Published September, 1869. Part VL— CHRIST THE GLORIOUS KING OVER THE WHOLE EARTH. Will be published, September, 1874. PARTS I., IL, II!., IV., & V. " Let every Man, every Woman, and every Child be quick and spread around the glorious news that Christ is Coming." FOURTH EDITION.-PRICE ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENCE. LONDON : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR BY JOHN B. DAY, 3, SAVOY STREET, STRAND, AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 1871. NOTICE. The CopyrigM of each part will be reserved for Six Months from the date of its Publication — in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland — after that it will be free to every Printer. Everywhere else it *will be free from the day of Publication. CHRIST IS COMOG. PART I. EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND OF THE TRUTH OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. To THE Nations. TN the name of the Mighty God, the creator of all things, -'- to you, oh ye Nations of the whole earth ! these words are sent. Into your hearts let them be deeply engraven ; and do ye ponder over them ; for, like as seed that falls upon fruitful ground bears fruit in plenty, so will these words bear plenteous fruit among the nations of the world. Now, oh ye nations ! ye are as wild sheep, scattered and isolated, but hereafter ye shall all form one flock under (me Shepherd. The ever-living God, the creator of the starry skies, and of all things — Who is as invisible to the eyes of man as the air we breathe, and Who, although invisible to us, is hke the air, near to and surrounding every one of us, has given to man free will ; 4 TO THE NATIONS. and having given to man His Holy Scriptures, as man's only true guide, has left to man the duty of working out his own salvation. God looks upon all mankind as one earthly family, and holda each one responsible for the misdeeds of the rest- Therefore, God permits evil men to afflict the good ; — for th« good fall short of their duty to their fellow-men in permitting them to grow up in ignorance of God, in permitting hazy no- tions of God to exist among men, and in permitting evil men to exercise the power of the nations. Mankind, from the days of Adam, have perverted that holy thing, the sotd, which gives them their intelligence ; from being spirits of good, they have become spirits of mischief; instead of being angels of earth, they have become the evil spirits of the earth ; using the intelligence of their souls in devising all manner of mischief against their own kind ; studying their own individual inclinations, and forgetful of God. Verily, man- kind have dishonoured themselves more than any beast of the ground, or bird of the air, or fish of the waters. The iron intended for the ploughshare, cruel man has shaped into the murdering sword, the murdering tube, and the murdering bullet, wherewith to slay his own kind, and for sport, the other living creatures of the earth. They have departed widely from the precepts of God, and happiness has fled from the earth ; and men have become, as it were, mere beasts of burden, less joyous and less contented than the free creatures of the ground, of the air, and of the waters. Mankind have adulte- rated the Word of God by adding their own foolish theories to its wisdom ; and men have so taught their sons and daughters that they have become as foolish as themselves. To the wor- ship of God and of His Glorious Son many foolish ones have added the worship of images, of reputed saints, and of a sup- posed Queen of Heaven, and have thereby brought the Word of God into disrepute, — perpetuating misery throughout the earth. TO THE NATIONS, O Verily the minds of men have been filled with nonsense; and their nonsense has whipped the nations, as it were, with whips of knotted cord. When distress covers thee, oh nations ! — when the people are perplexed, and hungry, and naked — whan the nations are warring one against the other — and when the ambitions and the unjust man, the adulterer^ the fornicator, the thief, and the murderer, take up their abode with thee, and are suffered to teach thy peoj)le all manner of mischief, and sorely oppressing them, — it is not God who brings these evils upon mankind, they are the natural offspring of wicked- ness — of wickedness of the nations. In like manner, oh man ! if thou wert violently to dash thyself against a stone, pain will be the natural offspring of the act ; so, when the nations dash themselves against the precepts of God, as declared in the Holy Scriptures, misery and pain to themselves necessarily follow. Those who overrule thee, oh nations ! are unwise ; they teach thee folly ; their laws are foolish, and they administer the laws foolishly ; they have placed before thee the foolish maxims of men, and God is almost ignored : therefore God for thy folly has permitted mankind to have their way. Thou hast taken into thy bosom, as it were, cruel scorpions, and they sting and pain thee. Behold your folly ! Nation is arrayed against nation — the one to make miserable the other. Their desire is to destroy each other for ever ; and for what ? As dogs they snarl, as dogs they fight, and as dogs they reap bloodthirstiness, and violence, and duplicity, and wretchedness, and hate ; and as fighting dogs they die. Ye foolish nations ! ye have placed yourselves under the rule of murderers, througk your disunion, and they give you justice that is perverted into robbery, into lies, into duplicity, into violence ; safety, that is destruction; rest, that is feverish anxiety and poverty; and they give you for ministers of God, men as perverted and corrupt as yom-selves. 6 TO THE NATION'S. Oh, foolisli nations ! following like silly sheep the foolish antics of a few of thy people not a whit wiser than yourselves ; poor nations! thou art saturated with folly and with misery, because the spurious wisdom of the wicked ones which has ruled thy fathers, and which still rules thee, appears fair to thee — ^for long continued wickedness has blinded the people, and conunon sense has become uncommon ; but within all is rottenness, all is pretence, all is sham. Oh ! that this wicked generation would quickly learn to understand that it is far better to be at peace than to be at war — to love each other than to hate — to be filled with holy rest than filled with anxiety ; and learn to understand that it is far better to obey God than to live in forgetfulness of Him ; to be united together as one holy Christian family of paen, than be separated into nations — as it were one of dogs, another of foxes, another of wolves, and another of tigers — living like them, and dying like them. Learn, oh ye nations ! and understand, that when thy kind increased in their hate one for the other, and the more mutual love departed from their hearts, then the more did the Holy Spirit of God — which, like the invisible air is near to every one of us — shrink from those nations, for their wickedness was abhorent to God ; then did the partial withdrawal of God cause partial disruption, and the air, and the water, and the ground, became corrupt, and pestilence and famine, and earthquakes and great storms, and misery accompanied their hate and their disobedience. Now consider, oh ye nations of the world ! Let these words sink deeply into your hearts. Have ye as little understanding as dogsl Have ye as little love for the more peaceful nations as cniel wolves have for the peaceful sheep % Ye have truly that holy thing, the soul, but ye appear to know it not, because ye play the part of the senseless brutes ; for, as senseless wolves ye slay your own kind mahciously, and outstrip them in glorying in it. Oh foolish nations, — mutual tomienters ! learn that the TO THE NATIONS. 7 nation which incites to war, and that is the aggressor, fights against God, and God has ever punished that nation, and henceforth will punish it more intensely. Be wise, sternly turn from your councils and from their thrones, the chief inciters to bloodshed ; let their names be branded as murderers of their kind, and di-ive them from your nation, and let their wives, and their sons and daughters be also outcasts. For it is better sternly to disown a few, than to suffer them to stir up hate between the nations. Be wise, ye nations, and settle amicably your differences, with honesty avoiding all duplicity. Up now, ye foolish nations! hasten thee, tear off" the bandage folly has placed round thine eyes, and learn true wisdom — the wisdom of God, which excelleth the wisdom of man far more than the sun excels in brightness the flickering candle. Behold the time is close at hand, even knocking at the door, when God will remove the scales from your mental eyes, and ye shall behold Him and His glorious Son, our Redeemer, as they are. And the paths of earthly happiness, and the paths to Heaven shall be as well laid roads, hedged on either side, that ye may no longer go astray, but be wise, walking with a firm tread, under- standing God and His holy teachings. Think not, oh nations ! that the paths your God wishes you to tread are paths of sorrow. Tour paths are joyless, full of anxiety, and full of fear ; but His paths are full of contentment, of holy peace, of serene joy, and as it were, in the midst of beauteous sweet-smelling flowers. Let every man therefore be honest and tender-hearted, mindful of the necessities of his fellow men, resolutely resisting all temptation to do or think evil, remembering always that man's earthly happiness is bound up with that of his fellow men, as though he and they formed the body of one man, so that if one member suffers, all suffer. Does God expect thee, oh generation of evil men, to turn your disobedient hearts to him ? No ; for well He knows how greatly your understanding has been perverted, and your unwillingness e TO THE NATIONS. to learn aright; but your children will learn of Him ; yet more their children ; and still more their children's children ; so that love between man and man will abound, and the Holy Spirit of God will enter the earth as in the early days of Adam, and it will become once more holy in His sight. But not yet, for the nations are swayed by the false and selfish maxims of men, and have ignored the wise maxims of God ; swayed by the foolish notions of philosophers — of philosophers lost in vanity and infidelity — which notions, belonging wholly to the imaginations of men, are full of nonsense, and bewilder and lead astray from the true path, the thoughtless among mankind. Ye philosophers, leaders of the people ! ye wise in your own conceit, and in the opinion of the foolish, because ye appear less foolish than them- selves ! ye forget that the Uttle morality ye teach proceeded through the holy men of God in ancient time. Have ye traced out God in the wonders of Creation, in the wonders that sur- round you on every side 1 Have ye not rather wilfully stopped far short and promulgated theories worthy only of the foolish / brutes 1 Have ye not ignored God and become as fools 1 Poor philosophers, blind leaders of the people, what has youw spurious wisdom done for yovir own happiness and the happiness of the world ? Spurious because but little being founded vipon truth, is nonsense as a whole. Poor philosophers, blind leaders of blind people, weep, for your day is passed, and the world wiU. henceforth laugh at yoiur folly, and your pretentiousness will be ridiculed. Weep on, ye blind philosophers, leaders of blind people, ofispring of a world heretofore darkened by your pre- decessors as blind as yourselves, — for the light of God's wisdom will cause men to see your blindness and your pretentious folly. Weep on, and repent, and enlighten your minds with God's wisdom, and do your very utmost to wipe away the stains of unbelief ! your folly has spotted the souls of men. And ye who officiate in sanctuaries called after the name of the Lord, be not more dull of understanding than the people ■ TO THE NATIONS. V whom you profess to teach ; learn and understand that it is better, far better, to touch their hearts with the pure Word of God than to deceive them with utter folly. Learn and under- stand that such deceivers as yourselves have been great curses of mankind, having led men astray. It was such as yourselves who introduced idolatry and spurious worship — who instigated the shedding of the biood of the prophets — the slaying of the Holy Christ and of His holy followers. It was such as your- selves who countenanced war and bloodshed, and who perpetuated folly, disunion, and hatred among mankind. The people are eager for true spiritual light, and behold ! your perverted under- standing persists in misconstruing the Holy Scriptiures, bewilder- ing the people so that superstition has taken the place of common sense, and a jumble of a little truth and much nonsense is in- stilled into their youthful minds as the wisdom of God, — whereas it is but the foolish nonsense of your predecessors. God has provided for them the true spiritual Bread of Life, and lo ! you, misguided teachers, give them adulterated bread wherewith to feed their souls. As it is with you, so it has been with your predecessors — all have erred, all have blinded their understand- ing with the trashy thoughts of men, and are blind to true wisdom. Give place, ye miserable foolish leaders ! stand aside ! in your stead shall rise up teachers whose lips shall teach true wisdom, because the Word of God will guide them and be their only guide, and they shall lead mankind into the right path, and, like faithfvd shepherds, keep them in it. And ye, true worshippers of God, ye greatly err by your dis- union ; ye have thereby become almost powerless among men. Henceforth there shall be but one Church — the one old Church of Christ. What ! are ye not brethren 1 Do ye hate each other, yet worship the same God and account yourselves the ransomed children of the same Christ 1 Yes ; the unholy thing is whispered in your ears, — the adopted childi-en of Christ hate and war against each other, because foolish teachers perverted 10 TO THE NATIONS. the understanding of their fathers and continue to pervert theirs, and have, by impure worship and hate, become almost as sinful as the children of the wicked one. And ye, unwise people, who make to yourselves images and pictures representing God — bowing down and reverencing before them — ^leam to discriminate what is evil and what is not evil in this matter. It is not evil for a good purpose to represent aught that thine eyes can see or that thy fellow men have seen ; but it is an evil thing to represent aught as representing God, and it is a very evil thing to bow down and make obeisance before them ; and a still more evil thing to supplicate God in- tentionally before them. Thy foolish teachers have en-ed in teaching thee so to do. Henceforth cease this folly and let thy prayers be uttered towards Heaven, the dwelling-place of God, and God will hear thee ; but God refuses thy prayers when uttered before thine abominable representations. Now understand, oh ye nations ! and let these words sink deeply into your souls. God made this round earth and the starry skies for His greatly-beloved angel Christ, that Christ might found a mighty and a holy kingdom in Heaven, the subjects thereof being the redeemed children of the man Adam, whom God purposed to create. God created the sun, the starry skies, and this round earth, filhng it with all necessary things, and then He created the first man Adam, giving him one soul, which shoiild be sub- divided among all his descendants, in like manner as a lump of gcdd may be divided into countless millions of atoms, each atom being as truly gold as the great lump. Adam disobeyed God, and thereby introduced the tremendous sin of disobedience towards God into the world. Therefore, God deemed him un- holy and unfit to enter holy Heaven — both Adam and all the xmborn people within him ; and God condemned the 07ie soul to be banished from Heaven for ever, as are the unholy brutes. But God, having foreknowledge of Adam's disobedience, had TO THE NATIONS. 11 planned, before He made the starry skies, that His beloved angel Christ, the future King of men, should win His kingship by saving His future subjects ; and God planned that Christ should successfully pass through the ordeal of living upon the earth as a perfectly righteous man — as righteous in the sight of God as are the holy angels ; and, furthermore, God planned that the holy Christ should give the life of His flesh and blood, suffering death ignominiously, as an all-sufficient atonement, once and for ever, for their souls. And God ordained that all the souls of men who worshipped God, striving to obey His commandments, should thus be deemed ransomed, and be deemed holy and worthy to be His children and the adopted children and subjects of His Son Jesus Christ, the glorious Conqueror of sin — the King of Heaven. Thus did the righteous man Christ save many children of the unrighteous man Adam, and thus did the childless man Christ win many children by adoption. Therefore, oh ye people ! choose ye whether ye will be the adopted children and followers of the holy Christ, or unredeemed children of Satan — the disobedient man Adam. Discern, oh ye nations ! there are but two kinds of men, all descended from the man Adam. The first kind are those who worship God, taking His Holy Scriptures as their guide. The second kind are those who worship other gods ; those who worship gods calling them the lesser name — saints ; those who use images and pictures in their worship, and those who worship God with their lips, but have not the love of God in their hearts — disobeying Him. The first are the redeemed ones of Christ, His adopted children and the children of His God and Father, the Almighty God our Creator ; therefore they, being His adopted children, constitute His one Church upon earth and His future subjects in Heaven. These, oh ye Christian people of all lands, are thy brethren. Quickly band yourselves together, and let the love of Grod and 12 TO THE NATIONS. of His glorious Son lead you to love and assist each other to the uttermost ; be ye not slack nor rebellious, but prompt and obedient. Now learn, oh ye Christians throughout the world ! the appointed time of God is close at hand, even knocking at the door. Haste ! put away your strife. Enlighten your under- standing and purify yourselves by prayer, — for murderous wars shall cease, and the hearts of men will be softened, and they will look tenderly one upon the other, and their thoughts be heaven- ward — not tied to the things made by man, nor to the thoughts of men, but the Holy Spirit of God and of His glorious Son, present in the Holy Scriptures, shall in like manner be in their hearts ; and the Word will no longer be as a sealed book to a perverted understanding, but plain to all men, for a right under- standing will be given you, and you will be able, through a right knowledge of God, to resist easily the evil desires and inclina- ations of the body ; and you shall forget the past wickedness of the world, and shall labour zealously and joyously in the world for the furtherance upon earth of the kingdom of your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. These things shall come to pass, but not fully come to pass — not until the fourth generation will the fruit be fully ripe. Band yourselves quickly together, oh my Christian brothers ! and you, oh my Christian sisters of every nation ! hold up the Holy Scriptures as your guiding light, and disseminate its light, and this little explanatory book, around you on every side, at home and abroad ; encourage those to the uttermost who strive after goodness ; and discourage, to your very utter- most, those who follow evil ; resolutely refuse to intermarry with them ; neither suffer them to be placed in authority. In worldly matters you are energetic ; be energetic now in the holy cause of your fellow-men and of God. Followers of God flock to the banner of Christ ; for the final war is upon you, the mental war of the followers of good against the teachers TO THE NATIONS. 13 of evil. Who shall doubt the result? for the Mighty God, who is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, is on our side. We are His children, His soldiers ; therefore, with us will be the victory. We now com- mence the battle. You, my sisters, young and old — and you, my brothers, old and young — ^join in the fray, and be zealous, energetic soldiers of the Lord Christ. Let your arms be the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and enlighten the understanding of the enemies of God, who will quickly be* come your friends ; and, as fellow-soldiers, will assist you in your mental warfare with the evil that is running riot through- out the world : be energetic therefore, and persevere. And ye, faithful teachers of the Word of God, of every sect — ^ye blessed of the Father and of the Son — from your pulpits bring quickly to the notice of your flocks this little book, and urge them to ponder over it. And ye members of the press, in every nation, sound aloud the tocsin ; loudly let the tocsin ring, shake up the sleepers, join quickly in the fray, and drive fables from the hearts of men. Publish in your papers, word by word, the contents of this little book, that the minds of all men may be quickly comforted, and that mutual love may drive away mutual hate for ever. Let every man, every woman, and every child be quick, and spread aroiuid the glorious news that Chi'ist is coming. 14 CHAPTER I. The Difference between Man and all other Living Cpeatures. "ARK, oh man ! how small is the intelligence of the most highly-trained of creeping thing's, of beasts of the earth, of fowls of the air, and of fishes of the waters, whose intelli- gence is about equal, compared with the most intelligent of thy fellow-men — those who worship God. Understand, oh my brother ! that of all living creatures man is born with least instinct — certain knowledge, which man calls instinct, being wondrously transmitted from one generation to another, each kind having its own peculiar knowledge at birth, as inherent to that kind as the shape of its body. Instinctively other living creatures do many things without thought, as thoughtlessly as a living tree pushes out its branches like other trees of its own kind — instinctively suckling, instinctively they seek out certain kinds of food, instinctively avoiding other food, instinctively know their own kind, not knowing their own shape ; instinctively migi'ate, erring not ; instinctively they build their nests, and the spider and the silkworm spin their webs ; as their progenitors did, so, without thought, do they. But man is only born with the absolutely necessary instinct to suckle all other knowledge he afterwards becomes possessed of; he acquires — gaining knowledge vastly greater than any other living creature can possibly obtain. To man God has not given THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN, ETC. 15 instinct ; but instead thereof a soul, and perfect free-wiU — free to think, and free to act. Freedom which God has not given, for His wise purposes, to any other living creatvire. Mark the great intelligence of man, how greatly it trans- cends that of every other living creature. Their knowledge is stationary. The instinct of the parents is transmitted intact to their offspring ; whereas no knowledge that a man acquires does he transmit to his son, as he transmits the shape of his body. Can any living creature, oh my brother ! besides man, com- prehend so as to worship God, or find out those laws of God which govern the things of this round earth, known as che- mistry, mechanics, astronomy 1 Is any other living creature capa- ble of building ships of various sizes, or machines of various forms ; or able to read or wi'ite, or transmit knowledge through books or writings ; or bring to light or mould into many shapes the serviceable metals ; or cause the earth to bring fortli fruit ; — these things the most ignorant man may be taught, but not so the brutes. Wherefore is it not possible 1 Some have greater bulk, greater strength, greater keenness of smell of sight and of hearing, than man ; the constitution of their flesh and blood and bones, are quite equal to those of man. What thing then is it that makes the vast difference between man and every other living creature 1 What is it that stamps him, as his birthright, the visible Lord of rU the living creatures, and of all the living vegetation of the earth 1 Does the horse obey the lion 1 Does the lion obey the horse? How numerous are the living creatures which obey man, or flee from him instinctively? Man causes those to miiltiply which are serviceable to him, and destroys those that are noxious to him ; bending to his service the huge, the strong, and the small. He purposely sows seed, comprehending beforehand what wiU ensue, and behold the earth brings forth fruit and verdure as it were at his bidding, and as it were owning man for its visible 16 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN lord. And upon the ocean he sails his numerous ships, bending even the seas to his service. What is it that gives to man his pre-eminence? And behold, oh my brother ! the beauty and strength of tha brute creation — some more beauteous, and some stronger than any of thy kind, having bones and flesh and blood like as thou hast ; nevertheless the most decrepit worshipper of God excels them vastly in thy sight, and in the sight of the great Creator of all things. Again I ask thee, oh man ! what thing is it that places, as it were, a vast gulf between intelligent man and every other living creature 1 Is it the size of the brain 1 No ; for the elephant and the whale are not more intelligent than are minute Hving creatures, therefore difference in the size of the brain is not the cause 1 Is man more sensitive in his body than they ? No ; for living creatures are as sensitive to pleasure and pain as is man. What then, finally, is it that separates all other living creatures so widely from mani It is that unseen living thing that is in every one of us, and which men call the soul, without which men would be as brutish as the gorilla. Understand, oh man ! thou art not all soul as are the angels of heaven ; nor, all flesh and blood as are the brutes, but mid- way between angels and the brutes — possessing a living invisible soul like angels, and living visible flesh and blood like brutes. When thou art unkind or selfish, it is the brutish passions within thee which thou hast in common with the brute creation that prompts thee. But when thou doest good things, it is the right knowledge thy soul has acquired that prompts thee. Understand, oh my brother ! that every man has two lives within him — the visible life of the body in temporary union with the life of the invisible soul. This union of two lives in one creature constitutes man. This is the Key of Wisdom. AND ALL OTHER LIVING CREATURES. 17 Every other living creature has but one life, the life of the body. It is the soul, oh my sister ! which gives to man his high capacity for the attainment of knowledge — enabling him, and him alone of all the living creatures in the earth, to comprehend the teachings of God, and to comprehend that the starry skies and all the wondrous things in this round earth were made by a living Being, infinitely more powerful and wiser than man. It is the soul oh my brother ! which enables man to com- prehend things his eyes cannot see, to comprehend that there are countries of the earth in which he has never set foot, peopled with inhabitants whom he has never seen. It is the soul, oh my sister ! which enables thee to comprehend that those wondrous orbs, the comets, come from distant space, so dis- tant that the eye of man cannot see it ; that there are, as it were, distant countries in the skies which the eye of man has not beheld ; and to comprehend that the Creator of the wondrous orbs that spangle the starry skies is a living Being, invisible to the eyes of man, but not more invisible than thine own self-will nor the air surrounding you ; a living Being full of love, full of wisdom, and full of might. Full of love for thee, oh my brother ! and for thee, oh my sister ! He has shown some of his love in creating thee, man ; again showing it in having given thee intellectual power to comprehend His teachings, that He might carry thy worshipping soul into heaven, and be as the angels of heaven for ever, where there is neither pain nor sorrow, but perpetual peace and happiness. Understand, oh my brother ' thy flesh and blood is not like God, thy body has not the shape of God, nor has it the shape of the angels of heaven, but thy living soul is after the like- ness of God, in that it is invisible. Understand, oh my sister ! the shape of thy soid is not the shape of thy body, for a living man who has lost a leg, or an arm, or an eye, or flesh or blood, B 18 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN or hair or nails, loses naught of his soul, therefore as thou canst not tell the shape of his unseen soul, neither canst thou imagine the shape of God. Bow not down, therefore, oh my brother, nor you, oh my sister, before aught that man foolishly represents as after the image of God, for God deems himself dishonoured thereby; be not thou foolish and tied to the things made by man, like unto the foolish uses of imaginary images and imaginary pictures. Understand, oh my brother ! thy soul is immortal, living for ever after the death of thy body. Understand, oh my sister ! that the life of the body is the mere mechanical motion of the heart, which is transmitted from one generation to another ; while the heart beats that is life, when its motion is stopped that is death. The flesh, the blood, the bones, the nerves, and all things appertaining to the body of living creatmres, and of man, are of earth ] and understand, oh my brother ! that so long as the earth exists will remain within the earth, — like as a once living tree when burnt is no longer even part of a tree, but changed entirely, its constituents becoming mixed with, and forming part of other things. But the invisible soul, which is in temporary union with the living body of man, being part of that living breath of God which He united to the body of Adam, is not of the earth but of heaven. It is a living substance, part of the ever-living breath of God, therefore it is immortal, and by its immortality differing from all else within the earth. Understand, oh my brother ! that the living soul, which gives intelligence to the living body of man, separates from the body instantly the motion of the heart stops, and the still ever- living soul is carried by an unseen power out of this orb, never to retxu'n ; and understand, oh my sister ! that when you see the corpse of a man you do not see a man, but the earthly house which once contained a still living soul. After thy death, oh my Christian brother ! and you, oh my Christian sister ! thy still living soul will have no debasing flesh and blood clinging to AND ALL OTHER LIVING CREATURES, 19 it, and although incapable of being seen by man, yet is seen of (tocI and His glorious Son, and by the holy angels in heaven ; full of intelligence, for God will then add largely to thy wor- shipping soul in heaven ; quick to understand, holy in aJJ, things, like unto them. Understand, oh my brother ! in like manner as the living body requires food to sustain it, so the ever-living soul requires food to invigorate it — without mental food the soul would starve, and be void of understanding as a horse or mule. God has made vegetation to grow, and the briny waters of the seas to become pure for the sustenance of living vegetation, and for the sustenance of the flesh and blood of living creatures ; and understand, oh my sister ! God has also provided pure food for the sustenance of the living soul of man, which food are the utterances of God. Men feed the soul when they talk, when they listen, when they read, and when they write ; they feed the soul when reading books, not by eating with their teeth the books, but by impressing their contents upon the brain, that photographic plate and storehouse of the soul, so that the living soul grows in knowledge in like manner as the living body grows in stature, each having a different species of food — the food eaten by the teeth giving no sustenance to the soul, because the soul being spiritual, invisible, intangible, feeds only upon what is invisible to the eyes of man and intangible to his touch. Remember that while man lives upon the earth, the brain, that storehouse of the soul, is filled with acquired knowledge, good and bad — that only is good which is a right knowledge of God, and that only is right knowledge which is in accordance with the Holy Bible, for that Book only of all the books which men have read bears the impress of God, bearing it as clearly as the starry skies exhibit the handiwoi'k of God. Neither the instinct of animals, nor the knowledge of earthly things which men acquire, is true wisdom — true wisdom is a right knowledge of God, which leads to true religion. 20 CHAPTER IL God. MEN mark the small intelligence of the fowls of the air, the creatures of the earth, and the fishes of the waters, so that we are able quickly to distinguish the things which they have made from those that are the handiwork of man, and we behold around us on every side wondrous things — the hills and valleys, the waters, vegetation, living creatures in endless variety, the sun, the moon, and stars. These wondrous things men know came not by chance, but like their ships and houses were created for a purpose, and being created must have been made by a living Being, infinitely wiser and infinitely mightier than man — this living wondrotis Being men call God. Man also sees that everywhere throughout the earth all things are created most perfectly, and have been maintained in perfect order ever since man's earliest records, therefore men are convinced that God is all-seeing, all-powerful, perfect in wisdom, and everywhere at the same instant of time, governing all things. CHAPTER III. What is Tbue Religion % RELIGION is belief in an unseen God, the creator of all things, who is everywhere, throughout all space, all- powerful, aU wise ; and belief in the immortality of the soul of man, worshiping God thus believing. Worship is speaking reverently to the unseen God, believing Him to be close at hand listening. 