“PROVE ALL THINGS.”
Our article on the “Scarcity of Gold in Turkey, &c.,” published in our sixth number, has been reproduced in the Advent Harbinger, of Rochester, N. Y., with the following “Remarks” appended to it by our worthy friend the editor; and which we take the liberty of inserting here under the caption of
NO PRE-ADVENTUAL COLONISATION OF JUDEA.
As we suppose the above article was written in view of what has been published in the Harbinger on this subject, and as the questions embraced are highly important and not well understood by some honest minds, we in the spirit off kindness, and for the sake of eliciting light, offer the following remarks on the several points noticed in the article before us.
1. Whatever may have been the ‘original plan for settling the question of the holy places,’ by selling the land to M. Rothschild, it is evident that that plan has proved a failure: for from subsequent authentic accounts which we have published in recent numbers off the Harbinger, according to the absolute wishes of the Emperor off Russia and the imperial decree of the Grand Turk, no change in the ownership off the Holy Places is permitted at present to take place. And besides, it has been credibly announced that Rothschild, at the last account of him, was ‘dying at Frankfort on the Main.’ And further, as we understand prophecy, the land of promise cannot be purchased, nor possessed by a Jew or Jews, before the Lord shall come, for it is to be trodden down by Gentiles, until their times shall be fulfilled, and then Christ whose right it is, will come and possess it by right of inheritance. The Jews can never possess that land on any other principle than by right of inheritance. If they can, where in the sacred volume is that right guaranteed? Echo answers, Where?
2. If the ‘twelve tribes shall be redeemed without money,’ as the word of prophecy predicts, and as the Herald admits, it is reasonable to infer that their city and land must be purchased of their oppressors. Are there any such stipulations in the Gentile lease of two thousand five hundred and twenty years’ continuance from a certain date, or of its repetition of two thousand and three hundred years, from another period, or in any reference to it in the Bible, which justifies them in asking a price for that land, when their lease expires, or their times end? We know of none. They are usurpers, and have held and trodden down the land by mere sufferance; hence no Jew is under any obligation to purchase it of them at any time, and more especially when the time has come when they are suffered to hold it no longer.
3. We fully endorse the expression of Bro. Thomas, that ‘the restoration of Israel will not take place until after the appearing of Messiah in power.’ But we cannot believe that there will be a restoration, or as he expresses it, ‘A lifting up of an ensign,’ or a ‘re-settlement of the land by the Jews to a limited extent before the battle of Armageddon,’ or ‘before Messiah returns,’ as Bro. T. teaches. Certainly the texts he has quoted, as we understand them, do not prove such a position. We will look at them.
Isaiah 30: 17. ‘One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee; till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.’
Mark, this text does not speak of ‘a lifting up,’ nor of a ‘re-settlement,’ of a limited number of the Jews to constitute ‘an ensign,’ but it predicts that after they should be wasted or cut off by wars and other judgments for their often repeated and unrepented of sins, as ‘a tree bereft of branches’ or boughs, (margin.)—So they would be ‘LEFT as an ensign on an hill:’ not ‘an ensign,’ but as an ensign that had been deserted by the power that had sustained it. Precisely in this manner has a small remnant of Judah been ‘left’ in the land of Palestine ever since the nation was cut off and scattered. This remnant that has been ‘left’ like a deserted ensign on an hill, is not to constitute a ‘re-settlement,’ for they have ever been there, neither are they to become an, nor the ensign to which the dispersed tribes of Israel and Judah in a limited capacity even, are to be gathered, for Christ is to fill this high station: for ‘unto him shall the gathering of the people be.’ And ‘in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people.’ ‘I Jesus . . . am the root and offspring of David.’— Isaiah 11: 10 and Revelation 22: 16.
Ezekiel 39: 9, 11-12. ‘And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the hand-staves and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years.’
‘And it shall come to pass that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea; and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude; and they shall call it, The valley of Hamon-gog.’
‘And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying them, that they may cleanse the land.’
We cannot conceive how these texts sustain Bro. Thomas’ position; for they say nothing about Judah or Israel becoming or being ‘an ensign,’ or there being a ‘re-settlement’ of them ‘to a limited extent’ ‘before Messiah returns,’ but they do speak of the battle of Armageddon that does not take place until after the Lord comes—and instead of Israel being gathered to ‘a limited extent’ at that time, the 28th verse of the same chapter clearly shows that they will all be gathered then, for it says, ‘I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.’
That the great events predicted in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth chapters of Ezekiel will take place subsequently to the coming of Christ, we think is incontrovertibly proved in our reply to Bro. Grew, under the head, ‘The Advent Near,’ in the Harbinger for May 22, to which we refer the reader, and also to our reply to Bro. Magruder, under the same heading in the Harbinger for May 8. All will do well to read those articles with care.
