It would but weary our readers were we to subject the whole of Mr. Waldegrave's thick octavo to an examination as minute as has been already bestowed on his opening lecture. Nor is it in any sense requisite. The principles of interpretation laid down in the first lecture are so carried out and applied in the subsequent discourses, that if we have succeeded in sheaving these principles themselves to be faulty and unsound, we need bestow no pains on the discourses which are confessedly founded thereon. The fundamental character of the “axiomatic propositions” with which our author commences the discussion, is not only admitted, but triumphantly asserted, both by the London Quarterly and the British and Foreign Evangelical Review. The latter declares that these propositions constitute “the best feature of the work;” while the former says that, “with great force of argument,” he “successfully establishes” them, and lays them down “as essential to the correct interpretation of the word of God.” We are happy to find that since our first notice of the volume, it has been reviewed both in the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, and in the London Monthly Review. Both works concur in the condemnation clue to Mr. W.'s fundamental axioms; while our own readers, we trust, have been fully satisfied, that humbly and prayerfully to study the prophetic portions of God's Word, whether figurative or literal in their style, is a more likely mode of arriving at the truth on prophetic subjects, than Mr.W.'s plan of subordinating the greater part of prophetic scripture to other portions, in which prophetic subjects are not handled. Let the word of God speak for itself as a whole, is what we should earnestly suggest; and let us not cumber ourselves, in the study of it, with rules and principles of man's devising.
The second lecture has already been slightly noticed. We only now add, that, in common with Mr. Lyon and other post-millenarians, the lecturer merges all that is distinctive of Christ's royalty, or kingdom, in the place which he fills as the Redeemer, or Savior, of his people. Referring to his three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, Mr. W. affirms that they are “conferred for the same object,” and he defines that object to be, the “salvation to the uttermost of the people of God.” Our brethren see nothing in Scripture of a period or dispensation in which Christ is to be displayed as the Second Adam, inheriting through redemption, the dominion forfeited by the first, in which the sword of government first entrusted to Noah, and since wielded by so many for purposes of selfish ambition and revenge, shall be held by the One, of whom David sang: “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God; and he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain,” 2 Sam. 23:3, 43The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 4And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. (2 Samuel 23:3‑4). —in which David's royalty shall be exercised by David's Son and Lord, and in which the supremacy of the four great Gentile kingdoms shall be set aside and replaced by the final and universal kingdom of the Son of Man. With them everything is limited to the single subject of the salvation of the soul, and the glory of Christ in connection therewith: or, if there be one superadded thought, it is that of his glory as Judge, on the great white throne, declaring the final award of each individual, in the sentence of endless happiness, or eternal woe. But to state such a theory is to refute it. Its own poverty and nakedness, form the most striking contrast to the richly varied testimony of Holy Writ, to “the sufferings of Christ and the glories (see the Greek) which should follow.” Of these glories, the “many crowns” on the head of Jesus are the expressive symbols; and while to saved sinners the name of Savior may well be the sweetest that they know, who that knows that name would wish the One who bears it to be despoiled of any one of those “many crowns,” or to be shorn of that other name, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS"?
No doubt there is a kingdom, of which our Lord spoke largely and solemnly while on earth: a kingdom which he announced as then near at hand, and which did form a most prominent subject of his instructions to his disciples and of his discourses to the multitude. But nothing can be more unfounded than Mr. W.'s assertion, that “the words, ‘kingdom of heaven,’ ‘kingdom of God,’ and ‘kingdom of the Son of man,’ are in the gospels, convertible terms,” p. 44. Mark and Luke do indeed generally use the term, “Kingdom of God,” where Matthew uses the phrase, “Kingdom of heaven;” but this fact by no means proves them to be in themselves, and universally, “convertible terms.” “Kingdom of heaven” is a phrase used nowhere in Scripture but in Matthew: and the instances in which that evangelist employs the other expression, “Kingdom of God,” show most decisively that they are not “convertible terms.” “The kingdom of heaven” is always spoken of by our Lord as future, though near at hand; and for this reason, that it denotes a rule or sovereignty exercised by himself after his ascension to heaven. Accordingly, where in Matthew he speaks of the kingdom as then present or existing, he does not use Matthew's phrase, “Kingdom of heaven,” but changes it to that of the other evangelists, “Kingdom of God.” “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you,” Matt. 12:2828But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. (Matthew 12:28). “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,” ch. 11:43, And while even these two expressions are thus seen to be anything but uniformly interchangeable, the other phrase, “Kingdom of the Son of man,” is in the gospels contrasted with the ordinary use and signification of Matthew's term, “Kingdom of heaven.”
The proof of this we proceed to place before our readers.