21 CHAPTER IV. Evidences of the Existence op God. WHEN we see a ship, or railway engine, or clock, or waggon, or balloon sailing in the air, we know they did not come into existence haphazard, but were designed and laboriously made by the hands of man. You would pity the stupidity of the man who tried to convince you that they came suddenly into this round world, no one knowing how or whence they came. The man would be equally stupid who tried to convince us that the wondrous sun, the moon, this round earth with its mar- vellous contents, and the starry skies, came into existence haphazard, — for they bear the strongest evidence of design and of unity, for some special purpose, as strong as any of the works of man. Understand, my friend, the stupendous size of the glittering orbs which spangle the starry skies. Our round earth, the orb on which we live, is about 24,000 miles round ; the moon is also large and distant from the earth about 240,000 miles ; the sun is distant about 93,000,000 of miles from the earth, and of a bulk about 1,477,000 times gi'eater than the round earth. The roimd stars also, which spangle the skies in millions, are also immensely lai-ge, and every one many millions of miles away from the star nearest to it, each appearing small because of the immense distance from us. Now consider, oh man ! the mechanism of a clock, which is the highest effort of the ingenuity of man ; it is strictly made according to that law of God known as mechanics. The several parts are not adjusted one to the other haphazard, like unto a heap of loose sand, but strictly according to that law ; yet so imperfect is man's knowledge of any of the laws of God that the time-piece of man is but a feeble imitation of God's stupendous time-piece, which is the starry skies. The time-piece of man 22 EVIDENCES OF THE moves but for a short time, then stops ; but the time -piece of God has moved unerringly for about 6000 years. Tlie sun is as the clock-face, the swaying of the moon northward and south- ward of the earth, swaying to and fro once every lunar month, as the pendulum. The daily revolution of the round earth upon its own axis as the minute-hand, and the one revolution of the earth round the sun during each year, as the hour-hand ; and behold the planets and stars and comets, also mark the flight of time, the one as it were testing the accuracy of every other orb, and registering long intervals of time — nothing hap- hazard, but all having peculiar orbits to produce peculiar eflFects. Our common sense tells us that some living Being, as superior to man as the infinite largeness of the staiTy skies is greater than the house of a man, must have wisely designed and made them, constantly watching over them and keeping them in their proper places, and maintaining the exactitude of their motions ; for do we not behold spring and summer, autumn and winter following each other with great regularity year after year ? And do we not see the moon and this round earth daily moving with great and uniform velocity, mid-day and mid-night occurring every twenty-four hours ^ The celestial bodies although moving so rapidly making no noise, nothing ever going wrong, no one star or comet ever out of its proper place, no star ever inter- fering with any other of the millions of stars ; everywhere perpetual change, perfect harmony, and perfect peace ! Divine mechanism infinitely superior to the time-piece of man. Con- stant proofs of a mighty unseen living Being holding them in check and guiding their movements. Observe, oh man ! concerning the living creatures of the earth, how plainly they also bear the stamp of being the handi- work of the liviiig God ! how plainly they reveal his wisdom and creative power ! Note well the fact, that God has designed and given to every lesser living creature that wondrous inherent knowledge — instinct — exactly suited to its position ; each species EXISTKNCE OF GOD. 23 having its own peculiar food, and instinctively knowing what is hurtful. The young sucking or feeding intuitively, as in- tuitively as it walks, or flies, or swims ; every species after a fashion of its own. Those intended for the water taking to the water, those intended for the air flying in the air, those intended for the land keeping on the land. Every species keeping itself apart from every other species, so that every species is as pirre as when God made the first pair of each, although climate has varied them, like as every species of vegetation, and as men vary in appearance, size, and colour. Every member about a creature is marvellously best adapted for what is required of it, therein exhibiting plain evidence of design and the great wisdom ot God. The size and position of the teeth, the ears, the mouth, the nose, the tongue, the eyes, the head, the body, the legs, the feet, and the tail, in all their varieties exquisitely adapted for every living creature — for those that walk, or run, or climb, or fly, or swim, or wade ; each finding food most suitable for it, the food of one often poisonous to the other, yet each instinct- ively keeps to its proper food, like its parents. The birds of the air migrating during the darkness of the night, erring not, knowing instinctively their course, every successive generation, neither gaining an increase of instinct nor losing it, but every- thing as at the creation. And behold, oh man ! how marvellously God has separated every species from every other species — not in outward shape only, but inwardly, and in colour. Note the beauteous mark- ings of the hairy skin, the rich plumage and delicate feathers of the birds, the scaly covering of the finny tribes, and the delicate hues and markings of the leaves and flowers. The songs of the singing birds, and the other utterances of the living creatures — all inwardly and outwardly, in shape and colour, each like their ancestors. As men see and hear them now, so saw and heard our fo^-efathers. Marvellous, inde«"1 are the living things of the eai-th, mar- 24 EVIDENCES OP THE vellous in their instinct, marvellous in their structure, marvellous in their growtli, marvellous in their beauty, marvellous in the adaptation of their several parts, and marvellous in the perpetua- tion of colour, but not more marvellous than the perfect separation of the species one from the other, from generation to generation. And mark, oli man ! the evidences of one great plan in the multiplication of living things, and how the males equal in number the females, the manner of their birth varying ; — God delighting to exhibit marvellous variety in all things. Living creatures, having both father and mother ; living vegetation, having vegetation for their father and earth for their mother ; and the living things which link living creatm-es with living vegetation, multiplying by separation of their own living selves, having no mother, in like manner as the first infant Eve, was born out of the first man Adam, and had no mother. And note, oh man ! that when man and all hving creatures, and all living vegetation were created, God placed within the males, as part of themselves, seed within seed, in circles innumerable, that all the seed might not be born into the world at one time, but at intervals, throughout many generations. The sleeping life in the seed of vegetation, finding food suitable to its development and activity in the ground, its nursing mother ; and sleeping life in the seed of each species of living creature, finding food suitable for its development and activity only in the female of its own species, thus maintaining every species of living cz'eature distinct from every other species. And mark, oh man ! the wondrous unseen machinery of a living creature ! The skin and opacity of the flesh hide the many moving parts from thy curious eyes. Thou canst not see the pumping heart, the flowing of the blood through num- berless tubes, the play of the muscles, the action of the nerves, photogi-aphing thoughts, and smells, and feelings, and sights, upon the delicate nerves in the brain. Thou canst not see the transformings that are going on within the living creature, EXISTENCE OF GOD. 25 vegetation and flesh being converted into bone, into hair, into muscle, into nerves, into blood, and the many diverse liquids and parts within them — all these take place within thee, oh man ! and in every living creature ; but thou canst not see them ; they are invisible to all earthly eyes, as God Himself. How clumsy are the machines of man, compared to that won- drous machine, a living creature. Like as the steam machines of man derive motion from fire and water, so the living body maintains its inward motion from the food it swallows. The machines of man require the supervision of the soul of man to control and direct them ; but God has given to living machines, His creatures, inherent hereditary power to control and direct their own movements and promptings, to take food, and to perpetuate their kind. And behold, oh man ! the unity of design, as seen in the marvellous hnks between things that are animate from those that have no life. Mark well the great gulf for ever fixed be- tween man and the goriUa — that brute whose shape is most like the shape of man — and note the gradation from the goriUa downward ; and the gradation from the living creatures which walk the earth to living creatures that fly, and with living creatures which inhabit the waters ; also the gradation between living creatures that walk the earth, and that swim, with those that creep ; and the gradation between living creatures that creep, with those that bore ; and between those that are free to roam, and those that are fixtures — doubtful to the mind, some of them, whether they be living creatures or living plants. Then note, oh man ! the gradation between living plants and things which never had life within them, which neither grow nor die, link within link innumerable, imperceptibly, from the gorilla to a stone. The one never changing permanently into another, but every species maintained distinct, generation after generation. As were the first species at the Creation, so are 26 EVIDENCES OF THE they now — unchangeable for ever — the lion never becoming a horse, nor the horse a lion. And behold, oh man ! how marvellously God has designed that wondrous machine the body of living creatures. Like as the steam machines of man derive motion from fire and water, so the living body maintains its motion from the food it swallows. The machines of man require the supervision of the soul of man to control and direct them, but God has given to the living body inherent hereditary power to control and du'ect its own movements, giving it instinct and sense. And mark, oh man ! how wondrously God has given to the body of all living creatures promptings to eat, to drink, to sleep, and the many other promptings, not haphazard and without an object, but absolutely necessary, every prompting exactly adapted to the purpose which God designed, promptings not left to self-will, but forced at times against ignorant self-will, overruling it. Tn like manner as the time-piece of God escels the time-piece of man, so the mechanism of the body of every Uving creature excels the highest efibrts of man's machinery. Herein is the infinite wisdom of God made plain to human understanding. And behold the marvellous waters of the briny deep — how came they salt ? Why do they ever remain neither more salt nor less, no more in quantity nor less 1 Why do they so largely cover the surface of the earth ] In like manner as vegetation is necessary for the sustenance of man, so are the briny waters necessary for the sustenance of every living thing. From the very first God made the sea salt, as salt as now, that the dead habiters of the waters might not pollute the air nor pollute the water; it was necessary the sea should be salt, that tlie dead things therein might not corrupt. God peopled the briny deep with living creatures, in like manner as He has peopled the land. And behold how extensively the briny seas cover the surface of the earth, that the sun might cause piu-e watery EXISTENCE OF GOD 27 vapoui*, in large quantities, to ascend out of the seas, to give variety above, and shower down pure water upon the thirsty soil throughout the earth, and provide running streams for the sustenance of every living thing. The salt adapted to the water, and the briny seas adapted to the extent of the aabitable land — ^marvellous evidence of one grand unity of design ! And behold how many things are necessary to the existence of every living thing. First, the existence ol the living God, the wise Creator ; then are necessaiy the sun, and moon, and earth ; then the motions of the earth, and the motion of the moon ; then that the earth should be habitable ; then of the air we breathe ; then of the briny seas of great extent to produce clouds, that streams and springs of pxire water throughout the habitable land might give sustenance to every living thing, and that the soil might be pulverized and moistened frequently, neither to be too long dry nor too long wet ; the hills and the valleys, that there might be streams and springs ; then the heat and cold, day and night ; and next the seasons. Then that vegetation should have power to grow and multiply, that part might be food, and part as ornaments to the habitable land, to give it beauty ; then that living creatures shoiild be able to see, or feel, or hear, or move, and have growth, and have power to multiply their species ; those intended for the briny seas adapted to the seas ; those intended for the streams adapted to the streams ; those intended to walk, or creep, or bore, adapted to the earth ; and those intended for the air furnished with wings ; all necessities of existence, as necessary as birth into the world ; as necessary as that living things should feed for a time then disappear from the face of the earth, that the earth might not be crowded ; but not more necessary than that God should love us, and pity our follies, and seek to enlighten us by giving ua His Holy Scriptures, and toiich our hearts while tracing out the evidence of His wisdom and His love. 28 EVIDENCES OF THE Everything upon this earth is as harmoniously made as are the sun, moon, and stars, sun, moon, and stars. Consider these things, oh man ! and commune with thine heart respecting these wondrous acts of God ! And behold ! the moon designedly placed exactly at the proper distance from the earth and maintained therej producing with the sun, — winds, rain-clouds, and ocean-tides, that vegeta- tion might receive moisture, and that neither air nor the waters might corrupt, nor become stagnant ; neither too far away nor too near, that the winds may neither be too little nor too great, nor the rains, nor the tides. And behold ! the earth designedly placed exactly at the most suitable distance from the sun, and maintained there throughout all ages, that the extremes of heat and cold might not be too great for the life of living creatures. The moon and earth and sun, varying in their distances the one from the other just so much as to produce a pleasant variety between year and year — God not permitting the moon to come nearer to the round earth that it may not again be deluged with water, so that the living ■creatures upon the face of the earth may not again be destroyed, nor permitting the round earth to go so near the vast burning sun as to be utterly consumed by fire, nor too far away as that all things that have life should not lose life by cold. Man has no fear, believing that He who designed and made them also governs them, tlierefore confidently makes his arrangements for the morrow. And behold ! the motions of the round earth and the motions of the moon around the earth are in exact obedience to certain fixed laws. Now understand, oh man ! and keep it always m thy remembrance — where there are laws there must be design. Every living creature exists in accordance with certain fixed laws — laws that are unchangeable ; all things that are inanimate are made according to certain other fixed laws. These laws are those of chemistry, the law of mechanics, the EXISTENCE OP GOD. 29 law of life and death, and the like. Well, who made those laws — all plain evidences of unity of design, not one clashing with another, but all graduating most harmoniously one into another 1 Man has not made one ; he has simply very imper- fectly discovered a few which God has laid down — discovering them as he discovers grains of gold beneath the surface of the earth. Well, who made those laws which exhibit wisdom in- finitely superior to the wisdom of man 1 The author of those laws is God Himself, the great unseen Being, our loving Father, our wise Creator. And consider, oh man ! this round earth in which we live is about 24,000 miles round — a round ball turning once upon its axis during twenty-four hours, never varying, never backward nor forward, but completes one turn exactly every twenty-four hours, thereby producing one day and one night, the outer part exposed to the light of the sun being the day thereof, and the outer part that is not shone upon by the sun being the night thereof Men stand upon the round earth with their feet pulled towards its centre, like pins stuck towards the centre of a ball. Every man, the waters of the ocean, everything on the surface of the round earth, therefore, travels through a space of about 1000 miles every hour ; nevertheless, God has so contrived that this rapid motion should make no noise, and to the things of the round earth be as though it were motionless. A wondrous act of God ! but not more wondrous than any of His other works — every living creature, every living plant as marvellous — exhibiting design, power, and wisdom beyond the comprehension of man ! Friend ! hast thou studied with the microscope the wondrous wisdom of God as revealed in the marvellously small and innu merable living creatures that exist unseen to the unassisted eye — in like manner as the air we breathe and as God Himself is unseen — which are as active, full of hfe, feel pleasure and pain, and as fearful of danger as thyself 1 Invisible to the naked eye, 30 EVIDENCES OP THE requiring a microscope to see them, the greater the power of tho microscope the greater the number of minute living creatures are revealed, revealing to the wondering eyes the creative power of God extended to living creatures illimitable in their minute- ness. And behold, oh man ! the cloudless starry firmament, the handiwork of God. View with thine eyes the countless stars ; are they not glorious 1 Behold the thin white clouds that are here and there interspersed far, far away amid the stars. Take to thyself a telescope, and note well, that what appeared to thine unassisted eyes as thin white clouds, the telescope reveals as clusters of stars innumerable, immensely distant ; and lo ! with thy telescope thou canst see other thin white clouds unseen before by thine unassisted eyes. Take yet a second telescope, the most powerful man has made, and behold ! these second white clouds are also clusters of stars innumerable ; and lo ! elsewhere come to view other third white clouds so immensely distant as to be unseen by the first telescope, these also are clusters of stars innumerable, but there is no telescope able to distinguish them ; yet each of these starry balls which reflect the brilhant electric light of the sun are several thousands of miles in diameter, and there is a vacuous space of many millions of miles between each star and its nearest neighbour. The telescopes of man reveal millions of stars that are invisible to the unassisted eye, so distant as to be like bright pin-points, so numerous and apparently close together as the particles of sand upon a sandy shore. The more man searches into space the gi'eater marvels he beholds, enticing him to search more deeply stUl. His' most powerful microscopes leave stiU unrevealed the actual size of the most minute living creature God has made ; his most powei-- ful telescope equally leaves um*evealed the actual extent of the starry firmament. The wisest man is confounded at both ex- tremes. It is equally beyond the power of man to comprehend EXISTENCE OP GOD. 31 the vastness of the starry firmament as to comprehend the minuteness of an atom, or to comprehend the internal collective weight of the countless stars, or to comprehend the weight of an atom of that electric heat which is constantly poured into our round world from the vast burning sun. The wise man is filled with awe by these revelations of the infinite wisdom, power and goodness of God. He feels his littleness in the presence of One so mighty in all things ; but the fool, thoughtless, void of understanding — apparently as a * four-footed beast, imaware of his littleness — is conceited, re- fuses to bow the knee and worship the wondrous unseen God, but is afraid of spirits, that have no existence, that never did exist, being like heathen mythology, the stupid inventions of cunning men. Or a working man, for a livelihood, makes an image of a man upon a cross — an image, having a head, body, legs, arms, fingers, and toes, the same as has the brute gorilla ; a priest of the Papacy — a false, impious sect, followers of adul- terated Scripture — makes a stupid sign over it; a fool is taught from his infancy to regard it (in consequence of the false priest making the stupid sign) as a sacred image, and as a likeness of God ; and is taught to use it as a necessary part of his worship, to carry it about his person ; he bows down before it, uttering prayers ; venerates it as a holy thing, kisses it, fondly clasping it as his eyes close in death ; — deceived through life by the priest and his own thoughtlessness, as though God and His Glorious Son had never been revealed i — a lost soul for ever 1 32 CHAPTER V. Why we cannot see God. GOD in His wisdom has made the eyes of all living earthly creatures so that we can neither see the air we breathe, nor see Him, nor that invisible living cloud, the Holy Spirit of God, which, proceeding from God, and being part of Himself (in like manner as the wings of a bird proceed from its body) *" is evei'ywhere throughout space. If He were visible, the great and vivid light of His Holy Person would perpetually obscure the infinitely lesser light of the vast burning sun, nor would the moon nor countless stars be seen, nor change of seasons. God's great light and Holy Spirit would obscure all other things, and blind our eyes. The living creatures in this world are differently constituted to the holy angels in heaven ; what to them is life, would to us be death. It was, therefore, a necessity that the eyes of living creatures should be unable to see God. In the place of His intense light He has given man and aU earthly things the in- finitely lesser light of the bui-ning sun, the candle of the stany skies ; for no unholy living creature is permitted to see the light that comes from the Person of God Himself God has. provided earthly things with a temporary substitute for Him- self in the vast burning sun which He made for the purpose. God made the sun to be a large, dense, cold ball, which slowly burns on the outside (like as a candle bums), and gives light and warmth. He has made it of that hardest and densest of all substances, latent heat, which is heat in a state of rest, therefore having no warmth. This substance is constantly maintained by the power of God in a state of unrest on the surface of the sun, being there converted from a cold solid into a thin fiery gas, which, being WHY WE CANNOT SEE GOD. 33 strongly attracted by tlie earth, moon, and stars, flies to them ; a portion enters the outside of the round earth, and there combines, more or less, with everything, in accordance with a law of God, giving warmth ; then becoming rested, solidifies, becoming cold as when forming part of the sun. The surface of the earth, therefore, always contains more latent heat than the interior of the earth : the nearer to the centre of the earth, the greater is the difference. This difference in the quantity of latent heat causes a strong attractive force be- tween that which has much and that which has less : — this pulling force towards the fixed centre of the earth men call weight. What God is to the heavenly soul of man, the inanimate sun is to his body, and to all things of the earth. Without the sun, neither man, nor any living creature, nor vegetation, nor hills, nor valleys, nor the earth, nor the moon, 'nor the stars could exist. It liquifies and solidifies all the things we see. Without it they would be gas, as befoi-e the creation. It maintains vitality in all living creatures, and in vegetation ; produces their food, lights and warms them with its direct rays, and warms them with its active heat that emanates from the latent heat, in coal, in wood, in oil and fat ; produces vivification and change in all things ; produces the wood, the stone, and solid metals, and is the only source of weight. What the main spring is to a clock, the sun is to all things that our eyes can see. It is the mainspring of the starry firmament. As man fashions the mainspring of a watch, so God fashioned that great inanimate mainspring, the sun ; making the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and all things therein, subsidiaiy to the soul of man ; for God made them all for the sake of man, to provide him with a glorious habitation — glorious within and glorious without The eyes of man, although far reaching, are imperfect — they cannot see through a brick or solid stone wall, or through any c 3* WHY WE CANNOT SEE GOD. opaque substance ; neither can they see the air we breathe and in which we Uve, nor see self-will ; nevertheless, common sense tells us we have self-will, and that we move in the midst of air ; because when the air is in motion we see the driven clouds, our garments are blown about us, dust, leaves, and other substances are whirled before it, and the wide waters are lashed into great waves. We thus se^ the effects produced by air in motion, although we cannot see the air itseif ; so in like manner we can see the evidences of God's handiwork, although we cannot see God Himself. We cannot see God, but everywhere we see the works of His hands — the sun, the moon, the countless stars, and all the wondrous contents of our round world ; in like manner as in our houses we see the works that men have made, yet those men are not visible to us ; nevertheless we feel assured, by our Knowledge of the world, that our chairs and tables were made by man, and not by four-footed beasts. So in like manner we can distinguish the works which God has made from those which are the handiwoi'k of man. Moreover God is the perfection of holiness, is perfectly righteous, is goodness itself; hating with intense hatred every kind of idolatry and wickedness, therefore hating the iniquity of man, keeping His holy Person far away from them that it may be undefiled, yet taking great interest in man, and yearning like as a tender loving mother yearns for her absent child, because distributed among mankind is the soul of Adam, which originally having come from Himself, and having been redeemed by His glorious Son, is holy in His sight, and which He yearns to collect together, and carry into heaven. Friend, thou hast perhaps seen those great travelling burn- ing suns, the comets, that have visited the starry firmanent of late years. They came you know not whence, approached our round earth at a velocity of many millions of miles each day ; WHY WE CANNOT SEE GOD. 35 their speed gradually became lessened, and eventually turned away before reaching us ; and then gradually accelerating theur speed, vanished from our unassisted eyes, and afterwards from our most powerful telescopes, while travelling at several millions of miles each hour, you know not where ; finally becoming too minute to be seen, owing to their immense distance — a great invisible living Being silently guiding their w^ay amid the count- less stars, without disturbing them, without noise, silent ; again to re-appear after an interval of many years, giving proofs to the thoughtful of an immeasurable space our eyes cannot reach. It is in the midst of this immeasurable space which sm-rounds the starry skies, that the dwelling of God is fixed — the heaven of infinite space, its centre. He is there in full glory, God in a condensed state as a living Being, seen by His glorious Son and His happy angels; but his holy Spirit, a part of Himself (like as the wings of a bird are part of the bird), an invisible living cloud, fills all else of space ; so that He is everywhere, and His glorious Son, the happy angels, and all things, live and move and exist in this invisible living cloud surrounding them (as the waters of the sea surround the fishes in the sea), and guiding the motions of the vast burning sun, the moon, the count less stars, the comets, and this round earth ; and seeing the move- ments, and hearing the words, and knowing the secret thoughts of all men ; for this invisible living cloud is as it were all eyes and all ears. God is the living sun of heaven. "What the inanimate sun is to the starry skies, and to this round earth, God is to the he wens which surround the starry skies ; saturating with His living light and love and joy, His glorious Son and all the holy angels of heaven. We cannot see the Holy Person of God in the heaven of the staiTy firmament where he dwells, because He is too far ofi" for om* eyes to reach Him ; in like manner as we cannot see the distant comets. Moreover it is His holy desire we should not see 36 WHY WE CANNOT SEE GOD. Him, nor can we see His Holy Spirit, the living invisible cloud that is everywhere, and in which we live and move. Nevertheless our common sense tells us He is everywhere, because we see the moon, the stars, and this round earth moving so harmoniously, nothing ever going wrong ; spring, summer, autumn, and winter following each other with great regularity, and the inanimate sun giving growth and change to all the wondrous things on the siu-face of the earth. Common sense, therefore, proclaims there is a mighty living Being whom men call God. CHAPTER VI. Proofs that God has Communicated with Man. COMMON sense would naturally expect that this mighty living God having endowed man with greater intelligence than any other living creature (for which of them besides man is capable of deep thought, of speech, of writing, of reading, of acquiring information, and of giving it), should have created the first man, Adam, the human father of all mankind, for some special purpose, and should have made Himself known to Adain, the most intelligent of all things that He had made, in order to explain to him the special purpose for which he was created. This God did to Adam when he made Him. In Adam were the living germs of every male and female descendant of Adam : all who have Hved and may hereafter Uve. Consider, oh man ! a seed of wheat ; from one seed thoxi canst, oh man ! as thou knowest, produce millions of other like seed. How minute must be the living germ in each seed, and how marvellously minute must have been the living germ in the wheat which God first created, and which has now con- PROOFS THAT GOD HAS COMMUNICATED WITH MAK. 37 tinued to live for about 6000 years — for the living principle is in the seed and not in the gi'ound, which simply gives it food wherewith to be sustained : therefore, as is the seed so is the plant, and so is the living creature. God enshrined in the living body of Adam a pure living soul — an invisible living cloud, which, being invisible, yet alive, was therefore like God — by breathing it into the nostrils of the living flesh and blood of Adam, which God had just before made, and the twain — 1. The invisible living soul 2. The visible flesh and blood were called the man Adam. To Adam only God gave these two lives ; to all other living creatures He gave but one life — the life of the flesh and blood. This is the hey of wisdom. Be- hold, oh man ! in the brute gorilla an image of thyself, as thy- self would be if thou hadst not a soul — that jewel from heaven, in which only thou art like God. God created every kind of living creature before He created Adam — he, the eai-thly lord of all the round earth, was created the last. Other living creatui'es were cmated, male and female, a pair of every kind : the male equal to the female, and the female equal to the male : man alone, for God's wise pur- poses, and in accordance with His grand simple plan, He made male, that, as part of His gTeat plan, there might be but one earthly lord of the whole earth. Adam was the last of all things which God created. But God designed that the one earthly lord, Adam, should, like all other creatures, have a help- mate worthy of him ; and, causing Adam to fall into a deep sleep, He caused the beauteous female infant, Eve, to issue from a rib of Adam. Thus was Eve the first of all horn crea- tures, and thus did Eve have no mother : in like manner, as in long years afterwards, the holy Christ had no father. Out of Adam was horn the infant Eve, that Adam might be the one earthly lord, and the one earthly father of all mankind. 38 PROOFS THAT GOD Some time afterwards Eve became Adam's wife, and the mother of all mankind. The man Adam, and the female Eve were perfectly happy, and in constant communion with God, keeping the desires of their bodies wholly subject to their holy souls. They were as brother and sister, perfectly happy, as are th^ angels in heaven ; for they then had God always with them, communing with them and teaching them. They were therefore wiser than all their descendants in all things which conduced to their happiness, And all the other living creatures were per- fectly happy — the lion and the lamb resting together, eating herbage. There was no fear in all the world. The Lord God having taught them all that was requisite for them to know, was desirous of testing these the chief of all living earthly , things ; and warning them to keep their bodies, their earthly part, in entire subjection to their souls, their heavenly part, declaring that disobedience to His commands would entail mi- sery upon them — God left them pui'posely for awhile. The withdrawal of God induced the rebellion of their flesh and blood, for the temptations of the body overcame the con- science of the soul, and they fell from being holy earthly angels into being angels of sin ; for after God had withdrawn Himself, the woman Eve saw the serpent doing that which the Lord God commanded them not to do, the serpent not having been forbidden, because it was a beast of the field. Eve also did it ; and tempting Adam, he also did it — and thus both disobeyed God — the first of all living creatures that dared to disobey Him. Thus was that terrible thing, disobedience to the com- mands of God, brought into the world ; and thus was the hap- piness of the world wrecked. God foreknew that the one earthly lord, Adam, would disobey Him ; and God, therefore, in His great fore-ordained plan had provided an everlasting antidote, in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, for the salvation of the living soul of Adam ; of that one soul, part whereof has been in every one of his descendants, and part whereof stiU hves in HAS COMMUNICATED WITH MAN. 39 every Immun beingnow alive, having now attained an age of about 6000 years. Therefore, oh my brother ! and yon, oh my sister ! Hft up thy voices prayerfully and thankfully to God, for thy earthly misei-y is but for a little while, and then thou wilt be joyous with God in heaven for ever. God condenmed the flesh and blood of Adam, and the flesh and blood of his descendant Eve, and the flesh and blood of all his other descendants — to live for a time and then ignominiously return, like brute beasts, to the dust whence they were taken. God declared his intention to cease communing with them, for they had polluted their immortal souls and had become angels of sin ; but mercifully to mollify their anguish (for keenly they then knew what it was to be good and what to be evil), God fore- told that although the dreadful sin of disobedience required the death of the soul of man, as well as the death of his body, yet God had provided an all-sufiicient substitute for the salvation of his soul, which substitute should be the off"spring of a woman, but not of a man — a riddle which God in His own good time afterwards explained to mean Christ, who in the fulness of time, by His dreadful mediatory death, paid the debt — ^life for life — giving the holy life of his body to save from death the soul of Adam, which has been distributed among mankind. God gave Eve to be the wife of Adam, and upon several occasions afterwards, when mankind had multiplied, the Holy Spirit of God communicated to certain holy men the laws of God, who were sent as His holy messengers to explain His holy laws to mankind generally. Some of the holy men, honoured as the mouth-pieces of the unseen God, were notably Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Christ. God's messages have been handed down to us in the words of holy men, and these writings have been col- lected in one book ; this book is called the holy Scriptures, being a sacred record of God's dealings, from the creation of the vast burning sun, the moon, the countless stars, and this round 40 PROOFS THAT GOD eartli, down to the death of the Apostles of Jesus Christ ; the latest record being about 1800 years ago ; since which time there have been no prophets, no divinely-appointed living mes- sengers ; God having then revealed to man all that is necessary for him to know for the salvation of his soul from death. The whole record of the Holy Scriptures extend uvcr a period of about 4000 years ; they are the only written messages of God to man — they are now the only Divinely appointed messengers of God. Holy men are now but teachers of the Word of God — not messengers, but teachers only ; simply imparting their know- ledge of the laws of God to others having less knowledge — like unto teachers of earthly things. Our common sense naturally expects proofs that these holy men were really messengers of God. The Holy Scriptures teem with proofs. God being perfectly holy, we should naturally suppose that His mouth-pieces would be the very best — not second best — but the very best and holiest of mankind ; men long known to their nation as the holiest of men ; lovers of truth, God-fearing men, recognized by their countrymen as inspired by God. Well then, the Holy Scriptures are records written by these holiest of men. Our common sense would naturally expect that the utterances of these holy men would testify in some peculiar way that they were really mouth-jjieces of God, not only to men of their time, but also to mankind who should live thereafter ; for how other- wise could mankind know they were not impostors, like the blaspljemous priests of the Papacy of these times, who impu- dently pretend to hold the keys of heaven and hell, and frJsely pretend to be mediators between God and man, and thereby claim (the cunning worldly men) supreme direction over the affaii-s of the whole world, and yet can reall}^ do nothing beyond what any other men can do. The utterances of those holy men of old bear the stamp of u-utb, in all they said, their wisdom is far beyond that of all HAS COMMUNICATED WITH MAN. 41 other men. God, through them, has declared to mankind how to distinguish His mouth-pieces from those who, hke the priests of the Papacy, are simply weak-minded or cunning impostors. He has declared that His servants really appointed by Him shall be esteemed the holiest of men, abhor the use of images in their worship of God, be humble, seeking not their own glorifi- cation, and by miracles which shall be done in the sight of many men, and by prophecies which shaU come to pass, be convincing proofs, to both onlookers and to men in after generations, that they were truly the mouth-pieces of God, and that men who could not