CHAPTER III. CONCLUSION OF HISTORY.
In this closing sketch it is proposed to test briefly the value of their anticipations grounded on their interpretation of Rev. 7; 14, which plays so prominent a part in their thoughts, words, and acts. In 1847, as may be remembered by our readers, their apostles began the imposition of hands on all members above twenty years of age, in accordance, as they pleaded, with Ex. 30! As Dr. Norton explains, “not that any are kept back from the table of the Lord till then; for even young children are admitted to it on all great festivals; and all their youth become regular monthly, and then weekly, communicants, after they have duly received the instruction of the pastor, and the blessing of the angels, which is their Episcopal confirmation; the laying on of apostolic hands being the further and higher consecration of them, as His sealed ones and first fruits, if they fall not through sin and unbelief from this their high estate” (Restoration, p. 175).
Their words seem disingenuous as to sealing before and outside Irvingism. They naturally shrink from the logical result of their position. “We do not pause now to consider when, and in what way, those receive ‘the seal of the living God,' who have lived and died in the absence of apostles, but who nevertheless for their pre-eminent faithfulness have obtained a place among the firstfruits; nor what will be the final accomplishment of the apocalyptic vision of the sealed after the appearing of the Lord; but regarding the prophecy in its historical aspect, we would remark that ten of the twelve tribes of the spiritual Israel have been sealed already; and that ‘Joseph is now being sealed,' who obtains the birthright and blessing which Reuben, signifying the first century of Christianity, failed to secure. And none can tell how quickly that phase of the church may terminate; and none others be sealed except as Benjamin the son of sorrow, born as his mother dies” (Restoration, pp. 175, 176).
It would have been wiser, every thoughtful soul must feel, if the Irvingites had “paused to consider” what they slur over. For it is impossible to allow that “pre-eminent faithfulness” can either gain the seal of the Spirit or dispense with that characteristic privilege. It would follow then that no saints for more than seventeen centuries since the death of John the apostle possessed that distinctive mark of Christianity. Shrinking from an inference involving a judgment so extreme, they hint at a loophole of escape so untenable as “pre-eminent faithfulness” drawing a blessing, which they dogmatically restrict to the imposition of apostolic hands. As far as appears, they do not hope so charitably of the present generation. The sealed now at least are those only who come under the Irvingite apostles (not all these indeed, but such as were bold enough to act on the command of the second apostle speaking in the power).
The truth is that it is all ignorance of Scripture and unbelief of His grace. For it is clear from Holy Writ that on the great occasions recorded not a word is said of the apostles laying on their hands in order to the gift or sealing of the Spirit. The first was the day of Pentecost, when He was given to those of Israel who repented and were baptized. The second, yet more striking and to us of the deepest interest, was when the Gentiles, also received the like gift in the house of Cornelius. It is certain that the Holy Ghost then sealed the Gentile faithful without the laying on of apostolic hands, though the first of the twelve was there to do that work, had it been requisite. The Scripture is conclusive. “While Peter yet spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.” They were not even baptized with water, till after they were thus baptized with the Holy Spirit; and they were baptized not by the apostle but by one or more of the “six brethren” that accompanied him. The basis of Irvingism is therefore destroyed by Scripture, which proves that, on the main occasions of that immense gift—the sealing of the Spirit, imposition of hands is not named in the first and in the other could not have been as the preliminary condition. It is therefore a groundless fiction. We are shown in the inspired history that the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles (and such we are naturally) on the hearing of the word by faith; just as another apostle teaches it as indisputable truth (Gal. 3:22This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Galatians 3:2)). That in the subordinate circumstances of Samaria (Acts 8) and Ephesus (Acts 19), the Spirit was given after apostles laid hands on the faithful, is true; but this cannot annul the typical ways of God with the Jews and the Gentiles who believed the gospel. They were but ancillary cases, it would seem, to counteract Samaritan independence, and to maintain the apostolate of Paul. The general principle abides untouched, thanks be to God Who provided thus indefeasibly for times and places where and when apostles could not be. The Irvingites, not seeing this great truth, have misused the peculiar cases to undermine the standing general truth, denied the special essential blessing of the church, and set up a false pretension.
