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AND
THE APPEARING OF CHRIST. ||
THIRD EDITION.
f
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A. G. HOLLISTER,
MOUNT LEBANON, COLUMBIA CO., N.
Ask and ye shall receive: -
Seek and ye shall find:
Knock and it shall be opened to you.
JESUS.
“Aye, there's a glorious remnant yet,
- Whose lips are wet at freedom's fountains:
The coming of whose welcome feet,
Is beautiful upon the mountains.”
GUI DI NG STAR PUBLISHING. HOUSE, WASHINGTON H E 1G HTS, ill.
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| PREFATORY NOTE.
Dr. Adam Clarke, the learned Bible commentator, says
“The Rabbins have endeavored to degrade Daniel, and have
placed his prophecies among the HAGIOGRAPHA, books which
they conceive to possess a minor degree of inspiration. And it
is probable that they have so done, because his prophecies are
proofs that Jesus is the true Messiah. He came at the time
Daniel said the Anointed Prince would come.”
Leila Ada T–, the carefully educated and only daugh-
ter of a wealthy Jew, by reading the New Testament, learned to
believe that Jesus was the predicted Messiah. Her Memoir,
written by O. W. T. Heighway, of London, England, was pub-
lished in 1853, in Philadelphia, by the Presbyterian Board of
Publication. She wrote to her father; “Why is our nation
skeptical in reference to the Prophet Daniel's inspiration?
Simply because it is Daniel, who most unmistakably defines the
time of the Deliverer's appearance. If Daniel be true, that is,
if he was inspired, they have a deep conviction that the period
is passed. Therefore it is that they have removed him from
his place, and made him one of the writers of the KETHUBIM
(Writings), and not one of the NEBIIM (Prophets), p. 101.
* * * Our late writers while laboring to refute the interpre-
tation of Christians in favor of the * * * Messiahship of
Jesus, have contradicted their predecessors, as they themselves
have admitted. David Kemchi, wishes to apply the second
Psalm to David merely. But he confesses that our pious fore-
fathers applied the Psalm to Messiah, and that if the Psalm be
thus interpreted, the meaning will be clear.”—P. II.4.
PSALIMI.
“Thou uplifting Spirit Thou Christ of the ages :
Draw near to us now, be our comforting friend.
Thou hast lighted the pathway of prophets and sages,
In times of affliction, a helper did send.
Now in Zion’s great need we ask thy assistance;
We ask it in faith, may we ask not in vain;
Give us living bread, a spiritual substance;
Give us strength the cause of truth to maintain.
Thine shall the honor and glory be,
While the unceasing years roll on;–
Thou uplifting Spirit Thou Christ of the ages!
Hear, O hear our prayer.”
THE SPIRIT SAYS.
“O Zion! withhold not thy blessing,
The true testimony is thine,
And unto all kindreds and nations,
Go publish thy Order Divine.
O pour out thy life like a river,
*Till knowledge shall cover the land,
And thou shalt by sacrifice surely
In greater and greater strength stand.”
“Contempt, prior to examination, bars information.”
“The wisdom of the Prudent, is to understand his way.”
INTERPRETING + PROPHECY,
AND THE APPEARING OF CHRIST,
“Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the 1335 days.”
RECENT writer, alluding to the above text, asks, “Has
that time come 2 and is Daniel standing in his lot at the
* end of the days?" As a true solution to this query may
enlighten many, and as we are of those who understand that
said time has expired, we wish to furnish some data whereby
others, we hope, can settle this matter for themselves. The
subject is briefly treated in the “Testimony of Christ's First and
Second Appearing,” p. 459. We trust this essay will reach
some thoughtful people who have not access to that book;
besides, it will bring out points not, to our knowledge, elsewhere
elaborated. -
The Prophet is told that the wicked shall not understand,
but the wise shall understand. As the wicked are not disquali-
fied for observing and understanding natural causes, but are
disqualified, while in that state, for understanding spiritual
things, and as the understanding and practice of spiritual truth
is what makes wise, we believe that the changes and events
foretold as occurring at the end of that period are less natural
than spiritual, less earthly than heavenly. The kingdom of

2 INTERPRETING PROPHEOY,
heaven being a spiritual realm, perceived only by spiritual sight,
its true subjects must be spiritual, and behold things existing in
spiritual light. .*
Second Adventists have repeatedly proved, so far as can be
proved by the numbers given in prophecy, and by the records of
history, that the time was up as early as 1844. But because
certain miraculous events, which the wicked can understand as
well as they, events predicated on a natural and literal inter-
pretation of symbolic language,_did not occur as they had
planned, they were sadly disappointed, and laid the cause to a
supposed error in their reckoning. Are they wise to rest their
decision on events which they understand no better than the
wicked, and which may never occur? In the same vision, the
Prophet heard a messenger who stood on the waters of a river,
with hands uplifted toward heaven, say, “At the completion of the
scattering of the power of the holy people, finished are all these.”
(Young's Bible.) Dan. viii: 12, explains why this scattering,
viz., because of transgression. Dan. vii:23, viii. 9, Rev. xi. 7, xiii:
4, explain by what agency, viz., the wild beast clement in human
nature, exalted to the highest position in worldly government.
Dan. viii: 14, tells us the time limit to which the treading down
of the sanctuary would extend, viz., unto 2300 days. Sanctuary
here stands for a Bible word which means separation, i. e., hal-
lowed, consecrated, set apart for communion with the Divine
Presence. The allusion to a local sanctuary must be in a sub-
ordinate and typical sense, because the local sanctuary was only
a figure of the spiritual and real sanctuary, designed ultimately
to be established in the hearts of righteous people.
Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “The hour comes
when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem,
worship the Father, * * * The hour comes, and now is,
INTERPRETING ! PROPHECY, 8
when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth.” When Jesus spake this, true worship, and the
place of its sanctuary, was not external, but interior of the
human soul, or spirit. This internal spiritual sanctuary was
typified by the “Most Holy” place of the outward temple, the
entrance into which (i.e., to the spiritual) the writer of Hebrews
tells us, was not made manifest while the first tabernacle, i. e.,
the figurative “Holy Place,” was standing. Consequently, when
Jesus made a way, in his own person, into the holy of holies,
i.e., the real spiritual sanctuary, by the crucifixion of his selfish
or carnal will, in perfect obedience to the anointing spirit, allud-
ed to in Dan. ix: 24, the outward figurative sanctuary ceased to
have standing authority. It was made desolate of the Divine
Presence and worship by the worldly ambition and abominable
crimes of its covetous Officers, and renegade Jews, who convert-
ed it into a den of thieves and of mutual slaughter, previous to
its final destruction by the Romans, The abominations which
desolated the Jewish temple and worship, and terminated its
daily religious service, were reenacted about four hundred years
later, in an organization called the Christian Church, when
those who assumed the name of Christ transgressed the laws of
his kingdom, and Čeased to bear the daily cross he enjoined,
and to obey his commands. This apostacy of the Church, and
the false doctrines promulgated in Christ's name, completed the
darkening of the sun, which Jesus had foretold. Hence the
2300 days cover the period of 42 months, during which the Holy
City of Christian principles, revealed in Christ's First Appearing,
was trodden down by Gentiles, and the beast prevailed against
the Saints, as described in Rev. xi.
As the purpose of the type has been fulfilled by the mani-
festation of the substance, and its usefulness outgrown by the
4 INTERPRETING PROPHEOY,
increase of knowledge, and as transgression desolates not a
local, material structure, but the heart of the transgressor, the
sanctuary here named must refer to the permanent spiritual
sanctuary, or consecrated human soul. This view is supported
by the fact that the word here translated cleansed, is not the word
used to signify the removal of filth, though it may include that
idea, since cleanliness is an essential element of godliness, but
it literally means to make righteous, and is more properly rendered
in the margin, justified. As righteousness and justification are
not attributes of houses nor places, but of rational beings, it
must apply here to one or more human beings with whom the
Divine Presence has again taken its abode among the children of
men, and formed a nucleus for the Saints, i. e., “the holy people,”
to gather to. As it is written, “Behold the tabernacle of God
is with men.” This agrees with Christ's saying, “If anyone”
(man or woman) “love me, he will keep my words, and my
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our
abode with him.” The dark “night, in which no man could
work” the works of Christ, had passed away from many justi-
fied souls, when, in 1789, the American Constitution went into
operation, binding the dragon of physical violence and bloody
persecution for religion’s sake, by the power of the civil govern-
ment, the first time in the history of nations. Mark the period
as contemporary with the organization of Believers in Christ's
Second Appearing in communal order, then in progress, but not
complete till 1792.