show such credentials were not appointed by God. The Holy Spirit of God performed wondrous miracles in their behalf. He also put into their minds the power to foretell events that should take place ; some in a few days, some in a few years, some after the lapse of many hundred years — prophecies which were fulfilled, not one jot nor one tittle re- maining unfulfilled of those numerous prophecies of whose fulfilment the time has elapsed. These wondrous acts being witnesses to all men of the truthful sayings of these holy men. Miracles which no man of himself could possibly perform being witnesses of their truth to onlookers, and to men of their genera- tion : prophecies to after generations of men. Are you doubtful about miracles 1 Is not the self-will of every living creature a miracle? Is not their instinct a miracle 1 Is not everything around us, in the air and in the earth, a miracle 1 Is not the impossibility of seeing the most minute living creature, even with the aid of the most powerful microscope, marvellous 1 Is not life marvellous, and death also 1 Are not comets miracles 1 Is not the diurnal motion of the earth, causing the whole surface of the earth and all things thereon to revolve at the rate of about 24,000 miles every twenty-four hours, without the slightest noise, without the least distm'bance of the air surrounding us, a marvel utterly beyond the c )m prehension of man] Is not the regular motion 42 PROOFS THAT GOD of the moon, swaying like a pendulum while revolving round the earth, swaying once to and fro every lunar month, a marvel? The earth revolves once every twenty-four hours upon its own axis, producing day and night, meanwhile the axis very sloAvly oscillates, each pole moving alternately inwards and outwards towards the sun, somewhat like a pendulum, occupying one year to complete one oscillation, thereby producing the plea- sant changes of spring, summer, autumn, and winter during each oscillation, also producing the gradual lengthening of the days, and then the gradual shortening of the days : exhibiting thoughtful arrangement, peculiar motions being given to pro- duce peculiar effects, just as a time-piece shows thoughtful arrangement in the mind of the man who made it. Are not these motions of the earth a miracle ? Is not the very presence in the skies of the sun, the earth, and those moving stars the planets, and the countless fixed stars, each surrounded by nothing, weighing nothing, possessing great weight inwardly, but outwardly nothing, flashing the light of the sun, each like an electric spark, a miracle? Yes, indeed these are marvellous, grand miracles, worthy of God the Most High. What are the lesser marvels of God : — the bringing out of heaven the soul of the Holy Angel Christ, enshrining it in the living flesh and blood of an unborn child that was issuing out of the womb of the Virgin ]\Iary, the restoration of the dead to life, the instantaneous healing of the sick, the foretelling what would come to pass, and the other marvels narrated in Scripture — to those grand miracles 1 Recollect, oh man ! there were times in the history of the world when God deemed it advisable to make certain things known to man, which man, left to his own resources, could not possibly know. Man could not possibly know ought about God — not being able to see Him, nor hear His voice, nor know His wishes, nor His intentions, nor whether there was only one God or many Gods, whether there was such a place as heaven, HAS COMMUNICATED WITH MAN. 43 or such a place as hell, or that man possessed an immortal soul — unless God by some means told him. God therefore selected certain holy men to be His messengers; He put into their minds holy thoughts, and prompted them to give them utterance ; also prompted them to prophecy certain things which God knew would come to pass, and also prompted them to command cer- tain things to be done which things God had not given power for men to do, that were deemed impossible to be done, but which God, unseen by men, did as though they were done by the will of the holy messengers. These miracles being performed by God to convince the people that the holy messengers were not impostors, but His appointed servants. These holy messengers were not jugglers — who mystify by nimbleness of fingers, or by the aid of confederates, or by fraud, or by ingenuity, — but by the mouth they simply gave utterance, and what they said the Holy Spirit of God did. A simple arrangement, sunple and grand, as are all the works of God ! Common sense would also naturally require proofs of gi'eat wisdom in their sayings and wi-itiugs. The proofs are in the wonderful wisdom and accuracy of those holy records — the Scriptures. The holy writers lived in times when communication with far-distant nations was unknown : times, when the inhabitants of many vast countries were unheard of; when superstition, absurdities, fabulous legends and error everywhere were rife; when chemistry, geology, the world's history, the sciences ge- nerally, were all but unknown ; when every nation was, through false priests, steeped in idolatry and lies : nevertheless, these holy men, living at intervals embracing about 2000 years, were filled with true wisdom, and had a knowledge of God far sm'- passing all other men, and have been models of upx'ightness through many prenerations down to these days, were notoriously the most pious and holiest of men, and were unanimous in their 44 PROOFS THAT GOD sayings, not contradicting each other, but as it were of one mind. They worshipped but one God — at times in the open air, at times in an ordinary house, at times in the sanctuary, abhorred the use of images in theu' worship : neither did they worship reputed saints, nor angels, nor were they superstitious about them ; heeded not whether they wore this pecxiliar gar- ment or that ; sought not their own glorification, nor ease, nor worldly comfort, nor the reverence of men — yet men accorded them great reverence — being convinced they were truly the mouth-pieces of God. Moses describes the creation of the vast bm'ning sun, the moon, the countless stars, and this round world, in a way that no man could of himself, even in these scientific days, have originally explained, without divine assistance — for embodied in his description is the very height of knowledge in every science ; and yet Moses lived in an age when ignorance of science was universal, and had been always so. Moses tells us that all men are descended from one man, Adam — the man whom God created at the beginning — God giving to him, and to all other Uving creatm-es, perfect free- dom of action, not controlling them, but controlling the mo- tion of the inanimate sun, the moon, the countless stars, and this round earth ; and that Adam, and the first-born Eve, his wife, disobeyed God, and so afterwards did their descendants, who attained great stature and lived to a great age, and were therefore clever in worldly things, and who became very nume- rous and wicked, in forgetting God, and unteachable, as though they had no more spiritual understanding than four-footed creatures ; so that after the round earth had been made about 1600 years, God resolved to destroy them, along with aU living creatures, excepting a few of each kind, and Noah's fa- mily, that the world might be peopled afresh, so that God might more successfully influence mankind to do His will. Moses records that, about 1600 years after the creation of HAS COMMUNICATED WITH MAN. 45 Adam, the man Noah, the only holy man then alive of all the giant men who then thickly inhabited the earth, was com- manded by God to build a large ship, without masts, called an ark, and to enter therein, with his family, taking with him an allotted few of each species of living creature, and there to continue for a certain time the messenger of God, declaring it to be the intention of God to deluge the whole world with water, and thereby destroy all the creatures that inhabited the surface of the round eai'th, excepting those that were in the ark. Moses records that a deluge of water came upon the earth with great violence, uprooting and destroyingthe living creatures, thoroughly destroying all traces of the colossal works of wicked man, and completely altering the surface of the whole earth, the waters having rolled over the highest mountains ; and that the deluge lasted many days. The Lord God in His holy anger caused the moon to go much nearer to the round earth, and remain there during forty days and forty nights, that the solid surface of the earth might be disrupted and swell out and become the liquid water, that the water might deeply cover the whole surface of the gromid, covering the highest mountains, to drown all the living creatures excepting those in the ark with Noah. Understand, oh man ! the round earth has a bulk about forty-nine times greater than that of the moon, and therefore is more saturated with solar heat than is the moon. The moon contains less solar heat, in proportion to its bulk, than does the earth. Therefore understand, oh man ! that when the Lord God placed the moon much nearer to the round earth ; the ground and waters of the earth, the dormant solar heat within the round earth and the moon, became together, as it were, a gTcat and powerful galvanic battery ; for the dormant solar heat which solidified the ground, quickly loosened and sped towards the moon, the round earth becoming, as it were, a sun 46 PBOOFS THAT GOD HAS COMMUNICATED WITH MAIN. to the moon, and the whole surface of the ground became quickly split and disrupted, and great chasms were made in the shallow oceans. Great clouds of vapour arose from the fast decomposing ground and the fast decomposing mountains^ du- ring the time the moon was nearer to the round earth, which turned into rain in quantity sufficient to cover to a great depth with water the whole surface of the round earth — the waves rolling over the highest mountains. The solid surface of the round earth and the solid surface of the mountains were con- verted into water, and the mountains dwindled greatly. The Lord God, after forty days and forty nights, removed back the moon, which caused the round earth to be no longer, as it were, a sun to the moon, and decomposition of the ground and of the mountains ceased ; and gradually the oxygen and hydrogen of the superfluous waters entered into fresh com- binations with the only other earthly element, nitrogen ; the solar heat again became dormant, and they soUdified once more into earthy and metallic matter, which settled, with the sweep- ings of the oceans and of the old continents and islands to the bottom of the water, into strata. The waters were many days shrinking into the comparatively small quantity that now forms the waters of the round earth. The superfluous waters shrank from ofi" the face of the higher ground, and left dry new continents and new islands, much like as we now see them. Noah, his family, and all the living creatures in the ark, then left it, and thenceforth lived Recording as they willed. 47 CHAPTER VII. Proofs that the Biblical Record of the Deluge is True. OF the truth of this wonderful narrative by Moses we have innumerable proofs. The vast sandy deserts, and the peculiar formation of every hill, every plain, and the appearance of every mountain, throughout the world, all bear the strongest proofs, and proofs innumerable, of one mighty universal deluge. The highest mountains throughout the world are silent witnesses, in the large quantities of sea shells and of aUuvial matter deposited upon them, now formed into concrete stony masses, of their having been deposited by violently agitated water which reached their topmost pinnacles. Every hill and every valley are formed out of the sweepings of the ancient seas, and of ancient continents and islands, in strata of great thickness, separately, of shells, of gravel, of sand, of trees, of mud, and other matter, some since converted into concrete stony masses and coal — the lowermost resting on the Adamite and granite rocks, whose surface, for the most part, is greatly below the water-level of existing seas, the highest strata tower- ing, for the most part, far above the present ocean-tides. When the Lord God had put back the moon, and thereby stopped the further disruption of the surface of the round earth, then, during calms, the earthy matter suspended in the water began to fall, forming thick strata — the heaviest first and the mud last — storms sweeping them out of the seas in masses upon what God intended should be dry land, until the seas were clean swept and nothing lost in them. During the deluge tropical trees, and the remains of tropical creatures, were removed by the waters thousands of miles, and afterwards sank upon far distant lauds. Man since the deluge knew nothing about that huge beast 4:8 EVIDENCES OF THE DELUGE. the mastodon, until about 150 years ago, when the remains of one were found deeply buried in the ground — buried during the deluge. Numbers of these gigantic, once living, hairless, tropical beasts have since been found frozen up in sand banks, retaining all their flesh and original form almost unchanged, in the frozen regions. One was also found in the icy regions, embedded in a mass of ice, whose flesh was still sweet when found, and eaten when given to dogs, having been preserved by the frozen waters evei' since the deluge, now about 4000 years. Are not these things silent witnesses of the gi*eat deluge, and of the truth of Moses ? Is not their preservation miraculous 1 The present appearance of the hill containing the tomb of Abraham — who was born about 290 years after the deluge, while Noah was yet alive — and Jacob's well • of hills and valleys, and rivers, and of the Red sea — all of which so exactly correspond in these days with the description thereof by Moses, that common sense must of necessity come to the conclusion that the general aspect of the surface of the whole earth has altered but veiy little since the great deluge, subsidence and upheaval having taken place in only a very few comparatively small spots in the world. About 4000 years have elapsed since the days of Abraham. Moreover, buildings now exist that were erected near to the time of Abraham, and these very buildings are described by the most ancient historians as the most ancient of their time ; these handiworks of man have therefore proved very durable. The absence of more ancient ones in the days of the most ancient historians, proves the truth of the records of Moses, that the deluge destroyed all the works of men's hands — destroyed all signs of their existence. The wonderfully concise and clear way the narrative is told is another strong proof of its truth. No man has since, even in these scientific days, been able to give a diff'erent account, that will bear investigation, for the existence of hills and valleys, and undulating strata of the earth, built up with transported EVIDENCES OF THE DELUGE. 49 materials ; for the presence of masses of sea-shells oq the tops of the highest mountains, or for the thick deposit of tropical trees, transported thousands of miles, which have since been converted into coal, having thick strata of earthy matter, some- times containing the remains of tropical animals interspersed between the layers of coal ;' for the presence of immensely thick strata of clay, sand, shells, concrete mud, and gravel, wliich are found everywhere on the surface of the whole earth — miraculously, I say, miraculously piled one above the other — forming high land, sometimes a series of high hills, like huge waves far above the ocean tides, none having apparently been wasted in the depths of the ocean, but the ocean clean swept to form high land and to cover the Adamite and granitic inner part of the round earth ; or for the presence of the long-extinct tropical mastodons in the icy regions. The absui'd attempts Af rash scientific men to give a dif- ferent explanation are proofs that Moses derived his knowledge from God alone. How otherwise could he, living in times: of universal ignorance, have given a description which we find so accurate, and have acquired earthly knowledge so vastH superior to other men. CHAPTER VIII. Other Proofs op Bible Truth. ANOTHER proof of the accuracy of the Holy Scriptures is shown by the earthy formation situated between the un- even gTanitic rocks — uneven as a mountain range — forming the inner structure of the round eai*th, and the vast heaps of transported earthy and vegetable matter which were deposited by the Deluge upon those rocks. The strong vitality which mankind possessed before the Deluge, when men attained the great age of nearly 1000 years, extended to all other living creatiu*es and to vegetation ; these, like Adam, attained great age and colossal stature, owing to the strong vitality of their new-made life, and thickly covered at 50 EVIDENCES OF THE DELUGE. the time of the Deluge the whole earth ; for, owing to the paucity of deaths and slow decay of vegetation, both earth and water teemed with animal and vegetable life : thus accounting, at the period of the Deluge, for the vast masses of sea-shells, and for the vast masses of trees which covered the dry portions of the earth, and which were torn up by the Deluge — since con- verted into coal, embedded at great depths in the earth, in thick seams of pure vegetable matter, without any admixtiu-e of mud in the seams, each seam showing the settling in water at oiie time of a great mass of trees. The mud (since converted into slatey rock), carried by rivers into the ocean depths in the early ages of Adam, was deposited, without carrying any dead remains of once living creatures, none being found in that now rocky Adamite mud, very few creatures having died. As Adam increased in years, other more recently deposited mud, now rocky matter, begins to show a few remains of once animal and vegetable life, these signs increasing as the round earth becomes older. Then sud- denly comes the vast heaps of transported earthy matter over all the habitable globe, and vast masses of trees, since converted into coal, intermingled with remains of drowned creatures, brought from distant countries, and from the depths of the sea by the great Deluge, in a series of strata — series upon series, all bearing the same stamp, all showing the clearest signs of having been deposited while the round earth was covered with a great depth of water. The sudden sinkings, which, oh man ! thou seest in the thick strata of sandstone, chalk, and coal, are also silent wit- nesses that the whole of the vast masses of transported matter deposited by the Deluge, settled down, while all were in a wet state, upon Adamite and granitic uneven rocks : then, as the waters left the upper portion dry, they became consolidated, the water was driven out, and the consolidated mass sank into the rocky gulfs — sudden gulfs producing the sudden sinkings which, oh man ! thou seest. OTHER PROOFS OP SCrjPTURE TRUTH. 51 Moses also records that the Israelitish nation was descended from the holy man Abraham, who was born about 290 yeai"g after the deluge, while Noah was yet alive. Abraham had one son Isaac, who had a son Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons, from whom are descended the twelve tribes of Israel. Those twelve sons with their wives settled in the land of Egypt, in the most j)leasant and fruitful part of all Egypt, where they multiplied and prospered greatly, they and their descendants, whereupon tht Egyptians became envious and compelled them to become slaves, treating them harshly, increasing in severity until it became intolerable. The Israelites prayed earnestly to Gocf to deliver them from their oppressors. God heard their prayers, made Himself known to Moses, a pious Israelite, and appointed him His messenger to the Israelites; — the Israelites had then been located in Egypt more than 400 years, and numbered several hundred thousand men, women, and children. God promised to deliver the Israelites, through Moses, out of the hands of the Egyptians. God commanded Moses to go to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and demand the liberation of the Israelites from slavery, with permission to depart out of Egypt. Mtfses did according to what God commanded him to do, and showed liis credentials as the true messenger of God, by performing wondrous miracles before Pharaoh, causing Pharaoh to believe in his divine mission, so that he dared not attempt to injure Moses, but heard what he had to say : Pharaoh hesitated, and then refused to part with his Israelitish slaves ; thereupon God sent certain plagues which smote the cattle and the people throughout tlie land of Egypt, sparing only the Israelites, so that the Egyptians being convinced that it was God who was destroying the Egyptians on behalf of the Israelitish slaves, urgently entreated Pharaoh to liberate the Israelites from captivity, and let them depart out of Egypt. Moses, by command of God, had prepared the Israelites for their departure on a certain night, and commanded them to eat certain things in a certain manner, every family by itself, and 52 ESCAPE OF THE ISRAELITES FROM EGYPT. called this feast the Feast of the Passover, because God had caused the plagues wherewith He had smitten the Egyptians to pass over the Israelites without hurting them. Immediately after this feast the Israelites were congregated together, all the men, women, and children, with their herds and flocks, and marched to go out of Egypt. After a little time Pharaoh repented that he had given his consent to let the Israelites go out of Egypt, and hastily collecting an army pur- sued after the escaping Israelites. God caused a thick mist to intervene between the Israelites and their pursuers, and upon the arrival of the Israelites on the borders of the Red Sea, a sea several tens of miles in width, which formed part of the boundary of Egypt, He caused the Red Sea to open before the Israelites and form a dry channel across from one side to the other, and God commanded Moses to lead them across from one side to the other, enjoining them to be without fear, for God — the creator of all things, who kept the sun, the moon, the earth, and stars in their proper places, their guide and protector — was with them to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians. The Israelites journeyed safely across, and the dry channel was purposely left open by God, who foreknew that the Egyptians, in their eager pursuit after the Israelites, would follow them along the dry channel. Moses records that when the whole army of the Egyptians were in the dry channel, pursuing the Israelites, who had got safely across, God suddenly caused the waters to rush back into the channel and drowned the Egyptian army. The Israelites rested in the wilderness, on the side of the Red Sea, opposite to Egypt, and for a while remained there, organizing themselves into a nation, under their prophet Moses ; where God commanded them to remain for forty years. After the death of Moses God appointed Joshua, and at the end of the forty years God commanded him and the Israelites to enter and take possession of the land of Canaan as their national home. Of the truth of this wonderful narrative the Scriptures teem with the clearest proofs. EVIDENCES OF ITS TRUTH. 53 That the mighty God — the creator of the wondrous sun, the moon, the earth, and stars — could send the plague to smite the Egyptians, and pass over the Israelites witliout hurting them, and could cause a thick mist to rise a"hd continue between them and the Egyptians, and could cause the waters of the Red Sea to open so as to form a dry channel across from one side to the other — no man can reasonably doubt ; for what are these small things to the constant regular motion of the earth, of the moon, the sun, the planets, and the comets 1 Surely, He who created them, maintaining them continually in their proper places — He who created all things, could do those small things — things less marvellous than the existence of even one living creature ! What proofs have we that God did perform those miracles ? There are many proofs, even at this gieat distance of time, now more than 3000 years. 1. The Holy Scriptures were wholly written by Israelites, The Clu'istian nations of the earth, although hating the Jews for having crucified the Saviour, are constrained to accept as true the Holy Scriptures, for well they know that in no other book has God been revealed. The miracle of the passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea is the most prominent and most frequentl} mentioned by all the holy writers than any of the othei miracles of God. 2. The Israelites have ever since their being thrust out of the land of Egypt be^n the most remarkable of all the nations of the earth. All the prophets were Israelites ; Christ himself was an Israelite ; these great facts stamp them as having been the holiest of aU the nations in the earth. Their laws and observances were derived through Moses ; no other nation has been so wise in > imderstanding the existence of God ; no other nation has been so free from idolatry. 3. Their thorough belief in Moses ; a belief derived not 54 EVIDENCES. merely from Moses, but also through the testimony of the many hundreds of thousands who journeyed with Moses, dryshod, with their flocks and herds, through the dry *bed of the Red Sea ; which testimony was handed down from father to son, so that the Israelites are constrained to believe in the truthfulness of the miracle. 4. The holiness and truthfulness of Moses and of the written record of Joshua, who also himself passed throu.gh the Red Sea dryshod, with Moses and the host of the Israelites ; also the truthfulness of then- suc- cessors, who in their writings give the testimony of other witnesses of the miracle. 5. The prominence given to the miracle in the writings of the prophets, and by the apostles. 6. The sudden appearance of the Israelites as a free nation in a strange land across the Red Sea — the strangeness of their position, their trials, their difficulties, and their murmurings, being recorded by many historians ; and their frequent hankerings to return to Egypt, all demonstrating the suddenness of their fi'eedom. 7. The Israelitish nation has always, since their earliest records as a nation, been composed of twelve tribes,, each tribe being descended from one of the twelve sons of Jacob : they had no national record until their escape out of the land of Egypt, because not being free men, but slaves in a country not their own, they had no existence as a nation, therefore no national record. 8. The Israelites escaped to a land which had the Red Sea, which is several twenties of miles in width, between them and Egypt ; journeying with their wives and children, their flocks and herds, without leaving one behind in Egypt ; testifying that a miracle must have been performed by God, to have enabled so large a host safely to cross the wide waters. EVIDENCES. 55 9. Thiuk you, oh mau ! that the wondrous prophecies of Moses, of Isaiah, and of the other prophets, concerning the advent of Christ, could have been so accurately foretold, except through the intervention of God ? Ai'e not those prophecies as wondrous as the formation of a dry channel through the Red Sea ? Thou knowest, oh man ! thou canst not prophesy, for only holy, good, and trutliful worshippers of God are His messengers ; there- fore Moses must have been holy, good, and a truthful worshipper of God. 10. The celebration yearly of the feast of the passover, from its first celebration in the land of Egypt to the present time by the Israelites. 11. Moses and Joshua did not write those utterances, oh man! for your edification, but for the edification of those who acUially crossed the dry channel, and for the edification of their then living sons and daughters, that they might not cease to forget the great fact that God was carrying out towards them the promises He made to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and thereby urged them to live holily in the sight of the unseen God, their preserver and guide. 12. The testimony of Christ. The Holy Scriptures also record that the idolatrous enemies of the Israelites sought to destroy them after the death of Moses, bvit that the Lord God caused a great storm to arise, and rain gi-eat hailstones upon the army of their enemies, destroying many and causing the rest to flee in disorder away from the Israelites, who seeing their flight, and desiring to take advantage of it, Joshua, their holy commander ascended a hill and prayed to God that He wovild cause the clouds to pass away fi-om over the land, that the sun might shine, and the moon also when the sun had set, that the Israelites might see to follow up their godless persecutors : and the sun instantly shone forth, and 56 EVIDENCES. afterwards the moon, unobscured by clouds, and the Israelites pursued them throughout that day and throughout that night, so that they were uttei'ly destroyed. The Israelites were astonished because of the cessation of the storm of hail, of the dreaded thunder, and of the dreaded lightening, for they were eye-witnesses of the rapid change and dispersion of the clouds, while the hands of Joshua were lifted up in prayer; and they were joyous because they thereby knew that God was with Joshua, as he had been with Moses. Thus were those idolatroxis enemies utteiiy destroyed ; for in the sight of God those godless ones were less esteemed than 1 )easts of the field, for in addition to their many other sins, they sought to destroy the true worshippers of God. In this wise the Lord God helped the Israelites, enabling them to possess the land which he had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob their descendants should possess. Another proof of the truth of the Holy Scriptures is their record of the holy man Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, who was born about 290 years after the deluge. The tombs of Abraham, Sarah his wife, Isaac his son, and of Jacob the son of Isaac, still exist in good preservation, located exactly as described by M>..ses in Holy Scripture, and which have ever been regarded by the various inhabitants of that land as the tombs of most holy people for about 4000 years. Another proof is the numerous wonderful prophecies uttered at distant intervals, extending over many hundred years, by those holy men, the prophets, of the coming upon earth of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the deliverer of the souls of men. Some of these prophecies, notably those of Isaiah, foretell so a,ccurately the whole life and death of Christ, as to have caused multitudes of men eironeously to suppose that they must have been written q/ier the death of Chnst, and not before : and yet Isaiah lived several hundred years before the birth of Christ, and it was these prophecies which led the Jews to look so .anxiously for the coming of the Messiah. EVIDENCES OF THE TRUTH OP PROPHECIES. 67 The prophets foi'etold the coming upon earth at an appointed time of an angel — Jesus Christ, the long promised deUverer of the souls of men, the servant of the Most High God — from heaven, where He had dwelt with the other angels of God, before the sun, the moon, the stars, and this round earth were made — upon ii special mission from God in furtherance of the great plan oT God for the salvation of the souls of men — Who should be born into the world as an infant boy, and growing into manhood should live as by far the holiest of men among men for a cer- tain time, and then be ignominiously slain as a malefactor upon a cross ; — accurately describing His mother as a pui-e virgin, and therefore that His birth should be miraculous ; — and the time and manner of His birth so truly, that the Jewish nation looked eagerly at the very day and hour that Christ was born, now 1868 years ago, for His birth, as their earthly king and deliverer from the Roman bondage, causing by their eagerness so much anxiety to Herod, their cruel king, that he issued a decree for all the young children to be slain that were in Bethle- hem — the foretold bh-thplace of the promised Messiah, — hoping that the infant Messiah might be slam. The prophets also accui-ately foretold His holiness of life and wise teachings, the obstacles He should encounter, His betrayal, the price of His betrayal, the potters' field bought with the price. His condemnation to death, the mode by which His peculiar garments should be distributed among His murderers, His cru- cifixion as a malefactor, the thnist of a spear into His side while on the cross, the prophecy that none of His bones should be broken, — althoxigb it was customary to break the legs of all who should die upon the cross, — His burial and resm-rection to life on the third "day after His death ; — all these things being accurately foretold many hundred years before they occurred, by many prophets at various periods. What greater proofs can we have of the wisdom of God being present in the Scriptures 1 It is as clearly shown there as in the starry firmament. Every prophecy relating to Chi'ist 58 EVIDENCES. while on earth having been fxilfilled, not one remaining unful- filled, to cause the least doubt. That He really was the Messiah, the long promised deliverer of the souls of men, He further proved by the numerous miracles the Holy Spirit of God worked — the Messiah wishing to show to men of His time, and through witnesses to after generations, that He was truly the long promised Messiah. It was not the purpose of God to show such miracles on behalf of Christ as would compel the Jews to believe in Him, for then they would not have slain Him ; therefore Christ ever spoke to them in riddles, because it was necessary that Christ should be slain, in order that God might pardon the souls of men ; therefore, oh man ! only just sufficient proofs of Christ being the true Messiah were shown. To all other men those proofs would have been convincing — they would have loved the gentle loving, holy Messiah, and not have slain Him ; therefore God waited about 4000 years, for the time when men should exist so blinded by their false traditions, and enraged as to shut their eyes and ears to the sayings and doings of the Messiah, and finally ignominiously to slay Him upon a cross as a malefactor. That He was more than the sons of Adam, the twelve apostles by their writings are witnesses ; they were constrained to believe in Him ; the holiness of their lives, their suiferings at the hands of wicked men, prove their firm belief ; suffering persecution, stripes, and cruel death ; suffering these, because they could not disbelieve the evidence of their eyes, the evidence of their minds, and the evidence of their immortal souls, that the Lord Jesus Christ was truly the long promised Messiah of God. CHAPTER IX. Is IT Impossible for God to have Communicated with Man 1 BEHOLD with thine eyes a Man — that being upon whom God has showered his inexhaustible love ! — him God has endowed with intelligence vastly higher than is possessed by any other EVIDENCES. 59 living, creature ? From generatiun to generation knowledge is handed down- — the precepts of the fathers are handed down to the sons, so that in worldly knowledge the sons become wiser than their fathers. The laws of God, by which He governs the earth, are little by little discovered, each generation handing down increased knowledge to its sons ; whereas the knowledge possessed by every other living creature, what it is to-day was at the beginning, in the days of Adam ; nevertheless, even in those days man was lord over every living creature. Man alone pro- gresses in worldly knowledge — alone has the power of communi- cating his experience ; but for him, note well my friend, the platinum, the gold, the silver, the iron, the lead, the tin, the coal, and the precious stones would have been made in vain, — for he alone of all living creatures has learnt their use, and uses them ; he alone of all living creatures is lord of the earth ; to him alone has been given the intelligence to subdue all other living creatures to his service, and causing those to multiply which are serviceable to him ; to man alone the earth becomes increasingly fruitful, — he alone sows that the earth may bring forth its increase. Thus man is lord of the whole round earth ; from its inner parts he gets his mett..ls, his coal, his building stone, and brick ; from the surface it yields up its increase ; things animate and inanimate he bends to his service. Do you not thus perceive, my friend, an unity of design throughout creation, — that aU things which exist in the starry skies exist in accordance with a settled plan — a simjDle plan — perfect from the very first ? Meditate a little : the inanimate sun, the first of all created things, vivifies and gives light to numberless stars, to the moon, and this round earth ; it is the only source whence they obtain light, in like manner as a righted candle is the only source of light in an otherwise dark room. The moon reflects light from the burning sun, while moving around the earth, reflecting upon the round earth the sun's light somewhere every night — reflecting it in like manner 60 EVIDENCES. as silvered glass reflects the light of a candle ; winds, ocean- tides, and clouds are produced, all absolutely necessary to life, as absolutely necessary as food ; the pleasant changes of day and night, every twenty-four hom'S ; of summer and autumn, winter and spring, every year — the one succeeding the other with the utmost order, from generation to generation ; the surface of the round earth teeming with vegetation and with living creatures, in numberless variety, no two living things being exactly alike, therein exhibiting the illimitable wisdom and creative power of God, — for every one of the numberless germs in every living vegetation and in every one of the living creatures that were made on the sixth day of creation was also dissimilar the one to the other. And upon the round earth stands man — the last created and most important of all created things — of all the things therein vastly pre-emine:it — pre-eminent, because he has a soul, that holy, heavenly thing, which places a gi-eat gulf between him and the gorilla, that living creature which, of all living creatures, is outwardly most hke him ; then, by almost inappreciable degrees, living creatures are seen less and less like him, until all similarity is lost in that which, like a stone, never liad the semblance of life within it. Now friend, see you not in all these things unity of design, ^- that God has a fixed plan, and that all the things He made during the first six days were made for the comfort and hap- piness of man while living upon the round earth, — and that upon him God has showered, with inexhaustible love. His goodness 1 And cannot you comprehend, oh man ! that God, as part of His great unalterable plan, has provided a far happier dwelling in the illimitable heavens which surround the starry skies, for those of mankind who have the sense to worship Him — the highest of all sense, — God assisting them successfully to pass the ordeal required for promotion, by giving as their guide the Holy Scriptures, — for none who have not this sense can be pro- moted into heaven, — like as the spiritually senseless brutes cannot gain entrance therein. THE GREAT WISDOM REVEALED IN THE SCRIPTURES. 