USA > Indiana > Indiana Methodism: a series of sketches and incidents grave and humorous concerning preachers and people of the West with an appendix containing personal recollections, public addresses and other miscellany > Part 25
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Things, are still, in our churches. No dog wags his tongue so as to make the devil's swine squeal. The Lord forgive me if I speak uncharitably. We are well. Soon I shall get to business, and fight, and watch and pray. But O, how every power of my
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soul says, I ought to have a better chance. But not as I will but as the Lord will.
We have you all in our hearts, the place of goodly treasures. You both areremembered in love. May God bless you and Sister Smith, more and more. Amen.
Yours Truly, J. W. T. MCMULLEN.
III.
LaFayette, Indiana, March, 23, 1885.
DEAR DR. SMITH :-
I send you some thoughts on the sacred numbers of the Apocalypse. Three, in the unity of the divine nature, is the number of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Four in the number of the cherubim as representatives of the universal four in creation : matter, plant-life, brute-life, and spirit-life ; whether in angels or in human souls.
Four Cherubims, with their sunny-eyed, six wing- ed forms,-the first having the face of a lion ; the second, the face of an ox ; the third, the face of a man ; the fourth, the face of an eagle, - is a revela- tion of the Divine, causing every atom of dead dust to act as if each were full of eyes, and to move as if each had six wings, and to behave as if every el- ement knew which way to go, and how to take their places in exact time, and hold to each other, and work together in all vegetal forms, in all animal
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frames, and in all human and spiritual bodies.
Seven is the sum of three and four - three, the sum of the Divine nature, and four, the sum of cre- ated nature, - matter, life in plants, life in animal forms, and in all spiritual bodies. Seven in the colors of the rainbow arch, over the throne of the Infinite Father, is a number of completeness and · perfection in the divine, and in the created, as the best possible system, on the whole which could have been made. Hence, too, the seven colored rainbow is the symbol of the Father's complete and perfect love and mercy to his fallen children. Seven in the seven horns and the seven eyes of the Lamb, ex- press completeness and perfectness of the Divine in Jesus, as having all power to save his people, and rule his foes, and as having all power to see and know how to serve and how to punish. Seven also reveals the one perfect and complete Spirit : as the Spirit of God and of Christ sent forth into all the earth. Seven, in the seven spirits before the throne, and in the seven lamps, which flame over the chrys- tal sea on which the throne is set, reveal the com- pleteness and perfectness of the Divine in the Holy Spirit, as the purifier of believing souls, and the one who inspires all created spirits with a sense of God and evil, law and order. Seven, in the seven seals of the book in the right hand of the enthroned Father, and loosed by the Lamb, represents the completeness and perfectness of the "lion of the tribe of Juda, "who alone could reveal the sevenfold history of the Church and the world, until time shall end and eternity dawn. Seven, in the seven angels with seven trumpets, represents and proclaims the Di-
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vine government of the Church, and of the great world powers, through all the sevenfold periods of their history, until the new heaven and earth shall come.
Twelve, in the twelve angels, four of whom are cherubim, seven of whom are proclaiming angels- Gabriel, which means "God's strong one"-and Michael, "who is like God," and the great general of the angelic army-these twelve, represent the Di- vine government, by angel princes, over all angelic principalities, dominions and powers. Was the all- gelic twelvedom the model of the twelvedoms in the Jewish Church, and in the Apostolic Church ? These twelve angel-princes, are to stand at the twelve gates of the City of light, that shall cover 375 square miles of the new earth, and pour its twelve tinted splendors over the new world of the resurrection ; and they are to preside over the divine order, and the organized polity of the new capital and the new land, and present the resurrection-kings and na- tions faultless before the august presence of the King immortal, when they shall come to worship in the city of massive gems, and precious stones. Amen. Alleluia.
I submit seven, twelve, ten and ten hundred, as sacred and revealing numbers, in the history of the Divine, in the government of the Church and of the world, in time and in eternity. Seven,is a complete and churchly number ; and seven stars are seven angel-ministers of the seven churches of Asia ; and seven golden candlesticks are the seven Asiatic churches ; and seven epistles to the seven churches, are seven pictures, in which the churches of the ages
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might see their spiritual likenesses, and "the spirit of anti-christ that should come," and has come, as "the eighth," and yet as one "of the seven" great Satanic world-powers, that has ever been anti-God, and anti-Christ. Seven roll- seals opened, and seven roll-leaves-or sheets-disclosed, are seven pictures of the church and the world-forces of futurity. The first is a picture of Churchly conquests, -"Conquer- ing and to conquer" -- though defeated for ages, vet the white horse conquorer and his armies win the fight, and the millennium comes.
