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THE PRESENT JEW3 NOT THE LAWFUL HEIRS OF THE 
 ABRAHAMIC WILL. 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 TO A 
 
 MILLENARIAN. 
 
 by rev. a. Williamson, 
 
 Paitoi of the Pr««byUri»a Church of Chester, N , J. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 
 
 CORNER OF PARK ROW AND CITY HALL SQUARE. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852. by 
 
 M. W. DODD, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 
 
 The Lihp 
 
 of Cov< 2 
 
 EDWARD O. JENKINS, PRENTER, 
 114 Nassau Street. 
 
lttU\ahuii0tt ta t\t |nhr, 
 
 The writer of these letters, when he be- 
 gan this investigation, had no thought of 
 doing more than, by a familiar correspon- 
 dence with a Millenarian friend, to try to 
 satisfy his own mind as far as he could in 
 relation to the views of Millenarians, and 
 he now presents them to the public, rather 
 as a matter of inquiry, than as an attempt 
 to lead others to adopt the views they con- 
 tain ; for he is aware that they diverge, in 
 one point at least, so far from the common 
 views, even of those who utterly reject the 
 Millenarian views, that he can hardly ven- 
 ture to believe his own conclusions. And 
 yet, after presenting these views to a num- 
 ber of friends, and hearing their remarks, 
 he cannot get away from those conclusions 
 to which he has arrived ; and he now, in ac- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cordance with the expressed wishes of a 
 few friends, presents them in this way to 
 the public, hoping to draw the attention of 
 some more able student of the prophets to 
 the distinct question — Who are, at present, 
 the recognized seed of Abraham, to whom 
 the promises belong ? 
 
 In these letters, the covenant promises of 
 God to Abraham and his seed, as explained 
 and expounded by the prophets, are viewed 
 under the character of a will, or testament, 
 as Paul calls it, Heb. 9 : 15-19, in which 
 God by covenant promises to bequeath to 
 Abraham and his seed rich legacies, to be 
 paid over to them in successive generations, 
 as these legacies become due according to 
 the terms of the will, and it is taken for 
 granted, that all the prophetic promises to 
 God's covenant people, were included in the 
 covenant promises to Abraham, in whom all 
 the nations of the earth were to be blessed. 
 With this view before the mind, the 
 1st. First inquiry which naturally pre- 
 sents itself, at this distant period from the 
 date of the will, is, who are at present the 
 lawful heirs to this will ? And, 
 
INTRODUCTION. O 
 
 2d. What legacies are still due to these 
 heirs ? 
 
 In attempting to find who are at this day, 
 the heirs to the Abrahamic will, the writer 
 does not take it for granted, that every man 
 calling himself a Jew, a descendant of 
 Abraham, is consequently an heir, or that 
 every uncircumcised person is not. 
 
 And here, it may perhaps as well be 
 stated, as any where, that the conclusion to 
 which the writer has been led, right or 
 wrong, is, that the present people scattered 
 over the world, calling themselves Jews, 
 have according to their own law, broken 
 their covenant with Grod, forfeited their 
 claim to being, in a scriptural sense, the 
 seed of Abraham and heirs to the promises 
 made to him, and are at present no 
 more to be considered the covenant people 
 of Grod ; because descended from Abraham, 
 than the Ishmaelites or the Edomites ; and 
 that consequently they are not spoken of as 
 the seed of Abraham by any of the Old 
 Testament prophets, after the death of 
 Christ ; and that there appears, therefore, no 
 promise in the Old or New Testament, that 
 
O INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they will ever return as a nation, either as 
 the church, or to the church, or any other 
 way, except as individuals in common with 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 This result was as unexpected to the 
 writer, when he commenced this investiga- 
 tion, as it can be to the reader, and yet he 
 seems forced to it. 
 
 The following process is adopted : > Be- 
 ginning with Abraham, it is found, that 
 from the first, only a few of the descendants 
 of Abraham were ever counted as heirs, 
 only one of Abraham's eight children, and 
 only one of Isaac's two. After that there 
 were some twenty laws, the penalty of 
 which, was exscision from the people of God, 
 as heirs, and that Gentile converts became 
 heirs. See Ex. 12 : 48. So that when Paul 
 says, " they are not all Israel which are of 
 Israel," he seems to imply, that even then 
 we must apply the terms of the will and 
 law, as explained by the inspired writers, 
 to determine who were the lawful heirs. 
 
 In[ these short letters, the writer has fol- 
 lowed in a very cursory manner the history 
 of the seed of Abraham, and by applying 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 the conditions of the will and the law, has 
 endeavored to determine who in successive 
 ages were the lawful heirs. As stated be- 
 fore, from the first, only a few were. At 
 first they were dropped, so that in the third 
 generation only one sixteenth part were 
 counted, fifteen were dropped out of sixteen. 
 After this they were cut off for the violations 
 of the conditions of the will, as explained 
 by Moses — as was the case with the uncir- 
 cumcised man-child, and with idolaters. 
 So that the ten tribes, when they as a nation, 
 set up their golden calves, thereby seem to 
 have incurred the penalty of exscision from 
 the heirs of promise, and were in conse- 
 quence sent captive from Canaan, and that 
 without any promise, that the writer has 
 discovered, connected with the threatened 
 expulsion, that as a nation they would ever 
 be brought back, as was the case repeatedly 
 when afterward Judah was threatened ; ex- 
 cept so far as they fell to, and became one 
 with Judah. Here again, ten tribes out of 
 twelve were, or appear to be left out of the 
 heirs, and the smaller part, to be heirs. 
 Then, when we trace the history of Judah, 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 down to the time of Christ, we see them 
 again divide into two parties, the smaller, 
 as always, following, and the larger rejecting 
 Christ, and refusing to hear or obey Him, 
 and finally causing Him to be put to death, 
 and seem thereby to incur the penalty of 
 final exscision from all future connection 
 with the people of God, according to the 
 law of Moses ; Deut. 18 : 19, as explained 
 by Peter, Acts, 3 : 23, in farther proof of 
 which they have remained separate now for 
 more than 1800 years. The penalty here, 
 as explained by Peter, seems as positive as 
 that of the uncircumcised man-child, and 
 therefore all the heirs that remain after this, 
 are to be found in that party that received 
 Christ as their Saviour, and obeyed Him as 
 their king, and those who fell to him from 
 the other Jews, soon after. To these are 
 afterwards to be added, as always, such 
 Gentile converts as fell to them, however 
 many. So that after this, the line of suc- 
 cession or heirship is to be found, not in the 
 church, as under the old covenant, but only 
 in true believers, as foretold by Jer. 31 : 31. 
 And that therefore, the present Jews are as 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 essentially Gentile in their true character, 
 though descended from Abraham, as any of 
 the descendants of Ishmael or Esau, and 
 have no more to expect from the promises 
 made to Abraham ; and that the church has 
 no more cause to seek for, and expect their 
 conversion, than that of any other people ; 
 and beyond that, it seems more than inti- 
 mated, that these scattered Jews as a nation 
 will never be converted, nor amalgamated 
 with other nations, except a few of them, 
 but will always, as now, stand out, in every 
 nation where the Bible is read, as beacons 
 of warning to them of the fearful conse- 
 quence of rejecting Christ, calling him an 
 impostor, and trampling on his blood. 
 
 These views seem corroborated by the 
 teachings of Christ and his apostles, and by 
 the fact, that no prophet of the Old Testa- 
 ment, so far as the writer can discover, 
 has ever distinctly taught, that the Jews 
 would ever go into captivity after they were 
 carried to Babylon, but the contrary ; and 
 still less, that the Jews, as Jews, would be 
 carried captive by the Romans after the 
 final capture and destruction of Jerusalem : 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nor has he been able to find that they speak 
 of them at all, as the seed of Abraham, 
 when referring to a period beyond the death 
 of Christ. 
 
 Christ seems the only prophet, who dis- 
 tinctly speaks of their dispersion after his 
 death, and he certainly does not tell us 
 plainly, (nor do any of the New Testament 
 writers, all of whom were Jews in cove- 
 nant,) that those whom He denominates chil- 
 dren of their father, the devil, will ever be 
 brought back to their own land again, as 
 God's covenant people. So that we are led 
 to the final conclusion, that the only seed of 
 Abraham now remaining, who can claim 
 any of the legacies bequeathed to Abraham 
 and his seed, are true believers, such as 
 those to whom Paul refers, when he says, 
 Gal. 3 : 29, " If ye be Christ's, then are ye 
 Abraham's seed and heirs, according to the 
 promise." "Whether these views are substan- 
 tiated by the following letters, the readers 
 must determine for themselves when they 
 have read them. If they are not, and can- 
 not be, the writer is as anxious as any other 
 to see where he has been led astray. 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 Dear Sir : — So far as I have been able to 
 understand your views on the general sub- 
 ject of millenarianism, they seem to be 
 something like this. The promises made 
 by the Lord to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
 and repeated, by the Prophets, included 
 great blessings, a small part of which bless- 
 ings were received by the Jews when they 
 were put in possession of the promised land 
 of Canaan ; but that much the larger 
 part of these promised blessings are yet in 
 reserve for them, and are to be received by 
 them when they shall again have been put 
 in possession of that land, and the Lord Je- 
 sus Christ shall in person reign over them in 
 Jerusalem, and be the personal dispenser of 
 these promised blessings. 
 
 Or, in plainer terms, that the will of our 
 Lord bequeathed by covenant promise to 
 Abraham and his seed, or descendants, 
 
12 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 great riches, temporal and spiritual, to be 
 paid over to them in different ages of the 
 world, a small part of which was paid 
 over to the Israelites in former days, but 
 that much the larger part is yet to be paid 
 over to them at a future period of their 
 history, when they shall again be put in pos- 
 session of the land of their fathers, and 
 Christ shall in person reign over them there. 
 Now, if it be admitted that there are 
 legacies yet due to the seed of Abraham 
 and heirs of the covenant promises, to be 
 paid to them at a future period, then at this 
 distant period from the date of that will, 
 the first question to be examined seems to 
 be, " who are the lawful heirs to these rich 
 legacies ? Does it follow that the present 
 people scattered over the world claiming to 
 be Jews descended from Abraham are cer- 
 tainly the lawful heirs, when it is certain 
 that a larger number of the descendants of 
 Abraham are, or may be still living, who 
 are not known under that name V 9 We 
 think not. Besides, it is an undoubted fact, 
 that a great number of the descendants of 
 Abraham forfeited all claim to these cove- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAIV. 13 
 
 nant promises by the violation of those laws 
 the penalty of which was exscision from 
 that people, and many others, such as the 
 descendants of Ishmael and Esau, were 
 never included. The mere fact, therefore, 
 that the present nation of the Jews claim 
 that name, and all nations agree to let them 
 retain it, does not prove that they are the 
 heirs to these rich legacies. It often hap- 
 pens that a large inheritance descends to a 
 female heir, who by marriage has changed 
 her name, and so the estate descends to 
 persons of another name, while there are 
 many relatives of the same name who are 
 not in the line of succession, and therefore 
 though they have the same name, are not 
 heirs of the estate at all. How, then, do we 
 know that the present people claiming the 
 name of Jews, are the lawful heirs, when 
 it is certain that all the descendants of 
 Abraham are not heirs ? For the Lord him- 
 self said that the son of the bond woman 
 should not be heir with the son of the free. 
 We think then, that the first question to be 
 settled is, who are at this day the recog- 
 2 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 nized seed of Abraham and heirs of the 
 promises made to Abraham and his seed. 
 
 If a careful examination of this question 
 leads to the conclusion that the present 
 Jews claiming to be the seed of Abraham, 
 have forfeited all claim to those legacies, 
 and are therefore not in the line of succes- 
 sion, as we are inclined to think it will, 
 then it will follow that no promises made to 
 Abraham and his seed by the Lord, and re- 
 peated by the Prophets, can belong to them, 
 and we must look elsewhere for the heirs of 
 all the legacies yet due to the seed of Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 It has, therefore, appeared to me, that a 
 definite answer to the question who are the 
 heirs to the unfulfilled prophetic promises 
 to Abraham and his seed, would relieve the 
 ^explanation of the prophecies relating to 
 ■the Jews of some of their difficulties. If it 
 ;be found that the Jews, who are scattered 
 through the different nations of the world, 
 both Israel and Judah, are the heirs of these 
 rich legacies, then these prophecies are to 
 be explained so as to meet that view. But 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 15 
 
 if, on the contrary, it be found that they 
 have, according to the plain law of God, 
 forfeited all claim to those promises, and 
 that Abraham has other children who have 
 not, and are therefore the legitimate heirs 
 to these unfulfilled prophetic promises, or 
 those rich legacies, then the prophecies must 
 be explained to meet that view. 
 
 Now, although an answer to this ques- 
 tion has generally been admitted to be given 
 in a sufficiently clear manner by the Proph- 
 ets themselves, yet it is manifest that the 
 different writers on the prophecies relating 
 to the Jews have had different, though it 
 may be not very definite answers to this 
 question before their minds, which has led 
 to equally different views, as to the true 
 meaning of some of these prophecies. 
 
 The object of the following letters will 
 be, as far as possible, to determine who are 
 the lawful heirs to these unpaid prophetic 
 legacies, and thus to endeavor to open the 
 way to a more uniform understanding of 
 the Scriptures and the consequent duties 
 of the Church to the scattered tribes of 
 Israel. 
 
16 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN". 
 
 In examining the question who are heirs 
 to a will, both the law of the land and the 
 conditions of the will are to be carefully 
 examined. Some time since a report reach- 
 ed this country by a letter from England, 
 that a man in England by the name of 
 Townly had died and left a large estate to 
 his heirs, who were in America, and were 
 supposed to be in New Jersey. Persons of 
 tihat name supposing they were no doubt 
 the heirs, collected together and sent to Eng- 
 land to learn more about the matter, when 
 to their sorrow, they learned that the only 
 heir to said deceased was a daughter named 
 Mary, who married a man w r hose name was 
 Lawrence ; so that, according to the law of 
 descent, the heirs were now called by a 
 different name, and that therefore no man 
 by the name of Townly could now be an 
 heir unless by another change in a future 
 marriage ; so that though the testator was 
 Townly, yet the lawful heirs were not, but 
 were called by another name. 
 
 Now, suppose that after this, the condi- 
 tions of the will had been found to be, as the 
 will was in England, 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 17 
 
 1. That if any of the descendants were 
 unbaptized, they were to be cut off* from the 
 heirs, and consequently from the inheri- 
 tance, and it was found that half of the de- 
 scendants were actually unbaptized, would 
 not any judge decide that the estate belong- 
 ed not to the unbaptized, but wholly to the 
 baptized, for so the testator had decreed ? 
 But suppose 
 
 2. The will further stated, that if any of 
 those who were baptized should not receive 
 the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after 
 they arrived at the age of twenty years, 
 that then they should be cut off from the 
 number of his heirs and forfeit their inheri- 
 tance. Would not a judge decide again, 
 that all over twenty years who could not 
 prove that they had received the sacrament, 
 though baptized had forfeited their part of the 
 inheritance, and that the whole belonged to 
 that part of the baptized descendants, who 
 could prove that they had received the sac- 
 rament ? But suppose 
 
 3. The will stated further, that all who 
 did not receive the sacrament from the hand 
 of a Presbyterian minister, though they re- 
 
 2* 
 
18 ^LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 ceived it from ministers of other denomina- 
 tions, should forfeit their heirship and be cut 
 off, and it was found that many of the bap- 
 tized descendants who had received the sac- 
 rament of the Lord's Supper, were not in 
 connection with the Presbyterian Church, 
 and had therefore received the sacrament — 
 not from a Presbyterian minister, but from 
 others. Would not the judge again be com- 
 pelled to decide that all such had forfeited 
 their inheritance, and that the whole be- 
 longed to the few that had not forfeited their 
 heirship by violating the conditions of the 
 will of the testator ? I think all will admit 
 that the judge must so decide, whether he 
 thought the will a good one or not. 
 
 Now must we not follow the same rule 
 in examining the will of our Lord and Sa- 
 viour in which he has bequeathed rich lega- 
 cies to Abraham and his seed ; and if it be 
 found that a large part of the descendants 
 of Abraham have, by violating the condi- 
 tions of that will, forfeited their character 
 as heirs, and consequently their inheritance, 
 must we not conclude that all that is still 
 due of those legacies belongs to that part of 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 19 
 
 the heirs who have not violated the condi- 
 tions of the will, by whatever name they 
 may be called ? Why is it not as true in 
 the latter case as in the former? In this 
 conclusion it is thought all will agree. 
 
 In looking over the will of our Lord, 
 among many things a little obscure, the 
 following seem to be plain in the conditions 
 of the will as recorded. 
 
 1. That of the seed of Abraham, the un- 
 circumcised man-child shall be cut off. — 
 G-en. 17 : 14. 
 
 2. That of the circumcised seed, Isaac 
 shall alone be heir. — G-en. 21 : 12. 
 
 3. That of Isaac's seed, Jacob only should 
 be heir.— Gen. 27 : 27-29, and 28 : 10-14. 
 
 4. That a proselyte from the Gentiles, 
 who was circumcised and partook of the 
 Passover and had all his males circumcised, 
 was counted an heir as one born in the land. 
 See Exodus 12: 48. 
 
 5. That for idolatry and many other 
 crimes they were to be cut off from the seed 
 of Abraham.— See Ex. 22 : 20, & Lev. 17 : 
 9, 10-14, & 18 : 1-29. 
 
 6. That the man who, without a specified 
 
20 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 reason, should neglect to keep the Passover, 
 should be cut off from the people of God, 
 the heirs of the inheritance promised to the 
 seed of Abraham, &c. — See Num. 9 : 13. 
 
 7. That those of the seed of Abraham as 
 before described, who should refuse to hear 
 and obey the promised Saviour when he 
 should come, should be cut off from the 
 people of God, and those only who had not 
 been cut off would be counted for the seed 
 and heirs of the promises. — See Deut. 18 : 
 15-19. Explained more fully, Acts 3: 22, 
 23, & Gal. 3: 29. 
 
 Now, if the forementioned conditions of 
 the will are plain, and all who have violated 
 those conditions, and especially the last, 
 have forfeited their claim to their inheri- 
 tance, then it seems to follow, that in de- 
 termining the question who are the lawful 
 heirs to the inheritance promised to the seed 
 of Abraham, we must try it by the condi- 
 tions therein plainly specified, and especially 
 the last, which seems plainest of all, and 
 which we think is fully explained by Christ 
 and his apostles. 
 
 This conclusion, we think, is not weak- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 21 
 
 ened by the fact, that when the execution 
 of the law was in the hands of. or commit- 
 ted to the hands of fallible Jews, the penal- 
 ties of the law were often not executed. A 
 wrong decision in a lower court is no reason 
 why a higher court should not correct it so 
 far as it can be corrected. If the Jews 
 suffered their laws to be * trampled upon 
 when the Lord committed to their hands 
 their execution, it is no reason for us to 
 suppose that when Christ takes in his own 
 hands their execution, that he will suffer 
 the conditions of His will to be broken with 
 impunity. 
 
 Let us then see if we can determine who 
 are now the lawful heirs to the inherit- 
 ance promised and yet due to the seed of 
 Abraham. 
 
 We shall here take it for granted that all 
 the prophetic promises made to the seed of 
 Abraham and David, are included in the 
 promise made to Abraham, and are only re- 
 peated and amplified by the Jewish prophets. 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Let us now see if we can 
 determine who, at this distant period, are 
 the heirs to the Abrahamic will. Since Paul 
 says, Rom. 9: 6, " They are not all Israel 
 which are of Israel," who then are ? 
 
 When God first called Abraham from his 
 father's house, and promised to bless him 
 and his posterity, there was nothing in the 
 form of the promise as recorded, by which 
 he could determine whether all his children 
 were to share in the blessings of the pro- 
 mise, or only a part of them. The Lord 
 simply said, Gen. 12: 2, " I will make of thee 
 a great nation, and I will bless thee and 
 make thy name great, and thou shalt be a 
 blessing," &c. In this general way the pro- 
 mise was first made, and, if nothing more 
 had been said, we might have been led to 
 suppose that all the descendants of Abraham 
 were included in this promise. But the his- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 23 
 
 tory of the event shows that they were not. 
 V. 7, we are told that after Abraham and 
 Sarah had reached and passed over a part of 
 the land of Canaan, M The Lord appeared 
 unto Abraham, and said, Unto thy seed will 
 I give this land" — namely, the land of Ca- 
 naan. Here, again, it would seem as if all 
 were included. About four years after this 
 we are told, Gren. 13: 14, 16, " the Lord said 
 unto Abraham, Lift up now thine eyes, and 
 look from the place where thou art, north- 
 ward and southward, and eastward and 
 westward, for all the land which thou seest 
 to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for- 
 ever, and I will make thy seed as the dust 
 of the earth, so that if a man can number 
 the dust of the earth then shall thy seed 
 also be numbered." Here, again, there is 
 nothing in the form of the promise intimat- 
 ing that any of Abraham's children would 
 be excluded, still less that persons descend- 
 ing from others should be numbered as the 
 children or seed of Abraham, and yet the 
 history of Abraham seems to imply that 
 both events happened, though as yet they 
 were not revealed. Ought not this to teach us 
 
24 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 to be cautious how we build theories on pre- 
 dictions? 
 
 Again, G-en. 15: 18, after the Lord had 
 informed Abraham that his "seed should cer- 
 tainly be a stranger in a strange land, four 
 hundred years, " we are told, he " made a 
 covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto thy 
 seed have I given all this land, from the 
 river of Egypt unto the great river Eu- 
 phrates." Still, no intimation is recorded 
 that any are to be excluded. But, after the 
 birth of Isaac, when Sarah complains of the 
 conduct of the son of Ishmael, Abraham's 
 first born, Gen. 21: 10, 12, the Lord said 
 that " The son of the bond woman should not 
 be heir with the son of the free woman," and 
 that " in Isaac his seed should be called ;" 
 and this was confirmed by the fact that 
 only the descendants of Isaac went into 
 Egypt, where the Lord had declared tha 
 seed of Abraham should be in bondage, as 
 we shall hereafter see. Again, Gen. 17: 19, 
 after God had entered into a formal cove- 
 nant with Abraham and his seed, to be their 
 God, and to give to them the land of Canaan, 
 of which covenant circumcision was to be 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 25 
 
 the seal ; and, after declaring in the same 
 covenant, v. 14, that the uncircumcised 
 man-child should be cut off from his peo- 
 ple, he says again, " Sarah thy wife shall 
 bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call 
 his name Isaac, and I will establish my 
 covenant with him for an everlasting cove- 
 nant, and with his seed after him. As for 
 Ishmael, I have heard thee ; behold, I have 
 blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and 
 will multiply him exceedingly, but my cove- 
 nant will I establish with Isaac." 
 