61 Now say, do you not think, my friend, that God would make Himself known to man whom he loves so well 1 for whom He has created the round earth and all that is therein, and sun, and moon, and stars ; and whom He has endowed with capacity to understand His will 1 Do you not think that God can com- municate with man, and man with God 1 All these things the Holy Scriptures record that God has done ; they record His laws. His plan of redemption, and the way it has been and is being carried out. CHAPTER X. The Great Wisdom Revealed in the Scriptures. THE crowning proof of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, is their unapproachable wisdom throughout. Those who have studied them the most, even having studied them to find flaws, are just those who value them the most highly, esteeming all other books as mere trash in comparison, for none other will bear searching investigation ; no one part contradicting another, but all throughout giving proofs innumerable that every part was revealed by God Himself. Common sense, therefore, must, of necessity, come to the conclusion that the Holy Scriptures give a truthful and reason- able account of the existence of God, and his reasons for creating man. CHAPTER XL The Common Sense op the Holy Scriptures. HOW incomparable appear the truths as revealed in the Holy Scriptures — truths that are stamped with the highest wisdom — by the side of the silly mventions and fables of man, and which insult the common sense of mankind ! Compare them 62 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. with the Papal lies — which teach the worship of reputed saints, the worship of a woman, the use of images and pictures in worship, ignoring altogether the commandment of God, " Thou shalt not make to thyself any gTaven image, to bow down before it, or to reverence it, for I am the Lord thy God." Images and pictures of idolaters foolishly represent the aU- powerful, ever-present, unseen, living God, the creator of the starry heavens and earth, as a man having a head and body, legs fingers and toes, like a gorilla, — both images and pictures made by man, no two alike, and stupidly worshipped as repre- senting God. Impostor priests have set up in various parts of this round earth images and pictures of a man upon a cross, and of a woman with a child in her arms, in thousands distributed about the earth. They teach the young and foolish to look fondly upon them as holy and necessary things, and sometimes teach them to believe that the mighty God is bodily in the plaster, wood, and stone composing the images, even leading the more crazy to believe that he can see the lips of the image or picture move, and wink its eyes. Some of the more cunning and im- pious priests teaching their crazy followers that to touch their images is to touch the holy Person of God, or of the Virgin Mary, whom they impiously style the Queen of Heaven, and thereby be healed of disease. They have even with great pomp and ceremony at the present day, like the competition among professionals and traders, croivned an exceptional image and pay it adoration, as though it were alive — the idiotic people ready and willing in their blindness to believe the senseless trash tKe cunning impious priests say, but ignoring the Scriptures. Thou canst, oh man ! quickly distinguish the carved, dumb, inanimate images, the work of men's hands, from the living creatm'es, the handiwork of God. Exercise also thy common sense in spiritual matters, and learn to distinguish the great wisdom of the Scriptures from the superstition and fables of spurious churches. 63 CHAPTER XII. Disbelievers in God as it were Human Wolves. F all men there are none so senseless as atheists : of all men they are most like the spiritually senseless brutes in their thoughts and actions : they even surpass in folly the foolish idolaters. It is belief in the existence of God that civilizes man by restraining "his animal propensities ; without that restraint disbelievers in God are those persecutors of mankind, liars, thieves, fornicators, adulterers, those filthy animals harlots, and murderers ; and among uncivilized men are cannibals, who, like wolves, slay and eat the flesh of their own kind. CHAPTER XIII. YOU thus, my friend, perceive that there is a great unseen Being in existence whom men call God ; that He has commu- nicated with man, and that the Holy Scriptures are the revelation of God to man. God has given us innumerable proofs of His existence in the mountains, the hills, the valleys, in the starry skies, in the air, in the waters, in the ground, and in living creatru'es, — all being the handiwork of God. The houses, the ships, and the various contrivances of man are shaped by man out of things which were previously made through the instru- mentality of God, — man simply shapes them. It is necessary, my friend, that every one of us should convince om-selves that God exists, although we cannot see Him, so that having this sure foundation we may fervently worship Him. Remember, oh my brother ! and you, oh my sister ! that thou hast had life within thee for about 6000 years — first asleep in Adam, and afterwai'ds asleep in thy fathers. Like aa 64 mummy wheat that has been wrapped in mummy cloths for 3000 years, waited 3000 years to be planted in the ground, then sprouted into a plant, so did the living sleeping germs that were in Adam wait for about 6000 years for thy birth into the world as separate beings. God graciously created thee and placed thee in Adam for a high and mighty purpose, having great love for thee. He strongly yearns towards thee, desiring that thou mightest liA^e in the illimitable heavens which surround the starry skies, with His holy angels, and be as His holy angels for ever. Thy hirth into the world is but a new phase in thy existence ; the Holy God then commenced to test thy souls in like manner as He tested the soul of Adam. The individual souls of all that have died have been tried whether in the sight of God they were priceless, or worthless as dross ; and now it is thy turn, if thou art found, when thou diest, to be a time, worshipping, pardoned soul, thou wilt be priceless in the sight of God ; but if not, then thy sovil will be as worthless dross. Upon thyself, and thyself alone, oh my brother ! and you, oh my sister ! hangs the judgment. Believe in God and worship Him, and then through the mediatory death of His holy Son, our Redeemer, thou wilt be priceless. God and His glorious Son plead to thee their yearning love for thee, and place before thy mental eyes the great happiness they have for ever for thee in the joyous holy heavens ; reciprocate their love, and upon thy knees quickly ask, while thou art yet alive, for forgiveness of thy sins, and thy sins will be foi'given thee ; continue steadfast in the right way, and when thou diest thou wilt be numbered among the price- less ones. CHKIST IS COMING, PAET II. THE HOLY SCRIPTURES AND THEIK DESCRIPTION OF THE MIGHTY PLAN OF GOD. CHAPTER I. Spurious Tkaditions. "YT'E have read, oh ye nations, that the Creator of all things -*- is really and truly a living Being, whom men call God, that He has revealed himself to man, and that the Holy Scriptures are the only true revelations of His holy precepts, revealed through His instrumentality, that they might be sure guides to mankind, whereby they might be truly taught what constituted goodness in the sight of G-od and what constituted evil. Now, oh ye nations of every land, look well into your other books which you call sacred, and compare them with the Holy Scriptures of God, and ye will find them utterly at variance and full of superstitious nonsense, deceiving you, instilling into you spurious notions of the one holy God, and of His holy precepts. Be wise now, and let every willing nation form a council, one council representing all the nations of the world out of its most learned laymen — the Jew, the professed Chris- e2 68 SPT7EI0TJS TEADXTIONS. tian, and those of every other people — and let them investi- gate thoroughly and dispassionately their supposed sacred books, and compare them with the Holy Scriptures, and let them judge whether their supposed sacred books are true and inspired, or whether they be untrue or uninspired, and your mental eyes will be opened, and you will become truly wise, discerning that your supposed sacred books were written after the pro- mulgation of many portions of the Holy Scriptures, and that the portions which are really good and sensible were borrowed from the Holy Scriptures, and the rest simply the absurd notions of foolish men, be assured that the sect who refuses to have its doctrines tested by the one great test of the Holy Scriptures — by the common-sense spirit of the Holy Scriptures alone — has fears that its peculiar docti'ines are untrue; for like as a liar is fearful of having his lies inquired into, so is that sect ; nevertheless, whether a sect refuses or assents, test its doctrines — test the doctrines of every sect, and sternly let your council give judgment, giving clear reasons for its judgment, as in the sight of God. Consider the idolatrous nations of old ; they ignorantly thought they worshipped God, each hasving different ceremonials ; each its own set of idols ; its own set of spurious priests ; reverencing them as you reverence your spurious priests ; its own set of absurd traditions ; each led by its priests and deceived by them ; each so firmly believing — as firmly as yourselves — that the most devout willingly encountered death in behalf of their religion, some willingly putting themselves to great torment and to many privations. Nevertheless, God abhorred them, for their worship was sham and spurious, for they ignorantly preferred to follow the imagination of their foolish priests than seek the real precepts of God in the Holy Scriptures. They worshipped a lie, even becoming fond of the SPUEIOtrS TKADITIOiNS. 69 lie ; therefore God abhorred them. Examine their mythology and, behold, their supposed worship was not true worship but rank folly, and their traditions mere fables, concocted not by the people, but by the spurious priests for the purpose of holding them in spiritual bondage. Ah, you comprehend the folly of their worship, the absurdity of their ceremonials, and the nonsense of their mythology. Thou canst see they were foolish, very thoughtless, and very void of common sense, because their spurious priests had imbibed from youth the nonsense of their elders and thereby became very foolish, very thoughtless, and void of common sense, and therefore taught their people to be like themselves. Such as those nations were, oh ye people of every land, so are you. There is not a righteous nation in the whole world, no not one ; nay, more, in no nation are there many righteous ; there are but few who truly comprehend the one God of the Holy Scriptures ; there are but few who possess spiritual common sense ; there are but few whom spurious ministers have not deceived. There- fore, mankind are split into many sects ; like as sometimes a pitiable idiot believes himself to be a king, so do some of the pitiable clericals believe themselves to be more than ordinary men, as special messengers from God ; deceiving themselves and their pitiable people ; the idiot, the minister, and the people alike pitiably deceived, deceiving one another. The spurious Churches of the worshippers of the sun, the worshippers of the cow, of the monkey, of the serpent, and the many worshippers of imaginary Gods, and the Papacy, have stood for so many generations, not because their doctrines were true, but because God has not interfered with them in like manner that He interferes not with the murderer. God has deemed it a necessity that mankind should possess free-wilL He has limited himself in giving them only His advioe. He ,70 SPITRIOTJS TEADITIONS. turns no man to the right hand nor to the left, neither to do a good thing nor to do evil ; in no other way than through the Holy Scriptures does God influence the ways of men. The good things which men do are done directly or indirectly through the advice given in His holy word, but the evil things which men do are done through their wilful ignorance of the teachings of God, and through their forgetfulness of Him. God has given to every man the tremendous power to obey or disobey Him, a power which none other of His creatures have. On the other hand, God reserves to Himself the right of carrying into Heaven the obedient and shutting out from Heaven for ever the disobedient. Ponder over these awful words, oh ye nations, and look keenly into your suppposed sacred books, and ye will find them full of rottenness and full of sham. Behold the time is at hand, even knocking at the door, when the axe of scriptural truth will be laid at the root of the many spiritual errors, and they will be cut down. And the thoughtful in every nation will become wise, having their spiritual eyes opened, and they will band themselves together, the Jew and the Gentile, resolutely suc- couring each other as men of one mind. And they will teach the people around them scriptural truths, and the people will comprehend them, and all the nations will be of one mind, every nation as it were an independent branch, their root and their stem being Christ, their common bond, whose dwelling- place is with God his Father, in heaven. See to it, ye nations, that every child be taught aright, and shield your people with a stern hand from deceitful teachers ; remembering that erroneous teachings in early life usually blind the judgment during life, so that the youthful idolater usually dies an idolater ; the youthful sectarian usually dies a sectarian; and the youthful papist usually dies 5, papist. As the child is SPX7KI0TJS TRADITIONS. 71 taught, that he usually retains till death ; therefore, ye natious, see to it that every child is taught aright. Be not credulous, but prove all things. CHAPTER II. T)E not credulous concerning spiritual things, neither be -'-' short sighted, but prove all things by the light of com- mon sense. In worldly matters your judgment is keen ; be as sensible in things that are spiritual. Remember always that too ready belief is the nurse of general superstition, of spiritual nonsense, and of individual superstition, and that on the other hand a mulish determination to disbelieve, or a supercilious eaptiousness, is the nurse of all that is vile in man. First convince yourselves that God really exists — the things your eyes behold will give you innumerable proofs — then, ye nations, convince yourselves that the Holy Scriptures were inspired by God — they give you many proofs — there is no book comparable to it in wisdom, no other book that so widely separates good from evil, yet no other book so ancient, no other book that is free from untruth and imaginative theories, no other book that bears the impress of God, in its description of the creation, of the starry skies and the round earth, in the purpose for which man was created, in the description of the deluge, in the formation of the Israelitish nation, in the pro- phecies, in the real miracles and in spiritual morality ; so that having faith, oh ye nations, in the existence of the living God, and in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, you cause His Holy Word to be the one test of all spiritual things, yourselves judging whether they accord or disaccord with the Holy Word of God ; yourselves sternly destroying the spiritual books that are proved to be the works of imaginative men. Put not any 72 SPmiOTJS TRADITIONS. faith in the writings of uninspired men, in men who have lived upon earth since the days of the last of the twelve apostles of the Messiah, nor be credulous in things that are incompre- hensible ; for a doctrine that is inexplicable, that is incompre- hensible to common-sense, bears upon it the stamp of untruth; in- asmuch as every reaZ doctrine is explained many times in the Holy Word. Therefore understand, ye nations, let these words sink deeply into your souls ; a doctrine that is not plainly compre- hensible, that is not plainly explicable, satisfactorily to the common-sense of the intelligent among mankind, or that is explained in a way contrary to the spirit of wisdom, and of the common-sense Avhich pervades the Holy Scriptures, is utterly unworthy of belief, bearing on the face of it the stamp of untruth. And remember, ye nations, the things of nature are infinitely more wonderful than the imaginative thoughts of men ; there- fore eschew and sternly prohibit the production of books con- taining fairy tales and other far-fetched foolish tales of the imagination, for they lead the mind to rest upon superstitious nonsense. Spiritual truth bears upon its front plainly, without mystery, the stamp of truth ; the more it is intelligently in- vestigated the more numerous are its evidences. Contrariwise, spiritual untruth bears upon its front the stamp of mystery, of inexplication and nonsense, the more it is intelligently investi- gated ; therefore, ye nations, close resolutely the mouth of spiritual liars, those evil spirits which wrap around them the garb of holiness that they might the more easily deceive the souls of men. Try your teachei'S of spiritual things frequently, whether they be true teachers or teachers of spiritual lies to the people. If one should openly declare that himself or his coadjutors possess spiritual power more than ordinary men, or that bread or wine are converted into other substances by them, SPTOIOUS TRADITIONS. 73 demand of him his proofs ; if he withholds those proofs, or if his bread and wine have the ordinary appearance of bread and wine, set him sternly down as a liar, and suffer him to be no longer a teacher of the people. If anyone should impiously say that himself or his coadjutors are empowered to forgive sins, ask him to show by some miracle that he has warranty for his statement. Be not deceived, nor foolishly lenient, nor supersti- tious, for it is a sign of a spurious priest that he is a mere pretender; pretending to do things which he is really unable to do. If he cannot show a sign satisfactorily to the common sense above other ordinary men, consider him a wilful deceiver ; therefore, unworthy to be a teacher of the people. Or if one is a user of images or of pictures in his worship of God, demand of him why he contravenes the commandment of God, if he cannot produce a greater authority for so doing than the Avords of uninspired men, unmentioned in the Scriptures, set him also sternly down as a deceiver of himself and a snare to the superstitiously inclined, and suffer him no longer to be a teacher of the people, nor permit those unworthy men to offi- ciate in the sanctuaries, for they are abhorrent to God because they are liars. Neither permit them to hold any office of trust or authority ; let them be considered as men evil minded, like to the violent, the fraudulent, and the abominable. As you would repress them, so repress those who lie concerning things that are spiritual, be neither Aveak nor irresolute, nor in the least superstitious, but repress them fii-mly ; chronicle neither their sayings nor their doings; let common sense, the intelligence common to all men whose thoughts are not warped by nonsense, guide you in your judgment; let truth alone guide you. Be sternly matter-of-fact, give credence to what is true, but abhor that which is untrue ; then will the nations no longer be discordant one with the other, no longer split into many sects, 74 SACRED THINGS. for, being followers of truth, they will become loving brethren of one family and chase from their midst as they arise the fables that cause disunion and unhappiness throughout the earth. CHAPTER III. Sacred Things. T>E not, oh ye nations, superstitious about things which -L' foolish men deem sacred, but discriminate between things which are truly sacred and those which are not sacred. All things which are good are sacred, but things that are evil are not sacred ; truth is sacred, but untruth is not sacred ; the Holy Scriptures are sacred because they were inspired by God, but written words and sayings not inspired by God are not sacred. The true worshippers of God are sacred in His sight, because they are His adopted children ; but those who are not true worshippers are not sacred, for they are not His children ; the ordinances of God are sacred, because they emanate from Him for the guidance of men, but the ordinances of men are not sacred because they are not prompted by God ; the sanctu- aries wherein men worship in accordance with the Holy Scrip- tures, and all within them, are sacred, because they are set aside by men for the true worship of God ; things which are merely old are not sacred, for disobedience to God is not sacred ; all things which ai*e in accordance with the Holy Scriptures are sacred, because they are in accordance, but nought which is not in accordance is sacred. And there are degrees of sacred- ness ; for those who truly minister in the services of God, and those who truly teach the people their duty to God, are more sacred than those who do not do those things. The life of mankind is ordained by God to be held sacred by man, whether SACRED THINGS. 7& a man be good or evil, but the life of a good man is to be accounted more sacred than the life of an evil man ; in the sight of God the life of a good man is sacred, but the life of an evil man is not sacred. The life of a good ruler, and those having authority that are good, are like the true minister and the true teacher, sacred in the sight of God, because by their good example they incline the people to do well ; but an evil ruler and evil men who are in authority are not sacred but abhorrent in the sight of God, more so than other men, and men should resolutely refuse to have evil men in any post of authority over them, or to obey them, for evil men in authority, by their evil example, are the cause, indirectly, of much misery in the world, and the cause of the loss of many souls ; therefore they are as a curse upon the people and utterly abhorrent to God. The sacredness of a man in the sight of God is in proportion to the good he does to his own soul, and to the souls of the children of men. No one thing that is inanimate is more sacred than any other like thing, for all are equal, able neither to do an evil thing nor do a good thing ; but the inanimate things which form the true sanctuaries of God, wherein the people truly worship, and all the necessary things within them, are sacred, in that they are dedicated to the religious services of God by those who take the Holy Scriptures as their only guide : therefore, wilfully to injure them or to steal them is an offence in the sight of God that is very heinous, being an injury to Himself, also to His own adopted children. The true Chui'ch is sacred in the sight of God because the worshippers are His adopted children, but the spurious- Churches are not sacred because, being founded in error, the worshippers are not His children. A nation wherein all the peo- ple are pure worshippers of God would be a sacred nation, for all 76 THE DrXY OP THE NATIONS. would then be the adopted children of God, therefore holy in His sight ; hereafter in God's appointed time it will be so. The holiness of a nation depends upon a right knowledge of spiritual things, and its degree of zeal in carrying out the principles of that knowledge in earthly things as well as in spiritual things. In like manner as the nations of the whole world have become unholy through their wilful carelessness of what is right and what wrong, thereby causing an unwilling- ness in the people to restrain their own brutish passions, so they will become holy through right knowledge, and by each person resolutely repressing all tendencies to do evil ; repress- ing his own brutish tendencies and the brutish tendencies of o thers. The cross is not sacred in the sight of God, because, like the scourge, it was a vile instrument in the hands of the murderers of the Messiah ; it is rather an emblem of the vileness of man — a thing not glorious to man, but to cause man to weep and abhor it in very shame. CHAPTER lY The Duty of the Nations. rpAKE heed that the young be taught aright in accordance -^ with the spirit of the Holy Scriptures ; let your laws be plain, few, and simply carried out ; give the well-disposed perfect liberty, but sternly repress the evil-disposed ; sternly repressing the domination of foreign priests, directly or in- directly, over you, ignore them utterly within your own boun- daries ; repress sternly the liar, the dishonest, the thief, the violent, the drunkard, the stirrer-up of strife, the fornicator, and thegrasping rich, that the well-disposed may live in peace, and THE DUTY OF THE WATIOIfS. 77 that the laborious may not be as slaves to the rich; remember ing that the well-disposed are willing to obey good laws, but the evil are by their evil habits disposed to break the laws of God and man. And ye rulers take especial heed that yourselves obey the laws, for as ye obey so will the people ; remembering that many laws are a sign that the nation is wrongly governed — governed more in accordance with the foolish maxims of men, rather than by the wise precepts of God ; let evil in all things be chained and sternly repressed, not with cruelty nor by the shedding of blood, but with firmness of purpose. Suffer no person to be a teacher of the people who is defec- tive in a knowledge of the spirit of the Holy Scriptures ; nor suffer any teacher to lie by pretending to the people that his appointment is from God or from His glorious Son, for such pretenders lie to elevate themselves in the estimation of the people. God neither appoints the teachers of the people, nor murderers to murder the people. Take heed that all appointed by the State to carry out the laws and duties intrusted by the nation do their duty, not carelessly but thoroughly, as in the sight of God, being strictly subordinate each to those in higher authority, that the government of a nation may be strong and moved as one man, having one mind, not striving one against the other, but all in one direction, towards the mighty God their Creator, and His glorious Son our Redeemer and King. Let all the nations who love righteousness, and peace, and justice between man and man, band themselves firmly together, recognising each other as brethren under the leadership of one King, their Redeemer Christ, and resolutely repress the evil passions within their nations ; let all those nations be united and move together towards their King in Heaven as one man, so that if one suffers all suffer, if one resists the aggres- 78 HOLT GHOST. Bion of evil nations all resist — resisting not for the sake of vanity or for ambition, or hatred or love of strife, or for selfishness, but that the people, within the boundaries of the peaceably-disposed nations, may rest in peace and quietness — re- sisting only to drive out the aggressive foreigner within the boundaries of any of the united nations — resisting with all their might ; and with none other let them form alliances. CHAPTER V. Holy Ghost. TN Heaven there are many holy spirits — God, His glorious -■- Son, and innumerably happy angels — these are all spirits, in that they have neither flesh nor blood ; yet they are alive, and they are all holy. Scripture calls only one of those holy spirits by the name of Holy Ghost, that one Holy Spirit being God — He being the holiest and chief of all, the mainspring of all. Holy Ghost is one of the names of the one God ; in like manner as God is sometimes called Holy Father. The Holy Person of God is in the Heaven of Heavens, the dwelling-place of God ; but the living cloud is everywhere throughout space ; the Holy Person and the living cloud constituting one Holy God. That living cloud Scripture some- times designates as the Holy Spirit of God, and sometimes the Holy Ghost, both being names of the one only God. The Holy Spirit of God, the living cloud Avhich is everywhere through- out all space, shrinks to great tenuity from the person of a wicked man, abhorring him ; but when that man, becoming convinced of the nonsense of his past thoughts and actions, repents his folly and becomes a sincere follower of Christ, then the holy living cloud no longer shrinks from him, but enters HOLT GHOST. 79 lovingly into him, continuing there, thercby*sanctifying him, that is, stamping him with God's stamp of holiness in the sio-ht of God — stamping him as veritably a saved soul and an accepted child of God — God being then in him and he in God. Sometimes Scripture designates as the Holy Ghost the utterances of God, because they are part of the mind of God. The prophets vi^ere moved by the Holy Ghost, and v^ere full of the Holy Ghost, because having much knowledge of those utterances of God — the Holy Scriptures — what they said and did were actuated by those Scriptures, and sometimes they were prompted by the Holy Spirit, the living cloud, to reveal new tidings. Sometimes the Holy Spirit of God is called the Spirit of Truth, because God, having a perfect knowledge of all things and hating lies, is pre-eminently the primal source of all truth — is truth itself; and so are His utterances, the Holy Scriptures : they are the spirit of truth, truth as it were embodied in the relations of man to God, capable of being read by the eyes of man, but not by the eyes of any other living creature on the face of the earth. In like manner as the sun is the source of all the light our eyes can see, so the Holy Scriptures are the source (primarily derived from God) of our knowledge of God ; they are the fountain of all the right knowledge mankind possess ; they are holy emanations from the holy mind of God. By means of the Scriptures God guides the truly wise of man- kind to heaven, and they are as necessary to man in obtaining an everlasting home in heaven as the Messiah himself; there- fore it was that the holy Messiah commanded his ministers to preach the glad tidings to the nations, and baptise them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost — the Scriptures — because all three are absolutely necessary to the 80 HOLT GHOST. salvation of the ?ouls of men, and God has ordained all three to be an equal necessity to man. 1. God as the Creator. 2. Christ as the Ransom. 3. The Holy Scriptures — the mind of God — ever present in the world, teaching us the way to heaven. These three : — 1. The Holy God, 2. The Holy Messiah, 3. The Holy Scriptures, are the three great and mighty witnesses bearing record, all agreeing in the great fact that Christ is veritably the Messiah of God; the Scriptures foretelling long beforehand when and how the Messiah should come, and witnessing that he really came as foretold. These things have been hidden from you, oh ye nations of the whole earth, because the follies of your predecessors have made you as foolish as themselves in all things that are spiritual, so that ye have only a misty notion of God ; part of the nations have altogether forgotten the Scriptures, and some have taken to themselves the foolish doctrine of a trinity of persons, as constituting one GoA, in like manner as some nations have foolishly taken to themselves the worship of images and pictures ; a doctrine utterly at variance with the whole of the Scripture, a doctrine utterly unknown to all the holy men men- tioned in the Scriptures, a doctrine unmentioned in the Scrip- tures, a doctrine inexplicable satisfactorily to the common- sense of Holy Scripture, because it is a lie, as untrue as some of the other doctrines of the many spurious churches. Now understand, oh ye foolish nations, the Messiah Christ is the only born son of the mighty God, the creator of all things, for whom the mighty God made the starry skies, this round HOLY GHOST. 81 earth, and all that are therein; the only angel of God that Las been born into the world, born that as man he might by the perfect holiness of his life, while living upon the earth, be a pure and an acceptable atonement for the great sin of Adam, wliich was the introduction of disobedience towards God into the world. In striving to prove Christ to be the one God, men perforce mystify themselves and say nonsense ; like those who strive to make what is reaUy untrue appear to be true. !N^onsense has swayed the nations of the world, and they have almost forgotten the God of Truth, the creator of all things ; for, being mystified, they have no pleasure in reading the Holy Scriptures ; they have been as a book that is sealed, as a language almost unknown. Spurious churches teach their members that belief in the lying doctrine is absolutely necessary in order to enter heaven, thus heaping in their folly an untrue dogma upon a lying doctrine, that mankind might be frightened into belief of the lying doctrine ; thus do men build their sects, trusting much to the utterances of their foolish teachers, while trusting only a little to the Word of God. Of a certainty, oh ye nations, the time is at hand when the Holy Spirit of God will prompt men to burst the chains of non- sense which men have coiled round men, and you will become wise in spiritual things, and a great change will come over the thoughts of the nations ; and the utterances of God — the Holy Scriptures — you will cherish, and they will actuate your ways, yourselves restraining yourselves resolutely from evil. 82 THE ONE FOUUDATION-THEKE CHAPTER VI. The one Foundation-Theme of the Holy Scriptures. rrHE one theme upon which the Holy Scriptures are built are -*■ these — 1. The unity of the Godhead. God is one holy being, and Christ is another holy being, the one as separate and distinct in person from the other, as a human father is distinct from his son. 2. God being the only source of all good things, the creator and governor of all things, is therefore that almighty wondrous holy being men call God, and whom the Messiah Christ, like unto the children of Adam, calls his God. God calling Christ His son and His servant. 3. The unity of the Godhead, Christ not being God, but inferior only to God ; God placing him next in authority to Himself ; but not until after the resurrection of Christ, for until then God had not promoted him to be next in authority in Heaven to Himself, for until then Christ had not by his mediatory death delivered the souls of worshipping men. 4. God has laid down certain laws for the governance of all things, especially one for His own guidance, which law prohibits Him from carrying into Heaven any living thing that has not upon it the stamp of perfect goodness. 5. God made man expressly with the intention of peopling a part of the Holy Heavens with those of mankind who, by their own free will, attain the stamp of perfect goodness, while living upon the earth. 6. The one theme proclaims the great fact that mankind acquires that stamp of perfect goodness by following the advice of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, acquiring it by OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 83 restraining the brutish inclinations of their bodies, in compre- hending the advice of God — worshipping Him, in sincerely and jealously accepting as their leader and deliverer His glorious son the Christ, and by spiritually loving one another. 