umphant fruitfulness, perfectly opposed to the picture of that at Laodicea; therefore that hypothesis which infers such a contradiction of Scripture must be false. Now the first answer here is similar to one of the preceding answers; namely, that a position professing to be demonstrated from admitted premises, and not merely tentatively settled, will not necessarily fall by any counter demonstration, still less by any counter experiment. The two conclusions may be contradictory in appearance only: and although really contradictory, still, unless the counter demonstration establish error in the original demonstration, there is just as much reason to conclude that the former is erroneous as the latter so that the objection may just as probably operate against, as for, him who uses it; and, at any rate, generates the suspicion that his own argument may be unsound. And the second answer is one fearlessly and positively made,―That the rest of the Scriptures do not represent the church as in a flourishing state, but, on the contrary, unanimously represent it as in a state of consummate backsliding, ignorance, infidelity, and pride, immediately before Christ's second coming. So advisedly is this statement made, that, if it were legitimate to seek empirical warrants for a method of interpretation, the exact correspondence between the Laodicean church, and the state of matters at, or immediately before, the great day of the Lord, would of itself powerfully recommend the idea of seven successive states, instead of being, as some think, and as they would justly think were their premises true, a circumstance conclusive against that interpretation. Did it appear clearly from certain principles that seven successive states were indicated, and were it proved, on examination of history, that all the first six states had applied, it would require more than common evidence to shut out Laodicea from the next place-alas! too surely hers. She is yet future. Her correspondence cannot yet be verified but when the meaning of those who plead for a flourishing church before the Lord's coming is, that the Millennium precedes that advent; and when the challenge may be safely, because scripturally, made, for any one individual text which, unless torn from its contexts and recast in the mould of perverted invention, declares the personal coming of the Lord (however clearly it may declare a judgment) to be AFTER the Millennium; one has good reason to hold this objection in constant remembrance. To Laodicea will it be imputed that the Son of Man, when he cometh, shall come in wrath on a church that denieth his name, and shall hardly find faith on the earth. This is not the place to demonstrate from the word of God the fallacy of an objection like this, which comes so plausibly, yet with such lethargic influence, apparently from the word of God. But through the help of God the demonstration shall come and so far from the suc cession of states being disproved by the scriptural account of the state of the church at the time of the end, that succession, acting as the basis of a practical and overwhelming argument concerning the impending woes of Laodicea, will be the best adapted to uproot those very errors in doctrine which pretend to exclude it. In stating that the addresses sent to the several angels of the seven churches of Asia are also direct addresses to the catholic church at successive periods during the whole currency of the Gentile dispensation, it is not meant to say that nothing but what applies to that dispensation is contained in these addresses. Each of the epistles is unquestionably quadripartite; consisting of the title of Him who saith, the assertion of the state in which he sees the church, the consequent exhortation or threatening, and the promise. Of these, while the whole are sent as one, the three former are directly addressed to the angel (or minister) of the particular church Asiatic, or period catholic, so as to establish their special application; while the latter, addressed to the whole of the churches, which are successively addressed in special under the three former, evidently applies to the catholic church when it shall have ceased to undergo successive phases. And with this view the initial command of our Lord to John strictly accords: "Write the things which thou hast seen (proved to be the whole book)," both "—(not and, for the things seen, besides being the whole, were partly present, and so the division would be inaccurate)-" both the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter" (or after these, the things which are), i. 19. The things which are include the present age, the first three parts of each epistle: the things which shall succeed, express the age to come, the last part of each epistle. The second and third are obviously the only portions of each epistle which directly refer to the Gentile period: for the first is a doctrinal statement of Christ's character, and the fourth is a promise, to be fulfilled, not during the militancy, but in the manifest triumph of the church victorious. At the same time, as all the four parts are included under the envelope of one epistle to each of the seven churches; that is, to each of the successive eras of the catholic church; and as the whole of each epistle is studiously addressed to the particular angel of each church, so that he receives the concluding address to the churches just as directly as he does the other three parts; it follows, that, although none but the second and third directly treat of the particular era under which they stand, the whole four parts are adapted to that era in particular. Therefore; that title which Christ, out of his exhaustless variety, sees meet to assume in writing to each particular era, is clearly intended to afford, when faithfully contemplated, a species of edification peculiarly suited to the church during that era; although ab stractly, and irrespective of its place, such a title need not possess any such peculiar application. And no less manifest is it, that, on the same principle, the promise of triumph, seven times repeated variously to the whole church, is, by the respective allocation of the seven points of view in which it is placed, marked out as that common and universal hope which in each era is to be contemplated with the greatest amount of edification in the particular aspect there exhibited. Such is the Divine fitness and symmetry of God's word; a symmetry and a suitableness the theory of which a careful analysis will in this, as in every instance, fully and most instructively verify. Having ascertained that the Asiatic succession of place directly represents the catholic succession of time; that the time within which that succession lies is the Gentile dispensation; and that this succession occupies or exhausts the whole of that dispensation; we have a sweeping and conclusive answer to all who object, that, before going into the application of these periods to our church, we must shew a warrant for expecting any such application. And it is of the utmost importance not only to admit at the time the foundation of such an answer, but to apply it continually; because a vast proportion of the difficulties raised in the minds of men on the subject will be found to proceed from an heterogeneous, confused, and often unconscious combination of two