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is near to the earth; and this incarceration is in view of a judgment yet to come in a great day.

Are not these fallen ones? Is not the earth most likely to be the place to which they wandered? And if so, is there anything in the Old Testament that Peter, Jude, and James can allude to so likely to be instructive to believers as this case in Gen. vi.? For observe, that it is an example which readers are supposed to understand as well as the deluge, or the overthrow of Sodom, or the judgment in the wilderness. But where shall the original history be found if not in Genesis vi. ? Ashton-under-Lyne.

JAMES HOLDING.

RE-TRANSLATIONS.

ISAIAH XXIV. 21-23.

HEN has it come to pass in that day

THE

That Jehovah is for Bringing a Visitation

Against the host of the height in the height,

And against the kings of the ground on the ground.

So have they been crowded together in a crowd, captive unto a dungeon; So have they been brought for confinement unto a place of confinement; And after many days are they to be visited.

Then has blushed the silvery moon,

Then has paled the glowing sun;

Because Jehovah of hosts has Become King
In Mount Zion,

And in Jerusalem,
And before his elders with glory.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A CORRECTION. SIR, Mr.Griffith, of Eastbourne, made some remarks with reference

to my paper on "The Judicial Character of the Millennial Kingdom," at the late Conference, which are duly chronicled in the third column of page 3 of the Christian World report. To those remarks I replied; but I am impressed with the thought that when Mr. Griffith sat down after my statement that there were two Brides mentioned in Scripture, saying this was "a new idea" to him, he did not seem

satisfied.

A mere allusion to such a truth was all that, at that time, I could offer, but under the hope that he either has or can borrow a copy of " THE RAINBOW" for June, 1874, let me now refer him to a paper entitled "The Marriage of the Lamb in Heaven, and The Marriage in Cana of Galilee on Earth," where he will find the subject of the Two Brides fully and scripturally expounded, with all needful evidence in confirmation of what I said.

I add here that the doctrinal

L L

errors in my reply to Mr. Griffith
in that page of the Christian
World's report above referred to,
are either a slip of the reporter's
pencil, or the compositor's mistake.
I am made to say that the supper
in Cana of Galilee is an "anti-
" instead of "a type;
" and
type
again, that Christ is "to be married
to Israel as much as to the world,"
instead of "as well as to the
Church." I am, sir, faithfully yours,
Clevedon. H. GOODWYN.

ECCLESIASTES.

DEAR SIR,-The canonical authority of the Book of Ecclesiastes has been so completely vindicated by the ablest critics that no one who has not a foregone conclusion to support, would think of calling it in question. The harmony of its teachings with those of other portions of the Word is remarkable. Compare Matt. v. 3, 4, with Ecc. vii. 2. Matt. vi. 7, with Ecc. v. 2. Matt. vi. 19, 20, 24-34; xi. 19; Mark. viii. 86; Luke xii. 20, with Ecc. vi. 2. John iii. 8, with Ecc. xi. 5. John ix. 4, with Ecc. ix. 10. Rom. x. 2; 1 Cor. i. 20; 2 Cor. v. 10; Col. iv. 6, with Ecc. x. 12. 1 Tim. iv. 3, 4 vi. 6-17; John ii. 17; Jas. i. 19, with Ecc. v. 1, 2. This list might be greatly extended, but it is enough to give the reader a hint that he may do so for himself, and to show that the New Testament endorses Ecclesiastes.

;

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
ALETHES.

MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN.

SIR,-In answer to your StokeNewington correspondent as to my ground for calling Matthew a son of Alphæus, I rest upon the following considerations:

I. Only one of the twelve apostles had been a Publican or Revenue officer. The reading of Matthew x. 3, Matthew the Publican, in the Peshito and the Greek, shuts out the notion of any other among the twelve having held that office. The definite article has this force. If there had been two apostles who had followed that calling it could not have been used. In this case Matthew might have been a publican but not the publican.

II. The whole connection before and after, as well as in, the call of Matthew is the same as that of Levi son of Alphæus.