7. The promise of God that an angel, their future King in heaven, should come out of heaven and live upon earth as man, who by his perfect holiness should become their Messiah, that is the deliverer of the souls of those who worshipped God. These good things are the one foundation-theme of the Holy Scriptures, of every prophet, and of every holy man mentioned in the Scriptures. They severally in their generations reiterated and impressed upon the thoughtful among their hearers these good things ; the later writers of the Holy Scriptures, the Apostles of Christ, teaching that Christ was veritably God's promised angel, the Messiah : proving it by the prophecies, by his miracles, by his own words, by witnessing his resurrection to life after the death of his body upon the cross, and by the testimony of their own eyes, they having beheld his ascension through the air upwards towards heaven. CHAPTER VII. n^HE Holy Scriptures are the only inspired writings in the -*- world ; they were written by those holy men, tlie mouth- pieces of God; to them He revealed His advice for tlie guidance of mankind ; and to them He revealed His mighty plan, revealing the great happiness He has in store for those of mankind who have the common sense to follow His advice. Those holy men were God's appointed messengers from Himself to all mankind ; in their own words and in their own language they proclaimed the messages of God. The ideas were revealed f2 84 by God to His messengers, but God left to them the explana- tion. They were inspired revelations written and uttered by the holy messengers in ordinary uninspired words ; like many teachers of one theme, each gave his own explanation of the one theme. The Holy Scriptures are a revelation of the mighty plan of God, from its commencement to the death of the last of the Apostolic eye-witnesses of the victory of the Messiah, the deliverer, over the temptations of the world and the tempta- tions of his body while living as a man upon the earth ; when those eye-witnesses died the Holy Scriptures were completed and nothing has been added thereto that is true. The Holy Scriptures are also a record of the actions and sayings of holy people from the commencement of creation down to the time of the last of the twelve Apostles of the Messiah, an interval of about 4000 years. Those holy writers were the wisest of all mankind, for they had a more perfect knowledge of God than other men. It was not the purpose of God to give man a knowledge of things appertaining to the necessities of his body — for that experience would give to man — nor to teach man the intricate laws by which God governs the universe : but the purpose of God was to teach man how to gain immortal life in Heaven — but for the revelations of God man could not possibly know aught about Him. The intelligence the soul gives to man would simply have made men the most cunning and vilest of all created things, like to the godless, causing some to dwindle into savage men, like as many brutes have dwindled into cruel creatures ; therefore, oh nations, the Holy Scriptures are inestimable to mankind, and great has been your blindness concerning them. Every nation of old believed in the existence of one or more 85 gods, through oral traditions that were handed down from Noah, from father to son, from one ignorant foolish man to another, becoming hazier through each descent, ending in a jumble of nonsense throughout every nation, the Jewish nation only excepted, that nation only having a right knowledge of God, derived through the Jewish mouthpieces of God. The Holy Scriptures are the great antidote of God to the brutal tendencies of the flesh aud blood of man, they are the ladder by which men reach Heaven. God has deemed it a necessity that man should not be coerced into worshipping Him. He has deemed it a necessity that man should, by his own free-will, gain entrance into Heaven by the meritorious acts of comprehending God and worshipping Him, supplicating for past misdeeds, through the naediatory death of the holy Messiah, the deliverer ; by these meritorious acts only is man of more value in the sight of God than are the brutes. In like manner as the starry skies, the wondrous living crea- tures, the wondrous living vegetation, and the wondrous inanimate things of the earth, appeal to the eyes of man as evidence of the existence of God, so the Holy Scriptures appeal to the soul of man, urging him to worship the unseen God, the Creator of all things, and His Holy Son, the Messiah. The Holy Sci-iptures teach him concerning things which the eyes cannot see, giving many examples of what constitutes evil and what constitutes goodness in the sight of God, giving many examples of many kinds of good men and many kinds of evil men. The prophets were spiritual lights of the world, because God caused them to be the revealers of spiritual things, but God Himself was the source of their light. Christ, in Scripture, ia significantly called the light of the world, because God cause^l 86 him to reveal tt> the children of Adam, the great and marvel- lous fact that he was veritably the Messiah, the deliverer of ■worshipping men, the ransom appointed by God, before the creation of the starry skies, for the ransoming of the soul of Adam, and that he it was whom God was about to suffer wicked men to slay. It was Christ who largely shed more than any child of Adam the light of true wisdom ; therefore he is called in Scripture the light of the world, and his followers are called after his name. In his light, his revelations, they shape their thoughts and deeds ; he is their standard, their rallying point, their bond of union, their heavenly friend and guide in obtaining the favour of God ; in like manner as the lesser reve- lations of Moses shaped the thoughts and the deeds of the children of Abraham after their captivity, so the utterances of the holy Messiah shape the thoughts and deeds of his true followers. CHAPTER VIII. GOD deemed it indispensable before he commenced the work of creation, that mankind should have perfect free-will — free to follow His holy advice or not to follow it — reserving to Himself the right of rewarding the obedient, by carrying them into heaven, and of punishing the disobedient, by considering them as mere brutes unworthy to enter heaven ; therefore He has left to the family of man the safe keeping of His written Word. The Holy Scriptures having been left wholly in the keeping of the family of man, are liable to be erroneously translated, erroneously interpreted, and erroneously printed ; nay, more, even wilfully perverted by impious men, traitors to their fellow- men. To understand the Scriptures aright, they must be read R7 from the beginning to the end, like the reading of other books — reading in the light of common sense, thoughtfully discrimina- ting between the words that apply to the things of earth and the things of heaven ; those which apply to the body and those which apply to the soul ; remembering that every desire, every intention, and every real doctrine of God is repeated many times, first by one of the holy writers, then by others, some- times even several times by each. It is therefore unwise and impious to strive to establish a doctrine upon a few ambiguous words, written probably by only one of the holy writers ; for such folly has mystified the mighty plan of God, causing it to be incomprehensible to the minds of men, causing them to forget God altogether, through being bewildered, or to lead them to believe in that which is untrue, thereby occasion- ing disputations, heart burnings, and disunion ; so that the ambiguous words have been scatterers of the foolish ones who unwisely cling to the ambiguous rather than to that which is plain, through the folly of their teachers. Remembering that Satan, sin, evil spirits, are not alive, but signify active disobedience — God is the only invisible being in this round earth ; there is none other ; therefore be not deceived by fables, neither be superstitious. A man writes a book, writing words dictated by his unseen soul. You, my friend, read it ; thy unseen soul communes with the past thoughts of his unseen soul, perchance being moved to tears or to laugh or to drink in his evil or his good sayings, as though verily he was talking with thee ; so, when thou readest the Holy Scriptures, or do aught in following the holy advice of God, the spirit of the unseen living God, thy loving Father, the great author of the Holy Scriptures, the prompter of His servants, the holy writers, communes with thy soul as though verily He was talking with thee; and verily He watches thy 88 emotions, for the words He uttered to the holy men of old He utters to thee, and the glorious promises he made to them He makes to thee. And understand, ye nations, that the true Church of God is easily distinguishable from the many spurious Churches, for the Holy Scriptures accepted by the true Church are in strict accordance with common-sense, their wisdom fully satisfies the most intelligent of men ; therefore they are the bond of union, because, being true, they ai'e free from nonsense ; whereas the scriptural interpretation accepted by some spurious Churches — being mystical, therefore subject to several diverse interpretations — causes division and bitterness; and the adulterated Scriptures of other spurious Churches being revolting to the common-sense of mankind, by reason of their nonsense stamj^ing them as untrue, are brands of discord, breeding wars and perpetuating evil and misery among mankind. Therefore, ye nations, be wise, suffer not imprudent teachers to bewilder the people with that which is ambiguous or adul- terated, but acquaint yourselves with the one foundation theme — the spiritual rock upon which the Holy Scriptures are built, that you may rightly understand the true spirit of the whole. CHAPTER IX. "U'OUR common-sense, oh ye nations, would naturally induce -*- you to suppose that as the Holy Scriptures contain proofs innumerable of the highest wisdom, and proofs of having been inspired by God, they would have found their way to the hearts and understanding of all men ; but look around you upon the whole of mankind, and mark how slow of understanding are they all in all spiritual things, their ignorance splitting them 89 into many sects — the man as dull as the little child — like as the Israelites of old were blind to the goodness of the Messiah, so are the dull conceited nations blind to the holiness and wisdom of the Holy Scriptures, exhibiting their dulness by almost ignor- ing their existence. Listen, and I will tell thee how the minds of men have become perverted and filled with superstitious nonsense; some with adulterated Scriptures, some robbed altogether of their birthright, the Holy Word of God, by evil men. The love of notoriety has led evil men in all ages to teach ignorant men sophistical doctrines, which those ignorant men blindly followed; even the Holy Scriptures were perverted, and false notions of the Messiah were disseminated, so that the Israelites of old knew not the Holy Messiah when they saw him and heard his words, neither would they believe him when he said he was truly the Messiah. In like manner, the love of notoriety led unworthy Gentile converts, even during the lifetime of the Apostles, to pervert the Gospel by strange teachings and by idolatrous practices, thereby leading astray many others of the Gentile converts who had before given up their idolatrous practices, so that those unworthy Gentile teachers and their followers were rebuked by the Apostles; nevertheless they continued. During the first three centuries after the death of Christ, His followers were persecuted sorely, so that the most pious and freest from idolatry were slain by savage men — murderers as were the murderers of the holy Messiah ; fastening their guilt upon their brethren, all the children of Adam. Printing being then unknown, and for more than a thousand years thereafter, the written Scriptures were scai'ce, and very few were able to read ; therefore ignor- ance was almost universal, so that what men knew of them was almost wholly from hearsay ; thus error after error was 90 disseminated, and became so incorporated with the true doctrines of Christ that even well-meaning pious men, through the errors instilled into them during childhood, could not distinguish the true from the false. Foolish notions among these people were plentiful, and controversy violent. While in this state of spiritual ignorance and disorder, the Emperor Charlemagne made the Bishop of Rome Pope, head of all who called them- selves Christians, that the Pope might overrule all disputants in spiritual things, and compel them to become quiet. Worldly- ambition seized the Popes successively, who imagined that, by working upon the superstitious fears of men, they might, in time, bend the whole world to their will. Little by little^ armies of spurious priests, wearing the mask of goodness, were organised and sent into many countries, having, as it were, a commmander-in-chief (the Pope), generals (cardinals), colonels (archbishops), majors (bishops), captains, lieutenants, ensigns, over the rank and file of priests ; these conquered and subdued the ignorant people of those countries by their greater educated subtlety, and by craftily siding with nation warring against nation — wholly against the precepts of Christ the Messiah. . This compact army of priests, satisfied with the posi- tion and reverence accorded them, united themselves strongly in the bonds of discipline and subordination towards their chief, the Pope, and became in the sight of men very strong. This army of spurious priests worked as one man, and by subtlety compelled the exhausted emperors and kings to humble them- selves to the Pope, as their master, forbidding all to read the Scriptures, destroying all beneath their sway who did so, brand- ing themselves a murdering sect — murderers of the children of God — impiously usurping the judgeship of the Messiah, while really possessing the foolishness and cruelty of cruel wolves. The Popes thus became paramount over a considerable portion 91 of the Earth, and in their pride claimed as theirs the sole right to appoint kings as their servants, compelling some of the most abject emperors and kings to hold the stirrup of the Pope's mule, while he mounted and dismounted, as a sign to all men that the Pope was the greatest among men, nay, something more than man. The false doctrines of the early Christians the Popes per- petuated, and invented other false doctrines ; the Papacy mystified the people and themselves with a mixture of Christi- anity and idolatry, thereby craftily founding in the sight of men the most powerful empire men have seen, having absolute sway over many nations, but which the light of God's Holy Word will fast crumble into pieces, soon to be no more seen upon the earth for ever. The Papacy, that army of victorious, crafty, spurious priests, not satisfied with the power exercised over the kings of the earth, demanded and enforced under pain of death, implicit obedience in all things and abasing reverence to every priest, and impudently and impiously instilled into the minds of their frightened followers, whose minds they had purposely filled with superstitious nonsense during childhood, that with them rested the supernatural power of giving their souls entrance into heaven, or sending them into hell, and called their chief " His Holiness" and " Holy Father" as though he were God, who is really the only Holy Father. These spurious crafty priests were guardians — not of the Scriptures, for the reading of these they forbade — but were the guards of the Papacy and disseminators of tradition concocted to uphold the Papacy ; they were guards who did not murder with their own hands, but secretly incited the civil and military powers of the several nations to murder and smite with theirs. They have been, and still are, the most subtle and impious of 92 men, and by their numbei's, the compactness of their priestly army, and their concentrated machinations against any one nation, are powerful enemies to the disunited other sects, and to the foolish nations who give them footing — impostors, seek- ing to perpetuate their authority through frightening the timid and superstitious, by falsely claiming supernatural power over them. The Papacy desires to sow dissension in the midst of an opposing nation, to concentrate the craft and subtlety of the spurious priests dispersed among the nations upon it, and get the mastery ; even to stir up the nations bending beneath her sway to dip their hands in the blood of the nations, herself the murderess. Foolish nations ! why dally ye with one so red ? know you not that he who consorts with the vile becomes him- self also vile — one who uses the name of your Lord for the sake only of her vile ambition ? Look around you upon the nations who own her sway, how pitiable, how miserable are they, because they are blind, because they have been filled with super- stition and have become foolish and idolatrous, and because of their utter ignorance of the Holy Word of God. Well may the spread of the Holy Scriptures be to her a great terror ; for in their spread she sees her downfall, and through their spread the numerous Papal army will become as powerless as a rope of sand and quickly disappear for ever. The voice of God will silence them. Nations will hereafter read with pity and holy anger that every city under the Papal sway has its patron saint ; nay, every handicraft also ; nay every man, also, his patron saint, like the pagans of old, and so far imitating them as to set- up and worship an imaginary Queen of Heaven ; and that to these supposed beings men bow the knee and pray, foolishly thinking they can see and hear everything throughout the 93 world, as though they were gods, possessing power to be their guardians and to shield them from all earthly harm — as thought similarly the Romans, Greeks, and other pagans of old — the Pope, their saint-maker, canonising whom he pleases, and desiring the people to adore, like Nebuchadnezzar, whomsoever he may set up, worshipping them as gods, but thinking to cheat God by calling them the lesser name — saints — the Popes impiously claiming to be infallible as God Himself. Through these great Papal evils mankind have been cheated out of their birthright — the Holy Scriptures — by lying, ambitious, spurious priests ; and so wickedness has been doubly victorious throughout the world for about 1800 years; dui'ing that time the Messiah seems almost to have died in vain ; as men were after the fall of Adam to the deluge, so have they been after the mediatory death of the Messiah until now, few understanding the Holy Scriptures aright, few worshipping God without images. Ye foolish nations, smitten by the Papacy with superstition and with folly, why suffer ye the Papal brand of discord to rend you asunder and sow hatred among your people ? You permit no other foreign, king to exercise sway in the midst of your nation, to breed rebellion and sow dissension for his own crafty ends among you; neither permit the Papal king nor his spurious priests, the crafty pretenders to supernatural power. Verily the Papacy, that fomentor of discord and impiety, is a cunning device of cunning men to obtain and hold dominion over the nations — of men using the cloak of priesthood to hide their love of ease, their love of reverence, and their love of power. Poolish nations ! to be thus deceived and thus to submit to the yoke like the horse or the ox ; verily strife and bloodshed, dissension, and mutual hate have whipped you for «4 your folly, and will whip you until you beconae less foolish; your children's children will be wiser than yourselves. CHAPTER X. TT is easier for a foolish generation to continue foolish than -*- to become sensible, because, oh ye nations, your governors are too selfish, too conceited, too luxurious, too dishonest, too grasping, too unchaste, too frivolous, too superstitious, and too irreligious ; for as your governors are, so imitate the people, winking at each other's follies. Ye do not, oh ye nations, sufficiently abhor the spiritual deceivers of your people, nor your grasping, nor your selfish, nor your luxurious, nor your conceited, nor your dishonest, nor your unchaste, nor your frivolous, nor your superstitious, nor sufficiently have the love of God nor love for your fellow men in your hearts; neither do you sufficiently abhor your liars, nor your violent; therefore your people are harassed and oppressed, oppressing and harass- ing each other. Ye will deem it, ye thoughtless people of this generation, less troublesome to continue in your foolish ways, to continue unrestrained, than to change your thoughts, to be, as it were, a little child commencing to learn afresh; therefore ye will continue to be foolish. But suffer your little ones, oh ye nations, to be taught aright, that they may be less miserable than yourselves; in this thing be sensible, in this thing resolutely and perseveringly do your duty. Behold the time is at hand, even knocking at the door, when the judgment of men will become clear, and they will be able, by their common sense, to distinguish pure worship from that which is spurious, and those human lions, the men of strength and violence, will become as those human lambs, the peaceful 95 men, and spiritual wisdom and kindness will i-eign in the hearts of all men ; but not yet, for troublous times are upon you, oh ye nations of the whole world, because of the forgetfulness of your forefathers, and of your own forgetfulness of God. Like as a leafy tree is shaken by the blast, so will your minds be shaken violently. The spiritual nonsense that has been instilled into your souls will be shattered to pieces, like as an earthen vessel hurled against a rock ; ye will not be destroyed, but ye will come out of your troubles as wise men, for ye will then understand that it is better to obey the advice of God than to put your trust in the advice of men who know not God ; or of those who advise you to obey God spuriously, obeying him, like as do the Papacy, a little, but disobeying him greatly ; and the ministers of the many other spurious sects will strive, from unworthy motives, to perpetuate the separa- tion of their own sects fi'om every other sect, and will beguile the silly sheep of their flocks ; but the others will not suffer themselves to be beguiled, but will cast oflP those unworthy teachers contemptuously, for it is not the sheep who wilfully go wi'ong but the unworthy shepherds, who, for their own selfishness and ease, will strive to keep them in the evil paths they have been accustomed to. Your own wickedness, oh ye nations, will chastise you, for the wicked will chastise the wicked — your God looking on with pity, but permitting you to be chastised — for through chastisement alone will you barken to his words ; through chastisement alone will you sweep away from among you your spurious Churches, and your many spurious sects, and bind yourselves together, as loving brethren, into one Universal Church, the Church of the Messiah, Christ your king ; then will you know what it is to have the Holy Spirit of Christ among you, having Christ, not bodily upon earth, but like as the Holy Spirit of God is present in the Holy Scriptures. 96 Troublous times are upon you, oh ye nations of the whole world, because the men of violence and the men of ignorance will be stirred up by the spurious priests of the many spurious sects to imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow men, to oppress and persecute them that the spurious priests may still hold sway, and there will be great divisions through yout ignorance of the Holy Scriptures ; but the spiritually wise will quickly prevail and the ignorant become spiritually wise. The spurious ministers, the sowers of superstition, of nonsense, and of hatred among men, will not be converted, but all power to do further evil will be taken from them by their fellow- men. By the free-will of man, man became disobedient towards God, and thereby filled the earth with unholiness, violence, and misery; and by the free-will of man, man will become obedient towards God. The nations will acknowledge the Messiah to be their king — not through any miracle, but from conviction of the soul — the Jewish nation first, preparatory to their repossessing the land of their forefathers. Then will the nations of the whole earth become a holy people in the sight of God, and happiness be their portion for ever, and their teachers and rulers will be spiritually wise and the people will no more fall into error, but become as wise in spiritual things as their teachers, and the Holy Messiah, the king of that portion of the heavens set aside by God for the everlasting home of the- souls of pardoned men, will be their acknow- ledged king, and he will- reign in their hearts, and His precepts in the Holy Scriptures sway their thoughts, and he iu heaven, before his God and Father, vdll acknowledge them to be his ransomed children. Be ye watchful, therefore, oh ye true Christians in every land, rise up and quickly band yourselves together, for troublous times are upon you. Haste! spread this little book among tTNITY AMONG MANKIND. 97 the nations. God will assist men, but only through their obedience to His advice, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, will He assist them. CHAPTER XI. Unity among Mankind. THE many spiritual sects have false and foolish notions of God; therefore they differ one from the other, and look upon each other as enemies, despising one another. By their disunion and hatred they are povrerless in stemming the evil tendencies of the evil-disposed, and so wickedness everywhere is rampant; they cause men to become evil and continue evil- disposed, for the evil- disposed have the wit to see that their diverse notions must necessarily be erroneous, so that like as the many sects despise each other, so do the evil-disposed des- pise the many sects. Men are discordant one with the other in spiritual matters, and therefore in temporal things, because they err, not rightly understanding the Holy Scriptures ; the many sects each see the mote in every other sect, and therefore keep apart from them. Men err because they are wrongly taught ; some are altogether ignorant of the Word of God, others, through their erring teachers, misunderstand the spirit of the Holy Scriptures, dwelling much on certain parts, almost ignoring other portions, and so fall into error — one sect Y>re- ferring one part, another sect preferring other parts, and so their thoughts become discordant ; it is as a whole the Holy Scriptures must be taken. The teachings of the Holy Scriptures are • — 1. There is but 07ieGod. 98 TmiTT AMONG MANKEST). 2. That God prompted holy men to write the Scripturea ; therefore they are the true "Word of God. 3. That Jesus Christ was veritably the long promised Messiah of God. 4. The Messiah is not God, but an angel chosen before the creation of the starry skies by God to be the Messiah. 5. That the Messiah is now the king of that portion of the heavens set aside by God as the everlasting home of the souls of pardoned men, and that all true worshippers of God through the mediatory death of Christ will enter the Messiah's kingdom in heaven after their decease and live with him there for ever. 6. God is a lover of all that is good, all that is holy, and desires us to be loving, tender-hearted, and just one to the other. God is a hater of evil, and desires us to hate all evil things and refrain from all those things that are evil. These six things constitute the whole spirit of the Holy Scriptures — they form the one theme of every holy writer, and of the Messiah, Christ himself. Now, ye zealous worship- pers of God, call assemblages of the people, and enquire of them if these things are not the one theme of the Holy Word of God, and they will quickly give their assent, and many will unite themselves into one holy bond of brotherhood, and form one Universal Church, the old Church of Christ — a Church which has been in abeyance since the days of the Apostles of the Messiah, Christ. Then will the Church of Christ come out, like himself, the victor over the evils of the world, and the Holy Spirit of God will lead them safely through the troublous times that now enwrap the earth. 99 PAET III. WHAT THE SCRIPTUEES TEACH. CHAPTER I. The Attributes of God. GOD is everywhere, and surrounds all things, like as the "waters of the sea surround the fishes in the sea ; God has a knowledge of everything that takes place— the most secret as well as the most open ; He is the source of all wisdom and power — these are the attributes of God. There is only one God, who is one holy Being. God is indestructible ; therefore He lives for ever : all else may change, but the one holy God — the source of all good things — does not change ; He is the same from illimitable time past to illimitable time to come. Worship is speaking reverently to the unseen God — be- lieving Him to be near by listening and observing — speaking as confidingly to the unseen God as a man blind from his birth talks to his listening mother, whom he has never seen, and of whose shape and colour he has no knowledge. God is a living spirit, and not flesh and blood — a spirit, in that no man has seen him. Nevertheless, we know He exists because of the mighty, wondrous things that everywhere sur- round us — the sun, the moon, the stars, and this round earth and all the marvels our eyes behold — and we also know that the Holy Scriptures are the revelation of God to man ; there- fore, although we cannot see the living God, we know He is everywhere surrounding us, seeing us, and hearing us. God is g2 100 BEFORE CREATION a spirit, as invisible to the eyes of man as is the self-will ; yet as truly near — nay, nearer — to every living creature than clouds are near to a blind man, but vs^hich he neither sees, nor feels, nor smells, nor hears — it is the will of God that neither the blind man should see the clouds, nor any living earthly creature see Him. The Glory of God, His condensed self, — which is His glorious person, visible to the angels as a holy, living being — is in the immeasurable heavens which surround the starry skies where He has His dwelling place, surrounded by innumerable happy angel spirits, and His glorious Son, our Redeemer and Heavenly King, Jesus Christ. All outside His glorious person is His Holy Spirit — a part of himself, an invisible cloud (like as the body of a bird and its wings form one bird) filling all space — so that God is everywhere, and there is of course not room for any other God, neither is there really any other God. The King Christ and all the other angels of God, and all the saints in heaven, and all the stars, and everything everywhere, live, and move, and are in the midst of the Holy, living Spirit of God, like as the fishes of the sea move in the midst of the waters of the sea. There is no sun nor moon in heaven, for God Himself is the light thereof — He is the living sun of heaven, seen only by angel spirits, the saints in heaven, and His glorious Messiah. CHAPTER n. Before Ckeation. GOD, who has ever existed as He now exists and will exist for ever, and in whose sight a thousand years are less than a moment to man, determined to found a king- BEPOEE CEEATI02f. 101 dom in heaven for the angel Christ, a holy angel then living amid innumerable other angels with God, vfho should be the King thereof. It was necessary the future King should have subjects, and it was absolutely necessary that His subjects should be perfectly holy in the sight of God, for in no part of heaven is there unholiness — holiness consists in obeying the laws of God — perfectly obedient to their King, Christ, and yet have perfect freedom, not being coerced in any way (for it is only the rebelliously inclined who require to be coerced), perfectly obedient because having perfect knowledge instilled into them that perfect obedience to their Holy King induced perfect happiness to all, therefore delighting in being holy. All things are possible with God, so that He might have peopled the kingdom of Christ in heaven in many ways : therefore God purposed to create a body of flesh and blood — giving it life by giving it motion — and uiute it to a part of His living breath, which God called the soul, that the twain, 1. The living flesh and blood, 2. The living soul, should form one male man, out of whom should proceed countless millions of children, each possessing a portion of the one soul. The law of Justice as laid down in the Holy Scriptures by the Lord God, is the forfeiture of an eye for the spiteful removal of an eye — a tooth for the spiteful removal of a tooth — the forfeiture of a life fcr the spiteful taking away of the life of man — the forfeiture of everlasting life should the intended new being — man — disobey God, and the forfeiture of a perfectly holy life to redeem from everlasting death the intended new being — man — should he become disobedient and thereby unholy, and need in consequence a redeemer. And God purposed that out of the male man should 102 THE CEEATIO?^. proceed a female man, that from them miglit proceed countless millions of their kind ; the countless millions possessing between them the one life of the body united to the one life of the soul, which should constitute the male man, so that the countless millions might also be really and truly man, in like manner as a lump of gold may be divided into countless millions of atoms, each atom being as purely gold as the great lump. These intended new beings would necessarily have to be endowed with passions for perpetuating their kind, which passions were unknovra in heaven, therefore, the new beings would thus far be inferior to the angels of heaven. God, therefore, determined to build a habitation outside of heaven, which should be glorious within and gloriously set in the midst of innumerable stars. He deemed it necessary that the future subjects of the Heavenly King, Jesus Christ, should, before they became His subjects in heaven, live and multiply in their new earthly home, as it were in school, for a time, and then be carried lovingly into heaven into Christ's kingdom, there to live for ever with Him. CHAPTER HI. The Creation. "QEFORE the sun, the moon, the countless stars, and this •*-' round earth were created, all that vast space within reach of the telescopes of man during a clear and starry night, and immeasurably far, far beyond, was filled with gaseous matter without life, shape, or motion. Four different kinds only of inert gaseous matter were there, 1. Oxygen, 2. Hydrogen, 3. Nitrogen, 4. Latent heat. THE CEEATIOlf. 103 Diffused throughout this cloudy matter was the Holy Spirit of God, which, extending everywhere beyond the glorious Person of God in heaven, was here also ; all was dark, all was silent, all was dead — as it were space in fallow, awaiting to be fashioned anew — the Holy Spirit of God that was in its midst, was alone imbued with life. At length God purposed to make man, and create for him a round world as a temporary habitation, beautiful within, and beautiful outside of it, like a bride bedecked with jewels. The Holy Spirit of God moved amid the inert gaseous matter, giving it motion ; and God said, " Let thei'e be light," and instantly all the latent heat throughout that heretofore dark, quiet, vast space rushed to one spot, and in twenty-four hours all had accumulated together and formed the sun — the sun being dark, not yet shedding any light. This occupied the first day. On the second day, God gave the word, and instantly the sun burst forth a glorious mass of light, and the electrical flames darted throughout that second day into the midst of the cloud of hydrogen, oxygen and niti'Ogen, vivifying them thereby, causing violent chemical action, which produced a strong mu- tual attraction between the interspersed atoms, which had the effect of causing all the then vivified matter to condense into great solid balls in millions — occupying the second day. The space between each ball was left perfectly vacuous of every- thing excepting the electrical heat that is constantly being poured into them fi-om the electric sun. These new-made balls attracted a continuous stream of electric flame from the sun, so condensed and so vast in that one day as would take tens of thousands of years now to equal — pulverising the surface of one of them, the earth. On the third day, God prepared one of the solid balls for the 104 THE UKEAT10>\ habitation of man. The softened mountains were raised above the lower land, seas were formed, vegetatiofl v^as created and made rapidly to grow in the electrified virgin soil. On the fourth day, God placed one of the balls — the moon — near to the earth, that it might by night reflect upon the round earth the light of the sun, and with the sun induce tides, pro- duce winds, and generate moisture. God also devised the mo- tion of the moon round the earth, and the revolution of the earth round the sun, and the revolution of the earth on its own axis once every twenty-four hours. He also made the earth to oscillate, each pole turning alternately inwardly towards the sun very slowly, at the rate of one complete oscillation every year — thereby producing day and night and the seasons, letting them be for signs and seasons, for days and years ; and gave motion to the planets, to give variety to the starry skies, in like manner as He has given variety to vegetation and to all things. On the fifth day, God said, " Let the waters bring forth abundantly the nioving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above in the air ; and God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters afterwards brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind ; and God saw it was good. And the even- ing and the morning (day and night) were the fifth day." On the sixth day, God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, and creeping thing and beast of the field after his kind ; and it was so, and God saw it was very good. And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over every living creature. So God created man in His own image, male and female created He them " — Adam being the only created living man, but having stored within him THE CREATION. 