Chapter II. Epistles to the Four Angel-Stars of the Ecclesias in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, and Thyatira

p. 189Section I. To the Angel of the Ephesian Ecclesia

To the Angel of the Ephesian Ecclesia write: These things saith he who holds the Seven Stars in his right hand, walking in the midst of the Seven Lightstands, which are golden; I have known thy works and thy labor, and thine awaiting, and that thou art not able to endure wicked men; and hast tried them who assert that they are Apostles, but are not, and hast found them liars; and thou hast suffered, and hast patient endurance, and thou hast labored on account of my Name, and hast not tired out. But I have against thee that thou hast forsaken thy first love. Remember, then. from whence thou hast fallen, and change thy mind. and do the first works; but if not, I come to thee speedily, and I will remove thy lightstand out of its place, except thou change thy mind. But thou hast this, that thou batest the works of the Nikolaitanes. which I also hate. He that hath an ear let him hearken to what the Spirit saith to the Ecclesias. To him that overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the Wood of the Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of the Deity”—verse 1-7.

The Ephesian Ecclesia was the Body of Christ in the city of Ephesus. This city was the metropolis of the Lydian Asia. According to Strabo, it was one of the best and most glorious of cities, and the greatest emporium of the proper Asia. It is called by Pliny one of the eyes of Asia, Smyrna being the other: but now it is venerable for nothing but the ruins of palaces, temples and amphitheatres. It is called by the Turks Ajasaluk, or the temple of the moon, from the magnificent structure formerly dedicated to Diana, the goddess of the Ephesians. In after times, the temples were represented by spiritual bazaars, called “churches,” dedicated to guardian saints, styled St. John, St. Mark, and St. Paul. That dedicated to St. Paul is wholly destroyed. The little that remains of St. Mark’s is nodding to ruin. The only one remaining is St. John’s, which is now converted into a Turkish mosque. The whole town is nothing but a habitation for herdsmen and farmers, living in low and humble cottages of dirt, sheltered from the extremities of weather by the mighty masses of ruinous walls, the pride and ostentation of former days, and the emblem in these of the frailty of the world, and the transient vanity of human glory. All the inhabitants of this once famous city amount now to not above forty or fifty families of Turks. The light has gone out, and darkness is complete.

The gospel appears to have been introduced into Ephesus by Paul, who, on his arrival there, went into the synagogue of the Jews according p. 190 to his usual practice, and reasoned with them. After he left, Apollos visited the city, proclaiming the doctrine of John the Baptist. But he was far behind the times. Paul’s christian friends, Aquila and Priscilla, hearing him in the synagogue, formed an acquaintance with him, “and expounded unto him the Way of God more perfectly.” Having been thus set right by them, he went to work in the right direction, and mightily convinced the Jews in public, showing them by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

Apollos having left, Paul returned, and found there certain disciples who knew only what John the Immerser had taught. They had been immersed upon the faith of the near coming of the Christ; but were not aware that Jesus was he. Paul having rectified their faith reimmersed them; and then, having laid his hands upon them, holy spirit came upon them, and the twelve men spake with tongues, and prophesied, and became a Star of light to Ephesus.

This was the beginning of the ecclesia in Ephesus. The fact of their being endowed with the power of speaking foreign languages, and of their being able to speak to edification, which all could who had the gift of prophesying, is proof sufficient that they became colaborers with Paul in sounding out the invitation to partake in the kingdom and glory of Deity. Having strengthened himself with these, “he spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the Kingdom of God.” After this, he separated the disciples into a distinct congregation; and continued his disputations daily for about two years; so that all they that dwelt in the proconsular or Lydian Asia, heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. By this time, the number of the faithful had greatly increased; for “many who believed came and confessed, and showed their deeds, and burned their books of magic to the value of fifty thousand pieces of silver; “so mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed.”

