Dr. Thomas—Dear Sir: —By your Herald which I receive, I find you will still contend for a de facto Kingdom of Christ and His Saints here on earth. But the people in this country hate the very name of "Kings" too much for this doctrine to go down. They might be willing for Christ to reign universally, if he would reign invisibly in "a spiritual" way—not interfering with our money and Democracy. And as for the kingdoms of the world, their cry is, "We will have no king but Caesar!" So that you will have to go on as heretofore, rowing against the wind and tide. Why, even the prefix "royal" to your "association," is enough to sink a common craft!"*

* "Royal" in the sense in which Peter says to believers in his day, "Ye are a royal priesthood." I believe nothing can sink the Herald but my own voluntary discontinuance of it, or its ceasing boldly and uncompromisingly to state and advocate the truth; which its friends have learned not to fear, however unpalatable at times. —EDITOR.

But to be serious. You are digging up the deepest question in the world; that is, "What shall we be? And that depends upon "what we are now!" Some say dying mortals; while others say, dying immortals. If we have a principle within us that cannot die, then away goes the resurrection; for the living cannot be resurrected! If the entire man die at death, then if he live again it is not a resurrection, but a creation de novo, as much as Adam’s! The sects have to face the first difficulty, and you the last. But to a thinking mind it is the great religious question of the day.

For my own part, I am inclined to think (at times) that man is gifted with a speck of immortality by creation, and will go on progressing till he become perfect, through many ascending states of probation! But then, what becomes of that great gospel doctrine, the resurrection? For surely, if man’s spirit grow up and mature with his body, and burst from it at death, as a butter-fly from its Chrysalis, it will never again be forced back into its grub state; but go on in continual progression.

But if we hold, with you, that the entire man dies, mind and body, how can he arise from the dead again? You know that both the matter and mind that constitute him are in continual change. Will he rise with the mind and body of youth, mature manhood, or drivelling old age? And if he do rise again, must he not rise a new creature, in every sense of the word?

The idea of a "Sky-kingdom" is very intangible, and that of an earthly one very gross! I wish you and the spiritualist would come up close to the question, for it is a great one. In the meantime, as the present material world is little understood, the future and unseen world must and will always remain a matter of doubt and debate—merely a matter of faith, or opinion. One thing, however, we all feel; that to do good and to avoid evil is pleasing to God, and profitable to man. And to contend earnestly for what one believes to be the truth, is right. For this reason, I think, I shall continue my subscription while you publish.

I am, Dear Sir,

Yours respectfully,

ROBERT MACK.

Columbia, Maury, Tennessee, January 28, 1854.

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AN INVETERATE HABIT—"VERY GROSS" HATRED OF KINGS—THE "SPIRITUALISTS"—THE WORLD’S CONQUERORS—RESURRECTION—IT IS FLESH THAT THINKS—NO DOUBT CONCERNING THE FUTURE.

If our friend pronounce sentence upon prisoners at the bar (for I am told he is a Judge among the people) in the style of his correspondence, they no doubt forget for the time the evil he awards, in their admiration of the good-humoured and facetious originality of his discourse. He finds that I will still contend for a de facto kingdom of Christ and the Saints here on earth; and therefore, I suppose, it seems to him best to let me have my way in the matter. Well, I don’t see what else can be done. I can’t help believing in such a kingdom, because I believe the Bible testimony, and have not the least faith in the divinities of the school. There is no other than such a kingdom promised in Moses, the prophets, and apostles, from one end of their testimony to the other. If there is to be no kingdom for Christ and his Brethren in the Holy Land, with the dominion of the Gentile World annexed to it, as the pseudorthodoxy of the day affirms, then there is no kingdom for them anywhere, and consequently the gospel is a mere fabrication. Why should such a kingdom be esteemed as "very gross?" Is a theocracy on earth a grosser idea than a theocracy in the Sun, Moon, or any other of the planets of our system, or beyond it? That God should have a visible government on earth—ruling over its inhabitants—is as necessary, as that the same system of rule should obtain in all other globes; and however gross it may be considered, if by "gross" is to be understood material and practical, it is both reasonable and scriptural; and therefore, I should say, preeminently a refined, intellectual, and spiritual idea. But, if the speculations of unenlightened brains—theological-school brains, ignorant of the prophets—be taken as the standard of seemliness, refinement, elegance, and spirituality, I do then indeed admit that it is "very gross," and rejoice and glory in its coarseness. But theological brainology is of no authority with one who understands the gospel of the Kingdom. Its pious metaphysics are of no account with such; its standards are mere optical illusions—its spiritualities, vain imaginations and absurdity. All "the deep things of God" are truly spiritual; because they are incorruptible materialities—corporeal substances that will not decay; institutions of divine origin, perfect and indestructible. Pious feeling, resulting from pulpit impressions on cautiousness, conscientiousness, veneration, and marvellousness, with a baseless expectation of meeting blood-relations and acquaintances in realms of ether, is the highest attainment of sky-kingdomers in spirituality. To this sort of ecstacism, or intangibility, an indestructible kingdom in the land promised and covenanted to Abraham is no doubt gross, very gross indeed. But I am glad to discern that our friend has little faith, if any, in the ambrosial realms of blueairia. However certain he may have once been of the floreal delights of the aerial vales and mountains of blue, I think from the penograph before me, that he has descended from those towering heights, which turn the brain, and taken up his stand upon earth’s "everlasting hills" to view the landscape o’er. At least, I hope so.