Nor is this their only nor perhaps most flagrant error in the matter of sealing. It is perfectly clear that Rev. 7 speaks of a future definite act of God. You cannot legitimately embrace within the 144,000 any beyond a contemporaneous body thus favored on the earth. Now let it be put to their conscience: is it true that “ten of the twelve tribes of the (spiritual) Israel have been sealed already”? As far as can be ascertained, it is doubtful if all the sealed by the modern apostles amount to 12,000, without speaking of the many of their sealed ones who have since renounced it all as delusion! What is meant by “Joseph is now being sealed,” it is hard to understand; any more than the dreamy application of Reuben and Benjamin. It is a matter of their phraseology that Manasseh means Italy, which fell to Mr. Perceval's lot, Ephraim means Poland and India which fell to Mr. Tudor. If these constitute Joseph, he is far from being now sealed. Whether the reference to Reuben and Benjamin can refer to Mr. Woodhouse's claim over Austria, S. Germany, and America, and to Mr. Drummond's over Scotland and Switzerland, may be questioned. It looks as if Dr. Norton had forgotten their prophetic apportionment, and was employing the terms in another figurative way familiar only to initiated ears.
When the day comes for the fulfillment of Rev. 7, there will be no failure: twelve thousand (literally. or symbolically) will be sealed out of each and all the twelve tribes. But the divine object is wholly misconceived by their teaching. The 144,000 are not to be “taken away,” first or last. In the vision the angel from the sun-rising with a seal of the living God seals those servants of God on their foreheads, in contrast with the action of the four angels whose task it is to hurt the earth and the sea and the trees. Not translation to heaven, but exemption from the proposed judicial scourge is intimated: security from the woes to come. See Rev. 9:44And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. (Revelation 9:4), and compare Ezek. 9
It is allowed that “those who come out of the great tribulation form again a distinct body of witnesses” (Restoration, p. 185). And this witness is true. It is in no way a general description of the blessed of all times, but a peculiar and countless crowd out of all the nations at the close of the age. This therefore renders it plain that the sealed out of the twelve tribes are Israelites in that day, and distinguished from Gentiles. If “spiritual Israel,” the distinction is gone: they are the same in principle. But not so: the more carefully Rev. 7 is studied as a whole, the more evident it is that the sealed of Israel's sons stand over against the innumerable throng that is gathered out of every nation. The later words of (Catholic Apostolic) prophecy, as Dr. N. shows, admit the difference. But if so, it is a state of things quite incompatible with the church, that one body wherein is neither Jew nor Gentile, both being merged with every other fleshly distinction in our union with Christ on high.
Hence, with a better understanding of the Revelation, they would have known that there is no such thing named as “churches” on earth after Rev. 3, and that from chap. iv. a new symbol is seen in heaven (the twenty-four crowned and enthroned elders, &c.), which points to the promised assemblage above, not of first-fruits only, but of those who are Christ's at His coming, His joint-heirs, before He as the slain Lamb opens the seals that indicate the process of judgment, by which He will be invested with His inheritance. When the church is gone, the faithful on earth are seen as either Israelitish or Gentile; and so we find henceforth in the Revelation.
Again, Rev. 14 is no repetition of the sealed out of the twelve tribes. It is another and yet more favored company, of Jews proper and of course converted, in special association with the Lamb on Mount Zion. They are like David's personal followers of Judah, faithful when the mass of Jews will return to idolatry and fall under anti-Christ, as our Lord warned in Matt. 12 and the prophets also declare. These are purchased from among men and out of the earth, firstfruits to God and the Lamb. They too are not caught up to heaven, but anticipate the blessed harvest of the millennial earth, a company yet more honored than the sealed Israelites of chap. 7. Neither company has to do with the church, any more than the Gentiles then saved. As to all this, the prospects of the Catholic Apostolic body are quite wrong, and have beguiled the body into fallacious hopes. They are based on indisputable misinterpretation and glaring perversion of God's word.