1. The Angels of the Ecclesias

Thus was the One Body created in Ephesus. It became a lightstand, and the Holy Spirit bestowed through the laying on of Paul’s hands, a light shining from its Eldership, the members in particular, for the illumination of the surrounding darkness. We need not here repeat what has been already said about the lightstands and “Stars,” on page 161. Suffice it to remind the reader, that the Presbytery anointed with Holy Spirit was the particular STAR of the Ephesian ecclesia; and consequently, “the Angel” of the body here.

p. 191 It was to this angel that the writing was addressed. This word was appropriately used for the presbytery of an apostolic ecclesia, as already shown in the place referred to above. It does not indicate one man, as clerical commentators suppose, who can see nothing sparkling as “a bright particular star” in what they call “a church,” but the dark body that ordinarily aims at “starring it” behind a velvet cushion! I say dark body, for what else is a blind leader of the blind into the ditch of perdition? The spiritual guides accepted of the people, are the “blind Pharisees” of our day, whose “light within” is the darkness of a “christendom,” apocalyptically designated, “the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt”—Rev. xi. 8. The writing before us, which contains “what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias,” is not spoken to papistical and protestant “churches” through their priestly and clerical, or ministerial “angels:” it is spoken neither to their “churches” nor to their angels; for these all belong to the party of the power apocalyptically styled “the Dragon and his Angels;” and by Jesus, “the Devil and his Angels”—Rev. xii. 7, 4; Matt. xxv. 41. They pertain to “the Dragon’s tail” which draws after it “the Stars of the heaven” of this evil world. No; the writing before us contains what the Spirit saith to “the servants of the Deity;” to them of the party of “Michael and his Angels;” to them who have believed and obeyed the gospel, and are intelligently and faithfully waiting for the kingdom and glory of which it treats, and which are symbolized in the glorious book.

When Paul was on his way from Macedonia to Jerusalem, where he desired to be on the Day of Pentecost, he halted at Miletus, a city and sea port of Caria, about thirty-six miles south of Ephesus, waiting for the Star-Angel of Ephesus to meet him there. In Acts xx. 17, this Star-Angel is styled οι πρεσβυτεροι της εκκλησιας, the Presbyters, or Elders, of the Ecclesia. When they arrived, he rehearsed what he had done while a resident with them, “disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity.” He reminded them of the persecutions he had endured, and told them, that “he kept back nothing that was profitable, testifying both to Jews and Gentiles, change of mind concerning the Deity, and faith concerning the Anointed Jesus our Lord.” This was the result he aimed to produce by his disputations and persuasions in connection with the kingdom—first, to give them correct ideas of the Deity, and his promises; next, to work faith in them concerning Jesus, and the things pertaining to him, as the propitiatory set forth for a covering of sin—Rom. iii. 25. This he styled, “testifying the gospel of the grace of the Deity,” “preaching his kingdom,” and declaring “all his counsel;” from all which it is evident, p. 192 that Paul’s teaching and course of public ministration are not those of the Angels of Satan’s Synagogue, who deceive the whole world in its present constitution. These neither know God, nor the gospel of the grace of God, and do not, therefore, nor can they, declare his counsel. All these things the Star-Angel of Ephesus was well versed in; for they showed their approval of what Paul said, by their overflowing sympathy with him at the parting hour.

But while he reminded them of the past, he forewarned them of the calamitous future, about which he was much troubled; for he perceived that, on every side the hidden principle of lawlessness was already at work in and among the ecclesias; he therefore forewarned the Star-Angel that he might be forearmed. Hence, addressing him, he said, seeing that such have been my labors among you, “Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock ἐν ᾧ, in which the Holy Spirit appointed you επισκοποι, overseers to shepherdise the ecclesia of the Deity, which he purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure grievous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock: yea, of your own selves will men stand up speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.” This was the last interview Paul had with the Ephesian brethren, whose “first works” are approved by the Spirit in this apocalyptic epistle. Paul afterwards wrote to them “the Epistle to the Ephesians,” in which he told them that he was then “an ambassador in bonds;” being “the prisoner of the Anointed Jesus for you Gentiles.” The Jews had effected his arrest by the Romans, before whose emperor he afterwards appeared, and was sentenced to lose his life. He was victimized by them because he declared that the Lord Jesus had sent him to the Gentiles—Acts xxii. 21. For this cause, he styled himself “the prisoner of the Anointed Jesus for the Gentiles,” whether in Ephesus or elsewhere.