If those days were reckoned consecutively, like the days of
our week, they would make less than seven years from the date
of the vision, in which period there are no known events which
fulfil the prediction. If the days named were days of atone-
ment, appointed under the typical law for the confession of
INTERPRETING PROP.ECY, 5
sin, and justifying figurative Israel, of which there was but
one in each year, and, like the Sabbath, it came ever in its
season, whether legally observed or not, then we have 2800
years. Even literalizing Adventists account those days for years.
And since they have been three times disappointed in their ex-
pectation of a literal cleansing of the earth by fire and catastro-
phe, they have concluded that the sanctuary must be heavenly
and not earthly. They also believed in the personal and literal
descent of Jesus through the sky to judge the world, and the
literal rise of dead bodies from the dust, by miracle, as many
others do still. If they had dated the commencement of those
years at the period of the vision, the time would terminate before
they were born, as it really did, and disprove their literal theory,
which the wicked understood as well as they, and knew that no
such events had ever taken place. Hence, their literal theory
compelled them to skip 97 years of actual desolation, (which
must have been covered by the 2300, since the days cut off by
the work of Messiah were included,) to find a beginning which
would throw forward into the future those impossible, because
unnecessary, events, fancifully connected with the termination.
These things are not taken up for controversy, but because
many, not Adventists, like the Jews in Christ's day, insist upon
a literal fulfilment of symbolic language as a condition of belief.
And, like the Jews, who expect a military Messiah, they cheat
themselves with a delusive hope that will perish like a dream
of disordered fancy. Second, because Adventists have done
much to fix attention on these prophecies, and their frequent
failures to realize what, according to the orderly methods of
Divine Wisdom, will never take place, have caused many to regard
prophecy as a fruitless study. But, surely, prophecy is designed
to disclose a Divine Purpose running through the ages, and to
6 INTER PRETING PROPHECY,
prove that a superintending Providence overrules the affairs of
men; also to confirm the faith and trust of wise believers in a
Power and Wisdom Almighty to accomplish its designs, and
enable them to intelligently co-operate, and work according to
a plan of Divine Order, as it is manifest in the world in their day.
Believers in Christ's Second Appearing are living in the
events which fulfil the prediction and furnish a key to the
prophecy, and have no occasion to revise their calculation,
which is as follows: The date of the vision is 553 years before
Christ, at a time when the figurative temple was lying waste,
and its people were captives in the land of their enemies. As
this was the chief subject of the Prophet's concern, there is no
valid reason why the 2300 days should not date from the vision.
Subtract 553 from 2300, and it gives 1747 after Christ as the
time when justifying the true sanctuary, i. e., the heart and
spirit of man and woman, should begin to bring in the everlast-
ing substance, of which the day of national atonement, and
yearly justifying figurative Israel, was a type. The Prophet is
told that from the taking away of the daily sacrifice (or con-
tinuance) and the setting up of the abomination which makes
desolate, there shall be 1290 days. As the abomination which
makes desolate was removed in justifying the sanctuary, the
1290 days terminate with the 2300, i. e., in 1747. Take 1290
from 1747, and we have 457 after Christ as the period of the
cessation of the cross of Christ, and setting up the abomination
of desolation in the Primitive Church, which became the true
sanctuary after the anointing of the “Holy of Holies,” i. e., the
Messiah, described in Dan. ix: 24. Taking 1290 from 1885,
allows 45 years of waiting for the gradual growth of the work
begun in 1747, till the second spiritual temple was built of
resurrected and justified souls. Add 45 to 1747 and we have
INTERPRETING PROPHECY. 7
1792, the year in which the church of Believers in Christ's
Second Appearing was fully organized and established in gospel
order, on the basis of a united and consecrated interest in all
things, spiritual and temporal, after the example of the Primi-
tive Church as recorded in Acts ii: 44, and iv: 32, 35. The
gathering of the holy, i. e., consecrated and purified ones, is
itself a sign that the time of scattering is past. And those who
have renounced the world within and without, and have brought
their deeds to the light of the judgment that is placed in Christ's
witnesses, and have forsaken sin and all carnal ties and selfish
possessions, that they may gather and unite in one heart and
soul to follow Christ in the regeneration, through the strait gate
and narrow way to eternal life, by serving God and denying self
continually, such bring forth fruits by which all may know they
are a justified and “holy people,” and that their sanctuary is
“the tabernacle which God hath set up, and not man.”
A movement started in England in 1747, under the minis-
tration of James and Jane Wardley, the forerunners of the
message of Christ's Second Appearing. A small number of
people, by silent waiting and submission to the direction of the
Spirit, were led to separate from all other denominations, and in
their meetings for worship to move as the spirit moved within
them. In these respects, they resembled the Quaker Friends,
who began in 1647 just one hundred years before. But while
Friends were moved to go abroad, to all people claiming to be
Christian, to fulfil their mission of exhorting souls to repent,
and turn to the inward light to find Christ, the subjects of the
Wardley movement clave together and staid at home; and, on
account of a supernatural power which shook their bodies when
assembled, were given the name, Shakers. They were Divinely
gifted with visions, revelations and prophecies, which progress-
8 INTER PRETING PROPHECY.
ively increased, with a ministration of all those spiritual gifts
which were bestowed on the Church in the days of the Apostles.
They professed to follow Christ in the regeneration, united in a
degree of order, and were exceedingly zealous and strict in
morals and discipline, according to the light received. In these
“the judgment was set,” which takes away from the soul the
dominion of beast, and slays him with the sword of the spirit,
and consumes his body in the fire of the daily cross. (See Dan.
vii; 10.) The books of memory of the lives of each were opened
by honest oral confession in the presence of mortal witnesses,
in whom the standard of righteousness and light of Christ
abide. Thus the sanctuary is justified by confessing and for-
saking sin, and in no other way. Our Mother Ann washed in
this cleansing fountain till her sanctuary was justified and
prepared to receive the Bridegroom. * *
It may be objected to our view of the judgment that what
we have related concerning it, is an unutterably insignificant
affair in comparison with the sublime description thereof given
by the Prophet. But readers should consider that Daniel
describes the work of an age in the cause-world, both in its
completeness and results. We are endeavoring to trace signs
of its beginning only, in the world of effects. Moreover, Jesus
likened the kingdom of heaven—which we are told is to supplant
all other kingdoms under heaven, and to increase and stand
forever—to a grain of seed, which, when it is sown is the least
of all seeds, but grows till it accomplishes its mission. He also
said, “The kingdom of God is within you,” and cometh not with
obsérvation, in reply to the question when it should come. The
sign of the Son of Man would be seen coming; it was and is a
gradual advance. The presence (Greek, parousia) of the Son of
Man was to be like the lightning, which shineth out from one
INTERPRETING PROPHECYe 9
part under heaven unto another part under heaven. The ap-
pearance of lightning is local and limited, being seldom visible
over a space of more than 200 miles. Every eye shall see him,
not at once, but successively, as the work progresses, until it
shall have become universal.
Jesus, after predicting some signs of that revival of the
heavenly life and work, says: “Learn the parable of the fig
tree. When her branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves,
ye know that summer is nigh. So ye in like manner when ye
see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, at the doors.
Truly I say to you, this generation shall not pass away till all
these may be done.” The meaning of which is, that which oc-
curred during that generation on a limited scale—viz., the descent
of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the gospel, and its accept-
ance by multitudes, and by foreign people in widely distant
countries, and the destruction of opposing ecclesiastical systems,
and sweeping away their establishments—would be repeated
on a world-wide scale when the Son of Man should come in his
glory, and all the holy messengers with him. But that coming
would be like the approach of summer—there would be a change
in the mental and spiritual atmosphere, from the chilly, freezing
blasts of tribal and sectarian hate, and selfish greed and covet-
ousness, to the genial airs of benevolence, kindness and brotherly
love, favoring the growth of Celestial plants and humanitarian
virtues. And those seeds of a Divine substance, planted in the
elements of the world by the preaching of the word in the life-
time of the Apostles, would spring up in many places, wherever
they had found lodgement, and grow and fruit in genial soil and
the warm, magnetic breath of vernal skies. New light breaking
forth in one place under heaven, should shine to other places
under heaven, and there meet co-attesting witnesses, chasing
* See Note A, at the end of part first.