105 the germs of innumerable male and female men ; Eve being the first-born woman. God stored in the males of every species of living things many varieties of the same species, varying them in their shape, colour, strength and size, some varieties being more numerous than others ; so that, in like manner as no two trees are exactly alike, even of the same species, so no two living creatures nor vegetation, even of the same species, should be exactly alike. Some varieties have now run their course, becoming extinct ; others are just commencing to be born. Thus has God given variety to all living things, in all ages ; only those which He created during the six days can possibly be born. Moreover, God has so contrived that all living things of the same species should differ in many things inwardly and outwardly, their mode of life influencing their appearance ; so that, in like manner as an evil man bears upon his countenance a stamp differing from the days of his innocent childhood, so God de- tects the degree of evil in every living thing by its difference from its first parents, when fresh out of his hands during the six days of creation. God gave to every living creature self-wiU, first to desire and then to do — some things to do intuitively, without thought, neither knowing nor seeing the internal mechanism of their body — and has furnished them with brain-nerves, that photo- graphic impressions thereon of what they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel may enable them to remember ; but to living vegetation God gave neither eyes, nor ears, nor taste, nor smell, nor brain, nor inherent power to roam, but gave it inherent power to per- petuate its kind, to obtain food, and to grow. Thus was made in six days the vast electrical sun, the great sustainer of earthly life, without which nothing would be solid, but gaseous, as before creation, yet but an inanimate ball, as 106 THE CREATION OF ADAM. inanimate as a lighted candle, the mainspring, as it were, of the firmament. Also were made the moon, the countless stars, and this round earth, with all its wondrous contents. The intense electrical light of the sun illumines the countless stars, and moon, and earth, causing them to shine, which, but for its brilliant light, would be as dark balls in a dark place — unseen. On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day, and blessed it, and afterwards ordained that all men, and all their beasts of burden, should rest from servile work on that day — on every seventh day — and be perfectly free — the poor man as free as the rich, the beast as well as the man — it being necessary, lest the thoughts of men should be engrossed by the things of earth. There is a limit to the stai'ry skies, but the heavens which surround them are illimitable. CHAPTER IV. The Creation of Adam. rpHE Scriptures teach that Adam was the only one of all -*- mankind whom God created without being born. In like manner as the Lord God had made every other living creature out of the dust of the earth, so He formed the flesh and blood of Adam, which, being of the earth, and visible to earthly eyes, and made male, was not like God. The Lord God then gave to Adam that holy thing, the soul, by breathing into his nostrils, and Adam thereby became a living man. The two lives — 1. The life of the flesh and blood, 2. The life of the soul, constituted the man Adam. The only life of the body, and the THE CREATION OF ADAM. 107 only soul that God has given to Adam and his descendants — the breath of God, a part of His invisible Holy Spirit, consti- tuting the invisible soul of Adam, the only part of Adam that was like God. Behold, oh man ! in the brute gorilla an image of thyself as thyself would be if thou hadst not a soul — that jewel from heaven, in which only thou art like God. Mark well, for this is the Tcey of loisdom. God has given only om living body and only one living soul to Adam, the twain constituting one person, man. From this twain the living body ot all mankind, and the living soul of every man, are derived, thereby constituting them the offspring of Adam. God stored in Adam the seed of the body and the seed of the soul in tem- porary union, hiding some of the united seed deeply within many folds, others in but few, that some might be born within a few years, and some not • till after the lapse of many ages. These seeds had the gerria of mankind within them. All inherit, through their fathers' right up to Adam, the shape of Adam, but only some see the light of day, and are born into the world as separate beings ; some of the born become worthless in the sight of God through their folly, but others produce the fruit of holiness unto the Lord. These constitute His living, holy harvest, for they are His holy children. Man perpetuates his kind, and all other living creatures and all vegetation their kind, according as God created their seed. God has not created anything after the sixth day. Every living creature and all vegetation have proceeded from the few which God made during the six days of creation. They existed in an undeveloped state in those ancient ones ; but were not torn into the world as separate beings — living things pro- ceeding through the male line only, being developed through the female line only. Thus, male and female are equally necessary. 108 Tnr; bieth of eve. excepting in the case of Adam and in the case of the Virgin Mary, God also, on the sixth day, made the germ of another living body similar to the body of Adam. This living germ God reserved for some future day, v?herewith to constitute the flesh and blood of Christ, and Avhich God long afterwards placed in the womb of the pure Virgin Mary, to be there develojjed and born as the child Jesus Christ, the living spirit of Christ being carried by God from Heaven, and united thereto at the instant of birth. Adam was created a little lower than the angels of Heaven, inasmuch as his heavenly soul was tied, as it were, to his earthly body — a body like that of the then innocent brutes, that he might have numerous descendants. He was an angel of earth, pure and spotless, and all the living seed within him of the unborn countless millions of mankind were also holy, pure, and spotless. CHAPTER V. The Birth of Eve. A DAM was the last of all things which God created. In him -^-^ God created and placed the germs of all his descendants — of all mankind — male and female. God designed that the one earthly lord, Adam, should, like all other creatures, have a helpmate worthy of him; and, causing Adam to fall into a deap sleep, God caused the beauteous female infant Eve to issue from a rib of Adam. The infant Eve vras thus born out of the man Adam. Thus was Eve the first of all born creatures; and thus did Eve have no mother, in like manner as in long years afterwards the Holy Messiah had no earthly father. THE BIRTH OF EVE. 109 » Out of Adam was horn the infant Eve, that Adam might be the one earthly lord and the one earthly father of all mankind. The man Adam and the female Eve were perfectly holy and in constant communion with God, keeping the desires of their bodies wholly subject to their souls ; they were as brother and sister, perfectly happy and perfectly innocent, as are the angels of heaven, for they had God always with them during many years, communing with them and teaching them ; they were not yet free to act, for what Adam said and did, and Eve also, were done by God prompting them, thereby teaching them what was good ; they were, therefore, wiser than all their descen- dants in all things which conduced to their happiness ; and all other living ci'eatures were perfectly happy, the lion and the lamb resting together in perfect peace, eating herbage ; there was no fear in all the "v^orld, for the presence of the Holy Pei'son of God shed upon them and upon all living creatui'es a feeling of perfect purity, of perfect peace, and perfect content- ment. The Holy Person of God could then come into the world, because everything in it was good. The Lord God did not create Adam a perfect being — not so perfect as are the angels of heaven — -inasmuch as prayer, praise, and thanksgiving to God were not yet forthcoming from Adam of his own free-will ; his soul was not yet free to act, for what Adam and Eve did and said were done by God prompting them, and so teaching them what was the principle of good- ness ; at length God left them to act of their own free-will without prompting. The Lord God having taught them all that was requisite for them to know, was desirous of testing the obedience of these earthly angels, the chief work of His creating, and warning them to keep their bodies, their earthly part, in entire subjection to their souls, their heavenly part — declaring that disobedience to these His commands should entail His 110 THE SIN OF DISOBEDIENCE, ETC. anger — God thereupon left them for the first time in their lives to act of their own free-will without His prompting, and God then withdrew His Holy Person from the earth, but His Holy Spirit, the living invisible cloud, still remained. CHAPTER VI. The Sin of Disobedience brought into the Wokld. THE withdrawal of the Holy Person of God everywhere wrought a great change, for it was His Holy Personal Presence which maintained all things in a state of perfect purity and holiness; for, some time afterwards, the woman Eve saw the serpent doing that which the Lord God commanded Adam and Eve not to do, the serpent not having been forbidden because it was a beast of the field, its obedience to God not being put to the proof. Thereupon a strong inclination of the body came upon Eve, and she reasoned wit^un herself, thereby increasing her inclination to do what God had commanded her not to do. Now, the reasoning faculty of the flesh and blood of man, which is the mind, also called self-will, and which Adam possessed before God breathed into his nostrils, and which all living creatures possess, the cat and the dog, and all else — was more subtle in reasoning than that of every other living creature; the mind being, as it were, the silent advocate of the flesh and blood, argues for the gratification of the long- ings of the body — whereas the soul) being of heaven, silently argues in favour of the wisdom of perfect obedience of the whole person, of body and soul, to the will of God, in that the will of the body and the will of the soul should jointly be wholly guided by the precepts of God. There is therefore a perpetual silent antagonism between these two powers, the brutish one THE SIN OF DISOBEDIENCE, ETC. Ill tending to evil, and tlae angelic one to good, in every one of mankind. The will of the body, its brutish passions, is sometimes called in Scripture the evil power, because it was the carnal passions of the body of Adam which was overcome by the great temp- tation, and which continues to be the great tempter to do evil — sometimes it is called sin, sometimes the devil, sometimes satan, sometimes the serpent, because it was a serpent which unwittingly roused the passions of Eve, and the right knowledge of the soul is sometimes called conscience. The brutish body, longing for what its eyes can see, and for the gratification of its passions unrestrainedly, and satisfied with the things of earth ; the other, the immortal heavenly soul, longing to return to its native home in heaven where the Holy Person of God is — deriving no satisfaction in things of the earth, because of the evils therein. The brutish body of Eve, therefore, owing to the subtle reasoning of her mind, felt a very great longing, and — tempting Adam — they disobeyed God, the first of all living creatures that dared to disobey Him. Thus did Adam fall under the one great test, and thus was wickedness brought into the world, and God satisfied Himself that the brutish body of man was unworthy to enter heaven. The man and the woman then became aware what it was to be good and what it was to be evil in the sight of God — their conscience smote them, and they were ashamed and afraid of the promised coming of God, ^e\T Creator. 112 THE SOUL OP iDAM IS CT7ESED, ETC. CHAPTER VII. The Soul of Adam is Cursed and the brutish Body (the chief offender) Condemned to Everlasting Death. rpHE holy anger of the Lord God was very great against -*- them for their disobedience, and He took away from their brutish body perpetual life, so that after a time it should die for ever, and ignominiously become corrupt, and become again, so long as the round earth existed, as part of the ground whence it was first taken ; and God condemned the unenergetic soul to sleep after its separation from the dead body, until the offspring of a pure virgin (the Messiah) should, by His perfect holiness as man, regain the victory of the body of man over the passions of the body, and so restore mankind to the favour of God, who then would remove the curse wherewith God cursed the soul of Adam — so that, through the merits of the Messiah, God his Father and our Father might be with us once more as before the fall, not indeed in Person, but in His love ; and might, in justice to His own Holiness, be able to pardon those of mankind who may have the wisdom to trust in the promises of God, worshipping Him. Thus did those angels of earth, Adam and Eve, fall under the displeasure of God, and all the living seed within Adam became unholy and impure in the sight of the Almighty Creator, for the seed was part of Adam. And God gave Eve to be Adam's wife, and unto them was born their eldest child, Cain, conceived in sin, pre-eminently inheriting the great transgression. Nevertheless, God in His mercy blessed Adam and Eve, and said unto them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the THE SOUX OJF AD.Vir IS CURSED, ETC. ] 1 3 fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living creature that moveth upon the earth. And God said. Behold, I have given you every herb which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding fruit, to you it shall be given." The great disobedience of Adam and Eve having made this round earth unholy in the sight of God, He withdrew His holy Person from the earth altogether. From this first disobedient act is derived all the pain, all the sorrow, all the wickedness, that has since afflicted the world — the man Adam, and the woman Eve, lost the gentle nobility of their deportment, and their sweetness of expression, and their descendants became still more stamped with the brutish passions, as their descend- ants became more vile, deteriorating in like manner as the brutes have deteriorated in their appearance — from the gentle- ness of their first parents before the fall. Through the great transgression this once beautiful earth, everywhere a paradise, where innocence and peace reigned, has been transformed into what it is — the ground lost its great fertility, the air and the waters their perfect purity — the living creatures of the land, of the air, of the water, and vegetation, their harmlessness, and acquired injurious properties (like as an innocent child oft becomes a vile man), increasing with the wickedness of man ; the garden rose degenerated into the wild rose, and in like man- ner did man and all things degenerate. The round earth was no longer everywhere a garden, no longer were the lesser living things harmless one to the other, for envy and strife rose in their midst, the strong chased the less strong, some thereby became courageous and some fearful ; the several members of their bodies became altered, their natures gradu- ally changed, and the courageous, the fearful, and the other strong impressions of the parents were transmitted to their 114 THE DELTTGE. offspring, and became to them as instinct. Vegetation became impure and poisonous. The air and the water became corrupt, breeding famine and pestilence, and the flesh of the cruel creatures of the land, of the air, and of the water, became unfit as food for man ; and God long afterwards forbad His people, the Israelites, to eat them, for they became poisonous and injurious, but to eat only such of the land creatures as feed on grass. The happiness of the earth was wrecked. Adam's transgression has been succeeded by our many transgressions, therefore the Holy Person of God continues to keep far away from the earth, but His Holy Spirit, part of Himself (as the wings of a bird are part of the bird), He has not withdrawn, that He might save those who comprehend and worship Him. CHAPTER VIII. The Deluge. rpHE children of Adam multiplied greatly, for women gi'eatly -*- exceeded in number the men ; the life of the body was strong within them and they became sen-sual. They allowed their passions free scope, and because they could not see God they forgot Him. Cruelty and every species of wickedness were pre- valent, and it grieved the Lord God that He had made man, for man had become very offensive in His sight, and God said, " T will destroy man whom I have created ; both man and beast, and creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it grieveth me that I have made them." And God looked upon the round Earth, and behold it was very impure, and God listened in vain for the penitent cry and worship of man, for every living thing had departed from the purity and innocence which God gave them ^ THE DELUGE. 115 at the beginning. Cruelty and wickedness reigned everywhere, and mankind was as the beast of the field, steeped in foolish- ness, and utterly forgetful of God, as though they had no souls in them. Noah only found favour in the sight of God, for he was a just and God-fearing man ; and God commanded Noah to build an Ark, and take into it a few favourable speci- mens of every species of creeping thing, and of every living creature to keep seed alive — of every species, not of every colour or variety of species, for of living creatures there are countless varieties, all proceeding from the few species which God made on the fifth and sixth days of creation, so that some varieties that had existence before the Deluge became extinct, through the Deluge. And Noah took into the Ark the most favourable specimens of each of the few species. Behold ! oh man ! how greatly thy kind varies in colour, in size, in deportment, in shape. Compare the most holy with the most brutal, and note the vast difference in the twain. Nevertheless all men proceed from the man Adam. Every one of the living creatures saved in the Ark had less strength of life than their first ancestors, and therefore subse- quently lived a less number of years and grew to less stature, a portion of vitality having been retained by their several ancestors. The one life of the body being transmitted by the male — the female simply developing — every life therefore trans- mitted by the male lessens his vitality and his progeny possesses less than he himself first had. And God commanded Noah to take into the Ark a few of every species again to re-people the earth, of fowls of the air, of cattle, and of every creeping thing, together with the family of Noah. And God caused a violent Deluge, with storms of wind, to sweep over the whole round Ear1ii,and every living creature excepting those in the Ark were destroyed ; the n 2 116 AFTER THE DELUGE. waters of the ocean rolled over the highest mountains, sweeping into destruction every living creature that had taken refuge there. After the lapse of about three hundred days, the waters became confined to their present boundaries, forming the seas and great rivers as we now see them. Noah, his family, and all the living creatures then came out of the Ark. and God promised the terrified Noah that He would not again deluge the whole world with water. Thus, after an interval of about sixteen hundred years from the creation of the starry skies, did the great Deluge alter the whole surface of the Earth. The Deluge came upon the Earth wholly through the wickedness of man. God had satisfied Himself that none but the family of Noah, through the holiness of Noah, was worthy to live even upon the Earth, And God stored up for future men, in the depths of the Earth, rich fuel, by causing the ti'ees that were torn up by the Deluge, to accu- mulate in masses and sink to the bottom of the muddy waters, with the natural sap in them, that it might help to convert the fibrous wood into coal, and to sink horizontally in layers at intervals of time during the Deluge, piling it only in what God intended should be habitable land, that it might not be wasted. CHAPTER IX. After the Deluge. MANKIND quickly multiplied upon the Earth, for the daughters of men were in those early ages of the world more numerous than the sous, so that every man had several wives, and Noah was the earthly lord over all the children of men ; to him they made obesiance as to one from whose AFTER THE DELUGE. 117 loins all had proceeded, and his sons were men of authority and reverence among them. The long life attained by the descendants of Adam before the Deluge enabled them to attain great loorldly knowledge ; some of this knowledge was known to Noah, his sons, his daughters, and his daughters-in-law, which they in their turn communicated to their descendants after the Deluge, and so gave the new era a strong starting point in things apper- taining to worldly knowledge ; and God put it into the hearts of men to disperse themselves with their wives and children over the face of the Earth. And the bold collected round them the families of their friends and founded separate tribes ; and the bold with their families, were continually spreading them- selves over the Earth, and many became men of renown and men of violence. The speech of men, which mankind had learnt one from the other, and from their father Noah, became varied, so that the separated tribes spoke differently, and tribes distant one from the other could not understand the speech one of the other. And the tribes kept themselves apart through jealousy, fear and distrust one of the other, and their notions of God became hazy. As mankind increased in ignorance of God, so did their thoughts concerning Him differ : superstition and eiTor took the place of common sense, and mankind down to these days have per- petuated the senselessness of their forefathers. And many forgot much of the worldly knowledge taught the children of men by Noah and his family, and in spiritual things and in worldly things also they became men of ignorance. Thus did the many tribes overspread the earth, and thus did they trace their pedigree from the bold ones, their chiefs, sometimes right up to Noah — the more prosperous settled tribes ruled over by the sons of Noah, and their eldest sons 118 ATTEK THE DELtJGK. commenced their history from the holy man Noah, their i^ther and their lord. After the lapse of about two hundred and ninety years from the time of the deluge, Abraham was born, Noah being still alive. Abraham became a just and holy man and greatly pleased God, inasmuch as he was very teachable and wor- shipped God without images. For Abraham was surrounded by men who had ignorantly formed hazy notions of God, and therefore used images in their worship. What the forbidden fruit was to Adam and Eve, images have been to the ignorant, the superstitious, and the weak of faith, in all ages — their great temptation. God made Himself known to Abraham, and communed with him, and God tested the faith of Abra- ham and found it sound. The faith and obedience of Abraham greatly pleased God, who promised, before and at the time of his death, that his descendants should become very numerous and be the favoured people of God. And God told Abraham that within him was the germ of the woman who as a pure virgin should give birth to the Mes- siah, the deliverer of the souls of men. This promise and revelation were repeated to Isaac, the only son of Abraham, to Jacob, the son of Isaac, and long afterwards again to David, a descendant of Jacob ; these greatly rejoicing because of the promised Messiah. The Israelites, who were descendants of Abraham, greatly multiplied, and God was very gracious unto them, formed of them a great nation, and sent the prophet Moses — a holy man to whom God revealed Himself — and commanded him to teach them how to be just and holy, to hate the use of iipages in worshipping God, and to pray to God (as a man talks in the dark to his friend who is near by but whom he cannot see, yet feeling assured that his friend is near AFTKR THE DELUGE. 119 by listening and sympathising) — and gave them laws for the governance of their nation, and ordinances for the pure wor- ship of God, and sacrificial ordinances for redeeming their sinful souls, temporarily, until the Messiah, the Angel of the Lord God, should come and redeem their souls onceandfor ever. God also commanded them to be circumcised, that they might be known one to the other to be Jews, and commanded them to keep themselves wholly apart from every other nation, lest they should follow the evil practices of the unteachable idola- trous nations surrounding them, who made images for the eyes to see and to bow down before, as representing the unseen God, uttering prayers, committing the folly of worshipping habitu- ally before vile images, God's abhorrence, as though they were burlesquing the real worshippers of God — not under- standing that God lias not the shape of a man, is neither male nor female ; not understanding that He is on the right hand and on the left, before and behind every one of us. These idolators, therefore, approached very nearly to the senselessness of brutes, and God refused, as before the deluge, to hear the words or accept the worship of wilfully disobedient, idolatrous men ; their words in the sight of God being as the barking of a dog, and not as the prayers of pure worshippers. Notwithstanding the great care of God towards His highly- favoured people the Israelites, they rebelled many times against God — idolatry being their great tempter. The mind of man was constantly striving to set up for itself a spurious form of worship — things which its eyes could see — for it felt that worship was due to the Creator of all things. It could not compre- hend, owing to the weakness of its intelligence, how the soul could worship without seeing the object, or a representation of the object, to be worshipped. After Moses died, God sent other holy men, to whom He 120 god's geeat and glorious revealed Himself, as prophets to His people ; but His people, like wayward children, repented and rebelled, by using images in their worship of God and in other idolatrous practices, re- pented and again rebelled many times ; and God satisfied Himself that man w^as very rebellious, very wicked, and very dull of undei'Standing. God revealed to His servants, the prophets, His fore-ordained plan of redeeming men who learn to under- stand God. His servants greatly rejoiced, and were enabled to prophecy its fulfilment several hundred years beforehand. CHAPTER X. God's Great and Glorious Plan of Redemption. THE union of one living body with one living soul, the twain forming one living man, the man Adam was deemed necessary by God for the furtherance of His great plan for peopling the heaven of the starry firmament, where the Holy P'^TSon of God has His dwelling-place ; a part of that heaven bcijg prepared for th'i everlasting habitation of the souls of pardoned men, that God might found a kingdom in heaven for the Messiah, then, as now, a greatly-beloved Angel. Dis- obedience to God was not the necessary consequence of the creation of man, but God foresaw it might occur ; He therefore took the precaution of giving Adam two lives — 1. The life ofliis body; 2. The life of his soul ; the twain forming one man, the man Adam. These two lives are the only two lives God has given to Adam, and all his descendants ; the countless millions who have ever lived, and may hereafter live, have only these two lives divided PLAN OF REDEMTTION. 121 betwixt them all, in like manner as a lump of gold may be divided into countless millions of atoms, each atom being as truly gold as the lump itself. This is the key of the Holy Scriptures. To every other living creature which God made on the fifth and sixth days of Creation, He gave only one life — the life of the body ; and to every species of vegetation He made on the third day of Creation, He gave only one life. God on the first six days of creation finished all that has been made, and has made nothing since. He finished the creation in six days ; but God contrived that there should be successive generations. The purpose of God in giving only one living body and one living soul betwixt all mankind was, that in the event of Adam becoming unholy through the passions of his body, God might punish man's temporal body with annihilation, but save his ever- lasting soul through the mediation of the Messiah, God's fore- ordained future King in heaven, whose Angel-spirit should iu due time be brought out of heaven, and be united to a living body, born out of a pure virgin — the germ of which living body God made at the same time that He made the living body of Adam, but which was kept in abeyance until the time for the advent of the Messiah upon earth should fully come. The spirit of the angel and the living body born out of the pure virgin, constituting the Messiah Christ who should live as man — as truly man as the man Adam — living a perfectly holy life, and in consequence of the perfect holiness of His living body as well as that of His living soul, be entitled to live for ever with God in heaven, in like manner as the living body and the living soul of Adam would have been entitled to live for ever with God in heaven, if Adam had not introduced sin into the world. Nevertheless, the Holy Messiah should, of His -own free will, not in any way being; eoeyced, consent to forfeit the 122 THE MESSIAH. life of His body to satisfy the holy justice of God, which is life for life, so that the punishment of death should be inflicted upon the living body of the Messiah, that the curse wherewith God cursed Adam for his great transgression might be removed. Thus should the Messiah win his Kingship, and thus God, having satisfied his own Divine justice, be enabled to forgive the sin of Adam and of all His descendants who performed the holy act of worshipping God purely, having faith ; the Holy Spirit of God then carrying their pardoned souls, upon the death of their body, into the kingdom of heaven prepared for them before the commencement of creation ; a large measure of the Holy Spirit of God being added to each minute soul in heaven, thereby giving each the high intelligence of a holy angel, fitting them to be worthy subjects of their Saviour and King, Jesus Christ the Messiah. This is the mighty plan of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. CHAPTER XI. The Messiah. rriHE time appointed by God for the coming of the Angel -^ upon earth was about 4000 years after the fall of the man Adam. God had taught the God-fearing Israelites to sacrifice upon altars, the altar sacrifice imputing righteousness as an act of obedience to God of those who sacrificed, showing by their obedience in this respect, that they were teachable, and God pardoned their sins provisionally. During those 4000 years, the souls of human dead, the pardoned and the unpardoned, were asleep, waiting for the establishment ofc THE MESSIAH. 123 the Messiah's Kingdom in heaven — the Angel not yet having won his Kingship, being not yet born into the world as man. When the time appointed by God had fully come, as foretold by the prophets, the Holy Spirit of God took the germ of living flesh and blood which He made when He made Adam — and which He had kept in reserve — and placed it in the womb of the pure Virgin Mary, where it was developed and grew ; and at the instant of its birth into the world the Holy Spirit of God brought out of heaven the experienced living soul of the Angel — a large soul deeply engraven with remembrances of God and of heaven — and enshrined it in the living flesh and blood, and thus the infant Jesus Christ, the long promised Messiah, was born into the world, having, like all the children of men, 1. The life of his flesh and blood, 2. The life of his angel spirit. The whole being of the angel was concentrated in the person of the child Jesus, no portion of the angel being elsewhere, so that, like the man Adam before the great transgression, the Messiah was nothing else than an angel of earth, having, for the purpose of carrying out the plan of his God, wholly given up his position as an angel in heaven temporarily to become a mere man, like unto Adam. The child Jesus derived his flesh and blood from his mother, the pure Virgin Mary, but not the life thereof, for the life was in the germ which God made when He also made the flesh and blood of Adam ; therefore, the child Jesus was born perfectly free from sin, the mother merely nourishing and maturing the living germ which the Holy Spirit of God placed within her womb. The child inherited none of the sin of Adam, for what man- kind inherit is inherited from the father and not from the mother — the mother merely nourishing and maturing the life within her womb — therefore, the child Jesus was born as perfectly free 124 THE MESSIAH. from sin as Adam when God created him. God was the only- Father of the child Christ as God was the only Father of Adam, descended through his mother from David, yet he inherited nothing from David. The angels of heaven are sons of God, whereas the pardoned souls of men are adopted sons of God — the angel Christ being born into the world out of a woman, the only angel thus born, is therefore the only born Son of God, the Holy Scriptures thus distinguishing him from all the other angels of heaven. The infant Jesus grew into childhood, into boyhood, and into manhood in all respects as man, and like Adam was nothing more than man ; was tempted by the world and by his own passions, as men are tempted ; suffered hunger and thirst as men suffer ; lived a life of perfect obedience to God in all things ; would have no will of his own ; made God's will his will ; all that God commanded him to say or do, that he said and did, so that what he said was as though God Himself spoke, as though the wisdom of God was manifest in the flesh and visible to the ■eyes of men. When Jesus had attained the age ordained by Moses for the assumption of the priesthood, he taught the Israelites that He was the long promised Messiah, the Deliverer of the souls of men ; but they, belie-ving the traditions of their false prophets, supposed that the Messiah would reign, not in heaven, but upon earth in great glory, as visible King of the Jews, subduing all nations under Him ; they therefore were disappointed, dis- believed Him, were angry and sought to kill Him. When the time appointed by God had fully come, God permitted the Israelites violently to take hold of the Messiah and mock and scourge Hira, and to nail Him cruelly as a culprit ignominiously upon a cross (as the prophets had foretold many hundred years beforehand), thus unwittingly sacrificing THE MESSIAH. 