The great subject of Matt. 13, our Lord himself being witness, is “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” The disciples ask why he speaks in parables to the multitude, and in reply he says, “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” Why does he say “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven?” If the kingdom of heaven as now existing be, as our author affirms, “the proper kingdom of Christ,” if it be, as the third lecture seeks to show, “the true kingdom of his father David; “why should such an expression be employed as “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven?” The fact is, that the Old Testament had foretold that “the children of Israel” should “abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.” But then it had also declared, “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days,” Hos. 3:4, 54For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: 5Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 3:4‑5). Isaiah, too, had borne witness to the judicial blindness which was to come upon Israel. Our Lord quotes his words in this very chapter: “This people's heart is waxed gross,” etc. The prophet's anxieties had been awakened to know the duration of this judgment on his beloved people, and he had asked, “Lord, how long?” receiving for answer the words, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land,” Isa. 6:11, 1211Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. (Isaiah 6:11‑12). It would be superfluous to attempt to exhibit here Isaiah's testimony to Israel's restoration and blessedness at the close of this long, dreary period. It was shown in our last paper but one, how fully the prospect of Israel's restoration, and of our Lord's return in power and glory in connection therewith, is recognized both by himself and by the apostle Paul. Then the kingdom of God will come with power. Then shall the dispensation of the fullness of times be ushered in, in which all things, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, shall be gathered together in one, even in Christ. (See Eph. 1) But how was the interval to be filled up? In what character was the ride of heaven, or of God, to exist during the days of Israel's blindness and dispersion, and during the consequent postponement of the proper kingdom of Christ—the kingdom of the Son of man? “The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” as unfolded in the parables of Matt. 13, form the answer to this deeply momentous question. Christ was to suffer first, and to reign afterward. This all Scripture shows. But more than this——his kingdom was to exist in mystery first—in open manifestation afterward. The transition from the one state to the other is, moreover, most definitely set forth in this very discourse. “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of HIS KINGDOM all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. THEN shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” verses 41-43. Then it is, at the harvest—the end of the age, that mystery terminates, and manifestation begins. To this agree the words of the mighty angel in Rev. 10:7: “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God” shall “be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” Accordingly we read, chap. 11:15: “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever.” But with our brethren, the kingdom in mystery and the kingdom in manifestation, the period of patience and that of judgment in power are hopelessly confounded: nor do they suppose that the Son of man will gather out of his kingdom all things which offend, till just before he delivers up that kingdom to God, even the Father, when God shall be all in all One strange argument brought forward by our author in Lecture 3 we must not overlook. Stating his subject to be, “The true meaning of the prophecies, which are said to require that Jesus of Nazareth should yet be manifested to the world as King of the Jews,” he says: — “I begin by remarking, that if the pre-millenarian interpretation of those prophecies were sound, the New Testament is the very place of all others where we might naturally expect to find it clearly enunciated. The Jew had his full share, both in the sermons the apostles preached, and in the letters they wrote. Affection would combine with duty in prompting the first heralds of the gospel to take every stumbling-block out of his way. And what were the stumbling-blocks of the Jew? Messiah crucified, and the door of faith opened to the Gentiles. What then, I may well ask, would have been the obvious course for the apostles to follow, if Israel's ancient glory was yet to be received under the personal government of Jesus the Son of David? Surely they would have said, 'Be not offended at a crucified Messiah; the prophetic writings must be viewed in their integrity; they speak of the sufferings of Christ, as well as of the glories that should follow; you do wrong to overlook the cross, while you gaze so intently on the crown. O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken; learn first to accept as your Messiah the despised and rejected Jesus; soon will he come again as Israel's triumphant King.'“ etc., pp. 84-87.
This, says our author, is the way in which modern millenarians would preach to the Jews, and in which he supposes the apostles would have addressed them, had they been millenarian in their views and expectations. But did Mr. W. forget, when penning these words, that millenarians hold no less really than himself, that Israel's rejection of Christ was an awful sin, justly punished by the nation's longest and most complete dispersion? that however grace might linger over Jerusalem, so long as the feeblest hope remained of its repentance, the only token of real repentance would have been their cordial reception of the Christ they had crucified? and that as long as this point was held by them against God, no one who cared for God's glory could use his promises of final restoration for the purpose of coaxing and flattering impenitent rebels, as Mr. W. supposes millenarians would have done? Mr. W. writes as though millenarians deemed the rejection of Christ by Israel to have arisen from a mere intellectual mistake; as though we thought this mistake had only to be corrected, for Israel to receive him with open arms! Alas! it was a widely different case, They had both seen and hated both Christ and the Father. They loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own, they had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Let, then, the final purposes of God's grace as to the nation be what they might, that which the apostles had to testify to the Jews was this, that persisting in their rejection of the Christ they had crucified, continuing to resist, as their fathers always had resisted, the Holy Ghost, judgment was what inevitably awaited them. What would our author think of preaching the glories of heaven to such as were obstinately rejecting the gospel of God's grace, and hardening themselves in sin? Just as reasonably might the apostles have dwelt in detail on the glories of Israel's future restoration, to the men who were ready to follow up the murder of the Messiah by the murder of his martyr, Stephen.
Still, where it was a question of ignorance, and not of willful rejection of the truth, our Lord does (namely, to the disciples) use the very words which our author supposes would have been suitable, had millenarianism been the truth. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory.” Yea, more; until Jerusalem's rejection of an ascended Christ was fully confirmed, the apostles did present the hope of Christ's return, to bring the times of refreshing, the times of restitution of all things, as one great motive to repentance. This was shown in a previous paper, to which our readers can refer.
But while, in addressing that impenitent generation, it would have been preposterous to dwell in detail on the glories and triumphs which await repentant Israel in the latter day, the apostles' silence as to these details is no justification of our author in denying them. The denial of Israel's prospects, as unfolded in the Old Testament, may be, and is, a stumbling-block to the modern Jew, when connected with the preaching of Christ crucified. This fact millenarians have pointed out with obvious justice and conclusive force: but it does not follow that Mr. W. is entitled to put words in their mouth, or, rather, on their behalf to put words in the mouths of the apostles, the folly and extravagance of which must appear to all. The folly and extravagance rest not with millenarians, but with the author, who could thus misrepresent the requirements of their doctrine, supposing it to have been that of the apostles themselves. We are perfectly content with what the apostles did say, and immeasurably prefer it to any millenarianism put into their lips by Mr. W.