 Here it is very manifest that the covenant 
 promise was restricted to Isaac alone, who 
 was not yet born, and to his seed, though 
 Abraham had seven other sons after this, as 
 we shall see. So that, from the beginning, 
 only a very small part of the natural descend- 
 ants of Abraham were actually included 
 among the heirs to the bequests of that will, 
 which bequeathed such rich legacies to Abra- 
 ham and his seed. 
 
 Now, as the general promise of God, to 
 
 give to the seed of Abraham the whole land 
 
 of Canaan, did not prove that all his children 
 
 were included, so the promise to Isaac and 
 
 3 
 
26 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 his seed may not secure all his, or even prove 
 that no others will be admitted. We ask 
 then, again, who are the heirs that can, at 
 this distant period, lay claim to these rich 
 legacies ? Were all those who were circum- 
 cised, heirs ? — as those who were not, were to 
 be cut off. We think not, for all the males 
 in Abraham's house were circumcised. — See 
 Gen. 17 : 23. Still this was to be the token 
 of the covenant between God and his peoplej 
 and the man-child who was uncircumcised 
 was to be cut off; while Ishmael, and the 
 other six children of Abraham, though chil- 
 dren, and circumcised, were, for no crime 
 mentioned, to be cast off or not reckoned 
 among the people of God : thus showing 
 that as yet we have no definite rule by which 
 we can determine who are the seed and heirs 
 according to the promise, since the great 
 mass were dropped, and not counted, and 
 only a few counted from the first promulga- 
 tion of the promise. After this, in Gen. 22: 
 15-18, a little more than twenty years later, 
 the Lord renewed the promise to Abraham, 
 without any intimation that any of Isaac's 
 children were to be excluded. In Gen. 25, 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 27 
 
 we have the account of Abraham's second 
 marriage — " Then again Abraham took a 
 wife, whose name was Keturah," by whom 
 he had six children, none of whom are 
 counted among the seed of Abraham, as be- 
 fore stated. In Gren. 26 : 24, the promise is 
 repeated to Isaac : " And the Lord appeared 
 unto him the same night, and said, I am the 
 God of Abraham thy father, fear not, for I am 
 with thee and will bless thee, and will multi- 
 plythy seed, for myservant Abraham'ssake." 
 In chap. 25 : 23, we read, " The Lord said 
 unto Rebekah, Two nations are in thy womb, 
 and two manner of people shall be separated 
 from thee, and the one people shall be strong- 
 er than the other, and the elder shall serve 
 the younger." Here we have the first inti- 
 mation that a part of Isaac's descendants are 
 to be excluded from the heirs of promise, 
 and yet not so that it could be certainly known 
 how many of Isaac's descendants should 
 be excluded. It was now about eighty- 
 five years since the first promise was made 
 to Abraham, and still as yet we find no certain 
 rule by which to determine who were to be 
 the heirs, except as guided by the successive 
 
28 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 revelations given from the Lord to the 
 fathers. In chap. 26 : 3-5, the promise 
 which was made to Abraham is repeated to 
 Isaac : " In thy seed shall all the nations of 
 the earth be blessed," but as yet it is gen- 
 eral. In the same chapter, verses 33-35, 
 we have the account of Esau selling his 
 birth-right to Jacob ; and chap. 27: 27-9, 
 we have the account of Isaac blessing Jacob, 
 and, by the deception practiced by Jacob 
 and his mother, giving him the blessing he 
 intended for Esau, but which the Lord had 
 intimated to his mother was intended for 
 Jacob, though the younger. After this Esau 
 seems no longer counted among the heirs. 
 So that, in the third generation, we find that 
 only one-sixteenth part of the children of 
 Abraham are actually counted as heirs. 
 Who, then, at this distant period, will ven- 
 ture to say which of Abraham's descendants 
 are the lawful heirs to these promises, with- 
 out the plain declarations of His word or 
 will to guide us ? 
 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 Rom. 9 : 6, For they are not all Israel which are of 
 Israel. 
 
 Dear Sir : — We have seen in our previ- 
 ous examination, that in the third genera- 
 tion, only one sixteenth part of the descen- 
 dants of Abraham were actually counted as 
 the heirs of the promise to Abraham, to 
 whom Grod would give the land of Canaan 
 — a very small part, when yet, the promises 
 were as full to them then, as they are now 
 to the seed of Abraham ; for they were the 
 same, and if these promises did not prove 
 that all the seed of Abraham were then 
 heirs, how can they prove that all or any of 
 those, who now claim to be descended from 
 Abraham, are the lawful heirs ? 
 
 In following the history of this interest- 
 ing people, we find, that as yet, there is but 
 one of the descendants of Abraham who is 
 counted as the seed, when it is at least pro- 
 3* 
 
30 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 bable, that there were at this time hun- 
 dreds of the descendants of Abraham who 
 were not counted as heirs, for it was now 
 over 130 years since the birth of Isaac ; and 
 the other seven children of Abraham seem 
 to have increased much more rapidly at first, 
 than the heirs of promise. It may be w T ell 
 to keep these facts in view, when we read 
 some of the later prophetic promises res- 
 pecting the return of the seed of Abraham 
 to the promised land. Those promises may 
 include only the few who have not incurred 
 the penalty of exscision. 
 
 Jacob is now sent to Padanaram, where 
 he serves fourteen years for two wives, and 
 besides them, he has two concubines, by all 
 of whom he has twelve sons and one daugh- 
 ter. On his way back to Canaan and to his 
 father's house, his name is changed to Israel, 
 by the angel with whom he wrestled, and 
 though Jacob and Esau seem now recon- 
 ciled, and were together burying their fa- 
 ther, yet we hear nothing of the children of 
 Esau being included among the people of 
 (rod, the heirs of promise. Jacob and his 
 children were henceforth called Israelites, 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 31 
 
 and Israel only was the covenant people of 
 Grod. All Jacob's children seem now to be 
 included, (except the daughter of whom we 
 hear no more among Grod's people,) though 
 six of his sons were born of a wife put 
 upon him by deception, and four, of bond 
 women ; thus setting aside all former rules 
 of counting heirs, and setting at defiance 
 all analogical rules. These twelve sons in 
 process of time, seem all to have married 
 Grentile wives, had families, and were with 
 their father carried into Egypt, according to 
 the declaration of G-od to Abraham, Gren. 15 : 
 13, where they continued two hundred and 
 fifteen years, a part of the time under severe 
 bondage. " And Grod said unto Abraham, 
 Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a 
 stranger, in a land that is not theirs, and 
 shall serve them four hundred years." This 
 expression it will be seen does not accord, 
 with historical accuracy, to the event — and 
 could not possibly have been understood be- 
 fore its fulfilment. But it seems, together 
 with the event recorded, a full evidence, 
 that those only who were now called Is- 
 raelites, and went into bondage, were count- 
 
32 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 ed for the seed and heirs to the prom- 
 ises. 
 
 And now, dear Sir, may we not learn 
 from these historical sketches, the following 
 facts, viz. : 
 
 1st. That the prophetic promises made to 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were of such a 
 general character, that it will not do to 
 explain them literally, as if delivered as 
 history ? Take, for example, the promise, 
 (xen. 13 : 15, "All the land which thou seest, 
 to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for 
 ever ;" and yet he, Abraham, never possess- 
 ed any of that land, except a burying place. 
 Do you say, that he is yet to be put in pos- 
 session when Christ comes, and that the 
 promise secures this to him ? Would not 
 the same rule of interpretation lead us to 
 say that all his seed, good and bad, were to 
 be put in possession, who died in Egypt and 
 in the wilderness, or before — not only the 
 descendants of Jacob, but of all his seed ? 
 And if not all, who from the prediction could 
 tell how many ? The same is true of all 
 that class of promises. 
 
 How, again, would it do to give a literal 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 33 
 
 interpretation to the prediction, Gen. 15 : 
 13, " Know of a surety, that thy seed shall 
 be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and 
 shall serve them, and they shall afflict them 
 four hundred years ; and also, that nation 
 whom they shall serve, will I judge, and af- 
 terward shall they come out with great sub- 
 stance ?" You will admit, that this prophecy 
 refers to their bondage in Egypt. But they 
 were only two hundred and fifteen years in 
 Egypt, and about seventy years of that time, 
 they were provided for by Joseph, and were 
 not actually in bondage. Nor was the whole 
 sojourning of the Israelites, from the calling 
 of Abraham to their coming out of Egypt, 
 four hundred years ; for we are told by 
 Moses, Ex. 12:40, that their sojournings 
 were four hundred and thirty years. V. 41. 
 "It came to pass at the end of four hundred 
 and thirty years, that all the host of the 
 Lord went out from the land of Egypt :" 
 thus showing by the history of the event, 
 that a literal fulfilment of the prophecy 
 was not to be expected, and yet, that when 
 these prophecies were fulfilled, they were 
 sufficiently plain to show that nothing but 
 
34 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIES. 
 
 a God who saw the end from the beginning, 
 could have thus foretold them, and nothing 
 but an Almighty God could have fulfilled 
 them. 
 
 2d. That from the beginning, only a 
 small part of the children of Abraham 
 were counted for the seed. 
 
 3d. We learn, that from the beginning, 
 we cannot determine, that a person is an 
 heir to the promises, by the fact, that he 
 has descended from Abraham, since many 
 more of his children were always out of the 
 covenant than in. It may be well to keep 
 this in mind, when we come to the question, 
 are the present Jews the heirs to any of 
 these promises made to Abraham, and re- 
 peated by the prophets ? 
 
 Neither can we determine, that they are 
 of Israel, and heirs to the promises, by the 
 fact of their being circumcised — for it is 
 certain, that many, if not all those who 
 have already been dropped, were circumcis- 
 ed, and so were all the three hundred ser- 
 vants of Abraham. So that from the first 
 many more were circumcised who were 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 35 
 
 not in covenant, and not heirs, than those 
 who were. 
 
 4th. We learn, also, that the want of 
 being wholly descended from the seed of 
 Abraham, does not prove, that they are not 
 heirs — for we have seen, that all the sons of 
 Jacob, some of whom were from Grentile 
 mothers, married Gentiles, and so were 
 greatly mixed ; and that as soon as the or- 
 dinance of the Passover was instituted, per- 
 mission was given for strangers to join them : 
 see Ex. 12:48, and Est. 8: 17, where 
 we are told, that many of the people of the 
 land became Jews. So that, as yet, we 
 have no rule by which we can determine 
 prospectively, who are to be the heirs, but 
 must wait the farther and later instruction 
 of the inspired writers ; which instructions 
 are doubtless sufficiently plain for all im- 
 portant practical purposes, as they were 
 from the beginning. But these I must defer 
 for my next. In the mean time, please 
 keep in mind the results to which we have 
 come, so far as you admit them, as they 
 may have a bearing on what follows. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 Dear Sir : — I again begin with Paul's 
 words, Rom. 9:6: " For they are not all 
 Israel which are of Israel." Who, then, are 
 the true heirs ? 
 
 We have seen that no answer can be ob- 
 tained to this question from the prophetic 
 promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, nor 
 yet from the sign of circumcision, and that 
 only one-sixteenth part of Abraham's de- 
 scendants were counted heirs down to the 
 time of Jacob, who was first called by the 
 name of Israel ; and now Paul tells us that 
 they are not all Israel which are of Israel 
 even ; so that it seems all his descendants 
 are not to be counted ; at least Paul's 
 words seem to imply this, though perhaps 
 this is not their whole meaning. His twelve 
 sons, however, for the present, seem all to 
 be counted, and all went with their families 
 to Egypt, even those who were born of the 
 bond women. 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 37 
 
 In tracing the history of Jacob's family, 
 we are led to suppose that all their descen- 
 dants who were living at the time of Moses, 
 were recognized as Israelites, kept the 
 Passover and came out of Egypt by Moses. 
 But when the Lord instituted the ordinance 
 of the Passover, he allowed them to receive 
 Gentile converts ; who then, I suppose, in 
 the language of Esther 8: 17, became 
 Jews, and intermarried ; for there was 
 but one law, and "he was to be as one 
 born in the land."— Ex. 12: 43-49.— 
 u This, said the Lord, is the law of the 
 Passover : there shall no stranger eat of it : 
 but every man's servant, when thou hast 
 circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof: 
 and when a stranger shall sojourn with you, 
 and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let 
 all his males be circumcised, and then let 
 him come near and keep it, and he shall be 
 as one that is born in the land." This sure- 
 ly seems to imply that they might receive 
 Gentiles, and when received they were 
 counted as Jews. How many such were 
 received, we have no means of determining. 
 We have also the fact, Ex. 12 : 19, that if 
 4 
 
'38 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 any eat unleavened bread during the seven 
 days following the Passover, he was to be 
 cut off from that people. So that from the 
 first complete organization of the Jewish 
 Church we find only a small part of the 
 descendants of Abraham in it, and those 
 mingled with Gentile converts, and that 
 -Jews, for want of circumcision, &c, were 
 cut off. How many converts were received, 
 •or how many of the Israelites were cut off 
 by the two exscinding laws, we have no 
 .means of determining. 
 
 After the complete organization of the 
 Jewish Church, none were recognized as 
 belonging to the heirs of promise, who were 
 f not in that church, whether Jews or of Gren- 
 tile origin, while all who were in it were 
 ^counted heirs. We now find about twenty 
 .laws recorded by Moses for the violation of 
 which they were to be cut off from the 
 .promised seed, from the people of God, from 
 Jiis church. When we read the history of 
 the crimes of the Jews after this, we are 
 led to suppose that many must have forfeited 
 their standing in the church, but we will 
 not anticipate. We have now the plain 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 39 
 
 fact, that those regularly in the church were 
 counted for Israel, and none else, and the 
 laws of the church follow. 
 
 When we follow them to the land of Ca- 
 naan and see them there for four hundred 
 and sixteen years governed by judges of the 
 Lord's appointment, and see how often they 
 transgressed their laws and were punished 
 for their sins, we have some reason to think 
 that many of them were even now cut off, 
 or at least that they incurred the penalty, 
 and that they were still not all Israel which 
 were of Israel. 
 
 We at length hear them asking for a 
 king, 1 Sam. 8: 5 and 7 : when the Lord 
 said of them to Samuel in answer to his 
 complaint, " They have not rejected thee, 
 but they have rejected me, that I should not 
 reign over them ;" implying it may be the 
 kind of reigning to which the prophets re- 
 fer, when they speak of Christ reigning on 
 earth over the seed of Abraham in the latter 
 day, so that we may know the kind of rule 
 He will exercise when we have found who 
 are the seed and lawful heirs. 
 
 After the days of Solomon, the nation of 
 
40 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 Israel divided into two kingdoms or parties: 
 ten tribes followed Jeroboam, the son of 
 Nebat, while the tribe of Judah, and the 
 few that remained of Benjamin, followed 
 Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the rightful 
 heir of David and of the kingdom. War 
 ensued, and the division became permanent, 
 the one party following the descendants of 
 David their king, and the other Jeroboam 
 and his successors, till the opposers of the 
 sons of David, who, as a nation, had by their 
 idolatry in setting up the golden calves, and 
 refusing to go up to Jerusalem to keep the 
 Passover, and by many other sins incurred 
 the penalty of exscision from the people of 
 God, were carried away captive by the As- 
 syrians and mingled among the Gentiles till 
 they were lost, and as a nation disowned of 
 the Lord, and have not since been found. — 
 See 1 Kings 12, to 2 Kings, 17th chapter, 
 especially the first and last chapters men- 
 tioned. So they are not yet all Israel which 
 are of Israel. 
 
 This total casting off of the ten tribes of 
 Israel, about 350 years after Saul was made 
 king, was threatened or foretold, 1 Kings, 14 ; 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 41 
 
 15, and seems to have been the legitimate 
 penalty of the laws which they had violated 
 as a nation by setting up idols and depart- 
 ing from the true God, and marks a new era 
 in the history of Israel. The ten tribes, 
 however, claimed the name of Israel, the 
 name of all before. 
 
 This is not mere conjecture. They had 
 violated the law, the penalty of which was 
 exscision, and when the Lord took the exe- 
 cution of it in his own hands, we are told, 
 2 Kings, 17 : 15-21, " They rejected his 
 statutes and his covenant, which he made 
 with their fathers, and his testimonies which 
 he testified against them ; and they left all 
 the commandments of the Lord their Grod, 
 and made them molten images, even two 
 calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all 
 the host of heaven ;" and v. 18 : " Therefore 
 the Lord was very angry with Israel, and 
 removed them out of his sight. There was 
 none left but the tribe of Judah only." 
 
 This seems plain. All were cast out of 
 
 the sight of the Lord but the tribe of Judah 
 
 only. By which name the heirs of promise 
 
 seem after this to have been generally 
 
 4* 
 
42 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 known, though the name was now conven- 
 tional from the name of that tribe, while 
 the exscinded tribes claimed the old name, 
 and to be the true heirs. This act of exscis- 
 ion was not executed until there had been 
 abundant time for all who did not in heart 
 fall in with the idolatry of the nation of 
 Israel to come out from among them and to 
 join themselves with the tribe of Judah. 
 This many of them did as soon as Jeroboam 
 set up his calves. — See 2 Chron. 11 : 13, 16. 
 "And the priests and the Levites that 
 were in all Israel resorted to him (Reho- 
 boam) out of all their coasts, and after them 
 out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set 
 their hearts to seek the Lord Gfod of 
 Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice 
 unto the Lord Grod of their fathers. So 
 they strengthened the kingdom of Judah. " 
 So that all the tribes of Israel were now 
 represented and included in the tribe of 
 Judah, Benjamin having before been with 
 them. After this falling of a part of all the 
 tribes to Judah, we find that during the 
 good reigns of Asa and Hezekiah, many 
 others of the ten tribes fell to Judah 4 which 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 43 
 
 seems to justify the frequent allusion of the 
 Prophets to Israel and Judah and all the 
 tribes after this date, and after the nation 
 of Israel — the ten tribes — were no longer 
 counted as the covenant people of G-od. But 
 in general, the heirs of Abraham, and of all 
 the rich legacies bequeathed through him, 
 were now called Jews — a mere conventional 
 name — and not Israel. 
 
 This view seems confirmed by the fact, 
 that it is now more than 2,500 years since 
 their cutting off, and so effectual has been 
 that casting off of them out of his sight, 
 that they have never since been found, 
 though great efforts have been made in 
 searching the whole earth to see if possible 
 where they were settled. But they have not 
 been found, and no wonder, for, if they are 
 cast out of the sight of the Lord so as to be 
 no longer his covenant people, they will not 
 be seen by the eyes of men. The heirs, 
 then, are now to be found only among those 
 who are amalgamated with the tribe of Ju- 
 dah, and are generally called Jews. But 
 frequently the Prophets still speak of the 
 whole house of Israel and Judah ; and James 
 
44 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 addresses his epistle in the New Testament 
 to the twelve tribes of Israel ; thus, we 
 think, showing that all Israel and Judah 
 that would ever be found, was now among 
 the Jews, and that henceforth we are to 
 look to the Jews alone, in distinction from 
 Israel, for the lawful heirs of Abraham and 
 David. It may be well to add here, that it 
 is not remembered by the writer of these 
 letters, that when the nation of Israel were 
 warned by the Prophets of their destruction 
 by the Assyrians, that they ever intimated 
 that as a nation they would be restored, (as 
 in the case of Judah), but only that rem- 
 nants w r ould return, such as referred to. 
 The frequent allusion to the whole house of 
 Israel is not thought to be an exception to 
 this, for Judah, with the remnant of the 
 other tribes, now compose the whole house 
 of Israel, both Israel and Judah. The his- 
 tory of Judah I must defer for the present. 
 This, I think, we ■ may now safely lay 
 down as our future rule of examination till 
 the death of Christ, that all who were regu- 
 larly in the Jewish church after its complete 
 organization, were counted Israel — the seed 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 45 
 
 of Abraham and heirs of the promises, and 
 none others. Let us now proceed on this 
 principle. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. W« 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 Dear Sir : — If the preceding views are 
 right, then we are henceforth to look to the 
 tribe of Judah, and the remnants amalga- 
 mated with them, alone for the lawful heirs 
 of Abraham and David, and the promises 
 made to them. But, are they all heirs? 
 This is the question still before us. Perhaps 
 they are not yet all Israel which are of Is- 
 rael, for Paul says, " He is not always a Jew 
 which is one outwardly ;" and John, u I know 
 the blasphemy of them that say they are 
 Jews and are not." 
 
 In tracing the history of the tribe of Ju- 
 dah, we find that they also greatly departed 
 from the Lord, and, about 125 years after 
 the casting off of Israel, Judah was over- 
 come, and a part of them led captive, and 
 about eleven years after that, Jerusalem was 
 taken, and their beautiful temple destroyed, 
 and the Jews greatly scattered, u through the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 47 
 
 anger of the Lord" for their sins for which he 
 cast them out of his presence, 2 Kings 24 : 
 20, — not out of his sight, as he did Israel. 
 He cast them out of Jerusalem and the tem- 
 ple, the place where he manifested his pre- 
 sence, but not before he had often warned 
 them of this, as the consequence of their sin, 
 preceded and accompanied by many predic- 
 tive promises that after he had chastised 
 them and the land had enjoyed her violated 
 Sabbaths, at the end of seventy years he 
 would, in answer to their prayers, open the 
 way for their return. And so particular was 
 the Lord in giving them this information for 
 their encouragement, that he caused it to be 
 stated by the historian, 2 Chron. 36: 22, and 
 by Jeremiah several times, even naming the 
 person by whom they were to be set at li- 
 berty, while, of the ten tribes carried away 
 by the Assyrians, the Lord said that he 
 would cut them off head and tail, branch 
 and rush, in one day, with no intimation of 
 their return : thus intimating the total and 
 irrevocable destruction of the ten tribes, as 
 a people, while individuals, or remnants, 
 might return to Judah, who were the only 
 
 i 
 
48 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 people in covenant with God, and conse- 
 quently the only heirs to the covenant pro- 
 mises to Abraham and David. 
 