classes of objections, totally distinct: the one, that no such successive application at all can be legitimately sought for; the other, that any particular successive application proposed is not the correct one. Truth and competency are alike necessary, but not the less entirely separate. The attempt to establish the truth of a position presupposes the establishment of its competency, although the proof of its competency does not imply the establishment of its truth. But it were contrary to all canons of reasoning to argue against the competency of a position, that it would be afterwards found untrue; and it would be at least equally so, to adduce, against a subsequent endeavour to prove its truth, objections against its competency, when nothing but the previous establishment of its competency is the warrant for approaching the question of its truth. If an original attempt be made to shew that the seven epistles have no direct and successive application at all to the whole of the Gentile dispensation, well; but it will not then do to amalgamate that attempt with some premature objection to the truth of any particular application contemplated. If an after attempt be made to controvert any particular allocation of the eras so indicated, well; but it will not then do to amalgamate that attempt with some objection stated too late against the competency of making any such attempt at all. Things must be done in due order; and both these modes of confusing the inquiry are such as can find both their origin and their reception in nothing but inability or unwillingness to distinguish and keep distinct two questions, connected with each other, indeed, but in no way depending for their decision on one another. If the addresses have a catholic, successive, and complete application, then, just as certainly as they all lie within the Gentile dispensation, each must lie somewhere in due succession within it. The discovery of correspondence between these words of God and the facts of history, is no indeterminate problem. The field of choice, the number of facts, is limited. In the history of the Gentile dispensation the facts find both their term and their amount. The calculation of all the possibilities among the important facts of history, would be no arduous task. The discovered error of one application in no way affects the applicability itself; and by diminishing the chances of error and the number of possibilities for the future, it invites, instead of repelling, inquiry. And it is no escape from this to say, that none of the events which shall fulfil the epistles have yet occurred: for all admit that a part, and some know that nearly the whole, of the Gentile dispensation has run out; and of that which commences, proceeds, and ends with the dispensation, part must have been brought to pass in eighteen hundred years of the dispensation. God, who never takes his church at unawares with his mighty works, and who has made it her bounden duty, her divine prerogative, and her blessing-crowned employment, to derive warning and encouragement and wisdom from the knowledge of things to come, taught by the Spirit who has indited them, does assuredly and invariably send into his church, as the preface of each crisis, not a new revelation, but a new light upon the old. He who has revealed nothing except to faith, who alone can shed light on the least iota of his word, can shed that light at such times, and in such ways and proportions, as he sees meet, towards the development of his purpose; giving to his people meat in season well suited to the time at which they live, whether the householder, who ought to have it, and from whom they ought to expect it, have it for them or not. (Matt. xxiv. 45.) And the short answer to the question with which men unstable, unlearned, and slow of heart, meet every announcement of a coming work or a novel doctrine-namely, How, if this be so, was it never discovered, or at least similarly dwelt upon, by holy men and able students of former times?-is simply this, That in those former times God, who suffers not all things to continue as they were from the beginning of the creation (2 Pet. iii. 4), had not the work to do, had not that use for the reception, at least for the proclamation, of this doctrine in the church, which he afterwards has. That we do live in the last days, at the end of the age that is, will abundantly appear in the sequel the thought of this, even as a peradventure, is a most solemn one; the responsibilities arising out of it are most grave. All information as to the future history of the age that is, replete as such a history must be with momentous conjunctures, acquires in this view a most intense interest, and, next to the knowledge of Christ crucified, a paramount Scriptural importance: for assuredly we behove to give those events our best attention which most nearly (in their kind) concern us. And therefore, although the principle which requires a successive application of the seven epistles is in itself wholly independent of the experience furnished by history-in no way weakened by its not having arrived, in no way strengthened by its arrival-still, with a view to the removal of stumbling-blocks, which might prevent in any way the members of the church from receiving the interpretation of the seven Gentile eras, it ought to be thankfully remarked, that at the very period when the employment of that interpretation in the way of warning and direction for the future has become peculiarly indispensable, the lapse of time has so materially aided its verisimilitude in an empirical point of view. Had the Gentile church. now gone through but one of the seven eras or epistles, still the knowledge that the remaining six were assuredly to complete her history in regular order would have enabled the faithful to foresee, as far as the epistles went into detail, the future lineaments and changes of the church in terms of these epistles, just as confidently as they could contemplate the history of the period then past. Neither their inability to predict any thing not stated in the Scriptures, nor their inability to fix on certain events in a history not then existing, as the particular events which should bring God's words to pass, would have affected in the least their ability, by faithful prayer and study, to interpret and to employ God's predictions concerning what should befal his church, howsoever to be brought about for it well becomes us to remember this, that if the sureness of the Lord's word is that on which we confidently rest as his children, (however exalted ideas of his power may be had from observing his prophecies fulfilled,) the accomplishment of that word may illustrate it, but cannot render it a whit more sure; else, to say the best of it, his providence, and not his word, is that to which we trust. But when, besides being assured that the principle of the epistles points to seven successive eras, we find, on faithful experiment, the truth of that principle set beyond doubt, by discovering that a very large proportion (five, as it shall be seen) of these eras have already come to pass, with the most exact adaptation to every word of the (five) addresses, the just application of the principle to the interpretation of the remainder, as the features with which the Gentile dispensation shall conclude, is placed : |