I know the people of this republic, and of the West particularly, hate the very name of kings. I don’t wonder at this. They have good reason to do so. All the kings and queens they know any thing about, are the incarnations of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, now occupying the thrones of the Kingdom of Sin, styled in Scripture "The Kingdom of Men," and "THE KINGDOM OF BABYLON." These kings are just a specimen of what republicans would be if they occupied the same position. The reason is, that republicans are not therefore saints, and are as much under the dominion of sin as the kings; take Louis Napoleon, that republican of republicans, and Prince Napoleon Jerome, the heir apparent of the French Empire, for whom no republicanism could be too exalted, or too "red," as bright and burning examples! King People rejoices in his royalty, though born, cradled, and nurtured in democracy. The truth is, the people are not so much opposed to kingship and its attributes, as they are to their own exclusion from its glory, honour, power, and riches. Make them all kings, and kingliness would be highly popular in more senses than one; but in the old world this cannot be, therefore they hate the kings as monopolists of the loaves and fishes; who, as "victors," being sincerely devoted to "the spoils" of office, (and that "to the victors belong the spoils," is a democratic sentiment,) are determined to hold on to them until a superior force shall compel them to let go. For myself, I have not a spice of admiration for the kings and other rulers of the Gentiles in my constitution. It matters not by what official name the sinner who rules is designated. Being a sinner, he is sinflesh, and placed in office by his fellow-sinners, to carry out their sinful purposes and policy upon sin-principles. Style him king, emperor, autocrat, sultan, shah, pope, or president, he is a sinner still, and to be trusted no farther than you can see him. Sin is concrete in him; and in this concrete form we have principally to do with sin in our sin-stricken world. My sympathies not being with sin, nor the works of sin, I have no enthusiasm nor admiration for what sets the people roaring with delight and ecstasy. I rejoice in the certainty of the subversion of all Gentile dominions before long, by whatever name distinguished. The least oppressive government on earth is that of the United States, because life, liberty, and property are amply protected, at a cost so trifling as to be scarcely felt; with unbounded scope for the energies of the people in any direction they may please. Still it is a Sin-Power, and must be abolished as one of the works of sin. The prospect of this may be very unpalatable to republican democracy; yet to an heir of the kingdom it is a desirable and joyous anticipation; for all his hopes are wrapped up in the universal kingship of Jesus and the Saints.