 Of the Jews, it was distinctly said, when 
 it was predicted that they would be led cap- 
 tive to Babylon for their sins, that at the 
 end of seventy years they should be brought 
 back, and that Cyrus, though then not yet 
 born, should be the person that would set 
 them free, and that others would aid them 
 in their return. Many other predictions 
 were uttered in reference to that return — the 
 building of the second temple and down to the 
 coming and death of the Saviour, showing 
 the great interest that the Lord had in them 
 as his church, while the others seem to be 
 wholly unnoticed, except those who had re- 
 turned, and were connected with that tribe. 
 The glory of the second temple, though the 
 house was-- far inferior, was to be greater 
 than the first, Hag. 2 : 9 — doubtless because 
 of the presence of the promised Messiah and 
 king, the son of David, taking possession of 
 his own house. 
 
 In this division of the tribes of Israel, we 
 see again, as in the family of Abraham, 
 
LETTERS TO A M1LLENARIAN. 49 
 
 many more were dropped out of the cove- 
 nant, or rather exscinded, than were kept in. 
 The bearing of this fact, though somewhat 
 collateral, may hereafter be seen in the pro- 
 gress of this investigation. 
 
 Whether you admit all the previous views 
 or not, you will admit that during the period 
 of which we have been speaking, the lawful 
 heirs were to be found in the church as then 
 organized, whether descended wholly from 
 Abraham, or from converts introduced, and 
 intermarried as many had, and not among 
 those who had been cut off for crimes, suf- 
 fering the penalty of their exscinding laws. 
 
 We now advance one step further, and, 
 passing over the last 540 years, including the 
 return spoken of by the prophets between the 
 70 years and the coming of Christ, we come 
 down to the time of John the Baptist. Here 
 we see a new division, commencing under 
 John, but modified and made permanent 
 under Christ. When John came preaching 
 repentance and baptism, and proclaiming 
 that Christ had come, he did it only to Jews. 
 But all did not believe. The part that be- 
 lieved were called the disciples of John, and 
 5 
 
50 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 the others Jews, though all were alike Jews. 
 Jew and disciple became therefore again 
 strictly conventional names, and could not 
 at all determine who were the true Jews, 
 if one party only was. 
 
 After John had actually introduced Christ 
 as the Lamb of (rod, that taketh away the 
 sin of the world, and had taught the people 
 that this was that prophet of whom Moses 
 spake, and of whom many of the prophets 
 had spoken, and who was to descend from 
 David, and was to reign over the seed of 
 Abraham, he set him apart to his work by 
 baptism. Christ immediately began to 
 preach, and to teach the true meaning of 
 their own laws. In doing this, he spake as 
 one having authority, and not as the Scribes. 
 For, as High Priest regularly set apart of 
 God, he had a right to teach. But, besides 
 this, he spake with absolute certainty as to 
 the true meaning of their laws. So that he 
 gave them rules of life under their own laws, 
 and claimed for himself to be their Messiah, 
 who, according to their own Scriptures, was 
 to be their future king, while as yet he was 
 obedient to their laws, and made no new 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 51 
 
 laws. Still, his explanations of their laws, 
 and the rules of life inculcated under them, 
 seemed to the Jews, when placed beside the 
 teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees, like 
 new laws and new rules. 
 
 To these rules and to this teaching the 
 larger part of the Jewish Church, as then 
 constituted, refused to submit, declaring that 
 he was an impostor, while another part of that 
 people owned him as their rightful sovereign, 
 the predicted son of David, who was to reign 
 over them ; and now the division, com- 
 menced under John somewhat modified, is 
 renewed : one party, though the smaller, 
 again receive Christ as the Lord and King, 
 the other saying, We will not have this man 
 to reign over us, for we have no king but 
 Csesar. A war, at least of persecution, soon 
 commenced, so violent that the two parties 
 were permanently separated, as much as 
 under Jeroboam and Rehoboam, or as Jew 
 and Grentile, and have never since reunited, 
 except so far as converts from those under 
 Csesar have come over to those on the side of 
 Christ ; and, such is the nature of their dif- 
 ferent views, that no other union can be 
 
 
52 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 formed. Hence they are as effectually divid- 
 at this day as they were when Christ was 
 in the world. Keep in mind that this divi* 
 sion was not between the Jews and Gen- 
 tiles, but between the Jews themselves, as 
 much so as that between the ten tribes and 
 Judah, and such a division that the one 
 party only could be the lawful heirs of the 
 promises made to Abraham and David. 
 Which, then, of these two parties were the 
 true successors and lawful heirs ? Were 
 those Jews who rejected the Saviour, and 
 said, We have no king but Caesar, the lawful 
 heirs ? or those Jews who believed in and 
 received Christ as the true Messiah, their 
 rightful sovereign, the predicted king of the 
 Jews, the son of David ? Which of these 
 parties forfeited their inheritance, as Esau 
 did, by selling his birthright? To this I 
 think the Scriptures give a definite answer ; 
 but I must defer it to my next. 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 A. W. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 Dear Sir : — In my last we followed the 
 history of the Jews down to the time of their 
 permanent division into two parties, under 
 Christ and Csesar. Here we see the one 
 party denouncing Christ as an impostor, 
 who ought not to live, and joining with the 
 unbelieving Grentiles in reviling and perse- 
 cuting him, and finally in putting him to 
 death ; the other receiving him as their 
 long promised, long expected Lord and Sa- 
 viour. We ask here, again, Did those Jews 
 who received him as their promised Saviour, 
 and who carefully followed and obeyed him, 
 though often at greg.t sacrifices, thereby for- 
 feit their character as Jews, and their claim 
 as heirs to the promises made to Abraham 
 and his seed ; and, did the other party, who 
 called him an impostor, and who joined in per- 
 secuting and putting to death the Son of Grod, 
 thereby secure to themselves and their chil- 
 5* 
 
 i 
 
54 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 dren forever all those rich legacies which 
 were yet due by covenant promise to the 
 lawful heirs of Abraham ? Can you sup- 
 pose that the forfeiture fell upon that party, 
 though for the present the smaller, who 
 obeyed the Saviour, and owned him as their 
 promised deliverer ? and that the party who 
 rejected him as an impostor, and continued 
 to rebel against him after his resurrection, 
 by that rebellion secured to themselves and 
 their children these rich promised legacies 
 from that very Saviour who had bequeathed 
 these legacies, and who has risen to be the 
 executor of his own will ? Would not this 
 be rather a strange conclusion ? That such 
 an act of rebellion, against their rightful 
 sovereign, should be followed by such rich 
 blessings, and that the obedience and love 
 of the disciples of Christ, and the thousands 
 of others who, during the preaching of the 
 Apostles, fell to him, and owned him as their 
 Saviour, should be followed by such fearful 
 forfeiture to themselves and their children? 
 At least, this is not the way in which vic- 
 tors commonly reward their friends and ene- 
 mies, and you can hardly maintain that 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 55 
 
 Christ will really so reward his friends and 
 enemies ; and yet such was the nature of 
 that division, that you will admit that both 
 parties could not after this be the heirs of 
 all the rich legacies yet due to the lawful 
 heirs of Abraham, for they were even more 
 diverse than Jew and Grentile. Besides, the 
 believing Jews, under the direction of their 
 acknowledged Lord, ceased to circumcise 
 their children, and to keep the Passover, in- 
 termarried with believing Gentiles, and be- 
 came one with them, so that if the present 
 scattered people calling themselves the seed 
 of Abraham, are the heirs, then the others 
 must, in some way, have forfeited their 
 claim, and lost their inheritance. Hence 
 the question is fairly before us, which of 
 these parties are the lawful heirs to the be- 
 quests made of the Lord to Abraham and his 
 seed? 
 
 Must you not admit, in the absence of 
 any other testimony, that the probability 
 seems strongly in favor of those who believed 
 in, and followed the son of David, and obeyed 
 him as their lawful sovereign, and against 
 those who said we will not have this man to 
 
56 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 reign over us, for we have no king but 
 Csesar, and who still say the same ? For, 
 as yet, both parties were Jews, both were 
 circumcised, both kept the Passover, for no 
 change was made in the Jewish economy or 
 law, till after the death of Christ, so that 
 both parties had equal claims in that res- 
 pect. 
 
 But what seems thus strongly probable, 
 from their position, we think, is made abso- 
 lutely certain by the teachings of Moses, 
 Christ and the apostles, to which teachings 
 we now turn. 
 
 Passing, for the present, over the obscure 
 prediction of Noah, Gen. 9 : 27, « That the 
 time would come when Japheth should dwell 
 in the tents of Shem,' and the law of Moses, 
 Deut. 18 : 15-19, we will first turn to the 
 teachings of Christ. 
 
 When Christ began to teach, he seems to 
 have assumed no more than princely author- 
 ity, for being made under the law, he was 
 as yet a subject of the law, as other men. 
 After being publicly pointed out, and set 
 apart by John as their Saviour, he began to 
 teach, and gave them rules to regulate their 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 57 
 
 conduct under the Jewish law; but, as yet, 
 he repealed no laws. He spake indeed as 
 one having authority, and not as the Scribes, 
 who pretended to be no more than imperfect 
 expounders of their law ; but Christ spake 
 as one who knew perfectly the meaning of 
 their laws, and what they were bound to do, 
 as the people of G-od . His disciples admitted 
 that he had a right so to do, and so do we, 
 and all Christians, because he knew per- 
 fectly the meaning of their laws. But 
 if he had a right to give rules to a part of 
 the Jews, had he not to all ? And can it be 
 that those Jews w 7 ho rejected Christ and his 
 expositions of the law and their duty under 
 it, and w 7 ho are now called Jews, by a sort 
 of common consent, would have lost their 
 character as Jews and heirs of the promises, 
 if they had obeyed him who had a right to 
 rule in that way? when it was their duty to 
 obey him as their prince, who was to be 
 their future king ? And if ninety-nine out 
 of one hundred had obeyed him, would the 
 rest have been the only true Israelites, and 
 all the others, because they did just what 
 Christ said was their duty to do, have been 
 
58 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 cut off? This can hardly be, — for obedience 
 to Christ never has separated any from the 
 promises of Grod, while disobedience has al- 
 ways tended to it. 
 
 But let us hear what Christ says on this 
 subject ; for, during his stay in the world, 
 he often refers to it, though he did not for- 
 mally set up his kingdom till after his resur- 
 rection, when the Jewish law, having been 
 fulfilled, ended, and all distinctions between 
 Jew and Gentile seemed to cease. While 
 in the world, Christ says to his opposers, 
 Mat. 21 : 43, " The kingdom of heaven shall 
 be taken from you and given to a nation 
 bringing forth the fruits thereof." This seems 
 to be intended as the exposition of the pre- 
 ceding parable, in which he represents him- 
 self and his disciples as one party, and his 
 enemies as the other, as the Pharisees seem 
 to admit in verse 45. They perceived that 
 he spake of them. 
 
 Again, Luke 19 : 12-27: In the parable 
 of the nobleman who went into a far coun- 
 try to receive for himself a kingdom, and to 
 return, Christ seems to imply that those cit- 
 izens who hated him, and sent a message 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 59 
 
 after him, saying, we will not have this man 
 to reign over us, would, after that, be cut 
 off from all the blessings of his reign when 
 the nobleman should return ; for, after the 
 king is represented as having finished call- 
 ing his servants to account, those who pro- 
 fessed to own him king, both good and bad, 
 he adds, ' But those, mine enemies, who 
 would not have me to reign over them, 
 bring hither and slay them before me.' "Was 
 not this nobleman Christ, and were not the 
 servants professed believers, and were not 
 these citizens those Jews who hated him ? 
 Now if they were to be slain, it does not 
 look like an intimation that they were here- 
 after to be the exclusive heirs to the legacies 
 bequeathed to Abraham and his seed, when 
 the king should return, but rather that, like 
 Esau, they had forfeited all claim to the 
 character of (rod's peculiar people. 
 
 This controversy between the two parties 
 continued during the life of Christ, without 
 any absolute separation, for as yet, both 
 parties kept the laws of Moses, as Christ 
 himself did, and taught all others to do it. 
 But the night in which Christ was betray- 
 
60 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 ed, and just before that event, He eats the 
 last Passover with his disciples, and then 
 puts an end to that part of the Jewish in- 
 stitution, by establishing the Lord's Supper 
 in its stead, in anticipation of his death, 
 which was soon to take place ; which sacra- 
 ment was to be kept by his followers, till 
 his second coming. " As often as ye eat this 
 bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the 
 Lord's death till he come." He then dies, 
 and by that offering, puts an end to all the 
 bloody sacrifices of the Jewish economy, 
 which were typical of his sufferings. I 
 came not, says Christ, to destroy the law, 
 but to fulfil. After three days he rose again, 
 and returning to his disciples, directed 
 them to go and preach the gospel to all 
 nations, beginning at Jerusalem, (where, ac- 
 cording to the prophets, Christ was to begin 
 his reign,) and to baptize in his name all 
 who believed, and thus seal them as sub- 
 jects of his kingdom. And did not Christ 
 here begin his reign over the house of Israel 
 and of Judah ? — not over those who rejected 
 him, and thereby incurred the penalty of 
 exseision, and were no more of Israel— but 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 61 
 
 I 
 
 over his friends, who were now all that 
 were left after that " diminishing of them" 
 of which Paul speaks, Rom. 11 : 12, of the 
 house of Israel and Judah, though many of 
 the other tribes soon fell to him, as they did 
 from the ten tribes to Judah in the days of 
 Jeroboam ? 
 
 But did Christ here begin his personal 
 reign over Israel ? 
 
 Let us see how far he changed his course 
 of conduct, after his resurrection, toward 
 his people, and try to determine whether 
 Christ did now actually assume regal autho- 
 rity. During his lifetime he acted as a 
 prince under the laws of Moses, to which laws 
 he was perfectly obedient, but he taught 
 that a " certain nobleman went into a far 
 country to receive for himself a kingdom, 
 and to return ;" in allusion, it may be, to the 
 customs of subordinate kings, who were 
 heirs to vacant thrones, going to Rome to 
 have their title to the kingdom confirmed. 
 And this nobleman (we suppose) referred to 
 himself returning after his resurrection. 
 But did he after his resurrection assume and 
 exercise regal powers, or any powers which 
 6 
 
62 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 he did not before ? As the answer to this 
 question has an important bearing on some 
 other facts in the history of this interest- 
 ing people (because as yet the people of 
 God,) as well as on the question before us of 
 inheritance, it may be well to examine it 
 with some care. 
 
 Until Christ had eaten the last Passover, 
 he introduced no change in the Jewish wor- 
 ship. He was as carefully obedient to every 
 part of the Mosaic ritual, as any other man, 
 but after that, and just before his death, 
 he instituted the Lord's Supper, and direct- 
 ed his disciples to keep it in remembrance 
 of him and of his death, by which he seems 
 to abolish the Passover. 
 
 After his resurrection, when he met his 
 disciples in Galilee, i where Jesus had ap- 
 pointed them,' Jesus came and spake unto 
 them, saying, " All power is given unto me, 
 in heaven and in earth." How different this, 
 from his language when he said, ' Who 
 made me a judge and a divider over you V 
 Here, he claims absolute power, not in sub- 
 jection to the powers that be, but over them. 
 " All power is given unto me in heaven and 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 63 
 
 inearth." And to show that he is not any- 
 longer subject to the laws of Moses, but 
 acting as that prophet, whom Moses said, 
 the Lord would raise up like unto Moses, 
 and whom the Jews were to obey at the 
 peril of being destroyed from the people of 
 God, Acts 3 : 22, he virtually repeals the 
 entire Jewish ritual, and says to his disci- 
 ples, "Go ye therefore" in obedience to my 
 command," and teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to 
 observe" — not the Jewish ceremonial laws, 
 as heretofore required, — but " whatsoever I 
 have commanded you." Before this, when 
 he sent his twelve disciples to go and preach 
 and heal, Mat. 10 : 5, he said, u Go not into 
 the way of the Gentiles, and into any city 
 of the Samaritans enter ye not." For then 
 he was under the Mosaic laws, which limit- 
 ed them to the Jews alone, but not so now. 
 He now institutes the gospel dispensation, 
 which was certainly a virtual repeal of the 
 whole Mosaic ritual. So the Scribes and 
 Pharisees understood it, and hence their bit- 
 ter opposition. No man could after this be 
 
64 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 a follower of Christ, and yet be a Jew in 
 the sense of the present Jews. He must 
 lose the one or other character. Christ be- 
 gins his reign by breaking down the parti- 
 tion wall between Jew and Gentile, and 
 sending his disciples over the wall to preach 
 to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, com- 
 manding all to believe in him, as their pro- 
 mised Saviour and king, and to obey all his 
 commands. He commands them to baptize 
 their disciples, and to keep the Lord's Sup- 
 per instead of circumcise, and keep the 
 Passover. You are now to regard my word, 
 and not the law of Moses, as the rule of 
 your conduct, and to teach all others to do 
 the same, and I will hereafter send the 
 Holy Spirit to give you such further instruc- 
 tions as you need ; for which, they were to 
 wait at Jerusalem. See Luke 24 : 49. This 
 looks very much like assuming the powers 
 of a king, when he repealed the old laws 
 given by Moses, enacted his own, appointed 
 officers to execute his laws, and carry on his 
 government. These laws were as binding 
 on the Jews as on the Gentiles. They were 
 enacted at Jerusalem. Had not Christ a 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 65 
 
 right to do so ? and were not the Jews bound 
 to obey them ? Had they all done so, there 
 would have been an end to the Jews, such 
 as now call themselves the only Jews. There 
 would have been none to receive any other 
 promises. But the promises would have re- 
 mained as now to the seed of Abraham, nor 
 would the seed of Abraham thereby have 
 been destroyed. Did their rebellion then 
 constitute them the exclusive heirs, and 
 did the obedience of those that believe cu* 
 them off? 
 
 But if Christ was now a king, he had a 
 kingdom. Over whom then did he reign ? 
 over which party ? the believing part or the 
 unbelieving ? There can surely be but one 
 answer to this. It was over those that 
 obeyed his commands. But over whom was 
 Christ the son of David to reign, according 
 to the prophets ? was it not over the house 
 of Israel and the house of Judah ? Must 
 not, then, the part that believed and obeyed 
 Christ, be the Israel of whom the prophets 
 speak, when they speak of David being 
 king over Israel after the death of Christ ? 
 Does not all this seem to favor the opinion, 
 6* 
 
66 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN, 
 
 that the party who were true believers, 
 were after this to be counted for the seed 
 and heirs of Abraham, and of all the lega- 
 cies yet due to those heirs, and that those 
 of whom Christ says, John 8 : 44, " Ye are 
 of your father the devil," had lost all claim 
 to the inheritance still due to the seed of 
 Abraham ? But more of this in my next. 
 Yours, &e., A. W. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 Bear Sir : — In my last we left Christ 
 giving directions to his disciples in relation 
 to the organization of his kingdom among 
 the Jews. The disciples went on according 
 to the command of Christ, whom they owned 
 as their prophet and king, and taught in 
 what way they could now be admitted as the 
 true Israel of God, or as the subjects of this 
 kingdom — appointed officers in obedience 
 to the teachings of Christ — and received into 
 this kingdom of Christ such as professed to 
 believe him their divinely appointed Saviour 
 and King, and were willing to submit to his 
 rule ; but teaching, as Christ commanded, 
 that those only who were true believers and 
 became Christ's people in heart, were to be 
 regarded as now the subjects of Christ's 
 kingdom, and the future seed of Abraham, 
 according to the promise of God by Jer. 31 : 
 31-34, 'Behold thedays come,saith the Lord, 
 
68 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 that I will make a new covenant with the 
 house of Israel, and with the house of Ju- 
 dah, not according to the covenant that I 
 made with their fathers in the day that I 
 took them by the hand to bring them out of 
 the land of Egypt, which my covenant they 
 brake, although I was a husband unto them, 
 saith the Lord. But this shall be the cove- 
 nant that I will make with the house of 
 Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; (but 
 after what days ? Just after Rachel was 
 weeping for her children, and would not 
 be comforted.) I will put my law in 
 their inward parts, and write it in their 
 hearts, and I will be their God, and they 
 shall be my people ; and they shall teach 
 no more every man his neighbor, and every 
 man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for 
 all shall know me from the least of them 
 to the greatest of them, saith the Lord ; for 
 I will forgive their iniquity, and their sins 
 will I remember no more.' 
 
 The former covenant was made with 
 them as a nation, the larger part of whom 
 were unbelievers in heart and wicked, and 
 therefore there was need of one saying to 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 69 
 
 another, know the Lord . But this second 
 new and better covenant, as Paul calls it, 
 and under which, as I think, we shall here- 
 after see we are now living, was to be so 
 made with Israel and Judah, that every in- 
 dividual was to have the law written in 
 their hearts, or, in other words, that no one 
 could belong to it who was not a true be- 
 liever and received Christ as their king, and 
 his laws as the rule of their conduct, and 
 hence there would be no need of the sub- 
 jects of this new covenant saying one to 
 another, know the Lord. For this house of 
 Israel, with whom this covenant was to be 
 made, would all know the Lord. Hence 
 Paul says in his day, under this new cove- 
 nant, ' He is not a Jew which is one out- 
 wardly — but he is a Jew which is one in- 
 wardly, and circumcision is that of the 
 heart;' and again, ' If ye be Christ's, then 
 are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according 
 to the promise.' Are not these then the 
 subjects of Christ's kingdom ? 
 