The second is the picture of the universal war- power of the centuries, ever and anon, "taking peace from the earth." The third is the black pict- ure of the world wide war, throughout ali time, filling the earth with want, woe, and hard times. The fourth is the pale picture of war in "the fourth part of the earth." attended by famine, pestilence, and beastly savagery, and often repeated through the bloody ages
In these four pictures, four in the number of univer- sals ; but the fourth is limited to "the fourth part of the earth."
The fifth seal picture, is still less a symbol, and a more definite picture of the martyrs of all ages. Its dark side is the martyrdoms of the centuries, and the cry of the martys at the grand altar of sacrifice in heaven ; and its bright side, is their enrobement, and their sweet rest, until the last martyr "shall be killed." The sixth seal-picture is the portrayal of the dissolution of the earth, and the doom of the wicked. The seventh seal-leaf, is a picture of church destiny, and of world-destiny -- human and material -- until
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"all things are made new." The seven epistles were lesser pictures of things that were, and things that were to come. The seven roll-sheets were larger pictures of things to come, in churches, nations, and in the earth and heaven. The seven trumpets are still larger revealings, of things that were, and are, and are to come, until all shall end, and begin again in eternal perfection and glory. Of the seven trumpets, the first four are brief, -- terrible procla- mations of judgment to come upon that great world- power, which banished John to the Isle of Patimos, and made martyrs of the saints through many per- secutions. Alaric and his Goths, Attila and his Huns, Genseric and his Vandals, Odvacer and his Heruli, brought ruin upon the Western Roman em - pire, and made prophecy history.
Three of the seven, are woe-trumpets, sounding the march of error-demons, and of war-demons, and of the great Satanic anti-Christic empire, until the war ends in the eternal triumph of Christ. All these forces have been in history for ages, and we may easily know them. The error-demons of Romanism and Mohammedism, the war-demons of both these forces, and the anti-Christ of pagan Rome, of the Roman state church,and of papalism, have had ages of history.
The seventh trumpet proclaims the struggle of Christ with anti-Christ, until the kingdom of this world, shall no longer be the kingdom of Satan, but the kingdom of God and his Christ. It fills the en- tire third part of the book with the symbols and pictures of the great struggle, and tells the true, clear, divine, and consecutive story of prophecy and
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history, until Jesus shall reign over all the earth. Under the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the panorama of symbols moves on, and thrice the great seven and ten-fold image of Satanic world-empire rushes upon the field of vision ; and the seventh an- gel explained the seventh-foldness. and the ten- foldness, of the great secular anti-Christ, and the seven-foldness of the great city, which has so long reigned over the kings of the earth. As men have sat in this grand palace of divine art, Romanist and Protestant, have seen in them glowing pictures, the seven great historic world-powers -- Egyptian, As- syrian, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, pagan, Roman, so-called Christian Roman, and the papal Roman empire, which is the eighth, but of the seven, - and they have seen all these powers embodied in the Roman empire, and all have been always, and in all history, anti-God and anti-Christ.
They have also seen in these pictures, the ten Teu- tonic kingdoms, which overthrew old Rome, and planted ten Germanic governments in the Western Roman empire. Schlegel in his Philosophy of His- tory, reckoned ten kingdoms as constituting the mod- ern system of Europe ; and he was a convert to Romanism. Romanists never see Christian Rome, in these symbols ; it is pagan Rome they see ; but the images so speak, as to enable history to call the right names.
In another picture. the seven, ten Roman empire, is seen as falsely Christian ; and a two-fold church power is seen, but it is false to Christ ; and this power is seen to create a third papal power in the church of God, but it is the image of the old Roman
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pagan power, and the likeness of the Christian Rom- an Empire, falsely so called -- and the express image of Satan, the real anti. Christ of all sacred history.