10 INTERPRETING PROPHECY,
spiritual darkness from the intervening space, even as electric
lights, which are literal “lightning,” chase away natural darkness.
Franklin's discovery, in 1752, that the lightning of the clouds
is identical with the substance called electricity, and the modern
inventions for converting night into day by means of electric
machinery, also the lightning telegraph, which flashes human
thought under oceans, from continent to continent, while yet
the agent of communication is unseen, is deemed a marvelous
coincidence of material development with our Savior’s prediction:
“As the lightning, which cometh out from one part under heaven,
and shineth unto another part under heaven, so shall the presence
(not coming, as in English) of the Son of Man be in his day.”
Who was the first in this age of the world to make that
presence known? We Say Ann Lee, by bringing forth those
fruits which proved her to be a doer of his works. As this testi-
mony is not received by those who think Christ's teaching un-
practical, and his works of service and of crucifixion to the world
within unnecessary, we hand forth the evidence in the fruits of
our own lives, molded by her teaching, and in the written record
delivered to us, and leave each to decide, according to evidence
presented to their consciousness, not doubting what the final
verdict will be with every one that shall escape from falling
Babylon to a home with the Lamb on Mount Zion—from a
world of sin, vexation and doubt, of slavery, conflict, and cease-
less struggle, to the peaceful reign of the heavens in the ever-
lasting kingdom of God.
Jesus testified, “Except ye be converted and become as little
children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
And “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God.” Who ever knew a child born without a Mother?
Some will say the Church is that Mother. But the Church is
INTERPRETING PROPHECY, 11
composed of living members, every one of whom must have been
regenerated of the Father and born of a Mother, that is, reborn,
born of the Spirit, born from above, before they could form a
Church of Christ. It is evident to reason that a Christian
Church cannot exist without both Father and Mother for its
prior cause, and both are represented in its head. The necessity
and office of a Divine Father, of whom Jesus was the duly
accredited messenger and first perfected human representative,
is never questioned by professed believers in Christ. . Early dis-
ciples regarded the Holy Spirit of Divine Wisdom as the spirit-
ual Mother, of whom believers in Christ's Second Appearing
testify that Ann Lee, the blacksmith's daughter, was the duly
accredited messenger, revealer, and first perfected and complete
human representative. “And the nations, of them that are
saved, shall walk in the light of her,” in her offspring.
“And I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, descend-
ing from God out of heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for
her husband.” The Apostle tells us, “Jerusalem which is
above, is the Mother of us all.” But that dispensation was then
yet to come, and could only be realized on earth through human
agents of corresponding character. According to prophetic
symbology, the dispensation of the Bride must begin in woman,
as that of the Bridegroom began in man. The Hebrew word
for Bride, Young says, means the complete and perfect one. “The
Bride shall appear, and she coming forth shall be seen that is
now withdrawn from the earth.” (Esdras.) Agreeable to East-
ern custom, woman's agency and office in the work of redemp-
tion, in the character of the spiritual Bride, was veiled in types
and symbols, and concealed from the vision of mortals, till the
marriage of the Lamb should furnish the key to interpret and
finish the mystery, at the sounding of the seventh trumpet.
12 INTERPRETING PLOPHECY.
The Holy City of the Bride has for its counterpart the Holy
City of the Bridegroom, which was trod by Gentiles 42 months,
counting a day for a year, during the 1260 years' reign of the
wild beast. The sanctuary of the first Christian temple had to
be justified in the life of its believers before the second Holy
City or dispensation of the Bride could be received, or have a
fit place to stand. And as Bridegroom and Bride, by mutual
adaptation, witness to each other, so also are the two Christian
dispensations obvious counterparts of one perfect whole, and
mutually witness to each other that they proceeded from one
source, for the accomplishment of one ordained end. The two
complete the manifestation of the two witnesses, the two lamp-
bearers, the two olive trees, “The Two Anointed Ones that stand
before the Lord of the whole earth.” And thus ends the mys-
tery of God for man's redemption, as He announced the joyful
tidings to His servants, the Prophets. (Revelation x: 7.)
It is believed that the silence observed in Friend's meetings,
waiting for the movement of the spirit within them, was an
external sign of the opening of the seventh Seal of the Apoca-
lypse, or seventh and sabbatic order of times, which was follow-
ed by silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. It was
the beginning of a new order of work, for which previous knowl-
edge and experience were not sufficient guide. Therefore, the
messengers and servants of God waited in silence for a further
revelation and knowledge of His will. Believers in Christ's
Second Appearing have preserved this sign in the half hour of
silent meditation and prayer, regarded as a preparation before
assembling to worship. The frequent practice of this inward
silence before God is found highly profitable for spiritual im-
provement by such as wish to conquer self and rise in dominion
over the world within and without. *
INTER PRETING PROPHECY. 13
The revelation of the Motherhood in Christ and in Deity,
and the second proclamation of the gospel of Christ, by the first-
born Daughter of the Holy Spirit, after it had been rejected by
men and trod under foot 1260 years, fulfilled the sign seen by John
at the sounding of the seventh trumpet: “A woman clothed
with the Sun” of Divine light and inspiration—“having the
moon,” natural genius and ordinances of nature, “under her
feet,” as a temporary foundation only, while clothed with the
earthly body. “And on her head a crown of twelve stars,”
signifying that she is spiritually of royal descent, and bears rule
in the heavens. She is our Elder Sister, in the holy order
twelve—namely, twelve male and twelve female Elders sitting
on thrones of judgment, in presence of Deity, as our Prophets
declare.
Here is fact for the Ecclesiastics of a confused theology
and an expiring dispensation to consider. Near the middle of
the eighteenth century, an illiterate woman of the laboring
class, in a manufacturing town in England, bound by the law
of a carnal commandment to a husband; bound by false cus-
toms, false opinions, and the laws of man to be her husband's
slave—casts off her clogs, breaks the shackles of opinion and
custom, and flowers out toward the kingdom of God, proclaimed
by Jesus and his Apostles, beyond all her cotemporaries, male
and female, as proved by her fruit. She sought, but found little
or no aid from the churches of her period, which opposed and
persecuted her with deadly hate. She was brought into great
consternation, because she saw there was no Intercessor. There-
fore, through struggles, and groans, and tears, and strong cries
to God, through watching, and toiling, and fasting, and pray-
ing, and firmness in resisting the tempter, her own arm wrought
salvation, supported by one who trod the wine-press before her;
14 INTERPRETING PROPHECY,
and she became the Lord's free woman, and the joyful Mother
of spiritual children, through whom was founded a church after
the pattern of Primitive Christianity, having all things in com-
mon, and where are daughters as free, and standing on the
same footing, as the sons, sharing equally in all honors, rights,
duties and privileges. In her and her offspring is fulfilled the
promise: “The seed of the woman shall crush the serpent’s head,”
for that is just what they do. It stands to reason and intuition
and prophecy, that the seed of the bondwoman, bound by her
desire for a mortal husband to the will of another, and paying
the penalty of violated law, could never accomplish this mission.
But the seed of the free woman, now on its mission for a hun-
dred years, is making its power felt on all the most advanced
minds of both sexes, and they are bursting the bonds of prece-
dent, and the ethics of the worship of mammon, and tactics of
the beast, in obedience to the impulses and the revelation that
God is writing in their hearts to-day.
The seed of the New Woman keep the commandments of
God and have the testimony of Jesus, against the sins of the
world, and the lawlessness of the carnal mind. And in her and
her offspring is fulfilled the promise made to womanhood, and
recorded in the 54th chapter of Isaiah. Here the wife of youth,
despised, forsaken, grieved in spirit, who chose her Maker for
her husband and rejected the addresses of every other, is made
the head of the household, as Jesus promised to the servant
whom the Master should find at the post of duty when he re-
turned before morning. Luke, xii; 44.