 But if Christ be now king in his church, 
 and has actually established his own laws 
 in his kingdom, and his officers to execute 
 
70 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 them, and required all Jews to obey them 
 at the peril of death eternal, does it not 
 seem to follow that whatever of laws or 
 ordinances there were or now are among the 
 Jews, such as constitute them a separate 
 people from the rest of the world, and lead 
 to their being called Jews, are in opposition 
 to the king, are self-created in rebellion 
 against him, according to the saying, we 
 will not have this man to reign over us ; 
 and can such a rebellious circumcising and 
 keeping of the Passover constitute them in 
 a scriptural or prophetic sense the covenant 
 people of God more than the Ishmaelites 
 would be, if they should do the same, to the 
 exclusion of those who believed and obeyed 
 their lawful king ? Can circumcising and 
 keeping the law of Moses, in rebellion 
 against the command of God in Christ, con- 
 stitute them Jews in covenant with God, 
 and heirs of the legacies bequeathed to the 
 seed of Abraham, more than it would any 
 one of us, since the law of Moses admitted 
 Gentile converts to be counted heirs? "Why 
 would a rebellious keeping of the law of 
 Moses, after that law is repealed by Christ, 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 71 
 
 constitute them heirs more than it would 
 any other Gentile — since both are alike com- 
 manded to believe in and obey Christ, and 
 not the laws of Moses ? But if these are 
 not in covenant with Grod, then they seem 
 to have no claims to the promises made of 
 Grod to Abraham and his seed, for these 
 were made to Grod's covenant people, and 
 because of his covenant to them ; but which 
 covenant, the Lord says by Jeremiah, they 
 brake, and hence the new. But if they are 
 not in covenant, then are not those who sub- 
 mit to Christ, (for with them the new cove- 
 nant seems to be made,) and are they not 
 then the heirs to all the unpaid legacies of 
 the Abrahamic will, to the entire exclusion 
 of those who have broken their covenant 
 with Grod, as much as the men who of old 
 refused to keep the Passover, while it was 
 yet the command of Grod to keep it ? Would 
 not a contrary conclusion imply that the 
 prophets taught that rebellion against Christ 
 was necessary to secure to their children the 
 legacies yet due to the seed of Abraham, 
 while Christ denounced them for their un- 
 belief and rebellion, as being not the seed 
 
72 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 of Abraham, but of their father the devil, 
 and while John impliedly says, Luke 3 : 8, 
 that God would sooner raise up seed from 
 the very stones than count those who did not 
 'bring forth fruits meet for repentance?' 
 
 Do you here say that if the believing 
 Jews did forfeit the promise to Abraham, to 
 their seed, still they secured everlasting 
 life, which the unbelieving Jews lost — so 
 that the friends of Christ had still the greater 
 blessing ? If we grant this, would it not 
 array the New Testament and Old Testa- 
 ment promises and threatenings against 
 each other? On this supposition, would not 
 the Jew have been placed in such a position 
 that go which way he would he must incur 
 one penalty, and secure one promise ? If he 
 followed Christ, he forfeited the promise to 
 Abraham. If he rejected Christ, he forfeit- 
 ed the promise of Christ, and secured that 
 made to Abraham. So that whatever way 
 he went, he incurred one penalty, and se- 
 oured one promise. Can that be ? Can 
 Christ be thus arrayed against Abraham ? 
 Did the prophets teach so ? 
 
 But let us now turn to the teachings of 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 73 
 
 the apostles, and see whether we can learn 
 more definitely which of these parties they' 
 taught were the true Israelites and heirs to 
 the promises made to the seed of Abraham, 
 for they had heard the teachings of Abraham 
 as explained by Christ. Their conduct 
 seems to give the answer, but their more de- 
 finite teachings we must defer to my next. 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Having shown that the Jews 
 under Christ divided into two parties, the 
 one following Christ, and the other rejecting 
 him, and saying, we have no king but Cae- 
 sar, and that they (never having reunited) 
 could not both be the seed of Abraham, and 
 heirs of the legacies given to his seed ; 
 and also, that Christ strongly intimated that 
 those who followed him, and not his ene- 
 mies, would receive these legacies, we now 
 proceed to examine how the apostles who 
 were sent forth to carry out the laws and 
 teachings of Christ understood him. Who 
 did they teach were the heirs ? and who 
 had forfeited their claim to the promises of 
 Grod to Abraham and David? They who 
 followed the Son of David as their promised 
 Messiah and lawful king, or those who re- 
 jected him ? Both parties, as yet, were cir- 
 cumcised, and for about seven years to 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 75 
 
 come, both parties were Jews. The party 
 who rejected Christ claimed to be the seed 
 of Abraham ; but Christ said, in reply to that 
 claim, John 8 : 39-41. ' If ye were Abra- 
 ham's children ye would do the works of 
 Abraham — ye do the deeds of your father, — 
 v. 44, For ye are of your father the devil.' 
 Paul, in the second chapter of Romans, after 
 proving that circumcision did not now con- 
 stitute them heirs, since they were living 
 under the new covenant, says, vers. 28, 29, 
 i For he is not a Jew which is one outward- 
 ly, neither is that circumcision which is 
 outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew 
 which is one inwardly, and circumcision is 
 that of the heart in the spirit, and not in 
 the letter.' Paul was here speaking of his 
 own time about twenty-seven years after 
 the death of Christ, and proving that out- 
 ward circumcision did not then constitute 
 them the seed of Abraham, or properly, 
 Jews, but that a change of heart did, and 
 so claimed for himself and his party to be 
 the true Jews, the lawful seed and heirs of 
 the promises of Abraham, or made to Abra- 
 ham and David. To this, we think, agree 
 
76 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 the words of Paul to the Gal. 3 : 7, " Know 
 ye, therefore, that they which are of faith 
 the same are the children of Abraham ;" and 
 v. 29, " If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abra- 
 ham's seed and heirs, according to the 
 promises ;" for, ver. 16, To Abraham and his 
 seed were the promises made. Is it not here 
 plainly declared that those who are Christ's 
 by faith are the seed of Abraham, to whom 
 the promises belong ; not only that part of 
 the promise which referred to Christ, but all 
 the legacies yet due to the lawful heirs of 
 Abraham ; and does it not imply that the 
 other party who rejected Christ, and who 
 were now as distinct from the disciples of 
 Christ, as were ever Gentiles from Jews, 
 were not heirs ? though for seven years both 
 parties were circumcised Jews. Nor does 
 it seem to alter this conclusion at all, that 
 after some of the Jewish branches were 
 broken off from this Jewish tree which still 
 lives, Gentile converts were more numer- 
 ously grafted in. The tree remained the 
 same, with some changed branches. 
 
 Could the apostle have declared in plainer 
 language that circumcision did not consti- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 77 
 
 tute a Jew; that lineal descent from Abra- 
 ham and circumcision did not constitute an 
 heir of the promises ; but that henceforth, 
 under the gospel dispensation, true believers 
 in Christ are now to be considered the seed of 
 Abraham, and heirs of all the promises made 
 to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, which 
 are still unfulfilled, and so are still due to 
 the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, 
 who are the seed of Abraham. So that if 
 the Prophets speak of the house of Israel and 
 Judah, or of the seed of Abraham, &c, of 
 the present time, do they not speak of those 
 who are in Christ, whom Paul calls the seed 
 of Abraham, and heirs of the promises, in 
 opposition to those who claim to be Jews ? 
 
 Again, Rom. 11 : Paul, speaking of the 
 Jewish church under the figure of a tree, 
 says, ver. 17, " And if some of the branches 
 be broken off, and thou being a wild olive 
 tree wert grafted in among them," &c. ; and 
 vers. 23-24, " And they also, if they abide 
 not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for 
 God is able to graft them in again ; for if thou 
 wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild 
 by nature, and wert grafted contrary to na- 
 7* 
 
78 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 ture, into the good olive tree, how much 
 more shall these which be the natural bran- 
 ches be grafted into their own olive tree?" 
 Does not Paul here take it for granted, that 
 the Jewish or Abrahamic tree still lives in 
 that part of the nation that followed Christ, 
 and that the unbelieving Jews were cut off, 
 and no longer had any claim to be the heirs 
 of promise ? And does he not expressly say, 
 that if they ever return, it is to be by being 
 re-engrafted into their own olive tree, which 
 still lives, and is not that tree the part 
 of the Jews who follow Christ, or true 
 believers, whether Jews or Gentiles ? If 
 Paul does not teach that the unbelieving 
 Jews were cut off, we know not how he 
 could have taught it, or how he could have 
 taught that those who were in Christ were 
 the seed of Abraham, and heirs according 
 to the promise, and the Abrahamic tree 
 still lives, though diminished, as in verse 
 12. 
 
 Again, when writing on the same subject 
 to the Gralatians, he seems to teach the same 
 truths — G-al. 4 : 21-31. Paul here declares 
 that Isaac and Ishmael allegorically repre- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARTAN. 79 
 
 sent the two covenants : the old, at Mount 
 Sinai, with Moses and Israel, and the new, 
 with Christ and his church or people. That 
 the Sinaic represented the present Jerusa- 
 lem in bondage ; but the latter the Jerusa- 
 lem or church which is free ; and then adds, 
 emphatically, ver. 28, " Now we, brethren, 
 as Isaac was, are the childrenof promise ; but 
 as then he that was born after the flesh per- 
 secuted him that was born after the spirit, 
 so it is now : nevertheless, what saith the 
 scripture? Cast out the bond-woman and 
 her son, for the son of the bond -woman shall 
 not be heir with the son of the free." So 
 then, brethren, we (the believing Jews 
 and engrafted Grentiles) are not children 
 of the bond-woman, but of the free." 
 Could Paul have given to a Jew a more lu- 
 cid representation of his total exclusion 
 from all the Abrahamic promises or cove- 
 nant promises, than by declaring that he 
 stood in the same relation to Abraham that 
 Ishmael did, whom all the Jews, with one 
 voice, declare to have no part nor lot with 
 the promised seed of Abraham ? Or could he 
 have set up a stronger claim for himself 
 
80 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 and his companions, the believing Jews, to- 
 gether with the engrafted Grentiles, than by 
 saying, thus emphatically, 'Now we, breth- 
 ren, as Isaac was, are the children of prom- 
 ise, when all the Jews admitted that none of 
 the seed of Abraham, excepting Isaac, were 
 included in the promise ? Does it not then 
 follow, that when the prophets, speak of the 
 heirs of promise, or the seed of Abraham, 
 or house of Israel and Judah — in reference 
 to the present time, they speak only of true 
 believers, and not at all of those outcast 
 Jews, who have incurred the penalty of ex- 
 cision ? If such declarations as we have re- 
 ferred to, do not prove that those in Christ 
 are the true seed of Abraham, and heirs of 
 the promise, we ask what language could 
 prove it ? — while it seems to show, with 
 equal explicitness, that the present Jews are 
 cut off, and are not the heirs of promise. 
 But of this more in my next. Even at the 
 hazard of appearing somewhat tedious in 
 repeating the same texts, we will try to 
 show they are excinded. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. "VV. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 JEWS REJECTED. 
 
 Dear Sir : — That the covenant relation 
 of the Jews with God, ended at the death 
 of Christ, and that therefore, no covenant 
 promises made to Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob, and repeated by the prophets belong 
 to them at present, may be farther inferred, 
 
 1. From the fact, that the penalty of many 
 of their laws was excision from the Lord's 
 people. See Gren. 17 : 14. ' And the uncir- 
 cumcised man-child, whose flesh of his fore- 
 skin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut 
 off from his people, Ke hath broken my cove- 
 nant'. See again Ex. 12 : 19. 4 Seven days 
 there shall be no leaven found in your houses, 
 for whosoever eateth that which is leaven- 
 ed, even that soul shall be cut off from the 
 congregation of Israel, whether he be a 
 stranger or born in the land.' See again 
 Num. 9 : 13. " But the man that is clean, 
 
83 LETTERS TO A MTLLENARIAN. 
 
 and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep 
 the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut 
 off from his people.' Ex. 22 : 20. ' He that 
 saorificeth to any god, save unto the Lord 
 only, he shall be utterly destroyed.' See 
 also, Ex. 30 : 33 and 38 ; 31 : 14 ; Lev. 7 : 
 20-27 ; 17 : 4, 9, 10, 14 ; and 18 : 1-24. 
 Now most of these laws they had broken, 
 as is proved both by the historians and the 
 prophets of the Old Testament, before the 
 Babylonish captivity — at least great num- 
 bers of them had. Such were the charges 
 brought against them, in justification of 
 the Lord's dealing with them, when he suf- 
 fered them to be subdued and led into cap- 
 tivity by their enemies. And this may ac- 
 count for the fewness of those who were 
 brought back from their captivities, for all 
 those who had by their sin incurred the pe- 
 nalty of excision, could no longer claim 
 that they were of Israel — -and therefore, 
 the promise of Grod by the prophets, to res- 
 tore all of them who were of Israel was 
 fulfilled, though all that had incurred the 
 penalty of excision were left, when the 
 rest were brought back — according to Amos 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 83 
 
 9:8,9.' Behold the eyes of the Lord God are 
 upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy 
 it from off the face of the earth ; saving 
 that I will not utterly destroy the house of 
 Jacob, saith the Lord. Fors lo, I will com- 
 mand, and I will sift the house of Israel 
 among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a 
 sieve ; yet shall not the least grain fall upon 
 the earth.' Now if they were sifted, was it 
 not to separate the chaff from the grain, as 
 was done in their last captivity, the return 
 from which commenced seventy years after 
 they were carried captive, and was com- 
 pleted at or before the resurrection of 
 Christ, when there were dwelling at Jeru- 
 salem Jews, devout men out of every nation 
 under heaven, as recorded Acts 2:5? After 
 which the prophet goes on to say how the 
 house of David is to be built up without the 
 rebels who were cut off. V. 11. In that day 
 will I raise up the tabernacle of David which 
 is fallen down. But how is this to be done? 
 By bringing back those Jews who have in- 
 curred the penalty of excision ? Let James 
 answer, Acts 15 : 14-17. Referring to this 
 prediction, he says, " Simeon hath declared 
 
84 
 
 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to 
 take out of them a people for his name," — 
 not out of the excinded Jews." And to this 
 agree the words of the prophets, as it is 
 written : After this I will return, and will 
 build again the tabernacle of David which is 
 fallen down, and I will build again the ruins 
 thereof, and I will set it up, that the residue of 
 men might seek after the Lord, and all the 
 Gentiles upon whom my name is called, 
 saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." 
 In the last revolt of the Jews, when they 
 rejected Christ, denounced him as an impos- 
 tor unworthy to live, declared they would 
 not have him to reign over them, and put 
 him to death, they seemed to have filled up 
 the measure of their iniquity, and to have 
 fully incurred the penalty of final excision 
 according to the law of Moses. Deut. 18 : 
 15-19. "The Lord thy God will raise up 
 unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thy 
 brethren, like unto me. Unto him shall 
 ye hearken," &c, as explained by Peter, 
 Acts 3 : 22, 3. " For Moses truly said unto 
 the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your 
 God raise up unto you, of your brethren 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 85 
 
 like unto me : him shall ye hear in all things 
 whatsoever he shall say unto you, and it 
 shall come to pass, that every soul that will 
 not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed 
 from among the people." 
 
 Now if Moses referred to the time of the 
 coming of Christ and to Christ, as that pro- 
 phet, and Peter also, as probably all admit, 
 then it seems to follow, with almost demon- 
 strative certainty, that all who continued 
 to reject Christ did incur the penalty, and 
 were actually exscinded from the covenant 
 people of Grod ; the church of Christ which 
 was now organized according to the new 
 covenant foretold by Jeremiah 31 : 31-34, 
 explained by Paul, Heb. 8 : 8-13, and was 
 as yet as essentially Jewish as it ever had 
 been. 
 
 At this time all who did not join in the 
 revolt, came out from among them, and put 
 themselves under the rule of Christ, so that 
 the Jews, as such were now, as distinctly 
 divided from the Jewish church of Christ, 
 now called the disciples of Christ, and af- 
 terward Christian, as ever the Jews and 
 Gentiles were ; now as those Jews who re- 
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86 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 jected Christ as an impostor, and joined in 
 crucifying him as such, had plainly incurred 
 the penalty of their own law as explained 
 by Peter, an inspired apostle, by refusing to 
 hear and obey Christ, must we not infer 
 that they were cut off from all covenant 
 relations to God, and from all the promises 
 made to Abraham ? If not, then that part 
 of the Jews who did hear and obey that 
 prophet, the admitted son of David, who 
 was to reign over them, must have been cut 
 off. For if the Jews now, so called, are not 
 cut off, then those that obeyed .Christ were, 
 for both parties were not and are not now 
 Jews in the same sense, nor do the pro- 
 phets refer to and speak of both parties, as 
 the Jews and Israel of Grod. And since the 
 penalty of the law for disobedience was ex- 
 cision, must we not infer that those who 
 disobeyed were cut off, and not those who 
 obeyed, and cut off, so as to have no more 
 claim than the uncircumcised man-child to 
 the promises made to Abraham, &c. ? 
 
 2. This excision may be inferred from 
 the fact, admitted by all, that before the 
 death of Christ, the Jews did suffer the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 87 
 
 curses of Moses, which were but another 
 name for the penalties for the violation of 
 those laws published and repeated by Moses ; 
 at the same time, that the law requiring 
 excision for rejecting Christ was publish- 
 ed. Great numbers of them were slain in 
 their wars, and were thus cut off — but 
 many others were carried captive and suf- 
 fered these curses or penalties, for their 
 sins before the death of Christ, and since 
 the destruction of Jerusalem it has been 
 the common lot of those who rejected 
 Christ. 
 
 Now if all the other penalties pronounced 
 by Moses have fallen upon the violators of 
 the law, upon those who would not have 
 Christ to reign over them, and are still call- 
 ed Jews, must not the penalty of final ex- 
 cision from the people of God, which was 
 the specific penalty for not obeying Christ, 
 have fallen upon them also ? and not upon 
 those who followed and obeyed Christ. For 
 upon the one or the other the penalty has 
 been executed — for all admit, that both par- 
 ties are not now the Israel of the promises. 
 Can we then suppose that all the other pe- 
 
88 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 nalties have been executed on the rejectors 
 of Christ, and that the penalty which was 
 specifically the penalty for rejecting the 
 Saviour has been executed, not upon the re- 
 jectors of Christ, but upon those who fol- 
 lowed and obeyed the Saviour, and upon 
 their descendants. This surely would be 
 a strange conclusion, when Peter says, that 
 every soul that will not hear that prophet, 
 shall be destroyed from among the people. 
 
 3. That the present Jews have forfeited 
 all their covenant blessings, may be inferred 
 again from what John says, Mat. 3 : 9 and 
 10, " And think not to say within yourselves 
 we have Abraham to our father, for I say 
 unto you that Grod is able of these stones to 
 raise up children unto Abraham. And now 
 also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees, 
 therefore every tree which bringeth not forth 
 good fruit is cast into the fire," and also from 
 what Christ said would be after his death. 
 Mat. 21 : 33-45. In the last verse of this 
 parable, the Jews admit that he had spoken 
 of them in the preceding part — %i They per- 
 ceived that he spake of them," — in which he 
 represents the conduct of those who reject 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 89 
 
 him as so unreasonable and wicked as to 
 justify his declaration, v. 44, " Therefore, 
 I say unto you, the kingdom of heaven 
 shall be taken from you, and given to a 
 nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." 
 Christ does not, like the prophets who pre- 
 dicted their captivity by the Babylonians, 
 foretell that there would be a return of them, 
 or of the kingdom to them, but leaves it as 
 an absolute separation of them from the peo- 
 ple of God as enemies, so long as they re- 
 mained by their obstinate unbelief separate, 
 just as the curses of Moses would follow them 
 evermore. 
 
 Now what did Christ mean, if he did not 
 mean that their special favors as Jews would 
 end after they had put him to death? and 
 why, if these favors were ever to return in a 
 special manner to them, did not Christ hold 
 out some encouragement to them that when 
 they repented as a people they would be 
 again restored to their own land, as all the 
 prophets who spake before the captivity did ? 
 How can we account for the fact that when 
 he was pronouncing those dreadful woes that 
 8* 
 
90 LETTERS TO A xMILLENARIAN. 
 
 were to overtake that part of the Jews who 
 rejected him when the Romans would in- 
 vade their land, and destroy their temple, 
 and city, and country — woes such as had 
 never been, and never would be again to the 
 end of the world, that he did not then, or 
 ever after, hold out one ray of comfort by 
 way of pointing them to the time of the end 
 of these woes, and their returning prosperi- 
 ty, when he would bring them back to the 
 land of their fathers, and reign over them in 
 person, if that were his purpose ? and if the 
 promises secured that to them, to the exclu- 
 sion of those that obeyed him ? He gave 
 abundant directions to those who believed 
 in and obeyed him how they should act and 
 sustain themselves during those trying times, 
 by warning them to flee from the city, and 
 pointing them to his power to save and re- 
 ward his friends. "Why then does he not 
 give one word of comfort to his enemies? 
 Is it here said that there are intimations, 
 Mat. 23 : 37, and Luke 13: 34, and 21 : 24, 
 that the Jews will again be recalled ? We 
 answer that these are only intimations by 
 forced constructions, and that there is not 
 
LETTEftS TO A MILLENARIAN. 91 
 
 one word of direct assertion, such as the 
 prophets used, that they will ever be brought 
 back to the land of their fathers, either as 
 the church or as a people to the church. In 
 all ordinary cases the predictions of Christ 
 are more plain than those of the Old Testa- 
 ment prophets. He foretells their captivity 
 and the total destruction of Jerusalem with 
 more distinctness. Why then, \ve ask again, 
 when Christ was comforting that part of 
 the Jews w T ho obeyed him, did he not give 
 one word of comfort to the others, by naming 
 the time of their returning prosperity ? For, 
 bad as they were described to be by the pro- 
 phet, Eze. 8 : 5-18, before the final destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and 
 certain as their captivity was in consequence 
 of their sin, yet to encourage them while 
 captives he predicts their certain returning 
 prosperity, 16 : 60-64 ; 20 : 34-40 ; 34 : 13 
 -16, and especially 37 : 21-25, " And say 
 unto them, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 
 I will take the children of Israel from among 
 the heathen whither they be gone, and 
 will gather them on every side, and bring 
 them into their own land," &c. Why then, 
 
92 LETTERS TO A MlLLENARIAN. 
 
 did not Christ, when he had foretold these 
 dreadful woes, then, or ever after, thus 
 plainly point them to the time of their cer- 
 tain return, if that were his purpose ? Let 
 him answer for himself, as he does in the 
 parable of the nobleman, Luke 19 : 12-27, 
 w T ho went into a far country to receive for 
 himself a kingdom, and to return, and he 
 delivered to his servants ten pounds and said 
 occupy till I come, but his citizens hated 
 him, and sent a message after him saying, 
 We will not have this man to reign over us* 
 Was not this nobleman Christ, and were 
 not these citizens the party of the Jews who 
 rejected him? and what became of them? 
 After his return and calling his servants to 
 account, he adds, v. 27, " But those mine 
 enemies which would not that I should reign 
 over them, bring hither and slay them be- 
 fore me." Could Christ have given a plainer 
 reason why he spake to them of no return 
 to prosperity in the land of their fathers, or 
 a more vivid description of what would be 
 their doom when he came the second time ? 
 Have they not then forfeited all their cove- 
 nant promises and become Gentiles., as 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 93 
 
 much as the Edomites, who also descended 
 from Abraham ? Nor will the meaning of 
 the foregoing parable be much altered 
 whether we fix our minds on the return of 
 Christ to his disciples after his resurrection, 
 when he said all power in heaven and earth 
 is given unto me, and on that power set up 
 his kingdom, appointing his own officers to 
 execute his laws, and carry on his govern- 
 ment in the midst of Jerusalem, thereby 
 virtually repealing the entire Jewish code of 
 ceremonial laws ; and his subsequently des- 
 troying their city and temple as the penalty 
 for their refusing to have him reign over 
 them — after he had called all his friends out 
 of it — or fix our minds on his future coming, 
 at the day of final account. 
 
