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 26
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My Dear Dr .-- it is written, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this pro- phecy, and keep those things which are written there- in." I write you, that we may enjoy together, "the words," which came as "a sharp two-edged sword" from the burning mouth of "the Son of Man,"cutting with a historic and prophetic edge," piercing to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and is discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
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To be sure it is a book of types, figures, shadows, symbols, and pictures, of persons and things in three worlds, and in a world yet to be made ; but persons and things,are not typed and figured into no-ones, and nobodies, and nothings at all ; but so typed,and so figured, as to represent great historic realities. When we understand the word-paintings of the sa- cred artist, we shall find no word juglery, no Delphic Oracle, meaning anything or nothing ; nor will we speak great swelling words of vanity, about the United States in prophecy ; or the personal coming of Christ, to the millennium, and the resurrection of the martyr, and a personal reign of Christ on earth,dur- ing the millenial ages.
Grace to you Dr. Smith.
ยท Yours truly,
J. W. T. MCMULLEN.
V. LaFayette, April 6, 1885. DEAR DR. SMITH :-
You remember the magnificent introduction to the seven epistles of Revelation. What a glorious ap- pearance of Christ.
This was the first Apocalypse ; for like its divine authorship, the book is one in three. The second Apocalypse, has a still more gorgeous introduction. The divine court is seen, and all the thousands of angels are present,in our sky-heaven, to look into the future of the Church and world. There is a grand pre-
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lude to the opening of the seven seals. Three, four, seven, and twelve, as ruling numbers, give law and order to this part of the book. These numbers arise out of the nature of things, as they exist in the Divine and in the created.
It is in the very nature of the Divine, to be one in three persons. It is in the nature of the created to be four-dead material-nature, living plant-nature, living animal-nature, and living spiritual-nature,- in angels and men. Hence the four cherubic ones, as universal representatives at the Divine court, as John saw them. It is in the nature of things, as they exist in God, and in the Created that seven should express the complete, and the perfect, in the Divine and in creation. Hence the seven day periods of creation-six of work, and one of rest-and the sev- en days of our week, and the seven colors of the rainbow, that goodly sign of Divine promise.
Hence too, the sacred sevens, as John saw them in the pictures of the three divine persons, on, and before the throne of revelation. It is in the nature of things, that twelve should be a governmental number. Hence the twelve signs, within which the course of the sun is circumscribed, that rules by day, and the twelve annual moon - changes, that rule by night.
It is in the nature of things, and perfectly historic, that God should rule by three, four, seven, and twelve. He rules by three divine persons. He rules in nature by four divine powers, less truly called laws in science. These four powers-one in four, as the air is one in the four winds-are divine power in dead nature, divine power in plant-nature,
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divine power in animal nature, and divine power in all soul and spirit-nature. God ruled by seven, from Adam to Enoch the seventh. Adam had the promise of Christ's first coming, and "was the figure of him that was to come." The immortalized Enoch had the promise of Christ's second coming, and was the figure of the immortalized saints of the general resurrection. The seven historic lives, figured the six long world-periods, and the seventh the eternal world-period, in a state of complete and perfect res- urrection life. God ruled by twelve, in founding the twelve tribes of the Jewish Church ; and he ruled by twelve apostles in founding the Christian Church. God ruled by the three sons of Noah, in founding the three great Shemitic, Hametic, and Japhetic races of men. So too, he ruled by twelve, in found- ing the twelve Arabian tribes from Ishmael, the twelve Saracen tribes, the twelve Egyptian dynas- ties, and the twelve states of the Jonian confederacy, at the head of which was our Ephesus, of the seven epistles. So too, twelve had the character of gov- ernmental completeness, in the twelve Peloponnes- ian associations of the Achians, the twelve Cecro- pian towns of Attica, the twelve counsellors of the Phaeacian king, the twelve members of the an- cient court of Areopagus, the twelve tables of Ro- man law, and the twelves in the classification of the Etrurian magistrates. Now we see a profound meaning coming into the three, four, seven and, twelve of the Apocalypse.