In another picture, seven angels appear on the scene, and one after another, they pour seven vials of wrath upon the imperial Roman world-power, and upon spiritual Roman world-power, and lastly upon Rome the great city on seven hills, and the serial wars of the centuries, closes up with one universal war, brought on by three devils -- one from old pa- gan Rome, the second from the new but false Chris- tian Rome, and the third from papal Rome -- and then a pure Christianity triumphs over all the anti- Christianities of the world. Dr. Whedon says "We are apparently living under the fifth vial." Oh, the shadows of coming events !
The ten, of one of the seven epistles, may not be a symbolism ; but ten as seen in the pictures of Roman dominion, are ten Teutonic kingdoms, well known to history. The blessed thousand years, which is a time-symbolism ; and a number of uni- versality, is ten raised to a cube, each day repre- senting a year, making in all 360,000 years. So long shall all anti-Christianities disappear. There will be sin, and death shall still reign, but in general, all nations will be pure and good.
What then of the thousands of years of false re- ligionism, and of all the Satanic, corrupt and beastly governments, and despotic churches, that have per- secuted and ruled in the past ? What of the twelve hundred and sixty years of Romanism and Mohammedism ? "We are in the morning dawn of history." There comes 360,000 years of righteous-
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ness, joy, and peace, to all nations. And the final number of the saved, as compared with the lost, will be as the number hung, as compared with the rest of mankind. Oh this is progress ! and it be- comes the grandeur of a God.
The next scene, is a picture of the second coming of Satan, after his banishment during the millennial ages ; of the great apostacy among the nations -- but not a martyr slain ; of the destruction of Satan and his apostates, by the brightness of the second coming of Christ ; of God upon the "great white throne," and of earth and heaven dissolved before him ; and of the general resurrection and judgment, which is the closing scene in the history of the old world.
John, who wept that the seven seals of the seven leafed roll of Revelation might be opened, still gazed into the future ; and lo, a visional scene of most unsurpassed grandeur rises before him. Sym- bol puts on the highest perfection of picture, and all creation lends its richest materials, and its brightest forms, to perfect the pictorial likeness of the new heaven, the new earth, and the new city of God. One of the seven angel who may be named Gabriel, because he was the great revealing angel to Dan- iel, and in the gospels, carried John away to a great and high mountain of the new world, to show him the great city of God, descending from heaven.
lle saw a new world of mountain and plain -- vast -- stupendous -- and so like, and yet so unlike the old ; for it is the old, changed and made new -- mat- ter still, made spiritual, and most heavenly, and lovely in all its forms of divinest beauty. From his
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mountain height, he gazed upon the softly green city of light, shining with crystal clearness ; and its massive walls of jasper resting upon a vast plain, 375 miles square, rose up 375 miles high in pure celestial space. As the angel led him about the city, he looked upon its twelve gates -- three on each side-and all were solid pearls, clear as spirit- ual light.
He saw the twelve foundations of the city wall, each a massive gem of greatest vastness ; the first, the soft green jasper ; the second, a sky-blue sap- phire ; the third, a blue-white Chalcedony ; the fourth, a vivid green emerald ; the fifth, a vivid red Sardonyx ; the sixth, a vivid red Sardine ; the sev- enth, a yellow golden Chrysolite ; the eighth, a sea- green Beryl ; the ninth, a yellow topaz ; the tenth, a a yellow-green Chrysprasus ; the eleventh a deep red Jacinth ; the twelfth, a brilliant violet Amethyst; and the sevenfold rainbow splendour of these vast gems mingling with the light of the city,revealed the material, in all the perfection of the spiritual, and the beautiful.
The angel showed him about the city, and led him along the streets 375 miles long -- and city and street were pure, lucid,transparent,gold touched and toned with every tint of the rainbow, and all its colors raised to the richest perfection of spiritual glory.
He saw the throne of God and the Lamb, and out of it flows the clear, radiant crystaline river of life : and it flows on through the length of the broad street, 375 miles ; and on the banks of the river, are the great trees of life, bearing twelve monthly fruit-
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ages, and the leaves of the trees are a medicine, preventing all decay and disease among the nations. Oh it is the old paradise restored, and made new, with every enlargement, and improvement,required by the vast needs of the spiritual realm.