 4. The entire exclusion of the present 
 Jew from all the promises made to Abra- 
 ham, fee., may be inferred again from what 
 Paul says to the Romans and Gralatians, 
 after the death of Christ, and the church or 
 kingdom of Christ was regularly organized 
 according to his own laws, and by the ap- 
 pointment of his own officers out of that 
 part of the Jews who received Christ as 
 
94 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 their king, and the others who rejected him 
 wholly separated from them, so that they 
 were no longer one people, obeying one set 
 of laws as when Christ was in the world — 
 but two distinct and separate parties, obey- 
 ing different laws and as bitterly opposed to 
 each other on the part of the Jews as were 
 Jews and Gentiles. 
 
 Rom. 11 : 15-25, Paul speaking of the 
 Abrahamic church under the figure of a 
 tree, represents the unbelieving part of the 
 Jews as cut off from the old tree, -while the 
 tree still lives, though diminished, verse 12, 
 and is increased by the engrafting of Gen- 
 tiles. Their exclusion is made perfect by 
 their being cut off for their unbelief as 
 worthless branches from a tree ; and verse 
 23, he shows that if any of them repented 
 and turned to Christ, they were to be en- 
 grafted into the old Abrahamic tree, which 
 had all the while been living. They are to 
 be engrafted just as Gentiles, with no more 
 claim to the promises than other Gentiles. 
 Are they not then, at present, cut off just as 
 much as any other Gentiles? Is it said that 
 Paul brings them all back in verse 26 ? To 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 95 
 
 this we can only say, for the present, this is 
 far from being plain, and very doubtful as 
 to its true meaning, as we shall hereafter en- 
 deavor to show, and does not seem to alter 
 the saying, in verse 23, that they are to be 
 engrafted singly, as other Grentiles, even 
 should they all return under Paul's predic- 
 tion. 
 
 Again, (xal.4 : 21-31, Paul teaches that 
 Isaac and Ishmael allegorically represent 
 the two covenants ; the old at Mount Sinai, 
 and the new under Christ. That the Sinaio 
 represented the present Jerusalem in bond- 
 age, but the latter the Jerusalem which is 
 free, and then* adds, emphatically, v. 28 — 
 Now we, brethren, (believers) as Isaac was, 
 are the children of the promise. But, as 
 then, he that was born after the flesh per- 
 secuted him that was born after the spirit, 
 so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the 
 scripture ? Cast out the bond-woman and 
 her son, for the son of the bond- woman shall 
 not be heir with the son of the free, so then 
 brethren, we are not the children of the bond- 
 woman, but of the free. We then repeat 
 again : 
 
96 
 
 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 Could Paul have given to a Jew a more 
 vivid representation of his total exclusion 
 from all the Abrahamic promises, or from 
 the Abrahamic covenant, than by declaring 
 that they stood where Ishmael did, and had 
 no better claim to the promises than he, 
 whom all the Jews, with one consent, de- 
 clared had none ? 
 
 And must we not infer from this that when 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, or any 
 other Old Testament prophet, predict what 
 is to be the future condition of the seed of 
 Abraham, under whatever name, they no 
 more refer to that part which were cut off 
 from the covenant relation, as here repre- 
 sented, than they do to the Ishmaelites, the 
 Edomites, or any others that were cut off? 
 Where can you find the evidence in the Old 
 Testament prophecies, that one part of the 
 excinded seed of Abraham will be brought 
 back more than the others? To the New Tes- 
 tament predictions we shall hereafter refer. 
 
 5th. Finally, is not the exclusion of the 
 Jews proved from the fact that for 1800 
 years they have been excluded from all the 
 privileges of the peculiar people of God ? 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 97 
 
 When, before the coming of Christ, the Jews 
 were in captivity in Babylon for 70 years 
 only, it seemed long, and prophets were 
 sent of God again and again, to encourage 
 them and to point them to the time of their 
 return, and to assure them that as certain 
 as day and night should continue, so certain 
 should their return be to their own land, 
 after 70 years ; for then the Church of 
 Christ was in captivity with them, and she 
 complained to her Lord, whose eye was upon 
 her, of her sore bondage. But not so now 
 the Church is not in captivity with the pre- 
 sent Jews. They only stand as beacons of 
 warning to the Church — but the Church is 
 not there, nor are ministers sent to them to 
 read to them, out of the New Testament, 
 predictions making their return certain. 
 
 Millenarians point us to the condition of 
 the Jews, from the destruction of Jerusalem 
 by the Romans, to the present day, to prove 
 that they are actually suffering the very 
 woes described in the curses of Moses and 
 foretold by the prophets for their sins, and 
 that, therefore, these are the very people of 
 whom Moses and the prophets spake, and 
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98 LETTERS TO A MILLENAJUAN. 
 
 they seem to make out a strong case. But if 
 they are right and if their suffering the very 
 woes which Moses said would follow them 
 evermore, for the violation of their laws, 
 proves that they are the people of whom 
 Moses spake, and that their present sufferings 
 are the very penalties to which Moses re- 
 ferred,— does it not follow with the same 
 certainty that when they have been cut off 
 from the people of God for more than 1800 
 years, so as to have no more connection with 
 them than the Gfentile had with the Jew ; 
 that they are suffering the penalty of exci- 
 sion also, as much as ever the descendants 
 of Esau did, and that they have, therefore, 
 no more claim to the covenant promise made 
 to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, than the un- 
 circumcised man-ch'ld ? 
 
 Why is the one, more proof that they are 
 suffering the penalty of that law than the 
 other ? And if they are suffering the penalty 
 of exscision, then it follows that no promise 
 made to Abraham, and repeated by the pro- 
 phets, can apply to them, for all these are 
 covenant promises made to the seed of Abra-' 
 ham, while they are only known as bearing 
 
LETTERS TO A M1LLENARJAN. 99 
 
 the penalties they have incurred, especially 
 that of excision. So that all the promises 
 made to the seed of Abraham must belong, 
 so far as yet unfulfilled, to that part of the 
 Jews and their descendants, who obeyed 
 and served Christ, together w T ith the believ- 
 ing proselytes from the Grentiles, whom we 
 have before proved to be the true seed of 
 Abraham and heirs of the promises made to 
 him — and that therefore the saying of Christ, 
 i 'Ye are of your father the devil," and " I 
 know the blasphemy of them that say they 
 are Jews and are not," belongs to the present 
 Jews. And ought we not then to beware 
 lest we encourage them in that blasphemy, 
 and thus become partakers of their sin ? 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 Dear Sir: — Having seen that the pre- 
 sent nation or people called Jews, have for- 
 feited all claim to the character or title of 
 the seed of Abraham, and heirs to the pro- 
 mises made to him and his seed, and that 
 according to Christ and Paul, those who are 
 in Christ are now the seed and heirs of 
 Abraham ; it follows that whatever the pro- 
 phets have said of bequests yet due to the 
 seed of Abraham, they have said of true 
 believers, whom Paul says, are now Abra- 
 ham's heirs. It is not perceived how this 
 conclusion can be avoided, if the premises 
 are fairly established. 
 
 But suppose, for the sake of trying them 
 by one more test, we admit the contrary, 
 and say, that the prophetic promises or le- 
 gacies belong to the Jews who have rejected 
 Christ, then those who obeyed him have 
 forfeited them : and then, if they understood 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 101 
 
 the prophets, they must have understood 
 them as saying, These great blessings you 
 will secure to yourselves and posterity if 
 you remain in rebellion against Christ for 
 two thousand years or more ; but if you 
 obey Christ, you will lose them. May we 
 not safely say, that whatever the prophets 
 did teach, they did not thus encourage the 
 Jews to reject Christ ? They did not give 
 the blessings promised to the rebels and dis- 
 inherit the friends of Christ. 
 
 But do you ask, Can the prophecies be ex- 
 plained in accordance with these views ? If 
 they cannot, yet if the previous facts be 
 clearly established the result, viz., that 
 the promises, whatever they be, belong to 
 true believers, must also follow, even though 
 some of the predictions of the prophets re- 
 main obscure. 
 
 Do you say, that though this may be true 
 in reference to prophetic promises, including 
 legacies, yet it does not follow that it is in 
 reference to mere predictions, such as we 
 have of the overthrow of Sodom and Baby- 
 lon, or even of the coming of Christ ? This 
 is fully admitted. But such admission will 
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102 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 not secure blessings to the rebellious, nor 
 are we certain that God has ever made pro- 
 mises of good to those who are the enemies 
 of God. When promises were made to the 
 Jews, as the seed of Abraham, they were 
 the people of God in distinction from all 
 other nations, among whom were none of 
 God's people. But now the people of God 
 are found in the church, while the Jew who 
 denies that Christ has come in the flesh is 
 called an antichrist. Are they not all then 
 the enemies of Christ ? 
 
 But let us now, keeping the previous es- 
 tablished facts in view, approach the pro- 
 phets, and see how far we can understand 
 them, and whether they certainly teach dif- 
 ferent things, or whether they accord with 
 the facts before established. 
 
 It will be admitted, that all the predic- 
 tions of the Jewish prophets, relating to the 
 captivity of the Jews, as far down as their 
 captivity by the Chaldeans, when they were 
 to be carried to Babylon, have been fulfilled. 
 If there are any of the Jewish prophets, who 
 speak of the captivity of the Jews, after the 
 death of Christ by the Romans, or by an 
 
LETTERS TO A M1LLENARIAN. 103 
 
 other, they should be distinctly marked, we 
 have not found them, and, moreover, are in- 
 clined to think they cannot be found. Now 
 if the Jewish prophets did not speak of any 
 captivity of the Jews after Christ, the pro- 
 bability would seem to be, that they spoke 
 of no return from such captivity, unless 
 there is strong evidence to the contrary. 
 
 Will it not also be admitted, that when 
 the prophets foretold the captivity of the ten 
 tribes, they did not connect with it any pro- 
 mise of their return from that captivity, as 
 was the common practice when they pre- 
 dicted the captivity of the Jews by the Chal- 
 deans? If they did, the place where they 
 did it should be distinctly marked, as we 
 have not found it. 
 
 It will also be admitted, that the prophets 
 did distinctly foretell the return of the tribe 
 of Judah, or, as they were then called, the 
 Jews, and that as parts of the other tribe? 
 had returned to them as before shown, that 
 the prophets spake of them as Israel and 
 Judah, and that they often spake of their 
 return while they were in Babylon. 
 
 It will also be admitted, that three times 
 
104 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 the prophets fixed the time when the return 
 from the captivity should begin — viz. : Jer. 
 29 : 10. " For thus saith the Lord, that after 
 seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, 
 I will visit you and perform my good word 
 toward you, in causing you to return to this 
 place" — 51 : 5, 6, when they are direct- 
 ed to flee out of Babylon ; and also Jer. 
 25 : 11, 12, " They shall serve the king of 
 Babylon seventy years," &c. 
 
 It will be admitted again, that after the 
 land had enjoyed her seventy years of Sab- 
 baths, that Ezra, under the direction of 
 Cyrus, according to both Jeremiah and Isaiah, 
 did commence this return, as recorded in 
 Ezra 1:1, and onward, so as to leave no 
 doubt on the mind of the Jews as to the 
 period of their captivity. With this return 
 the prophets speak of the coming of Christ. 
 See Jer. 23: 6; 31: 13; 33: 15; and Dan. 
 9 : 24, 25, fixes also the time of that event 
 Does it not then follow, that when the 
 prophets, after they have marked the time, 
 speak of the return of the Jews from captiv- 
 ity, a captivity which they had often fore- 
 told, that we are to understand them as 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 105 
 
 speaking of that return which they had 
 marked, unless they plainly warn us in 
 what they say, that they refer to another 
 captivity and another return? This would 
 surely be the way in which we would un- 
 derstand other writers when speaking to the 
 same people about the same events. If, then, 
 the prophets have not warned us, that they 
 are speaking of another captivity and an- 
 other return, the time of whieh is not de- 
 fined, ought we not, in fairness, to under- 
 stand them as referring to that of which 
 they have spoken, and the time of which 
 they have marked ? 
 
 This seems evidently to be the captivity 
 to which Jeremiah refers, 29 : 14, where he 
 says : u iVnd I will be found of you, saith 
 the Lord, and I will turn away your cap- 
 tivity, and I will gather you from all the 
 nations, and from all the places whither I 
 have driven you, saith the Lord, and I will 
 bring you again into the place whence I 
 caused you to be carried away captive. " 
 That the prophet here refers to their return 
 from Babylon is plain, because it was the 
 language of a letter sent to the captives then 
 
106 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 in Babylon, and the time of the return was 
 stated in the same letter, verse 10, that it 
 would be after seventy years were accom- 
 plished at Babylon. This is so plain that I 
 believe there is no difference of opinion on 
 the passage. 
 
 Soon after this the prophet Jeremiah is 
 sent with another and still more encouraging 
 message to the Jews, occupying the 30th 
 and 33d chapters, in which he was not only 
 to tell them that they should be restored 
 from their captivity, but also that they 
 should remain in their own land until Christ 
 should come, or the Branch. But he does not 
 intimate that he spoke of another captivity 
 and return, except so far as such as Mr. D, 
 N. Lord and others, think they can gather it 
 from obscure hints. Why then should we not 
 understand him as referring to the same re- 
 turn which w T as to go on till Christ's death? 
 Surely this is the most natural ; while, if Mr. 
 Lord's views are right, then these rich lega- 
 cies are forfeited by the friends of Christ, 
 and secured to his enemies. But did not 
 the prophet speak of the Lord's people, while 
 the present Jews are of their father the 
 Devil? Yours, &o., A. W. 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Before entering upon the in- 
 quiry what legacies are yet due to the seed 
 of Abraham, as now found, it may be proper 
 to answer two objections that may arise in 
 your mind a little more distinctly than here- 
 tofore. 
 
 I. That if the prophets did not teach the 
 return of the present Jews, yet Christ did. 
 If so, he spoke of those who were, according 
 to his own showing, John 8 : 44, the children 
 of their father the devil, and not, as they 
 claimed to be, v. 33, the seed of Abraham, 
 and therefore what he said of them could not 
 be even explanatory of what Moses and the 
 prophets foretold of the seed of Abraham, 
 which seed always included, and still in- 
 cludes, all true believers. The prophets 
 spoke of the friends, and Christ spoke of 
 the enemies of the gospel. But where has 
 Christ taught that those enemies whose cap- 
 
108 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 tivity and dispersion he had plainly declared 
 should ever be restored ? Christ says, Luke 
 '21 : 24, ' There shall be great distress in the 
 land and wrath among the people, and they 
 shall fall by the sword and shall be led away 
 ^captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall 
 be trodden down of the Gentiles until the 
 time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.' Here 
 their present captivity and sufferings are as 
 plainly foretold as their captivity in Babylon 
 by the prophets of the Old Testament. But 
 there is not a word of what is to be their con- 
 dition after the time of the Gentiles is ful- 
 filled ; and, therefore, we cannot know from 
 tliis that Christ does not refer to the end of the 
 world ; and if not, what will be their condi- 
 tion after that time ? So when Christ said 
 to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Mat. 23 : 39, 
 ° Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall 
 say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name 
 of the Lord.' This was said before the se- 
 paration of the believer from the unbeliever, 
 and while Israel was yet the people of God, 
 and not to those who were after this cut off 
 by the penalty of the Mosaic law, and it can- 
 not, therefore, apply with certainty to those 
 
LETTETS TO A MILLENARIAN. 109 
 
 who were afterward excinded,but seems in- 
 tended to encourage the believing Jew. 
 But if it did to unbelievers, is there a word 
 about a general return there ? AVhile the 
 Old Testament prophets not only declare that 
 their return to their fathers' land was as cer- 
 tain as the return of the sun and the moon, 
 but point out the year when this return is to 
 commence, and the person by whom it is to 
 be effected, Christ, at most, gives us but 
 a doubtful hint. Now how can we account 
 for this fact, if Christ intended that the 
 church should strive and pray for it ? The 
 prophets of the Old Testament, from Moses 
 to Maiachi, reiterated the return of Israel 
 from the Babylonish captivity, at the end of 
 70 years and onward to Christ, over and 
 over again, in the plainest terms, to encourage 
 them to pray for it as Daniel did— Dan. 9, 
 and to strive for it when the time came. Why 
 then did not Christ, or any of his apostles, 
 tell us plainly that these excinded Jews 
 would at a future period return in mass, as 
 the church or to the church, and direct His 
 people to strive and pray for it, if that were 
 his purpose ? Nothing would have been 
 10 
 
110 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 easier than for Christ, after he predicted 
 their dispersion, to have told of their return, 
 as the prophets, if that had been his purpose, 
 and of his rule over them in person, but he 
 never did ; and shall we venture to add this 
 to his sayings, and direct the church to strive, 
 and pray for it, when Christ has never plainly 
 directed us to pray or strive for such a re- 
 sult ? 
 
 Those who insist that the present Jews 
 will return in mass, or as a nation, ought to 
 give a good reason why Christ did not more 
 plainly reveal it, as the prophets of old did. 
 In general, the New Testament writers are 
 more plain and explicit than the Old. Why 
 not in this, if the Jews as such were to re- 
 turn ? Christ, in the parable of the noble- 
 man^ seems to give us the true reason why 
 he said nothing of their return, or our striv- 
 ing to bring them back as a nation or society 
 by themselves. They were to be cut off. 'But 
 those mine enemies who would not that I 
 should reign over them, bring hither and 
 slay them before me.' 
 
 Obj. 2. But if Christ has not predicted the 
 return of Israel plainly, surely Paul has in 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. Ill 
 
 the 11th chap, of Romans. If so, it must be 
 in the 11th, 25th & 26th verses : ' Nowif the 
 fall of them be the riches of the world, and the 
 diminishing of them the riches of the Gren- 
 tiles, how much more their fulness ? For I 
 would not, brethren, that ye should be igno- 
 rant of this mystery (lest ye should be wise 
 in your own conceits), that blindness in part 
 has happened to Israel until the fulness of 
 the Grentiles be come in. And so all Israel 
 shall be saved.' Now, are these predictions 
 of the return of the present Jews ? If so, 
 they are surely very obscure. How differ- 
 ent from that of Jeremiah 29 : 10, ' For thus 
 saith the Lord, that after 70 years be ac- 
 complished, at Babylon, I will visit you, and 
 perform my good word toward you in caus- 
 ing you to return to this place ;' or Jeremiah 
 23 : 3, 'I will gather the remnant of my flock 
 out of all countries whither I have driven 
 them, and I will bring them again to their 
 fold ;' or 24 : 6, ' For I will set mine eyes on 
 them for good, and I will bring them again 
 to this land ;' or Ezekiel 37 : 21—25. Such 
 is the clearness of the predictions of the 
 prophets, relative to the return from the 
 
112 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 Babylonish captivity. Now if Paul intended 
 to foretell the return of the present Jews 
 who reject Christ, in mass, as the churoii or 
 to the church, and thereby to make it ihe 
 duty of the church to pray for and seek to 
 hasten that event, how can we account 
 for the fact that he did not, as the prophets, 
 tell us plainly that it would be so, and the 
 time when it would be, so that she might 
 know and do her duty when the time 
 
 came 
 
 ? 
 
 Did the Lord intend that the church should 
 pray for the return of the Jews for ages and 
 generations, and never see the slightest 
 answer to her prayers, or know when she 
 had a right to expect it ? Not so with the 
 return of the Jews from Babylon. But he 
 told them plainly that they should return, 
 and the very year it should commence, and 
 even the person by whom it should be ef- 
 fected, so that they might know how to pray 
 and when to expect an answer. And they 
 did pray, and were heard. — See Daniel 9. 
 
 But let us now examine the 11th chapter 
 of Romans a little more carefully, and see 
 if it does clearly, or even obscurely, teach us 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 113 
 
 that the Jews will ever return in mass as 
 the church or to the church. 
 