It is the very nature of things, that John should see all that could be shown, of three divine per- sons. It is natural to God, and historic also, that
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John should see in the glorious Court of the Father, his four cherubic ministers ; and seven other angel- ic ministers ; and last of all, that he should see the twelfth Michael -- the greatest minister of the celes- tial state. It is in the nature and history of things, that John should see the twice twelve kingly elders of the divine court ; and in them behold the one church of all ages, and of two dispensations, as rep. resented by their throned and crowned chiefs, be- fore the throne of God. As Christ is the first, and the divine minister ; as the Holy Spirit is the second divine minister -and the third person of the divine nature ; so the twelve angels, the twelve Jewish eld- ers, and the twelve Christian elders, are all min - isters, by whom God rules in heaven and earth.
What John saw in heaven, was the natural, and the historic, made complete, perfect and glorious. What he saw in the new heaven, and the new earth, was still the natural, and the historic, raised to the highest and most glorious perfection. How grand the prelude to the opening of the seven seals, as John saw it ! In that great hour he saw the majes- tic singers, and heard a fivefold song, from cherubim and elders, and then a new song from cherubs and elders, and then a song from "ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands of an- gels ;" and then every creature in heaven, earth and sea took up the song, and the billowy roll of the an- them, shook the sea of glass beneath the throne of God. Oh what a divine levee was that, at the "un- folding of the future of the living world and the liv- ing Church. "When "a strong angel proclaimed with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book," "in
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the right hand of the great unnamed on the throne," there was the silence of despair in all inhabited worlds ; and John "wept much," for the revelation of the future of the Church, seemed closed forever. But, when "one of the elders," more knowing than John, kindly said, "Weep not : behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book ;" then, all heaven, with harp and song, and "the prayers of saints," showed the stupendous value of the revelation about to be made. We must think of "the book" as a roll of seven sheets, having seven seals on the edge of the out- side leaf. As each seal was broken, a new leaf of the future was enrolled. The pages of each leaf, were written on the inside and outside.
As John saw, and read, and heard, a picture like a dream image would start forth and act its part, and then fade away. At the opening of the first four seals, the four cherubs thundered, "Come ;" and four living ones spring forth, with the freedom of dream - like things, and act out the great future.
The four cherubs, reveal the Father, just as the Lamb reveals the Son and his Holy Spirit ; and just as the fire-torches reveal the Holy Spirit. The four cherubs, in their angel-nature, in their human and animal forms, in their unnumbered eyes, in their six wings each, and in their number, reveal the enthroned God the Father, as All-Seeing, and All-Knowing, and swift to will and do, in all the four realms of created nature-in all dead dust, in all living plant-dust, in all living animal-dust, and in all the universe of created spirits. As the four cherubs represent the four universals in the created,
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so the first four roll-sheets, and the first-four horse- men, have to do with the four universals, in the moral history of a fallen world, under the leader- ship of Christ.
As John looked upon the first seal-leaf, he saw a crowned white horseman, with a bow and he went forth conquering then, and to conquer in all the future. This was a picture of the kingly and priest- ly power of the Church militant, conquering through all time, and triumphing over all foes. In this book Jesus is pictured on his white horse, and all the arm- ies of heaven follow him on white horses ; and he conquers all foes, and brings the golden age. When John saw the second leaf of the great future, he saw its contents pictured by a red horseman, having a great sword, and "tak- ing peace from the earth,"and causing men"to kill one another" through the centuries. When he saw the third leaf of coming events, he saw its reading pic- tured by the black horseman of war, afflicting the ages with "hard times," want, and midnight adver- sity. When he saw the fourth leaf of the great hereafter, what was written was pictured by death as a pale horseman of war, famine, pestilence, and beastly brutalism, which follows the blood-demons of the weary ages. The red demon of war, the black demon of cruel poverty, and the pale demon of death in its most horrid forms, has filled the his- tory of the past : but the white horseman of the Church, though full of wounds rode on through the centuries, throwing fragrance from his "wounded parts," and "breathing sweetness out of woe."
In this view of the four prophetic pictures, there
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is no egetical force-work, in searching for a succes- sion of historic persons, names, and dates ; or for a succession of historic powers, with their names, dates and deeds through the centuries. We see simply, four successive phases of the moral history of the Church and world under the reign of Christ.