How is it that expounders of an incomplete revelation,
(I. Cor. xiii: 9,) mixed with tares of the adversary, (See
parable Matt, xiii,) receive as gospel every ban and restriction
pronounced on woman in penalty for transgression, when the
INTER PRETING PROPHEC Y, 15
perfect gospel redeems all its subjects from transgression and
sin, and the penalties thereof. How is it that the same inter-
preters, professing vast veneration for the letter of Scripture,
construe every promise of woman's emancipation from the curse
and penalty of sin, and of her restoration to freedom and favor,
and coagency in the work of salvation and redemption to eternal
life, light, liberty and glory, to mean a church whose head is a
father, but whose children are constrained to be their own
mother, or abide motherless where Rulers and Teachers are all
masculine, and whose women are wives, subject to the law of a
carnal commandment and the penalties of unremoved trans-
gression. Is not this the church of Antichrist and mother of
harlots and abominations of the earth ? Are they not all wor-
shipers of the beast in their own hearts, who claim the author-
ity of a holy Apostle, for holding women in bondage to the
carnal will of man 2 The same Apostle wrote that to be
carnally minded is death. For the carnal mind is enmity
against God, and cannot be subject to the law of God. Hence,
it is that LAWLESS ONE, whose mystery is now revealed through
woman—that Man of sin, and son of destruction whom the
Lord is consuming with the spirit of his mouth, (which is like
a flaming sword against that filthy, corrupt nature,) and is
bringing it to nought in both parts of manhood, by the shining
forth of his presence, through the cleansed man and woman.
II. Thess. ii: “This is the true word of God,” tested by ex-
perience of many living witnesses.
NOTE A, REFERRED TO ON PAGE 9.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD, which Jesus said would come with power, within the
days of the generation to whom he spoke, had no reference to the destruction of
Jerusalem and the Jewish national polity. That was a worldly affair entirely, and
as opposite to the kingdom of God and His works, as a lie is to the truth, or death
to life, or darkness to light.
16 INTERPRETING PROPHECY,
The demonstration of the presence of the kingdom of God, was in the spirit
which caused the disciples to be of one heart and one soul, and to gather into one
family, renouncing all selfish ties, ambitions and possessions, and holding in
corrimon all things necessary for subsistence, both spiritual and temporal. Thus,
all who sought first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, could have all
necessaries supplied without anxious solicitude, as Jesus had taught his hearers.
J'his was truly a love feast, and firstfruits of Christ's mission to the world,
furnishing both a proof of the power of God to redeem man from selfishness, and
an example of what the reign of God is like. Therefore it is the goal for which
all who are dissatisfied with present social conditions should strive.
Thus the living temple of God first formed in Jesus, soon after he was violent-
ly taken away, was reconstructed of Believers who constituted the members of
Jhrist’s visible body. This required a continual daily sacrifice of ease, self-seek-
ing, and self-preferment, on the self-denying cross of Christ. But we learn from
Daniel, that this daily continuance in the truth ceased, and the abomination that
makes desolate was set up in the holy place about the year A. D. 457. See p. 6.
This could not mean the holy place of the Jewish temple, for that had been de-
stroyed, nearly 400 years, The male is the fructifier. Christ's first Appearing,
chiefly in the male sex, was the seed sowing for his second appearing in the female,
or fruit bearer and perfecter.


INTERPREING # PROPHECY.
PART II.
Terrible Inflictions and Afflictions.
The Spirit Poured Out and Vision Restored.
“The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth; woman shall compass
J } . . ."
man.” Jeremiah.
“Remember not the former things, and things of ancient times regard
mot. Behold I make a new thing ; even now it shall spring forth ; will
ye not regard it º’ Lowth's Isaiah, aliii.
“Get thee up on a high mountain, O daughter, that bringest glad tidings
to Zion : Evalt thy voice with strength, O daughter, that bringest glad
tidings to Jerusalem.” Lowth's translation, all: 9.
= y =w SECTION I.
Ann Lee was the beginning of a Royal line of female
messiahs, or Christ Anointed Leaders out of sin, and emanci-
pators of both sexes from bondage of the flesh, and from
the rudimentary conditions of earth life. And to her and her
spiritual offspring it is given to be arrayed in fine linen white
and clean, which is the righteousness of Saints. “Instead of thy
fathers, shall be thy children whom thou shalt make princes in
all the earth. I will cause thy name to be remembered in all
generations.” And for the deliverance wrought through thy
agency, “people shall praise thee to the age of ages.” Ps. 45.
18 *e INTER PRETING PROPHECY,
As previously stated, the testimony of Friends was first
proclaimed in 1647. In their benevolent lives, and non-resist-
ance to personal injuries, was reincarnated the Angel's song of
“Peace on earth and good will in men.” James and Jane
Wardley, the immediate forerunners of Christ's Second Appear-
ing, began their ministration in 1747. In 1847, began the
“Rochester spirit knockings,” whose sounds are yet reverberat-
ing through the world, and their attending phenomena are
forcing myriads to believe in the perpetuity of rational, intelli-
gent life after death. People are also learning, gradually and
surely, that there is no break in the continuity of life—no
miraculous transformation of character wrought by transference
to the invisible, nor by faith in a church Creed, as taught in old,
ecclesiastical systems—no interruption to the law of sequence,
in the relations of cause and effect, by vicarious atonements.
IHence, that every one will have the happiness or misery of
reaping in kind, from life over there, precisely what he has put
into life here, with all the increase returned by the elements.
This knocking of the spirit world, at the doors of the material
and rudimental, in which man has been shut up so long he was
learning to doubt if there be any exit but into nothingness, we
think is a sign of the time signified in the message to the Angel
of the seventh church of Asia: “Behold I stand at the door and
Inock. If any one hear my voice and will open the door, I will
coune in and sup with him and he with me.” The Seventh is
the last and sabbatic order of times, and the meal referred to,
the last and principal meal of the day. Because these knockings
are not of the world, the world, that loves its own, refuses to
know them. ...We believe the external knocking is a forerunner
of the celestial presence, intended to arouse sleepers in the dust,
and to prepare this terrestrial to receive the celestial, as soon as
INTERPRETING PROPHECY, 19
spiritual hunger has grown to demand celestial food. It is also
a sign that the Lord has returned from the wedding; Luke, xii:
36. &
In February, 1848, before intelligent communication was
opened between the two worlds, through the knockings, by
question and answer, a political earthquake shook the thrones
of Europe, and drove several potentates into private life. Three
Republics were declared, one of which continues to live, a
standing menace to the remaining monarchies. The cause of
the people has been gaining ground ever since, and militaryism,
despotism, and ecclesiasticism, have been losing esteem in like
proportion. These all-devouring heads of the wild beast, de-
scribed in prophecy, have grown up from the lust, avarice and
ambition fostered in the hearts of the people, from lowest to
highest. When all people reject these vile passions, and prac-
tice instead, the gospel of mutual service, justice, equity,
fraternal love, and universal kindness, those devourers of human
flesh and substance will die of inanity, and melt away like ice-
bergs under a tropic sun. e *
It is related of the Prophet Elijah, that, when weary of
contending with the folly of men, he repaired to Mount Horeb
to seek a respite and Divine direction, a great and strong
wind passed by and rent the mountains and broke the rocks in
pieces. After the wind, an earthquake, and after the earth-
quake, a fire. But God was not in the wind, the earthquake,
nor the fire. Then a still, small voice was heard, and Elijah
wrapped the mantle of his cloak about hiru, and went out of his
cave, and stood in the presence of the Lord, who directed him
what to do. Nations, old in custom and tradition, and forms
of government that fetter the growth of the human soul as with
gyves and manacles, confining all manifestations of intelligence
20 INTERPRETING PRoPHEcy.
to ruts as pard as stone pavements, are visited with the wind
of revolution, to rend the mountains of power and usurped
authority. The earthquake comes to shake down their feudal
castles, built of the tears and groans and sweat and poverty of
their victims. And the fire is needed to clear away the filth
and rubbish, before there is an opening for the Prophet of the
“still, small voice” to accomplish his work. So the American
revolution preceded the first opening of the gospel of Christ's
Second Appearing in America, to break off the colonies from the
old world superstitions. For it was attended with a revolution
ôf ideas, greater than the revolution in politics. The first
JFrench revolution was coeval with the gathering of the Believers
in Christ's Second Appearing into communal order. This com-
munal order—being, we believe, the order of angelic societies ins
heaven, and above the marriage order of the world, and adopted
through religious motives—answers to the ascent of the witnesses
in a cloud to heaven, described in Rev. xi. 12.