1. Our Lord was at home in Capernaum when the sick of the palsy was brought to him.

2. His words on the occasion offended certain scribes.

3. He healed the man and rebuked them.

4. Then he went forth to the sea-side to teach, and on His way saw this man-Matthew in the first gospel-Levi the son of Alphæus in Mark-and Levi in Luke.

5. After the call, which is promptly responded to in each narrative, Matthew shows our Lord at a feast so large that the publicans and sinners who join in it outnumber Christ and the twelve far away, which implies the greatness of the feast. But Matthew does not tell whose house entertained the company. But Mark says it was that of the newly-called man. As Jesus sat at meat in his (Levi's) house. Luke says, "And Levi made him a great feast in his own house." All three evangelists agree as to the guests who were there. Christ, His disciples, a great multitude of publicans and sinners, say Matthew and Mark; Luke says, publicans and others.

6. Our Lord is censured by the

scribes and Pharisees according to Luke v. 30, Mark ii. 16, and by Pharisees in Matt. ix. 11, and he replies to their consorious questioning in the same way in each Evangelist.

7. The very next incident selected for record by Matthew is that of John's disciples coming to question Jesus about His disciples not fasting as did those of John, and those of the Pharisees, Matt. ix. 14, and Mark ii. 18, just does the same. Luke also gives just the one inciIdent that the other two have as next after the feast. Now if Matthew and Levi are not the same man under two names, why all these points of identification? And did the Baptist or his leading adherents twice send a deputation to Christ to ask the same question without any alteration, and to get the same answer word for word? Let those believe it who can.

My position then is that Matthew and Levi are one man. But Levi is a son of Alphæus, and so then Matthew must be. Then as sons of the same man are brothers in Bible language, Matthew, or Levi, is brother of James the less. And then, when we remember that in the East the pedigree makes the father and not the mother the standard from which to reckon, I am justified in preferring to understand Jude, when he calls himself the brother of James, to mean that he was his father's son.

I do not observe that the Editor of the RAINBOW cares much for uninspired authority, or I might quote Schleusner, the author of a Greek and Latin Lexicon of the New Testament, who is a giant where John Bunyan is but a dwarf in the matter of Greek criticism.

Hoping I have said enough on this school exercise in interpreta

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A SUGGESTION.

DEAR SIR,-I should like to offer a suggestion with regard to the passage in 1 Peter iv. 6, "That they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

Mr. Laing's paper throws considerable light upon the first part of the verse, and I quite agree with his rendering, that the gospel was preached to them that are (now) dead, but as to the latter part his exposition is not quite so clear. Do we not obtain a solution of the passage by assuming that the beneficial effects of Noah's preaching to the antediluvians were not realised until it was too late to obtain refuge in the ark? There was a considerable lapse of time between the first drops of the shower and the entire submersion of the world, "forty days and forty nights;" the waters prevailed altogether "one hundred and fifty days;" might not many of these people during this interval repent and find mercy, and though too late to escape the judgment, they yet might obtain the salvation of their souls? Is not the case of the Israelites somewhat similar? The children of Israel for their unbelief in the matter of the spies were doomed to die;

"their carcases fell in the wilderness;" yet surely these forty years' experience, the miracles wrought on their behalf and the dealings of God with them, were rich in instruction (see Psa. xc.), so that their spiritual gain was great. "They They were judged according to men in the flesh (their doom was not reversed), but many of them lived according to God in the spirit."

The deluge was a temporal calamity, and though the antediluvians did not escape that, yet doubtless many who bitterly repented of their sins might escape eternal destruction.

If there be any basis for this assumption, I think it throws considerable light upon the passage. Yours very truly,

CHAS. UNDERHILL.

Woodbridge Lodge.

THE SPIRITS IN PRISON. SIR,-In reply to Mr. Underhill's kind letter in the RAINBOW of October, I would first say that it did not form a portion of my theory to maintain that the proclamation of our Lord to the spirits in prison was a proclamation of mercy. I inclined to think that it was such, and I hoped it was; but it was by no means essential to my theory to maintain that it was. Mr. Underhill might therefore establish his point that all fallen angels are out of the pale of salvation without interfering with my view that the

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spirits in prison" of 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20, were angels who fell in the time of Noah.