Two of the last three of the seven roll-leaves, have to do with the spiritual and heavenly-interests most dear to the hearts of all in heaven. As the white horse conqueror rode through the ages, he saw millions and millions of martyrs fall, in the wars of the three great blood demons of prophecy.
As John read the fifth leaf, symbol put on a more perfect picture, and he saw the shadowy soul-forms of the martyrs, and heard their cry for justice, at the heavenly altar of sacrifice ; and he saw them clad with airy vestments of light, and heard it said to them "rest for a little season," until the number of the martyrs "shall be fulfilled." God's little season, as Peter says, means a few days, and each day a thousand years.
John saw the martyr-souls reappear, as the en- throned souls of "the first resurrection"-a soul res- urrection, which began on earth, and is just as real as the body-resurrection-"and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."
As he read the sixth leaf, heaven, sky, and earth, rushed into the most awful picture of the last judg- ment. God sat enthroned ; "the wrath of the Lamb," made those "who pierced him, and all the kindred of the earth wail," and cry to mountains and rocks to hide them from the face of the Father and Son ; the sun became black before God, and the moon
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blushed as blood ; the stars fell to the earth, and the sky rolled up as a sheet of parchment, and van- ished away ; a great earthquake shook the earth to pieces, and mountains and islands melted away ; kings, great men, rich men, chief captains, mighty men, bond men, free men-all uttered a cry of wild- est power-"hide us from the face of God and the Lamb," such is the close of the golden age ; but it is the beginning of eternal ages, still more golden
Now comes a magnificent interlude. The picto- rial scene is thrown upon the plains, mountains, and sparkling fountains, of the new world, beyond the resurrection, and the scenes of the last judgment The painting reveals the resplendent Church of the second resurrection, as the one Church, in the three historic Churches of the past-the patriarchal Church, the Jewish Church, and the Christian Church.
But the picture gives special prominence, to "the two-fold one Church," of the twelve tribes, and "the great multitude which no man can number, of all nations and kindreds, and people, and tongues."
Four angels hush the four winds, and still the breezes, while a great angel from the splendor of the morning dawn, puts the seal of God upon "a hundred and forty and four thousand of the twelve tribes of Israel"-an exact symbol-member, repre- senting the saved of ancient Israel, to the end of time. The four angels represent the divine power, that "works all. in all the four realms of nature, by regular methods."
The sealing angel from the rising sun, personates God, who, in Christ, "seals his children with that
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Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory." God of gran- deur, what a scene ! It is the finished picture of the finished resurrection church. Then, the number ! The heavenly Israelites, can be number- ed ; the angels, can be numbered ; hundreds of millions of war demons, can be numbered ; but Christians of all the ages, "no man can number." And these are they, who are to be led "to living fountains of waters," in the new world, "and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
As the seventh roll-leaf, with its seven trumpets, seven vials, and sevenfold powers of evil, is the third and greatest apocalypse, pouring its light upon the past, present, and future, I may speak of it in an- other paper.
Oh Dr. Smith, how I would like to spend my whole time, in telling the great things of God to the people. But I am happy still, as I was when I was with you. "No man shall take my crown," I "worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Jesus Christ, and have no confidence in the flesh," God bless you in your work of faith, and labor of love. All hail, and farewell.
Yours in hope, J. W. T. MCMULLEN.
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VI. LaFayette, Ind., April 13, 1885.
DEAR DR. SMITH :-
Like the two that have gone before it, the third "Apocalypse," has its divine three, its sacred fours, sevens, and twelves. It has also, its infernal three, seven, and ten. These numbers rule as laws, in all the scenes dramatized in the revelation. We must know them,if we would know God in history.
There is also a time-order, and a Satanic time- period, and a blessed time-number, which we must know, if we would see the triumph of Christ in his- tory.
We are not to look in this prophecy for historic names, dates, and a certain order of events. True, the name of Cyrus was given 150 years before he was born ; and the name of Messiah was given some 500 years before he was born. Three of the four uni- versal world-empires, are named in prophecy-Baby- lon, Persia, and Grecia-but the exact historic order of events is not given. Without giving names, Dan- iel predicts marked periods in Persian history, and decisive eras in Grecian history, just as one would write them after the events had taken place.