Believers in Christ's Second Appearing are witnesses of
that appearing. A cloud here means a multitude, who “arose
and stood upon their feet;" i. e., upon the first principles of true
understanding, or axiomatic truth, and not on any foundation
of Antichrist, nor creed of man's devising. Their change from
the self-seeking and private property-holding order of the world,
to the unselfish and nonpossessing order of a community, under
the direction of a voice from heaven, was an actual ascent from
earthly to heavenly conditions, which has become a fact of
history. “And their enemies beheld them.” It was done in
sight of the world, and of their persecutors, who hated them
for the same cause that Jesus was hated, viz., because they
testified that the works of the world are evil, and their practice
proved that its creeds and beliefs, substituted for the religion of
!|
INTERPRETING PROPHECY. 21
Christ, were a fraud and delusion, and its title to the saint's
inheritance, a cheat.
“And that same mour was there a great earthquake, and a
tenth part of the city fell.” France was one of the ten king-
doms into which the Roman Empire was divided when it came
under the dominion of that mysterious hierarchy which ruled in
Rome, after the fall of the Empire, and made mystic “Babylon
the great, and Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.”
These ten kingdoms were represented on Daniel 's fourth beast
by ten horns, and on Nebuchadnezzar's dream image, by ten toes.
But as they all spring from one body, are composed of the same
material, and support one general system of polity and conduct,
they are but component parts of a common polity, or City,
which rules all people in their depraved state. Rome, or the
system which Imperial Rome represented, is elsewhere char-
acterized as “The great city which ruleth over the kings of the
earth.” The king of France was called eldest son of the Roman
church, but, in the great earthquake, she fell from the ancient
order of absolutism and priestly domination of a treacherous
hierarchy. And though there have been repeated attempts at
partial restoration, she continues falling from the old, slavish
regime of ignorance, toward the new regime of individual free-
dom of conscience, and general mental illumination about to be.
This exoteric interpretation of the prophecy, by historic facts,
need be no bar to a more interior and spiritual interpretation of
the same, if one be found appropriate. Many prophecies have
both an exterior and interior fulfilment. The highly figurative
or symbolic language of Some, allows their application to more
than one series of events without annulment or contradiction.
No contradiction of other explications is here intended. The
“little horn” has been explained as applying to the church of
22 INTERPRETING PROPHECY.
Antichrist, which we believe is correct. But the Atheistic horn
is identical in character. It is the same beast stripped of his
leopard skin, or religious profession, and displaying his real
color, that of blood, which is the life of nature. [Note. The
high-priest of Egyptian temples wore a leopard skin when.per-
forming religious service.] The exterior application is visible
to the natural, rational eye of man. The interior meaning is
perceived only by the spiritual. Rev. xi : 13. Dan. vii: 8.
“There were slain of men, seven thousand, and the rem-
nant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
The last phrase here, signifies not repentance, conversion, nor
thanksgiving, but recognition. (Vincent.) The margin reads,
“names of men,” or men of titled rank. The enmity of the
populace was particularly directed against their former rulers,
and the titled nobility, who were regarded as the chief cause of
their misery. Every one, of whatever station, whose opinions
did not agree with the authorities who ruled the hour, was a
“suspect.” Fifty thousand revolutionary committees were es-
tablished throughout France, to enforce the law against suspects,
the penalty being death. To be accused was equivalent to
being sentenced without proof or trial, and 150,000 salaried
persons had authority to designate for death. In Wendee, which
resisted, but was finally overpowered, 900,000 lives perished.
15,000 women and 22,000 children were shot and drowned,
many of them in batches, a hundred at a time; (Encyclopedia
Americana.) such treatment as is due to vermin or pests.
For awhile, anarchy prevailed in Paris, and the most shocking
crimes were committed with apparent impunity. The guillotine
was constantly employed, decapitating arrested suspects; good
or bad, innocent or guilty, they fared alike. Barrere, a chief
actor in those scenes, in after years wrote: “We had only one
INTER PRETING PROPHECYe 23
feeling, my dear sir, that of self-preservation—only one desire,
that of keeping our existence, which each of us believed to be
menaced. You caused your neighbor to be guillotined, that
your neighbor might not guillotine you.” Taine says, “In six
fnonths the Republic expended 15 millions to destroy 400
millions worth of property in Lyons.” This period is designated
in history, “The Reign of Terror.” It was the reign of Athe-
ism, in the name of NATURE AND REASON, whom those lawless
desperadoes professed to adore, while claiming for their motto
“Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” t;
Reason is the eye of rational man. Daniel saw a little
horn which came up last on the fourth beast, Chap. vii. This
beast was, in character, human nature, organized into a gov-
ernment, not guided by the oracles of God. In this horn
“were the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.”
Before it, three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots.
This atheistic horn, i. e., power, plucked up in France the kingly
power, the power of aristocracy, and the ecclesiastical power.
It abolished the observance of a Sabbath, and all religious ser-
vice, and strove to change times and laws by arbitrary fiat.
This beast put forth a succession of heads or horns, each of
which devoured its predecessor and was more violent, till “the
remnant were frightened” by the dreadful slaughter, and gave
glory to the God of heaven by re-opening their places of public
worship, in acknowledgment of the Supreme Ruler of heaven
and earth. The strong winds and earthquakes of this period
convulsed Europe during a quarter of a century. In America,
during the same period, the Church of the virgin brotherhood
and sisterhood, after organizing and testing its constitution,
covenant, or organic law, sent out heralds and established
branches, proving its power to propagate its likeness in other
24 INTERPRETING PROPHECY,
souls. Believers in Christ's Second Appearing increased in
numbers, and other clouds were formed in and upon which was
seen the sign of the Son of man coming, in the gradually
changing character of the witnesses composing the clouds, into
his likeness, by doing his works.
SECTION II.
DARKENING THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNEss.
“Ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and shall praise the
name of Jehovah your God, that hath dealt wondrously with
you. And my people shall never be ashamed.” They shall no
more do works of shame. “And it shall come to pass after-
ward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh,” (formed in
my likeness). “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy;
your old men shall’ dream dreams, your young men shall see
visions. Also upon the servants and handmaids in those days,
will I pour out my spirit.” Joel ii; 27.
An inspired Apostle applied this prediction to the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, eighteen centuries
ago. But that was only the beginning of a series which termi-
mated with the cessation of the cross of Christ in the primitive
church, when but a very little part of all flesh had been visited.
It is evident to reason's eye, that this prediction could not have
complete fulfilment till the preaching of the everlasting gospel
of millennial judgment and resurrection, under the sounding of
the seventh trumpet, for the conversion of the kingdom of the
world to our Lord and His Anointed, as declared in the Apoca-
lypse. The vision was closed up and sealed till the time of the
end of treading down the truth; end of scattering the power of
the holy people; end of the darkness; end of the abomination
in the holy place. Micah had said, because the prophets cause
INTER PRETING PRO PHECY, 25
the people to err, “Therefore night shall be unto you that ye
shall not have a vision. * * * The sun shall go down over
the prophets and the day shall be dark over them. They shall
cover their lips, for there is no answer of God.” While Christ
was in the world, and so long as he had a people who followed
him, they were the light of the world. They had visions, revela-
tions and prophecies, as the records prove, and it was daytime
with them. The light and love of God, shined through their
lives and conduct. But Jesus foretold the darkening of the Sun
of Righteousness by false Christs and false Prophets; i. e., false
teachers, or preachers, and that night should come, wherein his
hearers would desire to see one of the days of the Son of man
and should not see it. Those who condemn spiritualism, and
deny all revelation from God since the New Testament was
written, witness to this state of things, and that themselves are
spiritually dark, and disqualified to teach concerning spiritual
matters.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish” to spiritual
light and life. Hence, with the restoration of spiritual life and
light, there is restoration of spiritual vision and revelation.
Habakkuk says, “If the vision tarry, wait for it; at the end it
shall speak clearly and not deceive.” (Newcome.) The restora-
tion of spiritual gifts and visions, and their common diffusion
among people who have neither sought nor desired them, is one
of the signs of the end foretold, also of the near approach of the
powers of the world to come, and the re-opening of heaven to man.
Genuine spiritualism is neither sorcery, thaumaturgy, nor witch-
craft, but a divine gift, from the Father of lights and perfections,
to enlighten, uplift, and purify the heart. Diabolism and car-
mality are not spiritualism, but are directly opposed thereto, even
though instigated and promoted by excarnate beings. For God,
26 INTERPRETING PROPEIECY.
the Supreme good, is spirit—Christ, the resurrecting life, is
spirit—and all that is deathless and incorruptible in man is
spirit. The normal growth and development of the human
mind is away from the grossness and limitations of matter,
toward the infinite life, light and joy-bearing realm of spirit.