 The leading object of the apostle in his 
 epistle to the Romans was not to show what 
 would be the future destiny of the Jews, 
 but to show that hereafter both Jews and 
 Gentiles were to be saved by faith in Christ. 
 What he says, therefore, of the future des- 
 tiny of the Jews is rather incidental than 
 direct, in his attempt to teach both their 
 duty. 
 
 In the first ten chapters he addresses him- 
 self principally to the Jews, and speaks of the 
 Gentiles in the third person, showing to the 
 Jews that according to their own prophets, 
 whenChrist came and fulfilled their law, there 
 would no longer be any distinction kept up 
 between Jew and Gentile, as before. That 
 after this he only would be a Jew which 
 was one inwardly, and that circumcision 
 would be of the heart, in the spirit, Romans 
 2 : 29; and that they were not now, nor ever 
 had been, all Israel which were of Israel, 
 and proves by Hosea and Isaiah, that here- 
 after believing Gentiles would be largely in- 
 corporated in the church of Israels and be 
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114 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 fellow-heirs of the promises to Abraham, 
 while many of the Jews would be cut off, 
 because they rejected Christ, 9 : 24 — 27, 
 apparently to soften the prejudice of the 
 Jews. He then shows, 10 : 11 — 13, that 
 henceforth there was to be no difference be- 
 tween Jew and Greek, thus reconciling the 
 Jewish converts to the reception of the Gen- 
 tiles more largely into their church than be- 
 fore, as their own prophets had taught 
 would be the case when Christ came, and 
 closes the 10th chapter with a quotation 
 from Moses and Isaiah, showing that accord- 
 ing to them many Gentiles were to be con- 
 verted and many Jews were to be cut off. 
 But after quoting Isaiah in a way that might 
 seem to imply that the Jews were to be re- 
 jected, and the Gentile church was to be 
 substituted in their place, and to make it 
 plain that they were not, he asks the 
 question, 11: 1, 'I say then, hath God cast 
 away his people V He then turns to the 
 Gentiles, and shows them that God had not 
 cast away his people Israel and substituted 
 them in their place, but only received and 
 incorporated the believing Gentile in the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 115 
 
 diminished church of Israel. That they were 
 not the tree, but only branches engrafted into 
 the Abrahamic tree ; that what they had of 
 holiness flowed from the covenant with 
 Abraham, and seems to warn them against 
 the supposition and the danger of supposing 
 that they were now the favorite church and 
 people of Grod , by the cutting off of all the 
 Jews. Not so; the Jewish church still lived 
 in the believing part of it, and they were to 
 be engrafted in it — and that however large 
 the number of Gentile converts, they were 
 still but branches, and not the root. 
 
 In examining the question, "What does 
 Paul teach in this 11th chapter in reference 
 to the future destiny of Israel, it seems im- 
 portant to determine to whom he refers in 
 the 7th verse, by the term Israel, and by the 
 relatives in verses 11, 12, 14, and 15, which 
 seem to refer to the same people to whom 
 Israel does in the 7th verse. Does he mean 
 the nation of Israel, in distinction from the 
 G-entiles, or the present unbelieving part of 
 Israel in distinction from himself and other 
 believers ? We think he uses it in the former 
 sense, as the prophets did. To this opinion 
 
116 LETTERS TO A MILLENARTAN. 
 
 we are led, first, by the fact that this seems to 
 be the general meaning given to this term by 
 the New Testament writers. The term Israel 
 is used some thirty-five times in the New Tes- 
 tament, and with the exception of its use in 
 this Epistle, if it be an exception, seems al- 
 ways to refer to the nation of Israel in dis- 
 tinction from the G-entiles. On this subject 
 you may satisfy yourself by turning to Mat. 
 2 : 20 ; 8 : 10 ; 9 : 33 ; 19 : 28 ; Luke 2 
 32 and 34 ; 4 : 25 and 27 ; 7:9; 22 : 30 
 and John 3 : 10. Also , Acts 1 : 6 ; 2 : 22 
 3: 12; 5:35; 4: 27; 5: 31; 13: 16, 17, 
 24 ; 21 : 28 ; 28 : 20. In all these cases we 
 think it will be admitted that the term Is- 
 rael is used, as in the Old Testament, to dis- 
 tinguish the circumcised Jew, or all Israel, 
 from the Grentiles. 
 
 "We now come to Paul's use of this term 
 in his Epistle to the Romans, though ad- 
 dressed to^ the Christians in Rome, both 
 Jews and Grentiles. In this Epistle, we find 
 the term ten times, viz : — chap. 9 : 6, 27, 
 and 31 ; 10 : 1, 19, and 21 ; 11 : 2, 7, 25, 
 and 27. Of these, we find that three times 
 he uses it as quotations from the prophets, 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 117 
 
 viz :— chap. 9 : 27 ; 10 : 21 ; 11:2. Here 
 he must use it as the prophets did, as dis- 
 tinguishing the whole of Israel who were 
 not cut off by the penalty of their own laws, 
 from all Gentiles who were not incorporated 
 with Israel. Again, in chap. 9 : 31, he uses 
 it in distinction from the Gentiles mentioned 
 in verse 30. The Grentiles had obtained, and 
 Israel had not obtained, the righteousness of 
 God. So in 10 : 19. He certainly does not 
 mean here to intimate that he and the other 
 believing Jews had become Grentiles. 
 
 Now if the New Testament writers, in- 
 cluding Paul himself, generally used the 
 term Israel to distinguish the circumcised 
 Jew, both believer and unbeliever, from the 
 Gentiles, then Paul would use it here to 
 mean the same, unless he plainly stated that 
 he did not, which he has not done. On the 
 contrary, when he asks the question sug- 
 gested by the quotation from Isaiah, in the 
 preceding verse, " I say then, hath God cast 
 away his people ?" (Israel) he answers, 
 " God forbid, for I also am an Israelite." 
 So, also, 2 Cor. 11 : 22 : "Are they (the 
 unbelievers) Hebrews ? so am I ; are they 
 
118 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 Israelites? so am I" — though a baptized be- 
 liever ; and so were all Jews who believed as 
 much as before. Does not, then, the term 
 Israel, in the 7th verse, include the whole 
 nation who claimed that name, v/ithout ref- 
 erence to their character ? Israel hath not 
 (as a whole) attained that which he seek- 
 eth for. Individuals who looked for less, 
 had ; but as a nation, they had not. Is 
 not this view confirmed by the term used in 
 verse 12, " if the diminishing of them," 
 the Israel of the 7th verse ? Now how were 
 they diminished ? By cutting off the be- 
 liever from the nation, the Abrahamic tree, 
 or the unbeliever ? The unbeliever, surely. 
 Now the relative " them," in verse 12, 
 seems to refer to the same Israel as in verses 
 1 and 7 ; and if Israel has been diminished 
 by cutting off the unbelievers, and yet ex- 
 ists, then is it not the nation or only Israel 
 that now exists ? We think you must admit 
 that when Israel was diminished, it was by 
 cutting off the unbelievers. How else is 
 she to be filled up again? and must not 
 then the relative refer to the nation in 
 distinction from the Gentiles ? 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 119 
 
 We have been thus particular, because on 
 the meaning of the term Israel in verse 7, 
 and the relatives referring to them, much 
 depends. 
 
 Paul had repeatedly proved in this Epis- 
 tle, from the prophets, that, when Christ 
 came, the Gentiles were to receive the offers 
 of the gospel, and accept them, while the 
 Jews in general would reject them. This 
 he plainly proves from Moses and Isaiah, in 
 chap. 10: 19—21: " First, Moses saith, I 
 will provoke you to jealousy by them that 
 are no people, and by a foolish nation I will 
 anger you ;" no doubt alluding to the call 
 of the G-entiles. " But Esaias is very bold, 
 and saith, I was found of them that sought 
 me not, I was made manifest unto them 
 that asked not after me;" referring, as it 
 would seem, to the way in which the G-en- 
 tiles would receive the truth, and be re- 
 ceived of Christ. Verse 21 : " But to Is- 
 rael he saith, All day long I have stretched 
 forth my hand to a disobedient and gain- 
 saying people ;" as though they were to be 
 wholly cast off, and the G-entiles to be re- 
 ceived in their place ; and so the covenant 
 
120 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 with Abraham was to be broken. Hence, 
 to avoid this mistake, addressing himself 
 now to the Gentile converts, he says, verse 
 1: "I say then, hath God cast away his 
 people?" Is there an end to Israel, and to 
 the covenant with Abraham, and has the 
 Grentile church now taken its place, into 
 which the believing Jews are now to be 
 merged ? To which he answers emphat- 
 ically, " God forbid ; for I also am an Isra- 
 elite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe 
 of Benjamin," and am a living witness that 
 God hath not cast away his people, nor bro- 
 ken his covenant with Abraham, nor with 
 David, whose house he is building up by the 
 incorporation of Gentile converts, as fore- 
 told by the prophets ; see Acts 15 : 13-16, 
 and as I shall presently show by the figure 
 of a tree. " God hath not cast away his 
 people whom he foreknew." Are you not 
 aware that Elijah once thought that God 
 had cast away all Israel but himself? ( " But 
 what saith the answer of God to him ? I 
 have reserved unto myself seven thousand 
 men who have not bowed the knee to the 
 image of Baal," and thereby incurred the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 121 
 
 penalty of excision from Israel. In these 
 the seed of Abraham, the nation of Israel, 
 was perpetuated then, and so now the 
 seed of Abraham are perpetuated in the 
 elected remnant of verses 5 and 7, who have 
 not incurred the penalty of excision by re- 
 jecting Christ ; and these were the seed by 
 sovereign choice, as that of Jacob, while 
 Esau was left. But what then? Israel (as a 
 whole) hath not attained that which he 
 seeketh for, as all the children of Abraham 
 did not. But the elected remnant had, " and 
 the rest were blinded," as had been foretold 
 by their own prophets. — Verse 8. 
 
 Here, for the sake of clearness, we will 
 number Israel and the relatives they in the 
 11th verse, and them in the 12th, and Israel 
 in the 25th : all which seem to refer to the 
 same people ; also the elected of the 7th verse, 
 the Grentile converts to be engrafted into the 
 Jewish tree, and the returning Jew referred 
 to by the " some of them" at the close of the 
 14th verse, calling the whole nation or 
 army of Israel one thousand, the elected 
 remnant, verses 5 and 7, one hundred, the 
 converts from the Grentiles five thousand, 
 11 
 
122 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 and the Jews that repented and turned, 
 verse 14, twenty. Keeping these numbers in 
 view as the relative or supposed relative 
 strength of each, let us examine what fol- 
 lows. We have seen that Israel of verse 7 
 had not obtained that which he expected, 
 more than the eisrht children of Abraham. 
 But the elected number, who, like the elected 
 Jacob, and who were by the purpose of 
 Grod,like Jacob, the heirs of promise, had. So 
 that the true Israel of the new covenant con- 
 tinued in them, while the rest, like Esau 
 and the seven children of Abraham, were not 
 counted. This he says was according to 
 what God had foretold, verse 8, and onward 
 to verse 11, where Paul asks again, I "say 
 then have they stumbled [merely] that they 
 should fall," or be diminished from one 
 thousand to one hundred, when the promise 
 of Grod to Abraham was, that his seed should 
 be greatly increased ? To this he answers 
 emphatically, "Grod forbid. But rather 
 through their fall salvation is come " to five 
 thousand Grentiles, who by believing in 
 Christ have become the seed of Abraham 5 
 as the same apostle says, Gral. 3 : 29 : "If 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 123 
 
 ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, 
 and heirs according to the promise ;" and 4 : 
 28, "Now we, brethren, believers," indistinc- 
 tion from unbelievers, " as Isaac was, are the 
 children of promise ;" so that by this diminu- 
 tion of the original Israel, as a mysterious 
 sequence, five thousand Gentile converts 
 were enrolled in the broken army of Israel, 
 or, as Paul says, verse 17, grafted in among 
 them, and thus made them much more 
 numerous than before, and therefore their 
 fall was not to lessen them from one 
 thousand to one hundred, but to increase 
 them from one thousand to five thousand one 
 hundred. Verse 12. Now if the "diminishing 
 of them " be such a rich blessing to the Gen- 
 tiles, how much more will this enlargement of 
 them be, — here called their fulness or multi- 
 tude? Before, as a nation, they were one 
 thousand strong, and now, though nine 
 hundred had been cut off as the penalty for 
 rejecting Christ, see Acts 3 : 23, yet they were 
 five thousand one hundred strong. Before 
 they had one hundred believers to publish 
 the gospel of Christ, and now they had five 
 thousand one hundred. How much more 
 
124 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 would this multitude do toward the conver- 
 sion of the world? Paul here seems to 
 show both that God had not cast off Israel, 
 and how the promise that he would make 
 Abraham the father of many nations, Gen. 
 17 : 4, was to be fulfilled. By this enlarge- 
 ment of the number and glory of Israel from 
 the Gentiles, Paul hoped to lead a few of 
 his Jewish kindred, in whom he felt the 
 deepest interest, to repent and turn. His 
 highest hope was only a few, " some of 
 them," verse 12, and then adds : " For if the 
 casting away of them be the reconciling of 
 the world," or result in sending the gospel 
 through the world, what shall the receiving 
 of them, twenty, or, "some of them," be, but 
 life from the dead, as the return of the prodi- 
 gal to his father ? Verse 16. " For if the root 
 be holy," the first hundred, who are still to be 
 regarded by you Gentiles as the root and 
 stock of the Jewish tree or church, " so are 
 the branches, ' ' all of them, whether engrafted 
 from you Gentiles, to whom I am speaking, 
 or from these dead branches of Israel that 
 were cut off from the Abrahamic tree. Verse 
 17 — 24: And now while he warns these 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 125 
 
 newly enrolled recruits in the army of Israel 
 to beware lest they" should be elated and 
 stumble and fall as the nine hundred had, 
 he shows more clearly, under the figure of a 
 tree, the process by which they were 
 brought into the church or in covenant with 
 God, not by a substitution of the Gentiles 
 in place of the Jews, and a Gentile church 
 formed, into which the Jewish church was 
 merged, for the Jewish tree still lives in 
 this elected remnant, (as it did in the seven 
 thousand in the days of Elias,) into which 
 the Gentile Christians are engrafted, and 
 are to be, till it shall be much larger than 
 before. Besides, under the new covenant 
 there were to be none but living branches in 
 this tree, which was not so under the old. 
 
 Thus far, then, we see nothing like a 
 direct or even implied assertion that more 
 than a very few of the Jews are ever to re- 
 turn to the church. 
 
 But after all, does not Paul clearly teach 
 in versus 25 and 26, that hereafter all the 
 present scattered Jews are to be brought 
 back and to be saved ? Let us see : verse 
 25, he says, " For I would not, brethren, that 
 11* 
 
126 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 you should be ignorant of this mystery (lest 
 ye should be wise in your own conceits)," or 
 too much elated — " That blindness in part 
 has happened to Israel," not a partial blind- 
 ness to all, but a total blindness to a large 
 part of Israel, as in verse 7, the nine 
 hundred, who for rejecting Christ, were cut 
 off from Israel, according to the prediction 
 of Moses, see Acts 3 : 23 ; and as shown by 
 the figure of the tree, to which figure the 
 term for, at the commencement of the verse, 
 seems to refer. But how long is this blind- 
 ness of a part of the Jews to last? Paul 
 answers; till the fulness or multitude of the 
 Gentiles be come in. Perhaps Paul means 
 to say, till all the elected Gentiles be con- 
 verted. That they are to remain in their 
 present scattered state in all nations, to be a 
 beacon of warning to the church before their 
 eyes in every land, till all the Gentiles be 
 come in, as the plates made of the censers 
 of the two hundred and fifty princes who 
 rebelled against Moses, which the Lord re- 
 quired to be laid as a covering on the altar, 
 were to be before the eyes of Israel as a 
 warning ever after. This seems to be the 
 most natural construction of verse 24. 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 127 
 
 But what then are we to make of the 
 next sentence, " And so all Israel shall be 
 saved?" Does not Paul himself show its 
 meaning, by the quotations which follow? He 
 surely does not mean all that rejected Christ, 
 for millions of them have died in unbelief. 
 Nor is it probable that he means that after 
 the last Grentile is converted, that then at 
 once, all the unbelieving Jews, that part of 
 Israel that were blinded, would be saved, 
 for he generally uses the term "Israel" 
 as embracing all the nation under the old 
 covenant: so he seems to use it in v. 25, a 
 part of whom were blinded and a part not. 
 Does he not then mean, So, in this way, and 
 not after this, shall all Israel be saved ? — i. e. 
 so, as I have shown you under the figure of 
 the tree, — by cutting off all the unbelieving 
 branches and engrafting none but believers, 
 and thus enforcing the truth on the mind 
 of the Gentile converts, that they or their 
 children would no more be spared than the 
 unbelieving Jews, if they were not careful 
 to live for God ? Under the old covenant, 
 many were truly of Israel, who were not 
 saved. But under the new covenant 
 
128 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 with Israel, which, Jer. 31 : 31-4, said the 
 Lord would make with the house of Israel 
 and the house of Judah, and under which 
 Paul says, Hebrews 8 : 1,6, 8-13, we now 
 live, we are told, as Paul tells us here, that all 
 Israel shall be saved, and under the figure 
 of the tree he shows how it will be done, 
 and so in this way, all Israel shall be saved. 
 Paul then brings his proofs ; as it is written, 
 " There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, 
 and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, 
 for this is my covenant," &c. Was not this 
 deliverer Christ, who, by the law of Moses, 
 cut off all unbelieving Jews, and by his 
 own, allowed none in but true believers, 
 and so turned away all ungodliness from 
 Jacob? Indeed, from the very nature of 
 that covenant, as described by Jer. 31 : 
 31-4, and quoted by Paul, Heb. 8, as now 
 in actual operation, it would seem that no 
 unbeliever could belong to the house of 
 Israel, with which it is made. That we are 
 now living under that covenant which Jer- 
 emiah said the Lord would, at a future day, 
 make with Israel and Judah, seems to be 
 made plain by Paul, in his Epistle to the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 129 
 
 Hebrews, for he says, 8 : 1, " Now of the 
 things which we have spoken, this is the 
 sum : We have such an high priest," [not 
 will have] v. 6, " who is the Mediator of a 
 better covenant, [not will be] which was 
 established upon better promises," [not will 
 be] for it had been established by Christ, 
 before he left the world, and then shows 
 the nature of this covenant, by quoting it 
 as foretold by Jeremiah, and wherein those 
 better promises consisted ; and then in 
 chap. 9 : 1, and onward, speaks of the old 
 covenant as past. 
 
 Now if these views are correct, then 
 Paul merely shows how, under the new 
 covenant, all who are in this eovenant rela- 
 tion will be saved ; and not that the people 
 now calling themselves Jews are ever all 
 to be saved, but rather intimates that they 
 will not. 
 
 Does not this view gain a little strength 
 from the declaration of James, Acts 15 : 16, 
 where he says, that the prophecy of Amos 
 was fulfilled, in raising up the house of Da- 
 vid by the conversion and reception to the 
 church of Gentile qonverts ? 
 
130 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 Jeremiah had stated, u Thus saith the 
 lord, Behold the days come, that I will 
 make a new covenant with the house of 
 Israel and the house of udah." And this 
 covenant was to be so formed that all in it 
 would be true believers ; and here Paul 
 seems to show us in what way this would 
 be done : under the figure of a tree, from 
 which all the dead branches would be cut 
 oft', and none but living ones would be 
 grafted in. And then, v. 26, says, " And 
 so in this way all Israel shall be saved." 
 For this new covenant was to be with Israel, 
 and then brings his proofs from the proph- 
 ets, showing to both Jew and Gentile, by 
 whom this was to be done, as it is written, 
 " There shall come out of Zion the Deliv- 
 erer, and shall turn ungodliness from Jacob." 
 This Christ did by repealing the old, and 
 establishing the new rules of entering, or of 
 being admitted, to a covenant relation with 
 him. Isaiah says the Redeemer shall come 
 to Zion, while Paul says he shall come out 
 of Zion. Dr. Chalmers thinks that these two 
 inspired men reveal to us a glimpse of the 
 same scene, at a little different, though not 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 131 
 
 distant periods. Did he not come to Zion 
 when he came into the world, or when he 
 first taught ; and did he not come out of Zion 
 when he had died ? For then it was that he 
 established the rules of admission to cove- 
 nant relation with Crod, to which Paul 
 seems to refer. All which was done with Is- 
 rael, for at that time there were no more Gen- 
 tiles in the church than had always been. 
 I would not have you understand that I 
 feel very confident of the correctness of this 
 exposition, but only that it seems to me 
 rather more plausible, and more in accor- 
 dance with the figure of the tree and PauPs 
 proof, than to suppose that he means at 
 some time, no one knows when, for it is not 
 foretold, one class of the excinded children 
 of Abraham will all be converted. 
 