John saw the saved kings of the new world, who preside over the heavenly polity, and preserve the sweet rhythm and blessed harmony of the celestial state ; and he saw them bring the glory of their be- ing, history, and character,to the great metropolis, that they might honor, and adore the king of kings in his palace of light. He saw the saved nations of the new earth, each having in his own being, a realm of power, glories and felicities, which entitle them to see the face of God, and to reign as a re- public of kings, for ever and ever. "And there shall be no more curse, tears, death, sorrow, crying, nor pain : for the former things are passed away." What a picture ! Nothing so grand ever proceeded from the genius of poet or painter.
Isaiah's ideal city, with stones of fair colors with a foundation of sapphires, with windows of agates, gates of carbuncles, and borders of pleasant stones, has no glory, when compared with the glory that excells, in the immensity, grandeur, and richness, of the new metropolis of the world to come.
It is the city of the great One in Three ; and the number sacred to the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, flames in three gates on each side of the city wall ; and the Spirit, the bride, and the hearer say, to the saved kings and nations of the first and sec- ond resurrection, "Come, Come, Come,enter through the gates into the city," "have right to the tree of
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life," and "take of the waters of life freely ;" for the fruit of the tree, the leaves of the tree, and the water of the river are immortalizing. It is the city of the great four, shining resplendent in the four sides of the high city wall and in the foursquare low wall which lined it ; and it is the number sacred to the four universals of the new creation, -- matter spirit- ualized, immortalized fruit, medicine, and water ; and glorified souls, and spiritualized bodies. It is the city of the great governmental twelvedoms ; and its twelve angels, represent twelve angelic prin- cipalities ; and twelve names on its gates, represent the twelve principalities of saved Jews ; and the twelve names on its sapphire foundations, represent the twelve principalities of saved Christians. If three in the unity of the Trinity, represent Father, son, and the Holy Spirit, in the government of all, why may not the twelve, represent thirty-six ce- lestial states in the heavenly world ? Oh wonderful! It is divine. Biblical, historic, and scientific ideal- ism, embodied in eternal, spiritualized, immortal- ized, and glorified realism. Oh the great law of prog- ress, can only be satisfied, when the temporal shall become the eternal, and "work out for us the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,"as John saw it, in the new heaven, the new earth and the new city of immensity.
My Dear Dr. Smith, it has been said that the Apocalypse "finds its interpreter mad or makes him so." But "it is no fortune-telling record." It is a book of types, figures, shadows, symbols, pictures ;. but it deals with persons and things of the worlds, and three are reals. Its symbols and pictures are:
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taken from the historic scriptures -- never out of them -- and they picture realities. Some study the Apoc- alypse and turn prophets. Some mistake the frame for the picture.
Some are ultra-historical in their Apocalypse ex- egesis. All this brings the greatest book of predic- tion in the Bible into contempt. But the book is a small map of persons and things in heaven, hell and earth ; and a little prophetic history of great movements-churchly and non-churchly-through all time-ages, until we reach the new eternal state. It is a book of images and pictures ; but it is also a book of plain words, and if we compare it with all Scripture, and with history, we shall be able to read the signs of the times in which we live.
God bless you, Dr. Smith and all your loved ones. I am still in that high state of mind, which came on me while I was with you. Most of the time, after the lightening struck me at Danville, my powers folded up and hid themselves in the darkness of un- consciousness, and my soul fell into a sort of noth- ingness.
But I was a man of ceaseless prayer. Oh how glad I am to find enlargement. I am holding re- vival services in my family. How precious are these seasons. Grace and health to you, my friend.
Yours truly, J. W. T. MCMULLEN.
P. S. The seventh unsealed leaf, or sheet of the roll of revelation, sweeps through the ages into eternity ; and the seven trumpets proclaim more fully the contents of the unsealed roll leaf.
In this I differ from Dr. Whedan. Pardon my vanity. J. W. T. Mc --.
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IV. LaFayette, March 30, 1885-
DEAR DR. SMITH :-
Again I ask your thought on the glorious Apoca- lypse. One in three persons in three parts, and in three parts, and in three sevens, runs like a line of light through this book. The revelation is of God, through Christ, by the Spirit in three magnificent apocalypses ;- and it has seven epistles, a seven leafed roll-sheet, and seven proclaiming trumpets.
I write now, on the seven epistles.