The whole trend of Christ's life and doctrine is to spiritualize
and harmonize his followers—to wean their thoughts and feel-
ings from visible, earthly, and temporal things, and place them
upon invisible truths and principles which lead to the eternal,
heavenly kingdom of invisible causes. Spiritualism, etymolog-
ically defined, means the doctrine of moral causes, and of spirit-
ual existences and conditions. Honestly and uprightly pursued,
it is impossible for it to have a degrading tendency, but quite
the reverse. As a rule, the motive of the seeker will determine
the character of the find. If baseness is sought, because it is
uppermost in the desires, it can be found in demonism or nat-
uralism which discards all manifestations that mortify the
passions and restrain natural desires—in infidelity to the highest
truth, adhesion to which truth is often ignorantly and atheistic-
ally pronounced “superstition”—in that occultism which is hiding,
concealing, and therefore darkening to true understanding. But
not in spiritualism proper, which is unveiling, disclosing, and
therefore enlightening. Spiritualism is the “still, small voice”
of the Cause world, prophesying to the dry bones, the spurned
and neglected truths of immortal life, the disappointed hope and
deferred expectations of spirits in the flesh, and in hades, as
Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones of Israel, to reclothe them
with living, sensitive tissues, that shall cause them to stand erect,
a breathing, moving, aspiring multitude, climbing the strait Way
to the heaven of eternal life. It is the mission of genuine
spiritualism to level all caste distinctions, Save of virtue alone,
INTERPRETING PROPHECY, 27
and to convert mankind into one family of universal brother-
hood and sisterhood. For the work has begun which is destined
to lay low the haughtiness of man, and cause pride and self-
exaltedness to perish. The Lord alone will be exalted in this
day. Lord means Ruler. Virtue and Truth in the will, rule
the kingdom of the Saints. Absolute Truth is the law, and
Virtue is perfect obedience thereto.
Second Adventists, when disappointed of being caught up
in the clouds of September 1843, and of witnessing the Sud-
den literal destruction of our planet by fire and catastrophe,
reviewed their calculations and believed they discovered a mis-
take of three and a half years. Adding this to the previous date,
they decided that the 45 years of waiting certainly terminated
in 1847. Still disappointed of their literal expectations, they
reasoned that the Sanctuary referred to was not earthly, but
must be heavenly, and have settled, to their own satisfaction,
that the 45 years ended, at the latest, in 1844. They could not,
with any plausible show of reason, make it later, and adhere to
the prophecy. The raising of the Saints to meet Christ in the
air, and the destruction of the natural earth and heavens by fire,
because these did not literally and visibly occur at that time, as
they expected from their construction of prophecy, are supposed
by them to occur nevertheless, at some indefinite period in the
future, they cannot tell when, nor can anybody.
We have shown above, that 1847 was a remarkable epoch
for the beginning of the Rochester “spirit knockings” and their
attending phenomena, which are carrying forth the light of the
cleansed and justified Sanctuary through myriads of telephonic
and magnetic channels, into the midst of surrounding darkness.
Penetrating and illuminating from above, the most secret recess-
es of hearts, which, by ordinary human instruments alone,
28 INTERPRETING PROPHECY.
would be impossible to reach. And all this is but a preparation
or presage of the dawn of that day which “will come as a snare
on all those dwelling upon the face of the whole earth.” Luke,
xxi.; 35. Mental Cure, Faith Cure, Christian Science healing,
though their votaries repudiate all connection with spiritualism,
are not the less spiritual gifts. Inasmuch as there is any virtue
or healing in their processes, it came down from the Divine Father
and Mother of the spirits of all flesh, from whom every good
and perfect gift descends to mortals. It is a sign of the presence
and activity of dispensers of resurrecting life, awaking sleepers
from the dust of the earth.
SECTION III.
The date fixed for the end of the 1335 days, by Miller, with
whose teaching Second Adventists began their rise, was 1843.
This date was remarkable for a wonderful influx of spirits from
hades, into the bodies of Believers in Christ's Second Appear-
ing. These were of various nationalities, and of all classes and
conditions when in earth life, except the wilfully vile and
criminal—including rulers and subjects, learned and ignorant,
names celebrated in history, ancient and modern, and names
obscure, also many tribes of native Americans. Done by per-
mission of those in authority and conducted with a degree of
order, both for our learning, and for the benefit of the invisibles
who were awaking to the Judgment, and returned for a brief
visit to the rudimental sphere, to increase knowledge and to gain
instruction in the gospel of eternal life. Teachers I have known,
preached in our meetings, to multitudes in the world of spirits,
whom our Seers told us had come, and that some had been
sent to us for that purpose. Moreover, entranced mediums,
attended with guides, preached to spirits assembled to receive
INTER PRETING PROPHECY, 29
instruction, in places they visited in the spirit world.
We were told in writing, that those who came to earth to
begin their spiritual travail were only as a drop to a shower, in
comparison with the millions from all quarters of the globe,
gathering to gospel centers in eternity. Spirits awakened by
“the voice of the Son of man” through messengers redeemed
from the earth, to stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion in this,
and the spirit world. This intelligently harmonizes with the
prediction: “Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever-
lasting contempt.” It is not necessary to conclude from this
that souls will be held in everlasting contempt. We are persuad-
ed that none need be, unless they deliberately choose it in the
judgment, in preference to being separated from their sins, and
from a sinful life of rebellion against their own best good. The
resurrection restores, i. e., awakens to consciousness the whole
past, good and bad alike, that the evil may be condemned and
abhorred in the judgment, and cast forth from the life. The
dust alluded to, is the trivialties, vanities, and follies—the least
and lowest things of life—of which Isaiah says: “dust shall be
the serpent's meat.”
Those who rise, do of necessity, cast off their marred, sin-
ful, rudimental bodies, (even the astral) which gravitate to
former things, that they may take on Superior conditions and
new environments, adapted to the endless, pure and perfect
life. All such do hold in utter contempt, their former serpen-
time life in sensuous externals, compared to sleep, because in-
sensible to the larger life above. Jesus somewhere speaks of an
unclean spirit which went out of a man, and wandered through
dry places, seeking rest and finding none. So he returned with
seven other evil spirits, worse than himself, and finding no
30 INTER PRETING PROPHECY.
resistance, re-entered the house whence he came out. Inference;
the spirit of uncleanness is no part of the real man and woman,
and when souls who have practiced unclean works, awake to ever-
lasting life, they will awake to a sense of shame and aversion
for all such practices, which they will confess, and abandon to
everlasting contempt. No process so effective to awaken this
shame and contempt for the worship of the beast, and to liber-
ate the soul from further inclination thereto, as an honest con-
fession, one by one, before the judgment seat of Christ in his
saints, of all secret works and vile deeds done in the body.
Confession and repentance is the “Valley of Achor, the Door of
Hope” to erring souls, and the “Strait gate,” opening the
“Narrow Way” to Eternal Life.
Mother Ann Lee testified: “I see multitudes of the dead
who were slain in battle, arise and come into the first resurrec-
tion' I see Christ put crowns on their heads.” She was fre-
quently known to preach to the dead. Father James Whittaker,
and Elder John Hocknell did the same. These things disclose
a vital connection and relation between the worlds visible and
invisible, also a harmony and unity of certain operations in
both, which the people of this world were in no way prepared to
receive nor to comprehend, previous to the advent of the “Spirit
knockings.” And still the heavenly work proceeds with irre-
pressible and unabated activity, and many views heretofore
peculiar to Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, are being
proclaimed through hundreds, if not thousands of apparently
independent channels. Fresh prophets of the Elias Order, are
successively and continuously arising, inspired and guided by
the light now descending to mortals, through myriads of cleans-
ed and renovated messengers, operating in the spirit spheres.
Here we offer the suggestion that Shakers’ most effective
* J
*
INTERPRETING PROPHECY, 31
work is not alone the dissemination of ideas, which, though
sweet in the mouth, are bitter to the carnal life, while digest-
ing in practice, but in manifesting to beholders the fruits of a
discipline as absolute in its control of the conduct, as the laws
of chemical combination, and of planetary revolutions, in their
sway over matter. A discipline to which ideas furnish a key of
the rationale that will make it acceptable to such as are qualified
by motive, courage and persistence, to work out its practical re-
sults. Our purpose here is to emphasize the discipline which
regenerates and redeems the individual, making of each one a
new and perfect creation. Those who do not understand, recoil
from the cross involved. Not comprehending the object, they
wish to relax restraint, and destroy the rules. Individual cases
sometimes occur in which relaxation or modification of particu-
lar rules may be briefly necessary, and Elders are the Judges to
decide when and to what extent. But a permanent abrogation
or nullifying of rules so as to allow the least fraction of a selfish
carnal will to live and operate, is to defeat the purpose of the
order, and undermine the structure we raise, and render our work
abortive. For not a particle of inferior self-will, nor of a carnal
nature can ever enter the heavens of eternal life and glory, but
must die in the fining, because corrupt and corrupting. Neither
can any sinful experience enter the Holy Jerusalem state, to
cause darkness, cloudiness or opacity. For everything there is
perfectly diaphanous, transmitting the light in every direction.