125 the Lamb of God ; and while upon the cross the Holy Spirit of God placed upon His body the great sin of Adam. The Messiah was suffering death in the stead of the soul of Adam, thereby rendering Him unholy in the sight of God, like as the lambs sacrificed upon the Jewish altars were unholy, and, therefore, annihilated by being burnt — an unholy state which anguished the holy soul of Christ throughout His earthly life, Christ foreseeing this dreadful cup of bitterness. For three days His body bore that great sin while on the cross and while in the tomb. Fop three days God and the holy angels in heaven mourned in anguish, for, while on the cross and while in the tomb, the only born Son of God, our kind Deliverer, was impure and unholy in the sight of God, and His eyes were averted from him. When the allotted time of three days had passed, God removed quickly the curse of another's unholiness from the body of His victorious beloved Son, and carrying Him tenderly into heaven, there placed him upon God's throne on the right hand of God, the place of highest honour next to God, and appointed him Judge in heaven over the souls of all men, the King of pardoned souls, their High Priest, their Deliverer- Almighty to save the true worshippers of God. The sacrificial death of the Messiah did not save the souls of men, the evil and the good ; it simply removed the curse of God which rested upon the soul of Adam through his great trans- gression. By the sacrificial death of the Messiah the holy justice of God being satisfied of life for life, God is enabled to pardon the sins of all who truly worship Him, repenting of their past misdeeds ; therefore the pardoned are carried into heaven not by their own merits, but through the mediatory death of the Messiah. So long as the curse rested upon man, God was very angry Ivith man, His holy justice being unsatisfied; but through the 126 THE MESSIAH. sacrificial death of Christ the curse and anger of God are removed from man, and His love is turned towards us as before the fall of Adam ; therefore Scripture calls Christ Emmanuel (God with us), for it is through his mediatory death that the anger of God is turned into great love for us. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last of all God's ransoms, because all-sufficient for the purpose. Upon this rock (these immutable facts) the kingdom of Christ in heaven, now invisible to us, is founded, whereof his visible Christian Church is part. His earthly subjects form his Church upon earth, which is his kingdom upon earth, he being the sole head of all, the only High Priest of God. When the risen Christ had been carried by the Holy Spirit of God into heaven, and placed upon the throne of God, at the right hand of God, iu the highest place of honour next to God, then the newly-appointed King of Heaven (as God's High Priest, and as God's Judge of all men) caused the souls of all the dead men which had been asleep to come forth for judg- ment, God's appointed Judge being now ready to reward and to punish. The judgment was awarded; those who died in their sins were judged unworthy to enter heaven, and were, there- fore, sent into perdition — sons of perdition — but the pardoned were carried very tenderly and lovingly into heaven by the Holy Spirit of God, being thoroughly purified by the sacrificial death of the Messiah, a holy army of angels, the first-fruits of God's love for man. Thereafter as mankind died, their souls v/ere judged and at once carried tenderly by the Holy Spirit of God into heaven, or sent into perdition. God has not abdicated His Godhead, neither is He changed, neither has Christ become God — he is still an angel, but the holiest angel in heaven. God has ordained that all men should bo'.v the knee at the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ. It is THE MESSIAH. 127 as tlie risen Christ, the vanquisher of Sin, the King and Saviour of the pardoned souls of men, the beloved Son of God, sitting upon the right hand of God, upon God's throne, and upon the throne of His kingdom — as our great Friend, that the Saviour is to be worshipped — and not to be worshipped as the man Christ; for while man, neither his mother nor his disciples, who believed in his Messiahship, worshipped him ; he had not ac- complished his mission, and was simply man — an unholy man while hanging on the cross by reason of the great transgres- sion of Adam, which God there placed upon him. Christ is the King of that portion of the heavens set apart by God as the habitation of the ransomed souls of men, their King, and Lord. The ransomed souls of men in heaven are not men, but angels of the kingdom of Christ. > The life of the body of Christ was sacrificed, slain to save the life of the soul of Adam, not the life of Adam's body, for God condemned that to die for ever, so that Christ laid down one life, not two lives. The thief upon the cross had the sins of his soul pardoned because he repentantly worshipped God, believing in the Messiahship of Christ, although only with his latest breath, but, for the sins of his body, his body was allowed to die and become corrupt, and eaten of worms, and finally to become dust of the earth ; in like manner the body of every man is annihilated for ever. The Holy Spirit of God telegraphs, as it were, to heaven as instantaneously as the touch upon a man's foot is communicated to his head, the prayers of mankind to God and to His Son ; but to no other being, for prayer to any other being is an unholy act, an act of superstitious folly, exhibiting faithlessness towards God and towards His Son. These are the true doctrines as taught in the Holy Scriptures by Christ and by his disciples. 128 THE MESSIAH. At no time since the creation of Adam, was man so wilfully blind, so cruel as when Christ was upon earth. This God foie- knew ; therefore, this was the time appointed for the advent of His beloved Son the Messiah, upon earth, because it was necessary for the souls of God-fearing men that they should be pardoned through the violent death of the body of Christ, a death which should not proceed from accident, but be purposely slain as a criminal suffering punishment ; and it was necessary that Christ should be perfectly holy and therefore estimable, and that he should fully exhibit his credentials before multitudes of men to show that he was really the long-promised Messiah by performing miracles. Men in all other ages, before and after, would have honoured Christ for his holiness, and would have believed in his Messiahship, and therefore would not have desired to harm him, and so, by not slaying him, have thwarted the design of God : this God foreknew, and that the Israelites living in the time of Christ were the only men of all mankind before and after who would have slain the Just One ; therefore God permitted them to slay him that they might, unwittingly, further God's plan of redeeming mankind, through the violent death of the body of Christ. Therefore the Most High God waited for nearly 4000 years. CHEIST IS COMING CHRIST IS COMOa PART IV. THE HOLT TEACHmeS OF GOD. CHAPTER I. The Unity op the Person op God. THE Holy Scriptures teach that God is one Holy Being as distinct in Person from the Messiah as the person of a human father is distinct from that of his son ; therefore the unity of the Person of God is the foundation doctrine of the true Church of Christ. The Messiah, Christ, while upon earth was simply a man — a man like to Moses, and like to every man — born to be a man, that he might as man succeed in passing through an allotted term of life upon earth as a perfectly holy man, accomplishing thereby what Adam failed to do — and that as man he might be able to suffer the death of his body, suffering that punishment as a transgressor against God, in the stead of Adam, the real transgressor; the whole being of the before angel Christ was concentrated in the man Christ, no portion of himself being i2 •132 THE UNITY OP THE elsewhere. Whereas only the Holy Person of God is concen- rated in heaven, but the residue of His Holy Self, His Holy /Spirit, the invisible cloud, is diffused everywhere beyond ; and all the angels, and Christ our Messiah, the heavens, the starry skies, and all within them move in that living cloud, like as the fishes of the sea move in the waters of the sea. Christ having succeeded in his mission upon earth, and being by God exalted to be the King, Lord, and sole Judge in heaven over the souls of those he has ransomed, is almighty to save the souls of his faithful followers, through the almighty power of God, whose almighty power would be exercised on behalf of Christ, the Judge appointed by God. Christ having the power to admit into heaven, or to refuse, is as though he were God, for God would carry out his judgment. Yet Christ is not God. The Messiah is like unto an earthly judge, whose just decree would be enforced by the whole power of the nation ; yet the judge is not the nation, nor independently of the nation, has he any power. So the power of Christ is wholly derived from the almighty power of his God, who also is the God of aU things. The Holy Person of God, whose dweUing-place is in the heaven of heavens, is sometimes called the Word, because He is the primal source of all spiritual knowledge. The Holy Spirit of God, the living invisible cloud, which is everywhere through- out space, being part of God (like as the wings of a bird are part of the bird), is also sometimes called the Word. The Messiah Christ is also sometimes called the Word, because he was an angel in heaven before he became man, and revealed greatly more than any other prophet the holy plan of God. The Holy Scriptures are also called the Word, because they are the voice of God. The risen Christ is sometimes called " Everlasting Father;" because, as no unpardoned child of Adam can enter heaven, his PERSON OF GOD. 133 children, when pardoned, are no longer the children of Adam, but become the adopted children of Cfovist, their ranson ; even- tually entering heaven to live everlaslsjlgly with him ; therefore Chriat is sometimes called their everlasting father — thus the redeemed have two spiritual fathers. 1. God the Creator, the one God, the Father of ourselves and of Christ 2. Christ our King, our Purchaser and Judge, who receives us into his heavenly kingdom as his adopted children. The Messiah was not our father by adoption, until we prayed to God for pardon, through the great atonement of Christ, whereas God is the Father of the holy and the wicked, the birds of the air, the fishes of the waters, and of all things, because He is their Creator. Spurious churches have long been bewildering themselves with the foolish and uuscriptual doctrine, that a Trinity of Per- sons constitute the One God, — a pagan doctrine forced upon the ignorant people in early Christian times against their common sense, at an epoch when superstition, false legends, and non- sense everywhere were rife, — the spurious priests miscalling their great credulity " Faith," thereby deceiving the well-dis- posed into giving blind credence and blindly accepting as the foundation of their Christianity the monstrous lie — that Three Persons constitute the One God. How is this great error known to be untrue 1 1. It is more in accordance with the absurd mythology of the Greeks and Romans living in the days of the early Christians, many of whom were Greeks and Remans, than with the common sense of mankind. 134 THE UNITY OF THE 2. God has many times declared that there is no other God than Himself. 3. The Scriptures nowhere mention a Trinity of persona as constituting One God. 4. The absurd doctrine was utterly unknown to the Israelites before the crucifixion, and to the twelve Apostles. 6. The utterance of the Prophets concerning the Messiah alluded to him as a holy being, wholly distinct in person from God. 6. The blessed mother of Christ, her husband Joseph, and the Apostles, although believing that Christ was truly the long-promised Messiah, accounted him in accordance with the prophecies as an angel who came from heaven, and being born out of the Virgin Mary became man, who through God's almighty power, in some way (inexplicable to them until after the resurrection) would save the souls of mankind from being shut out everlastingly from heaven. After the resurrection they fully comprehended, through the teachings of Christ, the mighty plan of God, and clearly understood that his birth out of a pure virgin, his attempted destruction by Herod, the flight of his mother and Joseph with him into Egypt, his great wisdom, his teaching, his great and many miracles, the testimony of John the Baptist, his peculiar public entry into Jerusalem, his betrayal, his crucifixon, his resurrection, the testimony of the angels at his tomb, and his teachings after his resurrection, were in exact accordance with the prophecies concerning the Messiah. Being convinced that he was really the long-promised Messiah they deeply reverenced him as the Messiah, PERSON OP GOD. 135 but did not worship him as they worshipped God — they taught the people after the ascension of Christ, that when upon earth with them he was simply a man like to themselves, giving him the highly reverential spiritual name of Lord ; but giving to his God alone the far higher reverential name of God. 7. The utterances of the Apostles, which speak of God and of Christ as two distinct holy beings — the son not equal in power to his Father, but subservient to his Father in all things, the son so obedient as to have no will of his own, but accepting the will of his Father as his own will. 8. The utterances of Christ himself, who ever spoke of God as a Holy Being, whoUy distinct from himself, teaching his disciples and the people to pray to God his Father, beseeching Him, praising Him, singing to Him, and giving Him thanks, never accounting him- self to be God — plainly saying that God is greater than himself, but calling himself the son of God. The unwise, idolatrous, early Christian priests, in their admiration of Christ, exalted him in their imagination to be God Himself, forgetting the Creator God, and exalting in then: foolish imagination his blessed mother as the mother of God — folly that has been widely perpetriated down to these days. Oh, foolish chixrches, how great has been your folly, how widely you have departed from the truth ; therefore how little you have been able to cope with the wicked heart of man ! In like manner as the Israelites, from the crucifixion down to these days, have erred in disbelieving the Messiahship of Christ, so the spurious Churches have, during many ages, exalted Christ in their imagination to be God. The Israelites and the spurious churches being equal in their great error — the one 136 THE UNTTY OP THE refusing to acknowledge him aa the long promised Messiah, the other exalting him in their imagination as being the Messiah, the Holy Ghost, and God the Creator also ; the Israelites refusing to give any glory to Christ, the spurious Churches madly rushing, in their ancient antagonism towards the Jews, to the opposite extreme, by robbing, in their imagination, God the Creator of His Glory, and giving all glory to the Messiah, to the great grief of the Messiah. Now clearly understand, oh ye nations of the whole world ! it was not God who was born out of the Virgin Mary, and who was crucified, but the before holy angel Christ — understand this, and the Holy Scriptures will be plain to your comprehension — Christians have erred greatly during so many generations, in like manner as the followers of Mahomet and of Buddah have erred — errors that were carelessly accepted by powerful rulers, evil and ignorant, and forced upon the priests and the people, generation after generation. The time is at hand, even knocking at the door, when your understanding shall be made clear, and neither the professing followers of Christ, nor of Buddah, nor of Mahomet, nor the unwise of other sects, will continue in their many errors. Evidences op the unity op God, and that Christ is not God but the son of God — two Holy Beings, whose persons are as distinct as the person of a human father is distinct from that op his son. Tte Record of the Prophets. The Psalms. PERSON OF GOD. 137 The Record of God concerning Moses. 1. " And he (Aaron) shall be thj^ spokesman unto the people ; and he shall be, even he, shall be to thee, instead of a mouth, and thou (Moses) shall be to him instead of God." 2. " And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee as a God to Pharaoh ; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet ; thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh." The Record of Moses. 1. " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet In the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, and unto him shall ye hearken." The Record of God. 1. "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment unto the Gentiles." 2. " And lo ! a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." 3. "Fear not, Mary, for behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus ; ho shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and ever, and of his king- dom there shall be no end. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, there- fore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God, for with God nothing shall be impossible." The Record of John the Baptist. 1. " The next day John seeing Jesus coming unto him, saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." 2. " John (the Baptist) bare witness of Christ, sajdng, This is he of whom I spake, he that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was (in existence) before v^e." 138 THE UNITY OF THE The Record of Christ. 1. "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me." 2. " My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." 3. " I must work the works (carry out the plan) of Him that sent me." 4. " I am only sent unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 6. " I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world ; again I leave the world and go to the Father." 6. " / can of mine oion self do nothing, as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which sent me." 7. " Whoever slvall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my hrother, and sister, and mother." 8. "The first of all the commandments is, The Lord owr God is one Lord." 9. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 10. "Why callest thou me good, there is none good but God." 11. "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the confidence of the Father, he has declared Him." 12. " The Father himself which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me ; ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape." 13. " I am come in my Father's «a»ie, and ye receive me not." 14. " I have greater witnesses than John (the Baptist), the works which the Father hath given me to accomplish the same works I do, they bear witness of mo that the Father hath sent me." 15. " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoso believeth in him should not perish but have everlast- ing life, for God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." 16. " / have not spoTcen of myself, but the Father which sent me, He gave me commandment what I should say; whatsoverl speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me so I speak." 17. " Let your (spu-itual) light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." 18. " Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 19. " Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no rewardof your Father whichisinhea/uen." 20. " Whoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess lefore my Father which is in heaven. He that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me." PERSON OP GOD. 139 21. " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." 22. " To sit on my right hand, and on my left hand, is not mine, but it shall be given to them forwhomit is prepared by m?/i^a- come good things. Fear not, therefore, but boldly and EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 193 promptly disendow every religion in your nation — it is enough for a state to teach the young, and hold fast the holy Scriptures pm'ely. In proportion to your promptitude in these things, oh ye nations ! so shall your misery be shortened. Behold ! the time is at hand when the spurious churches of the whole world will fall, because of their nonsense, and their unwise followers will be sorrowful ; but when the beauteous, true old Cliiu-ch of Chi'ist rises on their site, then will the hearts of all mankind rejoice ; their sorrow will be but for a little while, but their joy God will perpetuate for ever. And remember always, ye nations, that the children of God can govern their society better, far better than the temporal rulers can govern it. The meddling of temporal rulers is as a thorn to the true church, a very brand of discord, a great evil ; therefore, ye nations, let the true church govern herself. Understand clearly, oh ye nations of the whole world ! the children of men are born into the world without knowledge, but they acquire knowledge as they grow, either good or bad, according to what they see and hear, righteously inchned if well nurtured and rightly taught, evil inclined if left in igno- rance or wrongly taught. The welfare of a nation depends whoUy upon the right or wrong spmtual training of the people. Were the people to be ever so skilful in things appertaining to things of the earth, they would be an evil people, rioting in wickedness, if they obeyed not God. On the other hand, were the people very unskilful in aU earthly things, yet had love for God and for mankind in their hearts, they would be an esti- mable, holy people in the sight of God. Therefore, above all things, a wise nation should instil into the minds of all the children of that nation a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures ', a N 194 EDUCATinv OF CHILDREN. wise nation should claim all the children bom in the nation, and living within the boundaries of the nation, as in the guar- dianship af the nation. The nation shall not suffer anyone to stand in the way of a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures being grafted in the children of the nation ; this shall be the sacred duty of the nations; they shall not heed the many sects. The Holy Scriptures shall be to a nation as its church — the Holy Scriptures as accepted by the present Trinitarian Church of England, for they are not adulterated. It shall be the sacred duty of every nation to educate all their children in a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures as they are, without strain- ing them to suit this doctrine, or that doctrine, by trustworthy instructors approved of by the feation. Until the age of, at least, fourteen years, shall every child be educated ; it shall be accounted an abominable thing, disgraceful to the nation, for a child not to be educated, in that every child has a sacred claim to be taught how to save his soul. The children of a nation shall be deemed to be in the guar- dianship of the whole nation, entrusted by the nation to the sub- guardianship of their parents. Should the parents neglect their duty, then shall the education of the children be undertaken by the nation at some cost to the parents. No one shall be suf- fered to stand in the way of the education of the children of a nation. If a man be satisfied himself to be a fool, it shall not be suffered that he also make his children fools ; if a man be mulish in this sacred thing, he is unworthy to have the charge of his children ; it shall not be suffered that children should, by the neglect of anyone, breed evil in a nation. Ignorance of the Holy Scriptures, by the great mass of a nation, is the foun- dation of all the evils in a nation, whereas a right knowledge throughout the nation secures peace and happiness ; therefore svery nation shall consider it a sacred duty that every child be SPURIOUS CHURCHES. 195 taught that foundation of all true knowledge, a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Then will the laws of every nation be- come just and equitable, the people happy, and true followers of Christ, worshipping God from the heart ; then will all the nations be united together, each nation a separate branch of the one old Church of Christ. CHAPTER 11. Spurious Churches. LOOK around you, oh ye nations of the whole world, upon the many religions. Is there one that is sound, one that is based wholly upon the word of God, and governed in accordance with it 1 No, there is not one ; each is unsound, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot ; each has gone astray, therefore they will fall, and greatly will mankind rejoice hereafter, that they have fallen never more to rise again. Idolaters. Listen thou Papacy — chief of idolaters ; thou deceiver, calling thyself a Christian church, whereas thou art not so, thy idolatry severing thee from the Lord Christ ; thou mystifier and perverter of the Holy Scriptures, to serve thy idolatrous practices ; thou enemy of mankind ; the destroyer of souls that place their trust in thee ; the stumbling-block of the whole world, therefore the chief of the vile ones — know now that the God of Heaven has shut his ears from thee. He refuses to hear thy prayers always, because thy hypocritical priests have long perverted His holy teachings, that they might raise themselves above their fellows, and take the place of God, and of His Son ; N 2 196 IDOLATERS. teaching them the foolish doctrine of the ti'inity ; to bow and titter prayers before images — God's abhorrence ; teaching them to worship relics even, in thy great folly, spurious relics ; teach- ing them to worship bread, and worship wine ; to kneel before priests, confessing sins to those priests habitually ; teaching the people that thy priests have power, supernatural power, to for- give sins, thereby in thy great arrogance falsely pretending that thy spurious priests are even holier than the holy angels of heaven, who never have sinned, for they possess not such great power. From thy very commencement thou hast been false, more am- bitious to raise thy priests above other men than to obey God ; more arrogant in thy pretentiousness, and more cruel towards thy fellow men, than ever were the godless. Thou hast been more prominent than other sects, because of thy stricter dis- cipline, of thy greater audacity, of thy dissimulation, of thy great cunning, and because thou hast kept thy people from knowing atight in scriptural things other than what thy spurious priests teach them ; so that thou hast compelled them through their ignorance to be of thy spurious church. Nevertheless, many despise thee, for clearly they see on thy frontlet, "Liar !'^ stamped deeply. They have become bewildered, reckless of the future, and unbelievers in God, because of thee, and thy people have become almost as senseless as the heathen. Now know, that from thy commencement the Holy Spirit of God has refused to communicate thy prayers to God in Heaven. As thou hast refused to pray to Him, as all the holy men of old prayed, purely without images. He also has refused to listen to thy im- pure supplications. Where has His word taught thee to use images 1 Whereto worship bread, and worship wine 1 Wiiere to reverence relics 1 Where has it taught thee, that the people should habitually confess their sins to any priest ? Where has it taught any priest to be a pretender to supernatural power 1 IDOLATIiRS. 197 Where has it taught thee that auy priest has power to pardon sins, or authority to receive the kneehng reverence of men ? Where has it taught thee to arrogate thyself most presumptuously before God and man 1 The indictment is long, nevertheless it is not yet finished. Where has it taught thee that God is three separate persons? Where to pray to thy suppositious saints? Where has it taught thee to enjoin mento pray to imaginary saints, whom thou canonizest from time to time ? Where has it taught thee to worship a Queen of Heaven ? And where has it taught thee, thou adulterator of Scripture to suit thy follies and thy idola- try, that thy judgment is unerring, and that the judgment of the vilest of thy predecessors was unerring also ? The Holy Scriptures nowhere teU thee these things. Thou pretendest to thy people that thy spurious church is founded upon the Holy Scriptures ; thy doctrines and thy cruelty towards the readers of those Scriptures, who were in thy power, give thee the lie, for thou hatest the Scriptures, and greatly fear then' spread among mankind, lest their eyes should be opened and thou shouldest be seen to be but a mere idolatrous, spurious church, whose doctrines are not the doctrines of Scripture. Thy spurious church is based upon lies, and not upon God's word, like to the spurious church of Mahomet ; the name of Christ is to thee but a mask. Therefore God has shut His ears always, and has not heard thee, for thou art a spurious church. Yet a little while, and the earth shall know thy place no more for ever. The Non-Idolatrous Sects. Ye peoples who have separated yourselves from the great apostacy of Rome, ye did weU in so doing ; nevertheless, ye have not cast aside all her abominations, ye have prayed to God 198 THE NON-IDOLATROUS SECTS. without images, therefore His Holy Spirit has heard thy prayers ; but where has His Word tavight thee that God was three separate persons ? Where that the Lord Christ's feast was otherwise than a bond of spiritual love and union to the children of God, in remembrance of the great love of Christ for man, and of the great atonement 1 Where has it told thee that thy clerics have greater spiritual power than His children? Where has it taught thee that the ministers of thy many antagonistic sects were chosen by God to be thy spiritual teachers 1 Where does it teach thee that clerics are otherwise than simple leaders of His people, and teachers of His Holy Word 1 Where has it taught thee that thou mayest, without great sin, separate thyselves from the children of God, as though thou hadst no part nor lot with them, and as though thou vefusest to put on the wedding garment of mutual love and inity of purpose] Nowhere has it told thee; thou hast greatly aTed in not shaking thyseK perfectly free from the great ipostacy. Is it in obedience, oh ye peoples, to the holy precepts of God, that you are split into so many discordant sects 1 Is it because ye think yourselves the children of God 'I Is it not rather because ye are children of selfishness, of deceit, of sensuality, of spiritual pride, of obstinacy, of spiritual ignorance, and children of disobedience towards God and His glorious Son ? Is it not because ye are not truly the children of God? Deceive yourselves no longer, the children of God are not like you. How comes it to pass, oh ye spiritual teachers, that your people listen to you in the sanctuaries, month after month, year after year, yet fail to comprehend God and His Messiah ? Is it not because yourselves were bewildered by your predecessors, and in your turn ye bewilder and leave unconvinced your flocks; «o that in spiritual things they are even greater blunderers THE NON-IDOLATROUS SECTS. 199 than yourselves 1 Truly, both they aud you greatly dishonour God, because of your uonseuse. Ye unwise teachers, first lay the foundation of the Holy Scriptures firmly in your own minds, and in the minds of your flocks — the foundation being the mighty plan of God — then build your superstructure ; ye have erred greatly in dwelling wholly upon the superstructure, neglecting the snre foundation ; and ye have also greatly erred in not sufficiently striving for unity among yourselves. Ye did well, ye peoples, in separating yourselves from the vile Papacy ; and ye did well in separating yourselves from the corrupt lukewarm churches that came out of her; but ye all did evil in not uniting yourselves together, and ye did great evil in separating yourselves upon things of small doctrine — some of yon even separating yourselves because you preferred one form of service in the sanctuary to another — esteeming very lightly the great doctrine of spiritual love and unity among all mankind, a doctrine of great estimation in the sight of God, the broad foundation of the one true Church of Christ. Deceive yourselves no longer, the angels of heaven know of no severance in spiritual things, one from the other, therefore you are not like them. Ye believe in God, the Almighty Cx'eator of aU things, in the great atonement of His glorious Son the Messiah, and in the truth of the Holy Scriptures, these three doctrines axe the three great doctrines of the true Church of Christ, out of which proceeds the fourth great doctrine of spiritual love and unity among the children of God. If one of these four be wanting, then is the church not true, but spurious, like to those who supplicate before images or pictures. He neither heeds their impure supplications nor yours, for He abhors their images and pictures, and your wilful severance one from the other. Ye deceive yourselves, ye many diverse sects ; ye have 200 THE NON-IDOLATROUS SECTS. become superstitious as the Papacy, but differently ; in many things nonsense has in your hearts tisurped the place of commou sense, therefore you widely differ one from the other in your inter- pretation of the Holy Scriptures. Ye are not wise. Ye account yourselves followers of Christ, but ye dishonour him, for you obey him like as the rabble soldiers of an undisciplined army obey their chief, obeying him a little in the lesser things, but disobeying him much in the greater ones. Ye err greatly in supposing that God selects your spiritual teachers to be your spiritual teachers ; He neither turns them to the right hand nor to the left hand, nor you ; neither is it God nor His Holy Scriptures that prompt you to hate each other, even to glory in your spiritual separation one from the other, but the brutish passions and spiritual ignorance of your spiritual teachers and of yourselves. Ye rival sects ! you are as the brutish clans of a divided nation, not the source of strength to the kingdom of Christ upon earth, but the source of great weakness. Ye deem yourselves the children of God, but the true children of God are not undisci- plined and disunited as are you. They neither eat alike nor drink alike, no, not even are they wise alike ; but they love God alike, and His glorioias Son our Redeemer, and all love the Holy Scriptures with real love, for to them it is not as a book that is sealed, and they have zealous love for each other and for all mankind. These are the signs of the true children of God, signs that are wanting in you, oh ye disunited peoples. Ye are as the camp followers of an army, disorderly, disinte- grated, independent, captious, and not the true army of the Lord Christ ; ye are but savage followers, hating each other, separating yourselves one from the other through imaginative nonsense ; but for calling yourselves His followers, mankind would not know you were spiritual soldiers of the army of Christ, your ways are so much like the ways of the godless. THE NON-IDOLATROUS SECTS. 