They were written to the seven star-angel-min- isters, of the seven Asiatic churches ; and through them, to the "servants and churches of God, in all ages." They are historic and prophetic epistles, tak- en from the warm lips of the risen Christ. But I write only of the flashes of prediction in these epis- tles. The Church of Ephesus had fallen from its "first love," and prophecy blazed out upon its future history and doom ; and Gibbon writes,-"In the loss. of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelation ; the desolation is completed ; and the temple of Diana or the church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveler." In this first epistle another prophetic gleam, shot through the ages, and beyond the resurrection ; and revealed to the overcomer, "the tree of life, in the midst of the paradise of God." In the epistle to the Church of Smyrna-the Church of Polpcarp, pupil
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of St. John-coming persecution is predicted, but no extermination of the Church ; and to this day, as Gibbon says : "The populousness of Smyrna is sup- ported by the foreign trade of the Franks and the Americans."
In the epistle to the Church in Pergamos, there is a shaft of predictive lightning against it, for its too great tolerance of licentious heresy ; and Gibbon records that "the God of Mohammed, without a rival · or a son, is invoked in the Mosque of Pergamos."
In the epistle to the Church in Thyatira-a work- ing church, yet too careless of Christian truth and purity-there is a splendid flash of prophetic light through the great future, in which the overcomer sees the time when he shall have power over the nations, and reign with Christ over the millennial peoples, and see Jesus, "the morning star," beam over the new heavens and new earth. But, alas ! the Mosque of Mohammed rules in Thyatira, and darkness reigns.
In the epistle to the Church in Sardis-"the church of deadness, with a few spotless names"-there is a red ray of prophetic light, revealing coming destruc- tion ; and a blessed white ray, lighting the overcom- er on to the new Jerusalem, and the glories of res- urrection life-and citizenship. "Sardis is reduced to a miserable village," and the light of the Church has gone out.
In the epistle to the Church in Philadelphia, -- "the faithful and blameless church"-there is a glo - rious sunburst of prediction, revealing its future preservation and triumph ; especially in "the trial that shall come upon all the world," just before the
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judgment of the great white throne ; and disclosing to the victor, "the New Jerusalem"-the city, temple of God-that shall adorn the new world, in the eter- nal state. Of the seven cities, the infidel Gibbon writes, "Philadelphia alone has been saved by proph- ecy or courage."-"Courage," is an infidel sneer, not a reason .- "At a distance from the sea, forgot- ten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valient citizens defended their relig- ion and freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect-a column in a scene of ruins-a pleasing example that the paths of honor and safety may sometimes be the same."
In the epistle to the Church in Laodicea-"rich in goods, but poor in faith-there is a beam of prophe- cy, revealing the marriage supper of the Lamb, at the resurrection of the Just. Our infidel historian says, "The circus and the three stately theaters of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes,"
I change my mind, and write a few words on the historic in these epistles. They give historic glimp- ses of the state of the churches; of great Roman foe; of their Jewish enemy; and of their heretical antago- nists. They touch upon three great historic heri- cies; two, Shemitic, and the third, Aryan,-Japhetic.
The first, were Judaizing Christians ; the second, was the ancient Balamism and Jesebelism, which taught a glowing sensualism in the name of religion; and the third, was Nicolasism-from Nicolas, one of the first seven deacons of Jerusalem-which taught that the body may sin all sins, yet the Spirit remain
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pure; or, that all evil is in matter; hence, arose ascet - ecism, enforced celebacy,rejection of meats, the de- nial of the real body of Christ, monasticism and self- scourging. These three unclean spirits of devils, as seen in seven epistles, were to move through the cen- turies ; and, they are more fully described, under the seventh seal, and still more distinctly proclaimed and illustrated, under the seven trumpets of Reve- lation.
But why this number,-Seven Churches, -when there were many other Churches? Seven is the num- ber of the complete in all Nature, -- three, the number of the complete in the Divine Nature, and four the number of the complete in Created Nature --- dead matter,living matter, living human souls, and living angelic nature. Seven completes the chain of being from the lowest to the Infinite Father. Therefore, we have the seven-form law that rules in the book of Rev- elation ; and seven Churches representing the one- ness and Completeness of the general Church, and the individualism of all Churches, in all ages; so that what the Spirit says to one, in his sevenfold refrain, he says to all.
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