 Besides, the fall of Israel was to be the 
 riches or the enriching of the Grentiles ; it 
 was to lead to their extended conversion. 
 Now if, as Paul says, their blindness is to 
 last till the multitudes of the Grentiles be 
 come in, or to the end of the world ; if these 
 cut off Jews are to be, as they heretofore 
 have been, to the end of the world, an evi- 
 
132 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 dence of the truth of the sacred scriptures, 
 and a beacon of warnig of the -fearful conse- 
 quences of rejecting Christ, may not this 
 be a continued means, in the hands of (rod, 
 of the conversion of the Gentiles ? I leave 
 the answer with you. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 Dear Sir : — At the risk of appearing 
 tedious, and of repeating often the same 
 thing, I will once more call your attention 
 to the prediction of Jeremiah while he 
 was in Jerusalem, and while it was not yet 
 destroyed, bat was soon to be. After being 
 told, chap. 30 : 2, to write in a book all the 
 words which the Lord had spoken unto him, 
 relating to the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 their captivity, and their return after 
 seventy years to the land of Canaan, as 
 stated chap. 29: 10, and assuring them that 
 they would be greatly multiplied and blessed 
 in the coming of Christ, &c, 31 : 15, he 
 adds, 31 : 31 — 34, " Behold, the days come, 
 saith the Lord, that I will make a new 
 covenant with the house of Israel and with 
 the house of Judah, not according to for 
 like to] the covenant that I made with their 
 fathers in the day that I took them by the 
 12 
 
134 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 hand to bring them out of the land of 
 Egypt, &c. — But this shall be the covenant 
 that I will make with the house of Israel. 
 After those days, saith the Lord, I will put 
 my law in their inward parts and write it 
 in their hearts, and will be their (rod and 
 they shall be my people ; and they " (refer- 
 ring again to the house of Israel, with whom 
 this covenant was to be made,) " shall teach 
 no more every man his neighbor, and 
 every man his brother, saying, Know the 
 Lord, for they" (the Israel in covenant) 
 " shall all know me from the least of them to 
 the greatest of them, saith the Lord." Now 
 according to this description of the new cove- 
 nant, it would seem that every man belong- 
 ing to Israel in covenant would be a true 
 christian, having the law of God written in 
 his heart. In this consisted the difference, 
 or a part of it, between the old and the new 
 covenant. According to the old, all those 
 who complied with a few of the external 
 conditions of that covenant, though they 
 were not converted men, were Israelites in 
 covenant, and heirs to the land of Canaan, 
 which was one of the legacies bequeathed in 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 135 
 
 the first covenant, and also to the privileges 
 and blessings of the service of the temple. 
 But in the new none would be admitted but 
 true converts, who had the law written in 
 their hearts. 
 
 Now our first inquiry is, when was this 
 new covenant with Israel and Judah to be 
 made, and by what instrumentality was 
 this change to be effected ? Has that new 
 covenant been made with Israel and the 
 change been effected, or is it yet future? 
 If that new covenant has been made with 
 Israel and Judah, then according to the 
 meaning of Jeremiah, all who are in it, and 
 so belong to that Israel with which it is 
 made, must know the Lord, must be true 
 converts. To this view my mind inclines. 
 
 But let us see what Paul teaches the 
 Jews or Hebrews on this subject. Paul 
 wrote his epistle to them about thirty years 
 after the resurrection of Christ, and conse- 
 quently after the ceremonial law was ended 
 by its being fulfilled in Christ. 
 
 After Paul had clearly established the 
 superiority of the priesthood of Christ over 
 that of the Aaronic priesthood, and said: 
 
136 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 chap. 7 : 22, " By so much was Jesus made 
 [not will will be made,] the surety of a 
 better covenant," he adds, by way of sum- 
 ming up the former part of his epistle, chap. 
 8 : 1 and 2, " Now of the things which we 
 have spoken this is the sum : We have [not 
 will have, but we have now,] such a high 
 priest, who is set on the right hand of the 
 throne of the Majesty in the heavens : a 
 minister of the sanctuary, and of the true 
 tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not 
 man." Then, in showing what were the 
 duties of the Aaronic priests under the law 
 or old covenant, he again brings to light the 
 superiority of Christ's priesthood and the 
 necessity of his remove to heaven to serve 
 as High Priest: " For, verse 4, if he were on 
 earth he would not be a priest, seeing there 
 are priests that offer gifts according to the 
 law, or old covenant ;" and as Christ was not 
 descended from Levi or Aaron, he could not 
 be a priest under that covenant, for accord- 
 ing to the law or old covenant all priests 
 must descend from the tribe of Levi. 
 Paul then goes on to say, verse 6: " But 
 now hath he obtained a more excellent 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 137 
 
 ministry or priesthood — [not will obtain.] 
 By how much also he is [not will be,] the 
 mediator of a better covenant which was 
 established upon better promises" (not will 
 be) ; verse 7, " For if that first covenant had 
 been faultless, then should no place have 
 been sought for the second." But is not 
 this second and better covenant, of which 
 Christ is now the priest or mediator, the 
 very same new covenant which Jeremiah 
 said six hundred years before was at a future 
 day to be made with the house of Israel and 
 Judah." Let Paul give the answer. In 
 proving to the Jews the correctness of his 
 position according to their own prophets, 
 he quotes Jeremiah: " Behold, the days 
 come, saith the Lord, when I will make a 
 new covenant with the house of Israel and 
 the house Judah. If the first covenant had 
 been faultless, then should no place have 
 been sought for the second," of which Christ 
 was mediator. " For finding fault with "them, 
 he saith, Behold, the days come, when I 
 will make a new covenant with Israel and 
 Judah." Paul then repeats the covenant 
 from Jeremiah, and says of this new or 
 12* 
 
138 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 second covenant, of which Christ is now 
 mediator, that it is so formed that the heirs 
 of this new covenant or testament shall not 
 say one to another, as under the old, know 
 the Lord — for all in it shall know the Lord, 
 having the law written in their hearts. 
 Thus Paul proves to the Jews that what he 
 had said in reference to Christ being the 
 mediator of the second covenant, was but 
 what Jeremiah said would be when Christ 
 came. Now if this be so, then the new 
 covenant which Jeremiah said would at a 
 future day be made, has been made with 
 Israel and Judah, and the change effected 
 by the law of Christ, and we are living 
 under its benign influence. So that under 
 this new covenant those who are true 
 believers are accounted Israelites ; hence 
 Paul says to the G-alatians, 3 : 29, " If ye be 
 Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and 
 heirs according to the promise :" certainly 
 implying, as Paul proves in the 4th chap, of 
 Gral., that if they are not Christ's then they 
 are not Abraham's seed, and not heirs. 
 
 Then to make this still more plain, that the 
 second covenant to which Jeremiah refers, 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 139 
 
 and which was to be made with Israel, 
 when all Israel should know the Lord, was 
 none other than the covenant of grace of 
 which Christ was mediator, he adds, 
 verse 13, " In that he saith, A new 
 covenant, he hath made the first old" — so 
 that it would vanish away. But has it 
 passed away ? Paul says again, Heb. 9 ; 
 1: " Then verily the first covenant had 
 also [not has, for it was now done away ; 
 but it had also] ordinances of divine ser- 
 vice, and a worldly sanctuary." And, des- 
 cribing again the service in the first tab- 
 ernacle and covenant, and showing its 
 inferiority, he says, verse 8: "The Holy 
 Ghost this signifying, that the way into 
 the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, 
 while as the first tabernacle was yet stand- 
 ing," &c. ; which service, he says, verse 
 10, was " imposed on them until the time 
 of reformation," during the continuance 
 of the old covenant, the end of which, Paul 
 says, had come when Christ died'; for he 
 adds, verse 11 : " But Christ being come, 
 an high priest of good things to come, — 12, 
 by his own blood entered in once into the 
 
140 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 holy place, having obtained eternal redemp- 
 tion for us — verse 15, and for this cause he 
 is [not will be] the mediator of the new 
 testament," (new covenant, or will.) But 
 this new covenant, of which Christ was 
 mediator, and which, as Paul proved, was 
 that predicted by Jeremiah, though included 
 in the covenant with Abraham, was not in 
 force till after the death of Christ, as Paul 
 shows, verses 16 and 17 : " For where a 
 testament [or will] is, there must also, of 
 necessity, be the death of the testator, for a 
 testament is of force after men are dead ; 
 otherwise it is of no strength at all while 
 the testator liveth— verse 18, whereupon 
 neither the first [covenant] testament was 
 dedicated without blood ;" though that blood , 
 as the covenant itself was, was only typical, 
 for the testator or priest did not then die ; 
 so that, though this new testament or will 
 was made with Abraham and his seed, it 
 did not go in force till the death of Christ 
 the testator, and therefore it is called a new 
 covenant or testament. Paul then carries 
 on the parallel, till, chapter 10 : 9, he shows 
 how Christ had taken away the first cove- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 141 
 
 nant or testament. " He taketh away the 
 first that he might establish the second," and 
 then shows again, verses 15 and 16, that 
 this covenant or testament bequeathed and 
 secured salvation to all the heirs. But this 
 covenant — this new testament — was to be 
 made with the house of Israel and the house 
 of Judah, the only church or covenant 
 people which Grod has ever had since the 
 covenant with Abraham and his seed. Now 
 since the house of Israel and Judah com- 
 posed all Israel, and all in this covenant 
 were to have the law written in their hearts, 
 all were to be saved ; and Paul having 
 proved to the Jews, that of this new cove- 
 nant Christ was after his death the mediator, 
 may we not learn what this same apostle 
 means, when, after describing to the Ro- 
 mans the operation of this new covenant 
 with Israel under the figure of a tree, with 
 dead branches cut off and living ones grafted 
 in, he says : " And so [in this way] all Israel 
 shall be saved," and follows it with a quo- 
 tation from Isaiah and Jeremiah, to prove 
 the same great truth, viz., that all in 
 this covenant which was made with Israel, 
 
142 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 should be saved ; that the covenant of 
 grace, or second covenant, of which Christ 
 was mediator, would be just as much with 
 Israel as the first ; that the church was one, 
 as described in the figure of the tree ; that 
 the only great change would be, that while 
 the first had many unbelievers and but few 
 Gentile converts in it, the latter and better 
 would have no unbelievers, but great num- 
 bers of G-entile converts, and all unbeliev- 
 ign Jews would be cut off, or, in the lan- 
 guage of Peter, be destroyed from among 
 the people of God. 
 
 Now if these views are correct, does it 
 not follow that the present people calling 
 themselves Jews are not now in covenant, 
 and that Jeremiah has not foretold any 
 future covenant to be made with them, but 
 only that which has been made ? 
 
 Does it not also follow, that all which 
 Paul says — Rom. 11 — is but showing how 
 the covenant with Abraham and David is 
 continued with their seed, and how all 
 Israel, under the new covenant, will be 
 saved, and how Christ has put an end to 
 the old covenant after his death, by repeal- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 143 
 
 ing all the laws of the first covenant and 
 establishing his own, and by changing the 
 sacraments to correspond with the new and 
 better covenant, under which all are to have 
 the law written in their hearts ? And then 
 would the present Jew, who in violation of 
 that repeal continues to circumcise his child 
 thereby, make him a Jew any more than 
 an Ishmaelite is a Jew, or a Grentile would, 
 be if he should circumcise himself or his 
 child, or both? 
 
 But what then are we to understand by 
 the teachings of vs. 28-31 ? We answer, 
 that whatever difficulty there may be in 
 understanding them, it should not lead us 
 to reject what seems plain. But is there, 
 after all, any more difficulty in understand- 
 ing these verses according to the foregoing 
 views, than if we adopt the more common 
 interpretation of vs. 25 and 6 ? Keep in 
 mind, if we are right, that Paul constantly 
 uses the term "Israel," as in common use, 
 for the descendants of Abraham, as in the 
 old covenant. Then in v. 28, he says, 
 " They," the Israel of the aid covenant, in 
 large numbers, "are enemies for your 
 
144 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 sakes." They are enemies for the benefit of 
 the Grentiles, as shown in vs. 11 and 12. 
 Through their fall and diminution, salva- 
 tion is come to the Grentiles. Their enmity 
 led, in the mysterious providence of Grod, to 
 the preaching of the gospel to you. But 
 the other part, the election or elected rem- 
 nant of v. 5, are beloved for the fathers' 
 fsake, for through the covenant with them, 
 they are the seed of Abraham and heirs ac- 
 cording to the promise. He then adds, 
 As ye Gentiles in time past did not be- 
 lieve, but now have been led to believe 
 through their fall, as stated v. 11, so by 
 the purpose of Grod, these have now been 
 left to reject Christ, as in v. 25, " That 
 through your mercy, they also may obtain 
 mercy," — they also may have the gospel 
 preached to them. For if the preaching of 
 the gospel by them to the Grentiles was a 
 mercy, and led to the saving of some of the 
 Grentiles, so hereafter the preaching of the 
 gospel to the Jews by the Grentiles would 
 be a mercy, and save a few of them. 
 
 But why then are they so long kept in a 
 rseparate state, if not that they may be ga- 
 thered again ? 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 145 
 
 We may not be able to tell more than 
 why they were first called. But still, may 
 it not be for a warning to all nations where 
 the Bible is read, and these Jews seen in 
 their present deplorable state ; of the dan- 
 ger of rejecting Christ as they did, and 
 thus by their fall, salvation still come to 
 the Gentiles ? 
 
 "Was it not thus used by Paul in this 
 chapter, showing the Grentile converts, 
 that if Grod spared not the natural branches 
 which lay cut off, before their, and our eyes, 
 take heed lest he also spare not thee ? Now 
 if this be one object ; if their fall is thus to 
 continue to contribute to the salvation of 
 the G-entiles, may we not expect, that their 
 present blindness and dispersion will last 
 till the last Grentile convert is brought in, 
 or as Paul says, v. 25, the fulness of the 
 G-entiles be come in? That they will always 
 stand before the eyes of the world as a 
 proof of the consequence of the sin of 
 rejecting Christ, just as the plates on the 
 covering of the tabernacle did of the sin 
 of Corah and his company in rebelling 
 against Grod. These were placed before 
 13 
 
148 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 God, in distinction from all others ; and 
 this, St. Paul says, Rom. 3: 2, was their 
 chief advantage. From them the Saviour 
 descended, through whom Abraham was to 
 be a father to many nations, and through 
 whom all the nations of the earth were to 
 be blessed in Abraham and his seed. All 
 these legacies, we think, have been paid, 
 because they were promised to God's cove- 
 nant people, and because they have in 
 fact had them, and because none of these 
 seem to be included in the special blessings 
 of the new covenant, as stated by Jer. 31 : 
 31, to be made at a period then future, and 
 under which we now seem to live, as 
 before shown. 
 
 But to this you will perhaps reply, that 
 there are many promises made to Israel by 
 the prophets relating to their return from 
 captivity and their future prosperity, which 
 have not yet had their fulfilment, and 
 must therefore still be due to them, to be 
 paid hereafter. 
 
 This objection can only be met by an ap- 
 peal to the prophecies, and to the history of 
 Israel. But as these letters are merely in- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 149 
 
 tended as an introduction to the study of 
 these prophecies, all that will here be at- 
 tempted will be to refer to a few prophetic 
 promises, which seem to be most full and 
 to be most relied upon, to prove the future 
 return of the present scattered Jews to Je- 
 rusalem. Such as found Lev. 26, Deut. 
 30, Isaiah 2, 11, 12, Jer. 29, 31, 32, and 
 33d chapters, and Ezekiel 16, 20, 34, 36, 
 and 37th chapters. 
 
 And a very slight examination of these 
 predictions, so as to show on what principle 
 they are supposed to be fulfilled, is all that 
 is proposed. 
 
 But first I would remark, that if we have 
 been successful in proving that the only 
 seed of Abraham and heirs of the promises 
 are at present true believers, then they are 
 not in captivity, and so cannot now come out 
 of it. 
 
 But are the above prophetic promises ful- 
 filled ? Let us see. 
 
 The first promised return is found Lev. 
 
 26 : 40—46. In 44, " I will not cast 
 
 them away, to destroy them utterly, and to 
 
 break my covenant with them." A few of 
 
 13* 
 
150 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 the covenant people were to return, as they 
 did from Babylon, &c, after the land had 
 enjoyed her Sabbaths. But on what condi- 
 tion was that return ? In verses 14 and 15 
 we are told distinctly that they would go 
 captive if they would not obey the ceremo- 
 nial law, and verse 40, if they would con- 
 fess their iniquities, &c. Was not their sin 
 the violation of the ceremonial law ? and 
 must we not suppose, then, that this return 
 was to be before the ceremonial law was 
 fulfilled and abolished by the death of 
 Christ ? Does not the reference to the fact, 
 verses 34, 35 and 43, that then the land 
 would enjoy her Sabbaths, her rest, " Be- 
 cause it did not rest in your Sabbaths when 
 ye dwelt upon it," strengthen the foregoing 
 view ? The sabbatical years which were 
 violated were probably not more than seven- 
 ty ; at most they could not have been more 
 than double that number before the captivity 
 in Babylon, if they had kept none. Surely 
 then the Jews are not now keeping those 
 violated Sabbaths, nor the land either, for 
 they have long since been all kept. 
 
 The next return spoken of to which I 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 151 
 
 would call your attention, is found in Deut. 
 30, where we have an extended account of 
 their return from those fearful woes pro- 
 nounced against them by Moses, chapters 
 28 and 29. But what is the condition 
 on which they were to be brought back 
 from all the nations whither the Lord had 
 scattered them ? In chapter 28 : 15 we 
 are told that if they did not keep the law 
 repeated by Moses that day, (the ceremo- 
 nial,) that then these curses would come 
 upon them ; and then we are told, chapter 
 30 : 1, 2, and 10 verses, that the condi- 
 tion of their return was that they should re- 
 turn to their obedience of the same ceremo- 
 nial law : u And it shall come to pass when 
 all these things are come upon thee, the 
 blessing and the curse," first their prosper- 
 ity, and then their adversity, u which I 
 have set before thee, and thou shalt call 
 them to mind among all the nations 
 whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, 
 and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, 
 and shalt obey his voice, according to all 
 that I command thee this day, thou, and 
 thy children, with all thy heart and with 
 
152 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 all thy soul, then the Lord thy God will 
 turn thy captivity, and gather thee," &c. 
 Now, since both the threatening and the 
 promise depended on disobedience and obe- 
 dience to the same ceremonial law, must it 
 not refer to a period prior to the death of 
 Christ, while that law was in force, after 
 which Christ solemnly commanded all Jews 
 to believe on him, and be baptized — not 
 circumcised — on pain of death ? And if 
 that return is yet future, must not the con- 
 dition be obedience to the ceremonial law, 
 or, in other words, rebellion against Christ? 
 But surely you will not say that rebellion 
 against Christ is the condition. Must not 
 then that return have been fulfilled ? Would 
 it not now be sin in a converted Jew to 
 offer sacrifices as much as for any other per- 
 son, and is it not so for the unconverted? 
 
 Before entering on an examination of the 
 predictions of the prophets in Canaan, it 
 may be well to remember, that those who 
 were sent to them before their captivity 
 were sent as ministers now to urge them 
 to obey the Lord, by pointing them to the 
 woeful consequence of disobedience, and on 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 153 
 
 the other hand to the rich promises yet to 
 be fulfilled to them if they obeyed, includ- 
 ing the certainty that they would disobey 
 and suffer, repent and be brought back. 
 
 Those who were sent just about the 
 time of the first siege of Jerusalem, and 
 after they were in captivity, seem to have 
 been sent to encourage the believing Jews, 
 by assuring them that doleful and hopeless 
 as their present condition appeared, they 
 should assuredly be brought back, and be 
 greatly prospered and blessed, after they 
 had been seventy years in captivity, and 
 that the promised Saviour would yet as- 
 suredly descend from them, and be a rich 
 blessing to all nations, as promised to Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. "W. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Let us now turn to the 2d, 
 11th j and 12th chapters of Isaiah, uttered 
 more than 100 years before the Babylonish 
 captivity ; and here I will only ask, does 
 not this description of the church somewhat 
 resemble the description which Paul gives of 
 the church in his day, formed of believers, 
 He b.12 : 22—24 : "But ye are come to Mount 
 Zion," &c, to the end of the chapter ? But 
 as no commentator has succeeded in making 
 that chapter very plain, I will not attempt 
 it. And may not the return spoken of 11 : 
 11 & 12 refer to that return that seems to 
 have taken place while Christ was upon 
 earth, and spoken of Acts 2 : 5, by Peter, 
 when he says, just after the death of Christ* 
 "And there were dwelling at Jerusalem 
 Jews, devout men, out of every nation un- 
 der heaven." Had they not returned to see 
 their long-promised Saviour ? It was surely 
 
I 
 
 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 155 
 
 natural for devout Jews who were expect- 
 ing the Saviour to come and reign over them 
 and cause them to prosper, when they heard 
 that he had actually come to return to Je- 
 rusalem, as they certainly had, or they 
 would not have been dwelling there ; and 
 did not Micah say, 5 : 3, that it would be so 
 after Christ was born ? And is it not even 
 possible that the highly figurative language 
 of verses 14 — 16 may intimate the manner 
 in which the way was to be opened by the 
 powers of Rome for their return at that 
 time ? I would not say that it is so, but only 
 ask, may not this return of verses 11 and 12 
 have been completed at the death of Christ, 
 since the prophet refers it to the time when 
 Christ was on earth ? May not then this 
 whole passage refer to the commencement 
 and future prosperity of the Christian 
 Church ? The return mentioned by Peter 
 from all nations on earth was as extensive 
 as the promise by Isaiah. 
 
 Let us now pass to the examination of a 
 few of the predictions of Jeremiah and Eze- 
 kiel, which Millenarians think certainly pro- 
 mise more than has yet been received by the 
 Jews. But — 
 
156 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 1. First, we remark that we have found 
 no prediction intimating that the ten tribes 
 would be recalled from captivity, except 
 those that returned and united themselves 
 with the tribe of Judah. Amos seems to 
 have predicted their captivity, 6 : 7, and 
 perhaps 8 : 14, where he says : " They shall 
 fall, and never rise up again." But he says 
 not one word about any return. Isaiah 
 plainly foretold the destruction of the ten 
 tribes, now called Israel, by the Syrians and 
 Philistians, 8 : 8 — 17, but it was followed by 
 no promise that they would, as a separate 
 people, ever be brought back again. This 
 prediction was uttered a few years before 
 the date of the event, as recorded 2 Kings, 
 17 : 1 — 18. They had, by setting up idols, 
 &c, as a nation, incurred the penalty of 
 excision from Q-od's covenant people. Af- 
 ter this they seem only known as connected 
 with Judah, to which tribe remnants resort- 
 ed, as recorded 2d Chronicles, 11 : 16, just 
 after Jeroboam set up the golden calves, and 
 15 : 8, 10, under the good reign of Asa, and 
 31, under the reign of Hezekiah ; so that, 
 probably, all the tribes were represented in 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 157 
 
 the tribe of Judah, as implied when James 
 addressed his epistle to the twelve tribes of 
 Israel. 
 