He also hints what was to come, down to the end of the world. But such exactness, are exceptions in prophecy, not the general rule.
But why such mystery, in the persons, words, and things, that show the future? Why is there mystery in anything ? Why has nature any secret at all ? Why have not the present and the past told
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us everything ? Why do rulers, in the family, church, and state, keep secrets that are told after a while, or never told at all ? Why in all we learn, is there so much toil ? Do not all the best things, cost us the hardest work ? God keeps his own secrets. He tells us enough.
He speaks to others, and they tell us enough. Things are made to show us, and they are plain enough. When we need to know more, he will take us to heaven, or send us to hell, and we shall still know enough. Besides, God is the God of beauty, glory, majesty, grandeur, and power in thought and speech ; and he has given prophecy, every im- age of oratory and eloquence, to express the thoughts of his heart, which stand fast forever.
Prophecy comes to us in the highest and divinest forms of speech, and its sacred style becomes the God of Revelation.
The third Apocalypse is introduced by another imposing prelude.
The Lamb opened the seventh seal, and its words of light flashed through the centuries. It was a temple scene. Within, the divine court stood be- fore God. Without, stood the angels, martyrs and all saints, in voiceless worship. There was silence in heaven for half an hour. Seven angels prepared themselves to sound seven trumpets. A priestly angel with a golden censor stood at the golden al- tar with much incense, "to offer it with the prayers of all saints before the throne of God." Martyrs cry for justice, and "the prayers of saints ascended up before God,"and fire fell from heaven , and a tem- pest of flame swept the earth, and it shook with
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thunderings and earthquake, and great Babylon was remembered.
The three Personalities of the Trinity, inspire the three apocalypses, and reveal the future in three cycles.
The first and least, is the seven-church cycle ; the second, and the lesser, is the seven-seal cycle ; the third and the larger, is the seven-trumpet cycle. All this is based upon the great law of progress- from the least to the greatest, from the worst to the best, from the lowest to the highest-this is the law of progress.
God through Christ, by the spirit, by the seventh- roll-leaf, and by seven angels revealed the future of the church, of Rome, and of the world, on and on,to the scenes of the final judgment. That the seven trumpets dealt with the Rome, of the future, is seen in the fact, that she was the only great city which in the dialect of the spirit, could be called Sodom and Egypt, and fallen Jerusalem, where our Lord was crucified, and his saints martyred. Rome was the only city of John's day, that could be called "Baby- lon the great"; that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth ; that sitteth upon many waters in her commercial power,and in her power over sub- ject-nations living upon many waters ; "that sitteth on seven mountains," or seven hills, on which Rome was founded ; and that sit upon the seven great worlds-powers of prophecy and history, which she embodied in her empire.
Rome is the only fourfold power of evil, that the seven trumpets could proclaim, as Sodom, Egypt. fallen Jerusalem, and Babylon,drunk with the blood
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of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
Rome is the only sevenfold power of Satan him- self, that could be predicted,as uniting in her world- empire, the seven great world-powers, which have been the cruel oppressors of God's people. Rome is the only power that could figure in prediction, as uniting in her empire the universal empires of Dan- iel's prophecy, and the seven great world-powers of all prophecy and history, and the ten Teutonic Western kingdoms, that rose on the ruins of her Western borders.
Rome has ever been anti-God, and anti-Christ, whether Pagan, semi-Christian, or papal. She has ever been another Egypt, another Assyria, another Babylon, another Persia, another Greece; and al- ways pagan in spirit, while yet she was semi-Chris- tian,and papal ; and a Sodom in sensualism, and de- bauchery of manners.
What Rome was when our Lord was crucified. What she was when Peter-most likely-was taken from the church in old Babylon to be hung upon the cross in the new Roman Babylon; the same has she been, during the last six hundred years of her reign. Under "Strong delusion," Rome knows not, that John saw her pictures taken in the grand art-gallery of heaven ; and all history attests the truth of these prophetic paintings. Her Cardinal Bellarnine, and her Cardinal Baronius, say that Babylon means Rome in the Apocalypse ; and her great Bossuet says, "The features are so marked that it is easy to decipher Rome under the figure of Babylon." But, when Roman authors see Rome in Apocalyptic
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paintings, they see Pagan Rome, or the Christian Rome of some future day ; they never see the Rome of some six hundred years of bloody persecution. The Pope's Rhemish note says, "the blood of heri- tics is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors; for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer."