But I do not think that anything that Mr. Underhill has said in his letter at all disproves the idea that this message may have been one of mercy. He has brought forward three texts to establish his point. I do not, with all respect, consider

that these texts at all bear him out.

I am quite willing to concede to him that these, as well as many other texts, prove that "the essential feature of Christ's redemption is that man's deliverance could only be effected by the Saviour taking the identical nature of man." But this by no means proves that God could not through His Son send a message of mercy to angels without our Lord's taking upon Him the angelic nature. God is not tied to one uniform method of dealing with his creatures. There may have been circumstances in the case of the fallen angels which allowed of a different method from that taken in man's. All such matters surely we, who know so very little, must be content to leave with God.

But there is one of the texts which Mr. Underhill has quoted, upon which it will be necessary to say a few words, viz., Hebrews ii. 16.

Translated as it is in our authorised version, and as Mr. Underhill seems disposed to render it, this text has no force, even in appearance, upon the controversy. But I am quite certain that this verse is wrongly translated, and that its true translation gives some apparent countenance to Mr. Underhill's theory that fallen angels can have no part in Christ's redemption. The proper translation is unquestionably that in the margin of our Bible-doubtless He taketh not hold of angels, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham."" Angels" here are supposed to be fallen angels, and it is thought that it is here denied that Christ took hold of any of these for the purpose of saving them from their fall. I took this view myself of the passage for some time; but I have seen reason to alter it.

In the first place I do not think that "angels" here refers to fallen angels at all, but to the unfallen angels of God. The writer of Hebrews constantly speaks of these latter both before and subsequently to the passage under consideration, and in every instance it is of the unfallen angels he is speaking. (i. 4, 13; ii. 2, 9; xii. 22; xiii. 2.) It is only therefore natural to suppose that it is of these he speaks in ii. 16, unless we have good proof that he here uses it in a different sense. Such proof we have

not.

The Greek word translated "taketh hold," signifies taking hold of a person either with the view of doing him some good or some harm. Thus, in Mark viii. 23, our Lord took hold of the blind man's hand to lead him to the place where He would cure him; while in Acts xviii. 17, the Greeks took hold of Sosthenes for the purpose of maltreating him. As we cannot suppose that the word is used in this latter sense in the passage under consideration, we must needs suppose that it is used in the sense of taking hold for the purpose of conferring a benefit. Let us see if it will not well bear this sense as applied to the unfallen angels of God.

I would thus paraphrase the passage: "for doubtless Christ takes not hold of angels, of the unfallen angelic nature, with the purpose of raising and elevating it above its present condition; but He takes hold of the seed of Abraham, of the people given Him in covenant, for the purpose of elevating it above its present condition; yea, of raising it to an equality with the angelic nature by delivering it from death."

The sense thus brought out is not only suitable to the natural

force of the terms of the passage before us, but is also most suitable to the spirit and bearing of the whole argument of the sacred writer in the first and second chapters of our epistle.

The first chapter is very much occupied in showing the original superiority of Christ as Son of God over the unfallen angelic race. A main part of the argument of the second chapter is to show the inferiority of this same angelic race to Christ as Son of Man, as representative of the human race, in that "world to come" which is spoken of. "Unto the angels," we read, "God hath not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak" (verse 5). And then the writer goes on to show that over this world to come Christ, as man, and as Son of Man, is constituted ruler in the great purposes of God. In this glory of the head of the redeemed race that race itself is to share. It is immediately after this argument that the passage under notice occurs, and with this whole argument the idea I suppose to be conveyed in it harmonises, viz., that Christ did not come into our world with any purpose of elevating the angelic nature above its primal condition, but that he did come for the purpose of elevating the condition of the race spoken of as "the seed of Abraham." To suppose the fallen angels to be spoken of in ii. 16, is to introduce a new idea into the argument altogether foreign and alien to its purpose.

As this passage then does not speak at all of fallen angels, it cannot for a moment be brought forward in opposition to the view I suggested, but did not attempt to prove, in my paper on "The Spirits in Prison," that the message proclaimed by our Lord in their dark

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