Every covering but that of charity and forgiveness must be re-
moved in the judgment, and the creature accustomed to the
continual gaze of the witnesses of truth in whom is the judgment
seat, before it is prepared to dwell in the Holy City, or be a
pillar in the temple to go no more out.
Some are distrustful of spiritual visions and revelations,
32 INTERPRETING PROPEIECY.
and we freely allow that caution, as to what we accept, as well
as to what we reject, is both wise and necessary. It is needful
to exercise careful discrimination both as to character and source.
But to reject all visions and revelations because some are of
inferior spiritual states, and others counterfeit, is to shut the
eyes to spiritual light, and check advance in the wisdom which
is from above; is to cut off the vital nourishment of a living
religion. This is precisely what those do who reject all present
revelation and manifestation of spiritual gifts. They have no
spiritual vision, no answer of God. The vision and the prophecy
is hid from their comprehension. How can they interpret spirit-
ual predictions with any certainty of being correct 2 The res-
toration of spiritual vision and prophecy, that was interrupted
by the abomination in the Holy Place, is proof of “the end.”
For “at the time of the end, shall be the vision” restored.
Through the medium of restored vision, a truthful Seer
(Calvin Green) has told us that Daniel stands in his lot, that of
Revealer of spiritual knowledge, and interpreter of the will of
God to angels and men. Through the same channel, in 1841,
were written many pages in continuation and elucidation of his
prophecies, relating to the work of God in this second dispensa-
tion of the gospel of Christ, purporting to be dictated by said
Prophet's inspiring spirit presence.
SECTION IV.
THE COMING AND PRESENCE OF CHRIST.
The Apostle tells us “We see in part, and prophesy in part,
but when that which is perfect comes, that which is fragmentary
shall be done away. We now see as in énigma, (Greek,) but
then, face to face.” Then how could their language in relation
to events then future, be other than enigmatical, the key to
INTERPRETING PROPHECY, 33
interpret which, are the events themselves? Jesus, in his last
discourse in the body, said, “These things have I spoken to you
in proverbs” (similitudes) “but the time comes when I will no
more speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the
Father.” Then his language did not plainly convey his meaning
to those not in the spirit thereof, but needs to be interpreted.
Because spiritual things cannot be presented to the natural
mind, only by figures, symbols and similitudes which shadow
them forth. It cannot perceive the things themselves, until itself
becomes spiritualized.
Those who insist on a literal and bodily coming of the man
Jesus, should consider the many different ways in which Christ
is predicted to appear, and that they cannot all be literally ful-
filled in one appearing. FIRST. He is to be revealed from
heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not
God. SEcoRD. Unto them that look for him, shall he appear
a second time, without sin, unto salvation. THIRD. Behold I
come as a thief; Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his gar-
ments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. FourTH.
Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and
they also that pierced him. He is to come in clouds and upon
clouds, “and all tribes of earth shall mourn because of him,”
at the sundering of carnal ties. These are clouds of heaven,
observe, and not of vapor, dust, nor smoke. They may be clouds
of witnessing angels, spirit messengers, whom he promised to
send and gather his Elect from the four winds, or quarters of
the earth. Harken, dear reader' Don't you hear the trumpet,
calling you to live,the truth? Don't you hear him in his mes-
sengers, knocking at your door? If you do, the election is
offered to you. But there is earnest work to be done, to secure it.
FIFTH. He is to come in his glory, and the glory of his
34 INTER PRETING PROPHECY,
Father, and all the holy Angels (messengers) with him. And
he shall sit on the throne of his glory, and before him will be
gathered all nations. Not much like a thief, that! The Apostle
tells us “woman is the glory of the man.” Then why is not the
feminine principle in Christ, and in his Father, the glory of
each respectively? “For the invisible things of Him, from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things which are made, even His eternal Power and Deity.”
Rom. i. 20. As a modern writer forcibly puts it, “A God wholly
masculine is but half a God.” As it required a perfected man to
reveal the masculine elements of Deity, it required a perfected
woman to reveal the feminine half, and to complete His glory.
That these instruments were not created perfect for that work, in
the beginning, but had to perfect themselves by labor and suffer-
ings, shows that they belong to our race, and are examples for us
to follow if we would be in like manner perfected.
SIXTH. He was to come as a Bridegroom, at midnight,
after the beast, which rises out of the abyss of mortal lust and
depravity, had scattered the power of the holy people, and had
conquered and killed his witnesses—and while the “Mystery of
Lawlessness” sat in the temple of God, exalting himself above
all that is called God or that is worshiped, and was self-posing
as a god. But there was one who had compassed this “Man of
sin” with that fire and light of TRUTH, which exposed his real
character and works, and consumed him out of her temple and
sanctuary, which she cleansed and furnished for the reception of
the Bridegroom and his virgin guests. It is absurd to claim that
the church wrought this wondrous miracle, for the church of the
world had no light, and all the churches so-called had not
power to resurrect a single soul, nor to cure its sickness. The
true church makes day, wherever present. The church of Christ's
INTERPRETING PROPHECY. 35
first appearing had withdrawn to the heavens. The church of
his second, had not been gathered. That which succeeded to
the shells and nominal titles of the original church, and claimed
sole custody of the Divine oracles, was a public harlot serving
for hire in the marts of Mystic Babylon. She had many daugh-
ters, and a quarrelsome set they were, drunk with the blood of
Saints and martyrs. Babylon is typical of confusion, also of
the subjection of the spiritual element in human nature,
to the material.
Babylon was built on the river Euphrates, which means
fruitful, or that makes fruitful. It is regarded in symbolic lan-
guage, as a type of generation, particularly in the female, the
fruit bearing part of corporeal man. When this great
river, which supports and perpetuates Babylon, was dried up
in woman's soul, and its waters converted from material to
spiritual channels and celestial uses, the fall of Babylon was
initiated, and the end was declared from a beginning. Rev.
xix: 1–7. t
SEVENTH. “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him
go into heaven.” It is not stated how many will be present to
witness this coming, and nothing is said of sounding a trumpet as
in other cases. How many saw him taken up? Probably none
but those who were in a condition to receive his mantle. Even
as the granting of Elisha's request for Elijah's mantle was
conditioned upon his seeing the latter when he was taken from
him—i.e., upon his being in the same psychic state. Peter
tells us that after Jesus was raised up, God gave him to be seen
openly; yet not to all people, but only to witnesses, chosen
before, of God. Why this discrimination if it be not owing to
different spiritual states? Only those who saw him received up,
36 INTERPRETING PROPHECY,
and those who believed their testimony, could ever know that it
occurred. Just so he has come in like manner, seen only by
witnesses, chosen before of God, to see and proclaim it. And
these, we believe, were chosen because in a spiritual state to re-
ceive and wear his mantle, and by so doing to become perma-
nently transformed from the image and pursuits of this world,
into the likeness of his character. But “every eye shall see
him,” says the objector. What eye, and to what purpose, if it
be not the eye of faith and reason which perceives character;
the psychic eye of the Spirit within 2 This implies a change of
state for some, since it includes those who have “pierced him”
with fiendish crimes, cloaked under his name. It signifies an
awakening to spiritual life, in which alone they can realize the
enormity of their folly, by contrast of the states within them.
For only in so much as they approach the likeness of his state,
can they see him as he is. John says, “When he appears,
we know we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
It is because they are like him, that they see him as he is.
Stand with your loins girded and lamps burning, and be
like men that wait for their Lord when he shall return from
the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may im-
mediately open to him. Reader, are you so intent on beholding
a theatrical show in the clouds, that your hearing is sealed
against the voice appealing to your understanding? As were the
days of Noah, even so will be the presence of the Son of man.
For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the day Noah
entered the ark, and knew not till the flood came and took them
all away, even so will be the presence of the Son of man.