4. If the ‘proposal’ relative to the Rothschilds purchasing Palestine is to ‘become an accomplished fact,’ and if ‘that fact’ ‘will be a sure and certain sign of that speedy appearing of the Son of Man in power and glory,’ then it must be a clear subject of prophecy, and as the prophetic Word is sure, Rothschild must purchase the land of Palestine before the Lord shall come; for all ‘sure and certain signs of his speedy appearing’ must be fulfilled. —But if it should turn out that Rothschild is dead, or that the imperial decrees of the emperors of Russia and of Turkey have defeated this plan, what then? Has a ‘sure and certain sign’ failed? Or has Dr. T. been mistaken relative to its being such? The latter must be the case.
5. If “no one need expect that appearing to be manifested until a Jewish colony be lifted up ‘as an ensign upon an hill,’” the Bible must plainly reveal the fact. —But we say, fearless of contradiction from any one, that no such revelation has been made in that Book. If we are mistaken, we would kindly thank Dr. Thomas, or any other person, to set us right by giving the proof; not however in inferences, assumptions, nor mystical expositions, but in the PLAIN WORD OF THE LORD. We can make nothing else the foundation of our faith, for ‘faith comes by hearing, and hearing, and hearing by the word of the Lord.’
6. If ‘the present calm—is for the blossoming forth of Judah’s plant,’ or that a colony of them may ‘be lifted up as an ensign upon an hill’—we would be exceedingly thankful to be convinced of the fact, by the plain word of the Lord; for we now have no faith that such is the case, for the very good reason that no such thing is taught in the Bible, and furthermore its infallible testimony is against such a conclusion. For the Jews were to be captives among all the world, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. —Luke 20: 21. Then their next, second, or final gathering is not to be a ‘limited’ one to be succeeded by a third, for a third gathering is no where promised in the Scriptures. But a second is, (Isaiah 11: 11) which is to take place after Christ stands as an ensign, (Isaiah 11: 10) and is to embrace the entire remnant of Judah and of Israel, ‘from the four corners of the earth.’—Isaiah 11: 12.
7. ‘Still we should like to see him M. Rothschild adorn his brows with the diadem of Judah’s kings. It would be to the believer, an earnest,’ &c. How this sentiment can be in harmony with the following prophetic word, we cannot conceive; we think they are in direct opposition to each other; and if the ‘diadem of Judah’s kings,’ should ‘adorn Rothschild’s or any other Jew’s ‘brows,’ excepting the Lord Jesus, it would prove the prophetic Word untrue, which says:
‘Thus saith the Lord God, remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until HE COME WHOSE RIGHT IT IS, and I will GIVE IT HIM,’ (Ezekiel 21: 25, 27.) not to M. Rothschild, nor suffer him to purchase it.
Hence, should he ‘adorn his brows with the diadem of Judah’s kings,’ instead of its being to ‘the believer an earnest, that the crown of David would ere long illustrate the majesty of his Son and Lord’—it would shake the very foundation of his faith, relative to his ever being thus adorned, or wearing the crown on David’s throne.
8. We see no greater difficulty in the way of Rothschild ‘rebuilding Solomon’s temple,’ or ‘the temple of Jehovah’ and being a ‘king and priest’ on David’s throne than we do of his adorning ‘his brows with the diadems of Judah’s kings.’ And indeed we cannot see why he must not do all this before the Lord shall come, providing that the ‘proposal’ if it ‘become an accomplished fact,’ will ‘be a sure and certain sign of the speedy appearing off the Son of Man in power and great glory,’—for that ‘proposal,’ contemplates the ‘rebuilding’ of the ‘temple of Jehovah,’ as clearly as it does the adorning ‘the brows’ of Rothschild with the ‘diadems of Judah’s kings.’ All such contemplations doubtless will fail, for they are not justified by the inspired Word, but opposed by it.
Finally, we heartily concur with Bro. Thomas, that the recent discoveries of gold in vast amounts, in different quarters of the earth, indicate that God is making preparations to carry out his purpose as predicted in Isaiah 60: 17, and other parallel prophecies. But we are far from supposing that these predictions will have their fulfilment until the Lord shall come; for the heaven is to retain him until the times of restitution, which God hath spoken of by the mouths of all his holy prophets, since the world began—Acts 3: 20. Here is an invulnerable point from which we all shall do well not to depart: there can be no restitution, of either the people, land, or city, in full or to a ‘limited extent,’ until the great Restorer shall come. This he will soon do, for the times of the Gentiles are nearly out. May we be counted worthy by him to take a part in the great and glorious work, and to share in its inconceivable blessings.
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