It is indeed true, that the doctrine which teaches the ruling of the world in righteousness by an association of kings and priests, "will not go down" with this generation. This is a great truth, and therefore a great sign of the times. It proves that the people, with all their vain boasting about their piety and nineteenth century enlightenment, are faithless of the gospel of the Kingdom, which is the only gospel in the Bible. They have no faith in the goodness of God as exhibited by his Spirit in the gospel. They are blind to it; and therefore sold into slavery to work under Sin’s lash for death, which is their hire. This is the wretched condition to which theological foolishness has reduced them. They are past feeling, being irresponsive to the great substantial, practical, and glorious truths of the gospel. A few unintelligible phenomena resulting from the operation of a hidden natural element upon sensitive nervous organizations, is infinitely more demonstrative to their minds of the constitution of the unseen world, and the nature of "the soul," than any thing God has testified in Moses and the Prophets. A simple fellow in Hartford, Ct., who is a star of the first magnitude among "the spiritualists," is said to have remarked, that no more than about twenty percent of the Bible is true; and that this portion is communicated by "the spirits!" The inference from this is, that the most direct means of acquiring Bible truth is to consult the spirits, who will not perplex you with the eighty parts of error by which the twenty percent is obscured, or rendered unintelligible! Hence, the Bible is useless to the spirit-worldists, who hold telegraphic intercourse with "immortal souls!" Nervous-system phenomena originated the immortal-soulism of Gentile philosophy, to the truth of which, the Bible stubbornly refuses to testify. Hence, the natural hostility subsisting between it and the credulous spiritists. The Bible pronounces their messages from the "spirit world" to be a mere tissue of lies—Isaiah 8: 19-20; and as a part of this tissue, the conscious existence of man in any form, between death and resurrection. This point being well established in the Bible, the explanation of all ghostological phenomena must be sought for among the natural laws, few of which, as pertaining to living flesh, are known to the most scientific of mankind. So utterly destitute are spiritualists of scripturally spiritual ideas, that when they observe an unusual physical phenomenon—a mere fleshly manifestation—they seize hold of it at once as an immortal manifestation from heaven, purgatory, or hell! With such cracked-brain sciolists, Sky-kingdomism is a demonstration of the Spirit! They know that their grandmothers, and Aunt Sukies, and little babies, and particular favourites, who were so kind to them, and made them feel so good, when here, "have kingdoms gained beyond the skies!" They know it; for have they not received messages from them direct, to tell them that all they hoped was true? What chance has a doctrine such as I advocate of "going down" with such shallow fleshly thinkers as these? —people whose thoughts cannot transcend the vagaries of their own day-dreams! None! They are a law to themselves, having placed themselves beyond the sphere of the divine influence of the word of God. They walk by sight, which the apostles did not; and doing so, they impose upon themselves fictions for realities, pertaining to a world which has no more present existence than 1855! No, there is no hope of such a generation. They are but a sign of the end, in which the Gentiles are to be cut off from Israel’s Olive as a sapless and rotten branch. I expect, however, that as there was a remnant in Elijah’s day, so there may be "a remnant" among the Gentiles "according to the election of grace"—some honest and good hearts into which the word of the Kingdom shall be understandingly and lovingly received, to the praise, and honour, and glory of God’s great name; and to the preparation of the people who shall be accepted of Him at the appearing of Christ in the majesty and power of the Kingdom.

In that great day, the question will not be, whether the doctrine will go down, or whether the people will be willing for Christ to reign universally; that day will be "the Hour of Judgment," when the sentence will go forth, saying, "Those mine enemies who would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay before me"—Luke 19: 27. This will be the practical settlement of the controversy, in spite of money and democracy, which will enable no man to stand against THE STONE. The peoples of all ranks and tongues will be compelled to submit themselves with tribute—Psalm 68: 30—to the Kingdom of the Saints, under the terror of fire and sword. This is unavoidable. The past has proved that mankind cannot be brought into subjection to God by testimony and reason; they must therefore be subdued before they can be regenerated and blessed in Abraham and his Seed according to the gospel. Christ and the Saints ask no favours of the world. The earth is theirs and the fulness thereof—1 Corinthians 3: 21-22; and at the time appointed, they will take their own, in spite of all the Powers, imperial, regal, priestly, or republican, that now divide their divine royalty and inheritance among them—Psalm 2: 8-9; Revelation 2: 26-27. There is something magnificent in this arrangement—an association of poor and despised people, taken from all the generations of the race, upon the principle of obedience resulting from the belief of the things promised them; that such a people of divinely-approved character, now struggling with adversity, under which they are sustained by the belief that they are the heirs, with Christ, of the earth and world with all their riches, and dying in that hope; that they should be raised from the dead, and that God should say to them, with the Lord Jesus at their head as the Commander-in-chief of their forces, "There is the world before you, which six thousand years ago I promised unto you as the Woman’s Seed; the Serpent holds it by his power, which is great; but there are Israel and Judah, my two-edged sword—Zechariah 9: 13 and weapons of war—Jeremiah 51: 20, who under your command shall become strong; for one of them shall chase a thousand Gentiles, and two put ten thousand to flight—Deuteronomy 32: 30; therefore, go up against the nations, subdue them, and take possession of their glory under the whole heaven—Daniel 7: 18, 22, 27. The world is yours; go, conquer for yourselves, and I will give you rest." Who would not rejoice in tribulation now, with a scriptural assurance of being an approved and recognised associate of such a valiant company as this? What are the honours, and riches, and power, and dominion of the present world, or constitution of things, in comparison of this? Many have aimed at the conquest of the world, that they might gratify the lusts of their sin-flesh; but they have invariably failed. But Christ and the Saints, as commanders of Israel and Judah, will accomplish it for higher and nobler ends—that they may establish righteousness and peace on the ruins of ignorance, superstition, and the despotism of sin; and cause the will of God to be done upon the earth as it is in heaven. This will be a glorious conquest, though certainly a sanguinary one. But that cannot be avoided. The power of sin must be broken; and if men will range themselves under its standards against Him whose mission it is to destroy the works of sin, they must take the consequences. Democracy and millionaires will be but pipe-stems; brittle as clay, and mere dust of the balance in the calculation.