201 You deceive yourselves, oh ye sects, iu permitting your ministers to pray in the stead of yourselves ; henceforth pray for yourselves, sometimes aloud, like as you sing aloud, in unison. You do well in your singing aloud, do also well in your praying aloud. Ye go to the sanctuaries as listeners, ye (should also go as talkers and singers to God and His glorious Son ; as responding assentors to the prayers of the minister ; and as listeners, communing with God and His glorious Son in talking and in singing ; but most of you are as mutes, contentedly so. Ye deceive yourselves, oh ye sects, for your sincere prayers aloud, and your sincere songs aloud, are the main things in your religious services ; the preaching of your spiritual teachers is of less account, intended principally for the idle and the ignorant. But the strong in faith need not the preaching, for themselves search the Scriptures, understanding them equally ■with the preacher. The small things of the earth engross too much of your thoughts, and things of God too little ; therefore your hearts towards God and towards mankind are very cold. Ye are not really children of God, but children of the world, for the children of God have not hearts of ice, but warm hearts of love for Him, for His glorious Son, and for all mankind. It is because of the frostiness of your hearts that ye keep yourselves apart from the children of God. Ye have been taught to dislike small spiritual things, and to have cold hearts, because of the icy hearts of yom* spiritual teachers. They, finding themselves in the ministry of a sect, have no wish to be con- vinced of their want of spiritual love, lest through following the dictates of conscience, their daily food and the daily comforts of their families should be lessened. Therefore they strive to keep you apart, not for your sakes, but for their own temporal things. It is they who teach you to keep apart, one 202 THE NON-IDOLATROUS SECTS. iTom the other, and poor foolish weaklings, you take their will to be your will. Deceive yourselves no longer, your frosty hearts are not like the warm loving hearts of the children of God, whose hearts yearn and strive for spiritual unity. Ye have become icy, oh ye sects ! because ye have neglected congregating daily in the sanctuaries of your God. Ye have habituated yourselves by your severance one from the other to congregate together only on the Sabbath Day, therefore you have become cold-hearted, and your assembling on the Sabbath in the sanctuaries has become mere form. You do not assemble even on the Sabbath Day out of real warm love for God, but because it is more wearisome not to assemble than to assemble. Verily ye have frosty hearts. On the Sabbath Day ye appear to be followers of the Messiah — lukewarm followers only ; but on every other day ye have no appearance of being his followers, for ye act as those who do not pretend to be his followers — in this ye are less than the sincere followers of the Papal sect — truly ye are not children of God ! Your children's children will wonder and be sad because of your cold-heartedness, they will have greater love and be wiser than yourselves. The Holy Spirit of God has been grieved that ye were so blind, ye have mystified yourselves about that which is plain, and therefore art split into many sects, and have become almost powerless in winning souls to Christ. Thy faith is very weak and bewildered ; the enemies of God have their say against Him, and thou poor foolish weaklings, cannot answer them convincingly, and even are afraid of them ; some of ye even partly coincide with their foolish utterances, so that the fools think they have gained the victory. Ye have left the main road, and every sect has strayed into bye-paths of folly ; aU are in error and shall understand they are so. Repentantly ye shall return to the main road of spiritual truth, with kindliness of heart and THE TRINITABIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 203 tmity of purpose, and with real spiritual love ye sliall hold out the hand of fellowship one to the other, and walk amicably together as become the true children of God, bewildering your- selves no more for ever. Yet a little while, and the people having their spiritual eyes opened will leave all the sects of the whole world — all being the sects of Babel confusion and nonsense — in abhorrence of their cold-heartedness, their selfishness, their spiritual ignorance, and their wickedness, and will enter the true Church of Christ and be one with her for ever. Yoa believe in God, in the Jklessiah, and in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; what hinders you from uniting yourselves to those who also zealously believe in theml what hindei-s you from being baptized into the only true Church of Christ, and be instrumental for great good, and not as heretofore, powerless excepting for evil f There is naught to hinder you excepting only you.r former habits, therefore with wise resolve be baptized at once, and happiness, which hitherto you have not known, shall alight and rest npon you always. The Trinitarian Church of England. What shall I specially say to thee, thou lukewarm church, thou church still retaining many errors thou hast imbibed froia Rome ; thou church of the rich and not of the poor, thov church neither hot nor cold, thou church of Babel disorder and clerical rebellion. Sitting quietly down while myriads of thy people are utterly ignorant of God ; placidly regarding > thyself when thou oughtest to humble thyself to the very dust for thy great negligence in not winning their souls to Christ. They hunger strongly for spiritual knowledge, and behold ! the little bread of life thou offerest is so mixed with. ■204 THE TRINITARIAN CHURCH OP ENGLAND. thy chilling and upstart pretentiousness, and so clothed with thy mysterious nonsense, that they cannot eat it, because it is loathing to their common sense. Thou offerest to many nothing, ^nd to a few, as it were that stone, a thing indigestible to their souls. They ask of thee the pure Water of Life, and behold! thou offerest to them water made muddy by thy bewildering nonsense, so that they refuse to drink it ; therefore myriads of the people of thy nation live and die as cattle, utterly ignorant of God. They are as abominable in the sight of God as were the heathen of old, because of thy negligence and self-complacency. Thou hast complacently suffered the lay powers of the nation, who were oft times disbelievers and enemies of God, to control, gag, and play the fool with thee, as their price for -endowing thee. They have held thee in check, and been thy master, so that thou hast ever been a make-believe church, a mill-stone about the neck of all that is good in the nation. Thou hast caused the children of God to become split into many sects through thy lukewarmness in the cause of God and thy superciliousness towards the people, that great sin lies at thy door. Some of thy clerics are now sighing to awaken thee, but thou art drowsy, and others of thy clerics are cunningly carrying thy people into the vile Papacy, imitating it in their temples, rearing images over sacrificial altars, and there fooling before them. Still thou art drowsy. The bribes the enemies of God, the disunited discordant law-makers of the nation, give thee in endowing thee and thy fatness, make thee drowsy, and thy connection with the lay powers of the State, makes thee powerless, for thou art an obedient servant, contentedly so, of unwise discordant men. Wherefore is it that thy comparatively few temples are almost deserted by the very numerous poor, ■and have become assemblies for display of clothing ] Where- THE ISRAELITES. 205 fore is it that thy higher clerics shamefully neglect their duty, receiving too much gold, becoming rich, luxurious, and cold- hearted towards God, and supercilious towards the poor ; and thy lesser clerics discontented and unruly 1 Wherefore is it that thy lesser clerics are suffered to beard with impunity their congregations, and thy higher clerics are suffered to breed dis- union, cold-heartedness, and hatred among them — the very opposite of the feast of unity 1 Wherefore is it that thou dost complacently, year after year, suffer clerics, perchance unworthy clerics, to be appointed over congregations by laymen, perchance members of the vile Papacy, others perchance even infidels and the vilest in the nation, and to buy and sell thy clerical ap- pointments as though they were bartering for oil or wine 1 And wherefore is it that so many of thy clerics are so eager for pro- motion, not because of their zeal for the Messiah, but to satisfy their avarice, their love of ease, and their fondness for display ? Wherefore is it that so many of thy clerics are ready to have their photographs displayed, but to feed their vanity, to the great scandal of the people ? And wherefore sufferest thou some of thy clerics to retain each one of them several appoint- ments, that they may become rich in gold 1 The enemies of God mock Him ; and thou, poor weakling, art as one dumb, having no plain convincing arguments to turn them from being the enemies of God into His worshippers. Go, give place ! the Lord God and His Messiah disown thee ; thou art in the way. Yet a little while, and thou shalt be dissolved utterly. The Israelites. And now, ye seed of Abraham, ye children of Israel, ye mouraers, ye grief stricken, God's grief is as your grief, that 206 THE ISRAELITES. He has long listened but has not heard your suppliant cry. His Holy Spirit cannot, will not, transmit your prayers to God in Heaven, for ye despise the Holy One, His Son. Hitherto ye would not that the Messiah, Christ, should be your King, your Saviour, your great atonement. Why will ye so wilfully con- tinue to be blind. God's Holy Scriptures are read by you, and were also read by your forefathers ; but their false traditions misled them, and you continue to follow in their erring footsteps. Your false traditions have made you very unwise, oh ye children of Israel. Be wise now, and search diligently the Scriptures. Ye come of a wise stock, the wisest and best of all mankind of old, and ye will quickly understand that the same Messiah yourselves and your fathers long expected, was really crucified by your forefathers of old. God has abandoned you, refused to hear you, but for a time ; the time now athand, when, rousing yourselves, throwing aside your unwise stubborn- ness, you thoughtfully compare all prophecies concerning the Messiah that are in Holy Scripture, and so letting spiritual light into your minds, you find revealed that Jesus Christ was reaUy the Messiah, and was really crucified by the children of Israel unwittingly through their false traditions. Yes, God will then hear your repentant wail, your despairing cry, that cry for which He and the crucified One have so long been listening, that cry whicli to you will express so much grief, will give great joy in heaven, that the long lost and scattered sheep of Israel have at last been found, found repentant, supplicating for pardon, through the great atonement of the Messiah, the Lamb of God. Then will you all rise as one man, as men who have long been blind, and suddenly restored to strong spiritual sight, and each girding up his soul, will with great energy and zeal, be patterns to all your Christian brethren, and spread far and wide ■God's Holy Word, and compel the unconvei-ted, by iierseverance. KE-ORGANIZATION OF THE ONE OLD CHURCH OP CHRIST. 207 to understand it, and become God's holy children. Then will you once more become a nation, and take quiet possession of the land of your ancient fathers. CHAPTER III. The Re-organization of the One old Church of Christ, THE true universal Church of Christ is the Church of the Holy Scriptures — the Holy Scriptures as accepted by the Trinitarian Church of England, ignoring the traditions of men ; ignoring also the opinions of all mankind who have lived since the days of the last of the Apostles — accepting the Holy Scriptures as the only spiritual guide, accepting them in their natural sense, not straining any portion to uphold this doctrine or that doctrine. It is a church of spiritual truth, of mutual kindness, of strong zeal in the holy cause of Christ, and of unity of purpose. The church is a society, composed of the true worshippers of God, relying wholly upon the great atonement of the Messiah as their atonement, and accepting the Holy Scriptures as the only spiritual guide in the salvation of their souls, banding themselves lovingly together in accordance with the precepts of the Holy Scriptures, that they may worship God with unanimity of purpose, as it were with one voice, their holy supplications and their holy hymns of praise and thanksgiving ascending up to heaven continually, now here, now there, all round the earth, the church somewhere communing with God continually. It is a society which, not content with winning a home in heaven for themselves, ardently desire that those not of their society should become members, and win a home for themselves 208 KE-ORGANIZATION OP THE also ; ardently desirous of convincing the thoughtless and the ignorant of their great crime against the Almighty God, their Creator, and against the whole of mankind, in giving loose to evil thoughts and evil passions ; and ardently desirous of instilling into them a right knowledge Of the Holy Scriptures. The church is an army of resolute aggressors, seeking out evil, and dragging it into the light, there exhibiting its vileness, and restraining it with firmness of purpose, warring not against the bodies of mankind, but warring against their spiritual ignorance, their thoughtlessness, their follies, and all injustice,, especially towards the powerless poor. The mission of the true Church of Christ is to inculcate spiritual truth, and dispel spiritual falsehood; to instil spiritual knowledge, and expel spiritual ignorance ; to instil belief in God and in the Holy Scriptures, and expel disbelief; to inculcate a love of what is good, and abhorrence of all that is evil. To be matter of fact, than to indulge in flighty thoughts of the imagination ; to be of the true church, rather than of a spurious sect ; to follow the spirit of the Holy Scriptures in spiritual doctrine, rather than the imaginative doctrines of eiTing men ;, to rest in hope of happiness in heaven, rather than engross one's, thoughts wholly upon the thing's of the world ; to rely upon the mediatory death of Christ, in our supplications to God for pardon, rather than upon ourselves ; to instil into everyone the great love of God and of His glorious Son for us, and the fervent desire of God that He should be enabled by our upright- ness to carry us into heaven ; to inculcate that all our distresses ensue wholly through sometimes our individual follies, and sometimes through the wickedness of mankind generally ; to instil into every one the great truth that when anyone does wrongfully against God or against anyone of mankind, the wrong is felt also far off, like as when a stone is cast into still water ONE OLD CHU-RCH OF CHRIST. 209 disturbance is produced around ; to teach all to obey just laws, rulers as well as the ruled; to uphold spiritual common sense and expel spiritual nonsense ; to worship God aright and strive that everyone of mankind shall attain everlasting life in heaven ; to habituate mankind to be right-minded, to substitute order in the nations in the stead of disorder ; to favour perfect liberty to the well disposed, but firmly to restrain the evil disposed ; to eradicate fraud and uphold honesty ; to teach all mankind to cease strife and lovp peace ; to set aside unjust laws, and substitute just laws; to be tended hearted one towai'ds the other, and be of one mind in the main spiritual things; to be generous and not niggardly in assisting the distressed, especially the well disposed ; to be zealous in the cause of God, and not lukewarm; to abhor idleness and luxury; to love industry and sobriety; to be kind to the lesser creatures of the earth, and to cease destroying them for sport. This is the gloi-ious mission of the true Church of Christ. The strength of this great spiritual army is in proportion to the strictness of its discipline — the discipline being neither too rigid as to be irksome, nor so lax as to be disorderly — but like as every member of the chm-ch, being a child of God, restrains himself from doing evil in the sight of God, so he restrains him- self from being captious, discontented, or ambitious towards the church; trampling on his own evil thoughts instantly they enter his mind, not requiring others to restrain him as do the godless, but restraining himself that the many spiritual soldiers may be disciplined into one strong united army — the clergy being the officers, the lay members as the rank and file, Christ upon his throne in heaven being their King and great com- mander — they his aggressive, holy, united army, in the final war of good against evil. These are the missions of the true church ; missions, glorious to God, glorious to His Son our O 210 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS THE STATE. Saviour and King, and a glorious occupation for all the children of God. The Relation of the Church towards the State. The church shall make laws for the governance in spiritual things, of its own members ; every member shall honourably obey those laws — those of the nation not members of the church, shall not be suffered to interfere with the church in spiritual things. In spiritual things the church shall iiot obey them. No man not of the church shall have any authority in spiritual things over the church, for how is it possible that an unspiritual man can rule wisely in spiritual things ; the interference of unspiritual men breeds disorder wherever it is suffered. The church shall not receive endowment from the state, but the church shall govern and maintain itself. The church of the nation shall conform to the temporal laws of the nation ; should any law be unjust the church shall perse- vere and strive by argument to have it rectified. The church of a nation shall assist in upholding the good rulers of that nation, but shall keep apart from, evil rulers. With calmness, wisdom, and firm resolution, they shall not suffer any evil in- fluence to be forced upon them ; neither shall they force any laws of the church upon anyone not of the church. Perfect kindliness of heart, with active zeal in disseminating goodness, shall guide the church in its relation towards all mankind. If two or more members disagree they shall not resort to the judges of the nation in any one thing, unless one of the disputants be not a member, the church discipline having no binding eflfect upon that one, the dispute may then be carried before the judges in the nation ; but if the disputants are mem- bers of the church, they shall carry the cause to one of the UNITY IN THE CHURCH. 211 judges appointed by the chiircJi ; and they shall themselves, and not tln-ough advocates, state their case truly, as the children of God, as in the hearing of God ; and the judge shall lovingly advise and arbitrate equitably between them, and his award shall be tinal — burying the dispute. Unity in the Church. God has not caused the Holy Scriptures to be written plainly, neither did he prompt the prophets to prophecy plainly, their sayings and writings are full of truth, as it were veiled, that in trying to unravel them mankind might usefully spend their life, and ever find them fresh ; a mine of inexhaustible wisdom thinly veiled. God foresaw that familiar things would be almost unheeded, but unfamiliar things excite curiosity; that mankind would bestow little thought concerning the vast burning sun, the moon, the stars, and the other wondrous works of His, spread plainly throughout the world ; but that a travel- ling sun, a comet, an unfamiliar thing, would excite the atten- tion of all, yet not more marvellous than they. Therefore God in his wisdom thinly veiled by parable all things relating to the past, the present, and the future of man in the Holy Scriptures In like manner as the treasures of the earth are hidden in the earth, found only by those who diligently seek them ; so the more thoroughly the Holy Scriptures are searched, the greater is the treasure found, in each a mine inexhaustible, and thus the mind of man is kept from flagging. Had God caused the Holy Scriptures to be written plainly, as that all His truths might, like the stars, be apparent at a glance, men's knowledge of those truths would have palled their minds, and like the alphabet of their own language be rarely thought of. The ^veiled riches of the Holy Scriptures, like those in the earth, o 2 212 UNITY IX THE CHURCH. beckon as it were everyone to seek for treasure. At first he scratches only upon the surface, and finds but little, perhaps becomes disheartened that all the treasure has not thereby been found, and being idle seeks no more, ever after foolishly believ- ing that the earth has no treasure hidden in it. Whereas the true believer being earnest not captious, digs deeper and deeper still, every day finding fresh treasure, finding more the more he digs. It is therefore not possible that believers difiering so greatly in acuteness should think alike, yet God accepts their worship if they be not idolaters, for God intended that each should exercise his soul in trying to unravel the parables. He has provided for them this spiritual occupation ; errors of thought are made, but they are forgiven. He has given them perfect liberty to contemplate Him, however differently they may think ; their souls meditating upon goodness thereby be- come sanctified. It is forgetfulness of God which brings con- demnation on the souls of men, and not their difference of thought. Deceive not yourselves; God having given perfect freedom to the mind of man, it is not possible that the thoughts of men concerning anything can be alike — they are not alike, each thinks differently from his neighbour, even in the simplest matter. Nay, many shall see a certain occurrence, and yet each will of necessity differ in his account of that occurrence ; for the ramifications of thought are thousands of times ten thousand in number, therefore it is folly to expect to bring into unifor- mity all the thoughts of men ; the efforts of mankind have always been in vain, however cruel in their coercion. The Holy Scriptures teach that mankind sway themselves by two moving principles, good and evil — the one ensuring ever- lasting life, the other everlasting oblivion in the sight of God. All the good-disposed may be taught a right comprehension of UNITY IN THE CHURCH. 213 God, and be of one mind upon the four great doctrines of — 1. Love for God, 2. Love for Chi-ist, 3. Love for the Holy Scriptures, « 4. Love for mankind, And joyfully be baptized as members of the true Church of Christ. Difference in opinion concei-ning the lesser doc- trines giving joyous occasion of speaking and thinking of God, and not of engendering division ; for the good-disposed, being spiritually wise, can comprehend that unity is a neces- sity, but uniformity of thought upon the lesser doctrines is not a necessity ; no, nor yet exact uniformity upon the greater doctrines. To overcome a strong army that is against us, it is necessary that we should be stronger still. The strength of the well-disposed Christian army in the world to overcome the very strong evil -disposed army of the world con- sists in unity ; separately the well-disposed are powerless, but with unity of spirit the evil-disposed army will melt like snow before the summer's sun. Hitherto the many evil-disposed — evil- disposed through ignorance of God — have been paramount, because hate to the few well-disposed united them more strongly than love one for the other among professing Christians. Henceforth the many sects shall comprehend they are but sects at loggerheads one with the other, because they are not truly the children of God, and that not one of them is the trua Church of Christ. The well-disposed will cast aside their foolish notions, and they will come out of their many spurious churches untrammelled by aught ; enriching themselves with love for God — love for His glorious Son — love for the Holy Scriptures, and love for all mankind ; entering into the one true Church of Christ with zeal. God has given great variety throughout the world, no two 214 UXITY IX THE CHURCH. things are exactly alike ; nevertheless there is unity of purpose- and harmony throughout all God's works. God does not intend; that His children should do things alike, speak alike, think alike in all things, or eat and drink alike ; but God does require them to supplicate for forgiveness of siias through the mediatory- death of His glorious Son ; furthermore He does require them to take the Holy Scriptures as their guide, and He does require them to love and assist one another in the spiritual war against the wickedness of mankind. God is graciously satisfied with these four bonds of union, whereby mankind become His children. The children of God must also be satisfied with these, bonds of unity. The wickedness that reigns throughout the world is con- tinued by division among the children of God, through hypo- crites separating them as it were into distinct sects or families. One family requiring as it were, every one of its members tO' have pale flesh, or hair of a particular colour, or head of a particular shape, or legs, arms, or feet of a particular form, or teeth possessing certain peculiarities, each sect foolishly refusing to commune with others not possessing those peculiarities,, refusing to own them as brethren, looking upon them almost as a different species of man. To hold back, to be outside the pale of His true church, to- refuse to hold holy communion with the children of God, is to- sin greatly — is not to be provided with the wedding-garment o£ brotherly love. The Lord, in parable, feasted the maimed, the- halt, and the blind, at one great supper, not separating them^ for their defects were veiled through their acceptance of the Lord's invitation ; but there was one who, like the hypocrites^ preferred singularity ; he also presented himself, and showed, by" not having on a wedding-garment, that he did not own the Lord's guests, all of whom had on the wedding-garment of UNITY IX THE CHURCH. 215 unity, to be his brethren, preferiug to stand aloof from them, therefore ho was driven out with contumely by command of the Lord himself. Remember always that a few united men are almost power- less for good, but many, having unanimity of pm-pose, may remove the gi-oatest of all the mountains. In like manner, a sect is almost powerless for good. Rival sects fritter away all their power, neutralizing the good intentions one of the other, but their union as one church will enable them to do mighty things for the general welfare. Strive therefore to the very utmost, quickly to break down division; let everyone be no longer dissevered one from the other, and powerless, but zealously assist each other with unanimity of purpose. Hitherto you, oh sects, have set stubbornly your backs towards a central purpose, marching from it ; now wheel yourselves about, and advance with your faces towards the one Church of Christ your glorious King, let that be your centre of unity. Say not among yourselves, what saith this preacher or that preacher ; but rather say, " What saith the Scriptures ?" for let it be widely known among you all, that many having authority, and many teachers, will strive strenuously, even through falsely interpreting the Scriptures, to keep you dissevered. Satisfied with their position, they will strive to pi'event any change in your minds. Be w^atchful, therefore, and turn your backs on them. Let this be your answer : " Look around upon your nation, and behold the misery, the viciousness, and the spiritual ignorance of the people through disunion among the worshippers of God. We are almost powerless, therefore evil in all its forms is rooted in the habits of the people ; we will no longer be disunited, but with unanimity of purpose and kindness of heart wiU form one church, and root out those evil habits, and habituate them to that which is just, holy, and good." 216 CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. In the name of the Almighty God, and of His glorious Sou our great atonement, you are now bidden to commune and hold spiritual fellowship with all the children of God, the members of the One Universal Church of Christ ; their wedding garment is their holy bond of love and unity of purpose. Let not the Almighty God and His glorious Son see you without this wedding garment ; for the time has come when God will dis- tinguish those who are His children from those who are not, and he will declare those who hold back to be warring against Him. God desires to behold an army of united holy children, and not its scattered fragments. Behold the seed has now been sown in the richest soil the earth affords ; nevertheless the soil is very, very poor, yet the seed will sprout into a plant, and it will flourish, and man will not have the power to stop its growth, and it will overspread the earth, so that all the nations will nestle happily under it. Celibacy of the Clergy. It is not possible for a church of married clergy to be the one universal church over the whole earth, nor even over the whole of the nation. Of necessity it must be a lukewarm church, for married clergy are a perpetual weakness to a church, they are clerics who strive to unite God with the world, a thing impossible. Ofttimes they give themselves strongly to God, and almost ignore the world ; at other times, being sorely tempted by family associations and cares, they give themselves strongly to the world, and almost ignore God. Their family cares and temptations are like weeds, choking more or less a promising plant ; the plant would be a more goodly one were the weeds not there. JMarried clergy are as millstones to a zealous church ; they are a great source of lukewarmness, discontent, and discord CELIBACY OF THE CLERGT. 217 in a nation, for they are very burdensome to the weaklings of the people. The weaklings among the people are unwilling to bear the heavy yoke of the families of married clergy, in addition to the maintenance of all the schools and all the sanctuaries, so that the schools become insufficient, and the sanctuai'ies also ; many of the people become neglected, and live without comprehending God, as do the heathen ; the weak- lings of the church become discontented and captious, seeing the lukewarmness of the married clergy, and the shameful ignorance of the people, and many separate themselves from the church and become as enemies. It is better to use the dedicatory offijrings in maintaining many spiritual teachers than in maintaining many wives and their numerous children ; and it is better that a spiritual teacher should devote himself wholly to spiritual things, than that he should take to himself a wife and be harassed and become worldly-minded through family cares. A sensuous man is utterly unworthy to be a spiritual teacher in the Church of Christ. It is better that the lay members should be satisfied that their dedicatory offerings are wisely expended in extending a right knowledge of God, than that they should be wasted upon sensuous men. If a spiritual teacher desire mati'imony, let that teacher give place to another more worthy to be a servant of our God, and of His glorious Son ; therefore the clergy shall vow before a con- gregation, in the sight of God, to live a life of strict celibacy while they continue spiritual teachers of the people, and they shall cease to be spiritual teachers should they fail to continue celibate. This shall be a perpetual decree of the One Church of Christ ; it shall not be lawful for manldnd to annul or amend it. No longer shall the females be subordinate to male teachers in spiritual things, for hitherto men have signally failed to con- 218 THE CREED. vince either the males or the females, but the females of the Chui'ch of Christ shall be equal in spiritual things to the males, that the intelligent of the males may concentrate their zeal in opening the understanding of the males, and the intelligent of the females perform the same estimable office to their own sex ; for females are more amenable to the spiritual teaching of their own sex, and males to that of their own sex. Each sex shall have its own sanctuaries, its own spiritual teachers, schools, and institutions, set apart wholly to itself. Only to certain high spiritual male governors in the church shall the female teachers be subordinate, in all else the females of the church shall be equal in the sight of the church to the males of the church. The Creed. I believe the holy writers of the Scriptures were prompted by God the Almighty Creator and Governor of all things, to write them, therefore, I believe the Holy Scriptures to be true. I also believe the angel Jesus Christ came down from heaven, became man, suflfered dea.th for us, arose again, and ascended into heaven, where he reigns over the pardoned souls of the obedient who have preceded us into heaven, and over us his followers. I believe it the holy duty of all his children to obey him, worship him, to love and assist one another to the uttermost, and also to strive to teach all mankind to love, obey, and worhip him. Amen. The creed of the church shall be unchangeable, nothing shall be added thereto, nor anything be taken therefrom. It shall be for ever the one universal creed. 219 CHAPTER IV. The Re-commencement of the True Church. fT^HE true Church of Christ has been in abeyance from the -^ days of the last of the apostles until now, through the great errors of the Christians who came after. The good seed of the Word has now again been sown, and plenteous fruit will hereafter be produced. Upon the whole earth there is not found one priest worthy to ordain any of mankind into the ministry of the true church, for all the nations, with their priests, have gone astray. The long lines of successive priests, some well disposed, others very evil, have taught great error, therefore they were but long lines of successive evil. In the stead of a priest, two or more right-minded laymen shall, for this special occasion only, nominate one man, and one woman, right-minded like themselves, to be the first spiritual teachers in the church. The two or more laymen shall make it widely known in the nation, during four successive weeks, that upon a certain day in the fifth week, they, as the mouth- pieces of certain right-minded of mankind, will elect one man and one woman, to be the fii'st spiritual pastors of the re- organized church. The males shall nominate the male, and the females shall nominate the woman, and their selection God will deem good ; He will accept thenx as the leaders of His people. They shall afterwards assemble together, males and females, in' their first sanctuary. In the sanctuary they shall have an altar, not an altar for sacrifice, for that is not needed in the Church of Christ, but an altar for dedicatory offerings unto God. They shall in. 220 THE RE-COMMENCEMENT the sanctuary abjure aloud all connection with the many spurious sects existing in the world ; then they shall, through one male and one female spokesman, as mouth-pieces of the congregation, nominate the selected ones to be the first ministers of the true Church of Christ. Immediately thereafter the selected ones shall together ascend upon the altar, and before the congrega- tion, sprinkle themselves and one another with water, then suppliantly dedicate themselves aloud as zealous servants of God, to God, and they shall be the first ordained vicars of the true re- organized Church of Christ. The male vicar as the spiritual pastor of the males, and the female vicar as the spiritual pastor of the females. The males of the congregation of the choristers, and of the other officials of the sanctuary, shall also ascend the altar, and be baptized into the church by the male priest, and he shall suppliantly beseech God to accept them as sincere followers of the Messiah Christ, and themselves shall join aloud in the supplication and dedicate themselves to God, as zealous followers of His dear Son. The oSerings shall then and hereafter always be laid upon an altar and dedicated to God for the service of the church ; preparatory to their being used, and out of the dedi^iatory oSerings, the cost of the sanctuary shall be de- frayed to the sureties. In like manner shall the female vicar afterwards baptize into the church, in the first female sanctuary, the females of her congregation, and dedicate themselves upon the altar to God, and the cost of their sanctuary be defrayed out of their dedicatory ofl^erings. The two vicars, and the baptized of those two first congre- gations, shall be accounted as very honourable afterwards in the church. The two vicars shall have authority, by reason of their ofiice, to ordain others solemnly into the ministry ; none but those ordained by the constituted authorities in the church ehall be empowered to appoint spiritual teachers or ofl&cials in OF THE TRUE CHUECH. 221 the church, or be acknowledged by the church; for, hke as men diseipHne their armies so shall the church be disciplined, that order and authority may reign throughout. When twenty sanctuaries have been consecrated by the male vicar, each sanctuary having one rector and one curate, he shall appoint the most efficient of the rectors to be vioar over ten of the sanctuaries ; and thereafter, until they have a bishop, for every ten sanctuaries there shall be appointed by the whole of the vicars an additional vicar. As it is with the males, so shall it be with the females. When there are ten male vicars, they shall appoint, for this occasion only, one of their number to be their bishop, and he shall appoint and ordain, out of the rectors, one to fill the vacant vicarage. When there are ten more male vicars, the bishop shall appoint one out of the vicars to be a bishop, and the two bishops shaU appoint one out of the rectors to the vacant vicarage. Then they shall separate the nation into two dioceses ; one shall be bishop over one diocese, and the other the bishop over the other diocese. From time to time, as the church increases in growth, so they shall adjust the extent of the vicarage districts, both male and female, and for every additional ten male vicars the bishop shall appoint, as before, a vicar to be a bishop, and a rector to be vicar in his stead, the bishops separating the nation into dioceses, and adjusting the vicarages as they may deem necessary. When there are ten bishops they shall appoint, for this occasion only, one of then- number to be their archbishop, and the bishops shaU nominate one of the vicars to fill the vacant bishopric. When there are twenty bishops, then the archbishop ■223 THE RE-COMMENCEMENT OF THE TRUE CHURCH. shall appoint out of the bishops another archbishop ; and for levery additional ten bishops the archbishops shall appoint, out of the bishops, an additional archbishop. From time to time, as the church increases, so shall the archbishops adjust their :arch-dioceses. Every bishop in the sight of God is equal one to the other, and every archbishop is equal in the sight of God sone to the other. In changing a cleric from one ofl&ce to another, the most zealous and fittest shall be selected ; the welfare of the church shall be strictly kept in view, no undue favoritism shall be ■shown. The high officials of the church shall set a good example to the nation in this matter, and the whole church shall dutifuUy acquiesce, without any demur, in those acts of discipline. The curates and school teachers of a sanctuary shaU be appointed by the rector of that sanctuary ; the rector of a sanc- tuary by the vicar of the district wherein that sanctuary is located — to vicarages vacant through death or other causes, by the bishop of that diocese, out of the rectors ; to bishoprics vacant through death or other causes in an arch-diocese, by the archbishop of that diocese. All the bishops and archbishops shall be males ; the female spiritual teachers shall be subordinate to the bishops, but not to the lesser male priests. From time to time the bishops and archbishops shall hold