Why did they not know? Because they refused to harken to
the messengers of warning. Noah was a preacher of Righteous-
INTERPRETING PROPHECY, 37
ness, and was himself warned one hundred and twenty years
beforehand. The Jews were warned by the preaching of the
gospel of the Son of God, before the destruction of their National
polity. The people of the Roman Empire were warned by the
preaching of Christianity, before its destruction by northern
barbarians.
Jesus, when predicting the end of an age, in relation to
which he had been asked a sign, said: “This gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached in the whole habitable world, for a
witness to all nations, then shall the end come.” Matt. xxiv.
At the coming of the “Son of man in the clouds of heaven, he
will send forth his messengers with the great sound of a trump-
et, to gather his Elect.” The trumpet sounds the Everlasting
gospel of the harvest, and the Elect are those who elect to obey
it. “The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the
messengers,” so Jesus tells us. This coming is identical with
the coming of the Son of man in his glory and in the glory of his
Father, when, sitting on the throne of his glory, before him will be
gathered all nations. And he will separate Saint and sinner, as
a shepherd divides sheep from goats. This is believed to be a
description of the judgment. Be it so then. But we are told,
Rev. xiv.; 6, 7, that the gospel of eternal life is preached in
the judgment hour, or season, to every nation, kindred, tongue
and people, dwelling on the earth. And are not all nations
gathering fast as practicable to this favored land of the Church
of Christ's Second appearing, the Church which proclaims the
gospel of the harvest, the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of
the resurrection and the judgment, all in one? If there are
any that are not here, we learn that it is proposed to bring
them here for the Columbian Exposition now incubating. The
spirit works through human agency.
38 INTERPRETING PROPHEOY.
Thus the gospel is preached to whoever will harken, while
the obstinately unbelieving and the devotees of pleasure refuse
to be instructed till their jollification is suddenly extinguished by
the chastisements inflicted on the disobedient. We are ex-
pressly told that those who continue to worship the beast of
carnal pleasure, after the gospel is preached, shall be tormented
with the wrath of God against sin, and with fire and sulphur,
(which is darling passions), in the presence of the Lamb, and
in the presence of his messengers, though they may be unable to
see either, because not in the same psychic state, unless the
messengers are human spirits incarnated in mortal bodies.
And there can be no reprieve, till they submit to the yoke of
the cross. “The wrath” expels evil, to free the victim.
The Apostles followed Jesus at first, not because the
prophecies centered in him, for they knew almost nothing of
that, till after he had passed permanently to the psychic, or
invisible state, and they were baptized with the Holy Spirit.
They followed him because of the ministration they felt from
him, which fed their spiritual hunger. Afterwards they per-
ceived that the facts of his life, and of the movement he inau-
gurated, furnished a key of many wards to interpret Scriptural
prophecies. It was precisely so with Mother Ann. People
gathered to her because of her ministration of spiritual power
and gifts, which nourished their famishing spirits, and gave
them strength and courage to break their bands, and led them
up into the atmosphere of eternal life, liberty, peace, light and
happiness. We that follow on, perceive that the facts of her
history, and the development out of the movement she inaugu-
rated, furnish a key to interpret ancient prophecy, and solve
many problems which perplex modern thinkers.
The shaking of the powers of the old heavens, with the
INTER PRETING PROPHECY, 39
crumbling of petrified creeds and traditional beliefs that are
powerless to save, gives us no anxiety, for we are built on a
foundation which cannot be shaken, and are united to the
power that causes shaking in the things to be removed. The
sex problem, the labor problem, and the distribution problem
were solved in our community, one hundred years ago. Spirit-
ualism, so-called, which is the dread of the church of the world,
we regard as an auxiliary to our cause, which is the cause of
man's redermption from error. Much that goes by that name is
mere PsychicIsM. We are spiritualists, acquainted with the
various grades and forms of spirit manifestations. We have re-
ceived instruction from a high spiritual source, concerning their
prevalence, and the purpose they are designed to accomplish.
They are as much a part of the normal development of human
beings, and of the plan of Deity, so we believe, as is the sowing of
seed, or the flowering of a tree before it fruits.
If the following did not take place while some of the people
addressed were still alive, or, if it did, we think the literal
theory is certainly exploded. Because it declares, “WE who
are alive shall be caught up.” “For the Lord himself shall
descend from heaven in a shout, in a voice of the archangel, and
in a trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then
we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we be
ever with the Lord.” This evidently refers to being caught up
in spirit. Physical bodies are not sustained in the air with .
out material support. Paul himself was caught up in spirit, to
the third heavens. He writes to the Corinthians of being ab-
sent in body, but present in spirit. 1 Cor. v. 3. And to Co-
lossians—“For though I be absent in flesh, yet I am with you in
spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of
40 INTERPRETING PROPHECY,
your faith in Christ.” Ch. ii. 5. The same Apostle says:
“Although we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now,
henceforth, know we him no more.” Jesus himself declared:
“The world Seeth me no more. But ye see me, because I live,
and ye shall live,” after they were baptized with the holy spirit.
Inference : Till then, they saw only as the world sees, with un-
spiritual eyes, which is proved by the questions they asked:
“What will be the sign of thy presence and the end of the age?”
“How wilt thou show thyself to us and not to the world?” And
even after his return from hades: “Lord, wilt thou at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?” Still expecting a literal king-
dom. But the baptism of the holy spirit, which in the Syrian
and Hebrew languages is feminine, was equivalent to a birth in.
to the same life that Jesus lived, and a resurrection to the same
plane. Henceforth they knew and understood him as never be-
fore; and as the world, and the half orphans of a motherless
church, never can. The world cannot receive the Spirit of
Truth, because it sees her not, neither knows her. Jon. xiv: 17.
It is not alive to her as Jesus was alive, nor as the Apostles were
alive after they were baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire from
heaven. To receive the genuine holy Spirit of Truth, is to be
translated from darkness to light, to be born out of the king-
dom of this world, into our Lord and his Anointed. Rev. xi : 15.
Inference: None have the promise of seeing Christ, who do
not come into the same state, if it be only for a brief season,
during which, is implanted the light of the judgment that ar-
raigns them, self-convicted at the bar of conscience, the eyes of
their understanding being opened to the light which his light-
nings are flashing along. This is the first resurrection. Blessed
and holy are they who have part therein.
IMTER PRETING PROPHECY. 41
P EAN OF THE NEW DISPENSAT|ON,
“The day shall be, it dawns even now,
When the knowledge of the Lord shall increase,
And spread o'er the earth from center to pole,
As the waters cover the sea:
And as the twilight of morning is lost,
In the more perfect light of the day,
So shall the darkness and wrongs of the past,
Vanish forever away.”
ALONzo G. HoLLISTER,
Mount Lebanon, Columbia Co., N. Y. 1892.
Shakers publish “THE MANIFESTO,” a monthly, 75 cents a year, at East
Canterbury, N. H. HENRY C. BLINN, Editor.
WISDOM OF THE SPHERES.
Received in 1862, by Miranda Barber, one of our seers, from spirit IBenjamin
Franklin, the lightning tamer.
“We are under obligations to fulfil by obedience, the
measure of light already received, as the condition of our re-
ceiving more. Our standard is unity of faith, sentiment and
practice. Without this, we can do no more than has been done.
The love of God and of Christ will not suffer us to dwell in
the palaces of heaven, and quaff the glories thereof in quiet
rest and ease, while there remains one suffering child of the
human race that has not heard the gospel testimony. We are
enclosed by a wall of truth. Error will destroy itself, and fall by
its own impotence.”
|B. FRANKLIN."
IPSAILM OF JOY.
“All hail the bright morning of the New Creation,
All hail the bright rays of the Eternal Sun,
Beaming forth in its splendor,
New praise I will render,
'Tis God’s New Creation begun:
New fathers, new mothers,
New sisters and brothers,
New tongues and new kindreds combine,
To swell the full number
Who stand on Mount Zion,
The firstfruits unto God and the Lamb.”
t
4-----. —O ºn ºf ,
“Come hear the caution kindly given,
By him who raises souls to heaven;
Abide in me and I in you,
Then as I do, so ye will do.”
“More beautiful than precious stones,
Brighter than gems have ever shone,
Are those who bow before the throne
Of purity and virtue: \
Their garments gleam like lilies white,
They dwell in floods of heavenly light,
And angel hosts with them unite
In songs of Life Eternal.”
/906/