Unquestionably, resurrection is "creation de novo;" but with this difference as respects Adam’s: The resurrected are created again from materials previously existing in a former body; while Adam was created from materials that had constituted no part of a former man. Now the question is this: "Has God wisdom, knowledge, and power enough to take a few particles of a previously existing being, and to create from them a new being, having the same consciousness as the former being to whom the particles belonged?" Agrippa, and many others in his day, as in ours, thought this incredible. This caused the apostle to inquire of him, "Why should it be thought incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" Yea, why should it? We admit that He made Adam from dust, and Eve from one of his ribs; is it more difficult to build up Judge Mack from his ashes, with the consciousness that he dwelt in Tennessee, and wrote the suggestive penograph before me? Does he require greater power to rebuild a man from his dust, however small in quantity, than to increase five loaves and two fishes to a sufficiency for four thousand, with a surplus of twelve basketfuls? Paul says that "God shall make alive our mortal bodies by Jesus through the Spirit"—Romans 8: 11; 2 Corinthians 4: 14. This is conclusive with me on the point of corporeal identity. The resurrected are to be created anew out of their mortal remains. I have nothing to do with the difficulties of the work He that has declared he will accomplish the work, is abundantly able to encounter and overcome all the difficulties pertaining to it. When, however, it is understood, that it is not all the individuals of Adam’s race that have died who are to rise again, a host of imaginary difficulties are removed. Among these, are such as different parts of a man being in divers parts of the earth; others being burned, and their ashes thrown into rivers; and so forth. All that are to be raised are in safe keeping for the purpose; for as to the righteous, it is written, "Precious in the eyes of Jehovah is the death of His Saints;" and as He was watchful that not a bone of Christ should be broken; so are His eyes upon the mortal bodies, or remains, of His Brethren, to bring them forth at the appointed time.

If the entire man die, mind and body, how can he arise from the dead again? Easily enough. The personal pronoun "he" is defined by Paul to be "flesh." His words are, "In me, that is, in my flesh"—Romans 7: 18; and when this "me" thinks, he styles the thinking, to phronema tes sarkos, the thinking of the flesh. No flesh, no thinking. This is the law of our nature. Quadrupeds think because they have brain-flesh. When this flesh operates under ventricular excitation, "instinct" is manifested, as in the case of calves, babies, &c.; and when stimulated to action by ideas from without, "reason" is developed in proportion to the higher or lower order of the mechanism of that particular kind of flesh. Mind is a noun of multitude, and stands for brain-manifestations. Press upon the brain, and there is no mind; remove the pressure, and thought and the expression of it return. If the creature die, the brain ceases to act, and mind ceases; renew his life, and its action is renewed, and mind is again manifested. Take the dust of Abraham, and in building him up again, let his new brain be formed exactly like the old one, and his new brain will have the old recollections, and think in the old faithful manner—Romans 4: 18-22; in other words, Abraham will reappear as he was over three thousand years ago. After rebuilding him thus, transform him "in the twinkling of an eye," and you have Abraham as he will be for ever.