Oh thou, who hast long "sat as a queen;" the last living apostle, saw an angel of great power come from heaven, and the earth flamed with his glory ; and John heard the angel's predictive song of tri- umph over thee. Oh Roman Babylon; and here are some of its lines-"Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen"; "Rejoice over her, oh heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets ; for God hath avenged you on her"-and in her was found the blood of proph- ets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
Rome is the great burden of Apocalyptic proph- ecy, and the grand objective point in the proclama- tion of the seven trumpets. For Rome is the em- bodiment of Satan,-Paul's "man of sin," and John's "anti-Christ that should come,"-and in her descent "to perdition," she is the sum of all the anti-Chris- tianities of the past.
Seven angels, with seven trumpets, proclaimed the judgments of God upon Rome, through all the periods of her coming history. The seven angels are classed in the great four, and three. The first four, personate the God of all dead materialism, the God of all plant materialism, the God of all ani- mal materialism, and "the God of the spirits of all
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flesh" and of angels, as about to bring his fourscore judgments upon Rome. The blasts of the first four trumpets, are brief and terrible.
The first blast called down a furious storm of hail, fire and blood, upon Egyptian Rome ; and "the third part" of "the inhabiters of the earth," she ruled, were destroyed. The second blast hurled down a great burning mountain of fire upon the Roman sea; and "the third part" of the slain, reddened the sea with blood. The third blast cast down a great burning star from heaven, upon the rivers and foun- tains ; and a third part of the bitter wormwood-wa- ters, became death to many men of apostate Rome. At the third blast, the smitten sun, moon, and stars, of apostate Rome, shone with but "a third part" of their former light and splendor. But, in all this there is more love than vengeance, and mercy spares more than wraths destroys. "So be it, Oh Lord."
These awful pictorial scenes of prophecy were made history by the Arian Alaric, the first barbari- an conqueror of Rome ; by Attila, "the scourge of God, and the king of the Huns" ; by the Arian Gen- seric, the conqueror of North Africa, and he who let loose his barbarians to ravage and pillage Rome ; and by Odoacer, who in 476, "put an end to the western Roman empire."
These four great chiefs, guiding the storms of the great northern barbarian migration ; and inspired by a perverted Arian Christianity ; swept over the land, the sea and the waters, on which Rome sat in her commercial and political power, and "darkened" forever, her imperial sun, moon and stars ; and buried Graeco-Roman heathenism, under the ruins of the
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western empire. These wild barbarians, holding Arian Christianity, and scarcely knowing the differ- ence between it and orthodoxy, "labored with the same zeal in the destruction of idolatry, as in the destruction of the empire, and really promoted the victory of the Christian religion." After a conflict of four or five centuries, with the weaponless relig- ion of Christ ; there is a sadness, in the sublime tragedy, which put an end to Graeco-Roman heath- enism, with all its wisdom, power, beauty, literature, art, and civilization ; and laid it in the dust, without the hope of a resurrection. "The last glimmer of life in the old religion, was a pitiable prayer for its toleration, and a lamentation over the ruins of the empire."
There is a bright picture of the true Church and a dark and horrible picture of the false Church, of the fifth century. Salvianus the weeping Jeremiah of his time, says that "the Christians of Italy, Africa, Gaul and Spain were-many of them-drunkards, debauchees, adulterers, fornicators, robbers, mur- derers ; going from worship to deeds of shame ; rich men committing murder and fornication ; worse than the barbarians and heathen ; worse than the wild Saxon, the faithless Frank, the inhuman Goth, the drunken Alanian, the licentious Hun ; Chris- tians of Rome worse than the Arian, Goths and Vandals, who add to the gross sins of nature, the re- fined vices of civilization, passion for theatres, de- bauchery, and unnatural lewdness. Christians lost to the whole power of Christianity ; therefore has the just God given them into the hands of the bar- barians, and exposed them to the ravages of the mi-
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