 2d. Our next general remark is, that all 
 that was said about the Jews going into 
 captivity after this seems to have referred 
 to, and to have been fulfilled, when they 
 were carried captive to Babylon ; no prophet 
 seems to have spoken of any later captivity, 
 so far as we have found. The following 
 seem all to refer to that captivity, or to some- 
 thing before — namely, Isaiah 3 : 1 — 26 ; 22 : 
 18, 20, 25 ; 39 : 5—7. eremiah 6 : 22— 
 25 ; 10 : 17, 18 ; 15 : 1—8 ; 16 : 1—13 ; 
 19 : 6—15 ; 21 : 3—6 ; 25 : 9—11 ; 26 : 
 6 ; 27 : 22 ; 32 : 26—29 ; 34 : 1—3 ; 41 : 2 ; 
 52 : 1—34. Ezekiel 7 : 2—9 : 12 : 1—28 ; 
 14 : 12—23 ; 16 : 35—43 ; 21 : 25—27. Mi- 
 cah 3 : 12. These may not include all, but 
 they are the most full ; and they seem all 
 to have been fulfilled when the Jews went 
 to Babylon as captives. If that be so, is it 
 probable that these prophets ever predicted 
 a return from a captivity of which they nor 
 the Jews had never heard ? 
 
 3d. "We remark thirdly, that these pro- 
 14 
 
158 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 phets seem to have been sent to encourage 
 the pious Jews, by assuring them, that de- 
 plorable as their present condition was, 
 yet after seventy years they would again be 
 brought back to their own land. This period 
 had been definitely fixed by Jeremiah ; and 
 as no other time had been spoken of by any 
 other prophet, must not all the Jews have 
 understood them as referring to that time 
 when Jeremiah or Ezekiel, who were with 
 them in their captivity, spoke of their cer- 
 tain return to the land of Canaan ? Besides, 
 this same deliverance and return after seven- 
 ty years, when Babylon was to be taken, 
 was referred to, Isaiah 13: 16 — 19, compared 
 with 14 : 1—4 ; 44 ; 27—45 : 1 ; and by 
 Jeremiah 51 : 5, 6, 11, 28 ; and 2d Chron- 
 icles 36 : 22, &c. 
 
 In the 31st chap, of Jeremiah, 10th verse, 
 we are told : " He that scattered Israel will 
 gather them ;" and then, v. 22 — 26, and 35 
 — 40, we have an account of that gathering. 
 Now have these predictions been fulfilled to 
 the extent here described ? We reply, first, 
 that the description in verses 35 — 37 seems 
 exactly to fall in with that of the new cove- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 159 
 
 nant described verses 31 — 34. Again, the 
 return described in verses 22 — 30 does not 
 seem to be a more extensive return than 
 that which the prophet had said in his letter 
 to those already in captivity in Babylon, ch. 
 29 ; 10 — 14, would positively take place 
 after seventy years. Now if the one has 
 been fulfilled, as it must have been, may 
 not the other, since they were soon to be to- 
 gether in captivity in Babylon, and were to 
 return together ? 
 
 Besides, all this was to be done for the 
 house of Israel and the house of Judah, 
 which were then to go into captivity, in- 
 cluding the whole church of Christ. But if 
 this return be yet future, then these bless- 
 ings are either promised to a people whom 
 Christ calls the children of the Devil, or to 
 the church, which is not in captivity. 
 
 But is it said that all did not return, and, 
 therefore, another return must be included ? 
 We answer, that the proclamation of Cyrus 
 freed all from bondage, and allowed them to 
 return, "and that the promise of the Lord 
 secured the return only of those who had not 
 incurred the penalty of excision, w r hich was 
 
160 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 probably but a small number, and that the 
 return might extend till the death of Christ 
 (as they were never again to go into captiv-' 
 ity), when they had actually returned from 
 all nations — see Acts 2:5. 
 
 If we turn to chapter 32 : 36 — 44, the same 
 remarks' in substance apply. Just after re- 
 iterating that the city would assuredly be 
 taken and burned, and they be led captive 
 to Babylon, and all hope seemed to fail to en- 
 courage the few believing Jews, he repeated 
 the same encouraging promise almost in the 
 words of his letter to the captives, 29 : 14, 
 which return he had assured them was to 
 be after seventy years, and no other return 
 is alluded to. Is it not then past ? If not, 
 why no allusion to a future captivity and 
 return ? 
 
 Turn now to chap. 33, when the prophet 
 had a second message while he was yet in 
 prison. He again repeats, v. 5, the certainty 
 of their being taken captives, and then v. 
 6, and onward, of their return and prosper- 
 ity ; but alludes to no other time than that 
 which he had mentioned after 70 years, 
 which time the Lord had fixed. But 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 161 
 
 none of the prophets tell us that the return 
 was to be complete before the death of 
 Christ. From v. 15-18, the prophet, to 
 comfort them still farther, under the dread- 
 ful calamities which they were enduring and 
 were to endure for a long time to come, adds, 
 li But in those days," while they enjoyed the 
 blessings of that return, the Lord would 
 cause the " Branch of righteousness to grow 
 up unto David," or in other words, that 
 they should remain in their own land, till 
 Christ should come of the seed of David, 
 who was in a special manner promised as the 
 richest legacy of the Abrahamic will, the 
 richest bequest made to the seed of Abra- 
 ham, and which was to be given them in 
 their own land. That legacy they have 
 received. Have they not all the rest they 
 were to have in Canaan, or must they lose 
 that by rejecting Christ to secure others ? 
 
 Then, as if aware that he had promised 
 blessings almost beyond the power of their 
 belief, when they were soon all to be cap- 
 tives in Babylon, the Lord directs the proph- 
 et to assure them, v. 20 and onward, that 
 all this is as certain as the return of 
 14* 
 
162 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 day and night, and that, too, while the 
 priests and Levites held their places under 
 the Mosaic law. If more is included in the 
 last message, from v. 23-26, does it not 
 belong to the Israel of the new covenant 
 described by Paul ? So that all that was 
 promised to Israel in Canaan may be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 In confirmation of the foregoing views, let 
 it be remembered that we are repeatedly 
 reminded, that so great would be the de- 
 struction of life of those that were in Jeru- 
 salem, and in Judea under Zedekiah, that 
 comparatively only a few would escape. 
 See Jer. 29: 15-19, and 44: 25-30; and 
 then, when we remember that very many of 
 those who escaped the sword, had probably 
 incurred the penalty of excision, is it any 
 wonder that the promise was fulfilled by 
 the return of a few ; and are we not war- 
 ranted in supposing that the prosperity to 
 which the prophet so often referred, and 
 which was to follow that return, had refer- 
 ence to the time when, hundreds of years af- 
 ter, they again increased to a great and power- 
 ful nation, just as the promises to Abraham 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 163 
 
 and his seed referred to a period long after 
 he was dead ? And then there seems no spe- 
 cial difficulty in supposing that all the 
 bequests made to the seed of Abraham, in 
 the land of Canaan, as foretold by Jeremiah, 
 have been received by them, and that what 
 remains is that which is promised in the 
 new covenant, and to those that are in- 
 cluded in that covenant. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTERXV. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Let us now look at a few of 
 the predictions of Ezekiel, and see whether 
 he brings back the Jews before or after the 
 death of Christ. Whether according to him, 
 their return is complete, or is yet in part 
 certainly future. As he began to prophesy 
 after the Lord had fixed the time of their 
 return from Babylon by Jeremiah, there was 
 no need of his repeating that ; for surely 
 so long as he spake of no future captivity, 
 and no other time of their return than that 
 fixed by Jeremiah, and spake to the same 
 people of the return from Babylon, all 
 would understand him as referring to the 
 same time, as much as different ministers 
 are now understood to refer to the same 
 time, when they speak of the judgment day. 
 
 We find one prediction of their return 16 : 
 60-63. But here is no intimation that it 
 will be after the death of Christ, or beyond 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 165 
 
 the time specified by Jeremiah, except that 
 the Grentiles will be received as fellow-heirs, 
 " but not by their covenant." Then was 
 it not by the new covenant of grace ? Jer. 
 31:31. 
 
 The next we notice is 20 : 33-41. Here 
 seems no intimation that it was to be more 
 distant than the time specified. But there 
 is a strong intimation, v. 38 and 9, that the 
 excinded Jews should not return. " I will 
 purge out from among you the rebels, and 
 them that transgress against me, and I will 
 bring them forth out of the country where 
 they sojourn, and they shall not enter into 
 the land of Israel." Now here it seems the 
 house of Israel is to be purged of the 
 excinded Jews ; and yet in v. 40, immedi- 
 ately following this, the prophet says that all 
 the house of Israel, all of them, are to return 
 and serve the Lord in the mountains of 
 Israel. Does not then, the all mean, at most, 
 only those who were not excinded, and not 
 all who were carried captive ? And who can 
 determine that these were not all brought 
 back before the death of Christ ? 
 
 In ch. 34 : 11-16, we have another pre- 
 
166 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 diction that the captives should be brought 
 back from all the countries to which they 
 had been scattered. But the Lord adds, 
 11 I will destroy the fat and the strong." 
 All the captives, then, are not to return, but 
 the heirs not cut off. V. 23, he adds, that 
 he will set one shepherd over them, a de- 
 scendant of David. After their return they 
 had only one ruler over them, one shepherd. 
 If this refers to Christ, may it not be to the 
 time he was in the flesh, and was subject to 
 the laws of Moses, and before he was king ? 
 For during his sojourn on earth, he seems 
 only to act as prince subject to the existing 
 laws, and not till after his resurrection did he 
 enact laws, for his kingdom, and appoint his 
 own officers to execute his laws ; so that 
 there seems no certainty that all here pre- 
 dicted is not fulfilled. 
 
 In ch. 36 : 1-15, we have the prophet 
 addressing the hills of Judea, saying that 
 they would be very fruitful, and that th© 
 Lord would multiply men upon them, even 
 all the house of Israel — all not excinded ; 
 and was not that promise fulfilled before 
 Christ, especially during the time of the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 167 
 
 Maccabees? V. 21-38, we have an- 
 other repetition of the promise of a general 
 return. But in v. 37, he says, " I will yet 
 for all this be inquired of by the house of 
 Israel.' ' Showing that all this was to be 
 done while the people of Grod, the praying 
 people, were among the Jews, and in captiv- 
 ity, and before they were separated by the 
 introduction and operation of the new cove- 
 nant. Has it not then been fulfilled? 
 
 In the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, we have 
 another prediction of the return of the cap- 
 tives, which includes things which Mille- 
 narians think have certainly not been ful- 
 filled, and must therefore refer to some fu- 
 ture return. But is this certainly so ? 
 
 Let us, in examining this chapter, try to 
 place ourselves in the midst of the weep- 
 ing captives in Babylon, the praying people 
 of Grod, not two years after the destruction 
 of their temple, and while they felt all the 
 bitterness of that captivity, and of the loss 
 of the greater part of their friends by the 
 sword, and try to listen to them saying to 
 their, prophets, What is to become of us ? 
 Where are now all the Lord's promises to 
 
168 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 our fathers to bless them, and to make 
 them a blessing to all the world through 
 that Saviour who had not yet come to rule 
 over them ? And Jeremiah and Ezekiel are 
 sent with messages of comfort to them that 
 still believed in G-od. The vision of Ezekiel 
 is that which is now before us. 
 
 Standing in Babylon, where Ezekiel 
 stood, let us listen to the new vision of the 
 prophet, prophesying to the dry bones, 1-14, 
 until there stood up an exceeding great 
 army. Y. 11, he says, " These bones are 
 the whole house of Israel ;" those not ex- 
 cinded from the church of Israel, by hav- 
 ing incurred that penalty. In reply to their 
 unbelieving complaint, v. 11, saying, " Our 
 bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut 
 off for our parts/' the prophet is directed 
 to say, v. 12, " Thus saith the Lord God, 
 my people, I will open your graves, and 
 cause you to come out of your graves, and 
 bring you into the land of Israel. And ye 
 shall know that I am the Lord, when I have 
 opened your graves, my people, and 
 brought you up out of your graves, and 
 shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 169 
 
 live, and I shall place y©u in your own land. 
 Then shall ye know that I the Lord have 
 spoken it, and performed it, saiththe Lord." 
 Now as the time when this return was to 
 commence had a few years before been defi- 
 nitely fixed by Jeremiah, a colleague pro- 
 phet, and was no doubt very often spoken of 
 by the captives one to another, must not every 
 Jew understand him as referring to that 
 time, unless he referred to another, which 
 he did not as yet, and he surely did not in- 
 tend to deceive the Jews ? Was not all this 
 fulfilled when, about fifty years after this, 
 the proclamation of Cyrus, as recorded in 
 the first chapter of Ezra, was issued ? But 
 can the next message be so explained as to 
 agree with this? Let us see : v. 15, " The 
 word of the Lord came again unto me." 
 It was a separate message. He had before 
 assured them of their certain return to 
 their own land, and now he is sent to teach 
 them, that other and still richer blessings 
 were still in store for them, deplorable as 
 their condition now appeared. And first, by 
 taking two sticks and joining them into 
 one, he is to teach them that when they 
 15 
 
170 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 should come out of captivity, all the rem- 
 nants would be joined in one nation, and 
 one king should rule over them, and they 
 should never again be two nations, destroy- 
 ing one another, as they had done before ; 
 neither should they defile themselves any 
 more with idols : " And they shall be my 
 people, and I will be their God." Now does 
 not the proclamation of Cyrus, and the re- 
 turn commenced under Ezra, and the his- 
 tory of the Jews from that time, to the 
 death of Christ, give us reason to believe 
 that this prediction has been fulfilled ? 
 They were liberated by Cyrus, they com- 
 menced their return under Ezra, they were 
 organized in one government, and were 
 never more divided, they rebuilt their tem- 
 ple, grew into a great and powerful nation, 
 continued in Canaan to the time of Christ, 
 were never after this idolaters, as before, and 
 Christ did descend from David. But let us 
 not forget that the return and prosperity 
 here spoken of, as if it were all in one 
 year, covered a space of more than five 
 hundred years, as in the promise to Abra- 
 ham. So that there was time for the ful- 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 171 
 
 filment of all, and all seems to have been 
 fulfilled by the same slow process that the 
 promise to give Abraham the land of Ca- 
 naan was. 
 
 The prophet now proceeds, v. 24, ' And 
 David my servant [Christ] shall be king over 
 them.' But as yet he does not say when or 
 in what part of their history after their re- 
 turn he would be king, but only that he 
 would be king. The prophet continues and 
 says, " And they shall have one shepherd ; 
 they also shall walk in my judgments, and 
 observe my statutes and do them. And they 
 shall dwell in the land that I have given 
 unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers 
 have dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, 
 even they, and their children, and their chil- 
 dren's children for ever ; and my servant 
 David shall be their prince for ever — and I 
 will set my sanctuary in the midst of them 
 for ever," &c. How long then was this 
 covenant called everlasting to continue, or 
 to what period, do the terms for ever and 
 evermore, so often repeated in this passage, 
 refer? If this can be determined, then we 
 can determine whether this prediction has 
 
172 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 been fulfilled. If we can determine to what 
 time forever refers, in any one of these ex- 
 pressions, then it is probable we have a key 
 by which we may determine all, for they all 
 seem to refer to the same period. They 
 shall dwell in the land for ever, and David 
 shall be my prince for ever. I will make an 
 everlasting covenant with them, and I will 
 set my sanctuary in the midst of them for 
 evermore. Doubtless all these terms refer 
 to the same period. Can we then determine 
 any one of them ? We are told in v. 24, 
 that David was to be king over them, but in 
 v. 25, we are told, my servant David shall 
 be their prince for ever. The same prophet 
 says, Ezekiel 34: 24, " I the Lord will be 
 their (rod, and my servant David a prince 
 among them." Now, if the prophet meant 
 to make the ordinary distinction between 
 king and prince, as he seems to do, by call- 
 ing him king in one connexion and prince 
 in another, then the time referred to by the 
 term for ever, connected with his princely 
 character — in v. 25 must terminate with his 
 death, for it was only during his lifetime 
 on earth that, as a prince, he was subject to 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 173 
 
 the laws of the kingdom. While he was in 
 this world, in a bodily form, though a great 
 prince, being born heir to a great kingdom, 
 he made no laws, but only explained and 
 obeyed them. Being made under the law, 
 he had no right to make or break laws, and 
 his obedience was perfect to the laws of Moses. 
 But as soon as he rose from the dead, having 
 received the kingdom to which he was heir, 
 he said, ' All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and earth. Gro ye therefore and 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Grhost.' Stop no longer at the limits 
 required by the laws of Moses, but go to all 
 nations and baptize instead of circumcise. 
 Thus virtually sending his disciples to pro- 
 claim him king of his church or people, the 
 house of Israel, by publishing his laws, and 
 requiring all men, Jews as well as Gentiles, 
 at the peril of death eternal, to obey them, 
 though in doing so they must transgress the 
 law s of Moses, which he thereby shows he 
 has abrogated, for his kingdom is in Judea 
 over the same people. He is now king, as 
 the prophet said, v. 24, he would be* in 
 15* 
 
174 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 the mountains of Israel, over the returned 
 captives ; so that henceforth the subjects of 
 his kingdom are to obey his laws, and he 
 appoints his own officers to execute his laws ; 
 the priests as such have no longer any thing 
 to do in his kingdom, nor the Levite either. 
 
 Now if, when the prophet said, "My 
 servant David shall be their prince forever," 
 he plainly meant, to the end of the Jewish dis- 
 pensation, then does he not refer to the same 
 time when he says, just before, that the re- 
 turned captives should dwell in the land in 
 which their fathers dwelt, forever? And, in 
 verse 26, that he would set his sanctuary in 
 the midst of them for evermore ? They surely 
 seem all to refer to the same time ; and if 
 so, then all must have been fulfilled when 
 Christ died, which seems to render the 
 whole passage comparatively plain. 
 
 After this, the Jewish law having its ful- 
 filment in the sacrifice of Christ, Christ 
 says, " All power is given unto me in heaven 
 and in earth," and once and forever abol- 
 ishes the Jewish laws and preferences, by 
 the establishment of his own laws, over his 
 people, the same among all nations. After 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 175 
 
 giving the necessary directions to his disci- 
 ples, he ascended from the earthly to the 
 heavenly Jerusalem ; from the earthly to 
 the heavenly Canaan, to sit at the right 
 hand of his Father, that he might be alike 
 accessible to all his subjects in this world. 
 He then sent the Holy Spirit to guide them 
 in completing the arrangement of his laws 
 and officers in his kingdom, and there he 
 will rule as the son of David forever. 
 
 Now if these views are at all admissible, 
 then may not all the predictions of the re- 
 turn of the Jews have been accomplished 
 when Christ died, or, in other words, have 
 not all the legacies of the Abrahamic will 
 been paid, so far as they were to be paid in 
 Canaan ? So that none are now due to the 
 seed of Abraham but those included in the 
 new covenant, Jer. 31 : 31, or the cov- 
 enant of grace, which does not give any 
 promise of preference to the present scat- 
 tered Jews, either before or after conver- 
 sion, nor any promise of an earthly Canaan. 
 Nor does it appear to include any thing 
 like a general or national conversion, and 
 return to the church, more than of all the 
 
176 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 world, unless it can be found Rom. 11 : 
 12 and 26, of which the reader must judge. 
 To my own mind, I confess that these pass- 
 ages seem to convey a different meaning, or 
 at least do not certainly convey that mean- 
 ing. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. W. 
 
LETTER XVI. 
 
 Dear Sir : — I will now bring these let- 
 ters to a close, by saying that I wish you 
 distinctly to understand that I do not at all 
 rest the question of the return of the pre- 
 sent scattered people calling themselves the 
 children of Abraham to the land of Canaan, 
 and Christ's reign over them there, on the 
 foregoing intimations of what may be the 
 meaning of certain predictions of the pro- 
 phets, for I am no student of the prophets, 
 but on the question, Who are the lawful 
 heirs of the bequests made to the seed of 
 Abraham ? This seems to be a question 
 totally distinct from the question, What are 
 the contents of the will ? and should surely 
 be definitely settled before we look at the 
 contents of the will ; for before I know 
 whether I am an heir, the contents of the 
 will are of little consequence to me. Indeed, 
 it is always difficult to understand an ob- 
 
178 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 
 
 scure will till we know distinctly of whom 
 it speaks, and so of the Abrahamic will as ex- 
 po unded by the prophets. 
 
 Again, then, we repeat, that if we have 
 succeeded in showing that the present Jews 
 are not the lawful heirs, but that they have 
 broken their covenant and forfeited their 
 heirship, then what the prophets say still 
 belong to the seed of Abraham cannot at 
 all be said of them, for they speak not of 
 them, but of the seed, the covenant people, 
 the lawful heirs ; and if we have succeeded 
 in showing that according to the law of 
 Moses, as explained by Peter, Christ, Paul, 
 and John, true believers, wherever found, 
 are the seed of Abraham and heirs of the 
 promises, then whatever the prophets say 
 relating to the present or future time, they 
 say to them, and them only, for they always 
 speak of the seed of Abraham, the covenant 
 people of G-od ; so that whatever of pro- 
 phetic promises are yet due to the seed of 
 Abraham belong to true believers, or so it 
 seems to me, for they constitute the old 
 Abrahamic tree, of which there are not two, 
 but one only, as ever, and form now the 
 
LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 179 
 
 only house of Israel and house of Judah 
 in existence. Upon that seed the pro- 
 phetic eye was fixed, with that house 
 the new covenant was to be made, and 
 was made ; from that house or tree all 
 the dead branches were to be cut, and none 
 but living ones to be engrafted, so that there 
 could be no need of one saying to another, 
 11 Know the Lord," but only of exhorting 
 one another to be faithful, and to take 
 warning by the multitude of that house 
 who were cut off, that they fell not under 
 the same or greater condemnation. And 
 now will you carefully and prayerfully ex- 
 amine the question of heirship, without mix- 
 ing it up and obscuring it with supposed 
 meanings of prophetic visions ? 
 
 And may the Lord lead both you and me 
 to such an understanding of this as shall 
 enable us to perform our duty in carrying 
 forward the revealed purposes of Grod re- 
 specting His Church and its appropriate 
 duties to all unbelievers, no matter by what 
 name they are called. 
 
 Yours, &c, A. "W\ 
 
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