The order, then, is this: First, to be born in the usual way. If, after this, the subject grow up under ordinary influences, his brain-flesh will manifest only the phenomena common to the pious metaphysics of the schools; or those characteristic of mere non-sectarianism. But we are tracking a man into the kingdom of God; therefore we shall not trouble ourselves now about the metaphysicians, pious or positive. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This training of the brainflesh, when conducted upon scriptural principles, moulds it to a conformity with the ideas of the Bible. It thinks scripturally, and, therefore, spiritually; and its scriptural thinking is styled to phronema ton pneumatos, the thinking of the Spirit. Brainflesh thus trained thinks in a direction diametrically opposite to brainflesh trained under popular influences. The former is a spiritually-thinking, and the latter a fleshly-thinking brain. They are contrary one to another. Every "heir of the kingdom" has had these two kinds of brainflesh. Before his enlightenment and subjection to the obedience of faith, he has a fleshly-thinking brain, which is the sport of all sorts of crotchets and vagaries, and always leaves its owner on the disobedient side of "THE LAW OF FAITH." But in the process of enlightenment this crotchety brain becomes exorcised of the demons that possessed it; and it becomes the abode of the gospel of the kingdom, which being heartily believed, Christ therefore dwells there, and it becomes a spiritual brain. Its spirituality increases in the ratio of its increasing understanding of the word of the kingdom. In the ratio of this is its participation of the divine nature. No man, however "pious," or fervent, or devoted to "the Church," is spiritual, who is ignorant of the meaning of the word. A brain indoctrinated with the truth is a spiritual brain; and just such a brain as a man must possess who would enter the kingdom of God. It is a brain taught of God, and prepared by the operation of his word to awake from death in his image. Such an one, then, dies the death of the righteous; and the eyes of Jehovah rest upon his ashes, as upon all such. "He" dies, and "returns to his dust." When that same dust is refashioned into a man by the Spirit of God, which pervades every atom of the earth’s substance, "he" rises from the dust again freed from "the law of sin and death," called by the Gentiles "the law of nature." His new brain being like the old (only freed from said law) when it begins to think, it thinks where it left off when it fell asleep in death. It cannot think after any other fashion; for it was never any one else than itself, and if it recollect at all, its reminiscences must be of its own, and not of another’s. Hence, the company that awakes from the dust are represented as singing recollections of their past history, saying, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation"—Revelation 5: 9. They remember that they are a redeemed people, and that they were inhabitants of earth before they died and rose again: and they know also for what they rise; for they say, "Thou hast made us kings and priests for God; and we SHALL reign ON EARTH."

Such beings rise new creatures in every sense of the word, with the reminiscences of their new creature-condition in Christ before they died. We must be "renewed by knowledge after the image of Him that hath created us" in this mortal state; that is, become new creatures in Christ, or we shall not become new creatures by resurrection from the dead. The moral new creatureship must precede the physical; as the future physical condition of a man will be based upon his present moral.

Dust and ashes are unaffected by youth, manhood, or drivelling old age. These are states predicable only of corruptible organizations. Were the magic wand of the Spirit of God to touch the trembling body of second childhood, it would as soon stand erect and firm in the vigour of manhood, as did the dead body of Lazarus after four days of greater prostration in the grave. The saints rise incorruptible; and after ten thousand years will be as vigorous as when they heard the voice of Jesus calling to them to awake from their long death-sleep, and to come forth to glory, honour, and renown.

In conclusion, the Bible, believed and understood, delivers a man from all doubt about "the future and unseen world." It is no matter of "opinion" with him. He knows of a literary certainty, that the future and unseen world has no present existence more than next week has. He knows that it is coming as 1866 or 1910 are coming; and that when it arrives, it will be "the Economy of the Fulness of Times"—a constitution of things in which Israel and Judah will be a united nation in Palestine under Christ and the Saints, constituting the kingdom of God, to which the dominion over all nations to earth’s utmost bounds will be annexed. They have no doubt about this. But to others who believe not, of course all is darkness and debate, and ever will be till the reality opens upon their astonished ignorance with terrible and appalling effect. May my readers escape this catastrophe, by a diligent and faithful preparation for the event!

EDITOR.

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