2. False Apostles

But not long after he had written to the Household of the Deity in Ephesus, the things of which he forewarned them began to display themselves. This appears from his second letter to Timothy, in which he says, “This thou knowest, that all they which be in Asia are turned away from me, of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me. The Lord grant unto him, that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day (of his apocalypse—2 Epist. p. 193 i. 10, 15-18; iv. 1, 8;) and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.” The Star-Angel at Ephesus was perhaps a principal party alluded to as an element of the “all in Asia turned away” from him. Phygellus, Hermogenes, and the house of Onesiphorus, were probably all residents of that city, which, with Smyrna, was chief of the cities of Asia. Paul had been long a prisoner in Rome, and could no more personally look after the congregations, to encourage the faithful and to restrain the presumptuous, who sought to supersede him, and constitute themselves authorities in his stead. They were “grievous wolves,” who, in “drawing away disciples after them,” of necessity “turned them away from Paul.” We see the working of the same thing in our own day. The world has gone off after the priests, clergy, and ministers, of “the great city.” All who are considered as belonging to a godly, pious generation, are disciples of these grievous wolves, who glorify the traditions of those who lead them to perdition; and in proportion to the intensity of their moonstricken admiration for these, so are they turned from the teaching of Paul and his co-workers. While in their discourses they may pay Paul and the other apostles a few passing compliments, their authority with the “religious world” they have effectually nullified and destroyed. None of their disciples venture to do anything because Paul commands it, but because it is the opinion of some clerical authority that it may be done. Thus it was when all Asia had turned away from him. His authority was disregarded by the Star-Angels of Asia, in which men stood up and proclaimed themselves “apostles,” and taught “perverse things,” destructive of the truth. “Who is Paul? A prisoner in Rome as a disturber of the peace of society; a man of weak personality, and contemptibility of speech! Are not we the people of the Lord, and are not we endowed with the earnest of the Spirit, as well as he? Are we not inspired with ‘the word of wisdom,’ the ‘word of knowledge,’ the ‘gift of tongues,’ the ‘operation of powers;’ and does not the Lord speak also by us? Having these endowments, we claim apostleship as well as he; and by virtue therefore, of our gifts we affirm, and appeal to them as the proof, that we are the ambassadors of the Anointed Jesus, called and sent of God as Aaron was; and successors of the apostles to the end of the world!” Such were the assumptions of this class of men after Paul’s departure; grievous wolves, not sparing the flock, for with them godliness had become craft, and the feeding of the sheep a merchandize of gain.

But before they were abandoned to utter perdition in their own corruption, the Spirit addressed them through John in Patmos. He addressed them as the Potentate who held the Star-Angels in his right p. 194 hand, and walked in the midst of the Golden Lightstands. If the Presbyteries of Episcopals shone as Stars, it was by the right-hand power of the Eternal—by the effluence of His substance, shed abroad by the ministration of Him at his right hand, who was dead and buried, and afterwards ascended on high, leading captivity captive, and receiving gifts for men. By this effluence in the endowed, he walked in the midst of the Ecclesias, and by his shining converted them into stands effulging light upon the sons of day.

The Spirit, then, radiant from the eternal throne, and focalized in the Anointed Jesus, said to the Star-Angel of Ephesus, “I have known thy works, and thy labor, and thy patient waiting, and that thou art not able to endure wicked men; and hast tried them who assert that they are apostles, but are not, and hast found them liars; and thou hast suffered, and hast patient endurance; and thou hast labored on account of my Name, and hast not tired out.” This was the Spirit’s knowledge of them in relation to the first estate of the Presbyteries symbolized by the Star-Angel of the Ephesian ecclesia. The “first works” and the “first love” are illustrated in the narrative of the Acts of Apostles. The primitive zeal of the Star-Angels is illustrated by that of Corinth. A case of wickedness occurred in that ecclesia, in which they were thought to sympathize. Paul wrote in reproof of what he had heard. When his letter was received, it produced a great and salutary effect upon them; so that hearing of it, when he wrote again, he said, “Ye sorrowed after a godly sort; what carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” And he told them, also, that one reason of his writing was to put their obedience to the test; “to this end,” says he, “did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient IN ALL THINGS.” Having put their obedience to the test, and found them ready to do right “in all things,” he brought before them another case of wickedness, namely, that they had been visited by men professing to be Christ’s, who preached another Jesus, another Spirit, and another Gospel, than he; who commended themselves; charged him with being crafty, and catching them with guile; spoke of his speech and person with disrespect; boasted in the circumcision of their flesh; in being Hebrews, Israelites, and the Seed of Abraham; ministers and apostles of Christ. Now these he regarded with indignation and contempt, and likens their operation upon the congregations in Corinth and elsewhere, to that of the serpent who beguiled Eve. He styles them “False apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no p. 195 marvel, for he, the Satan, is transformed into an angel of light. It is, therefore, no great thing if his ministers also are transformed as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works”—2 Cor. xi. 4, 13.

This class of men were a serious and fatal trouble to Paul and the ecclesias. They first made their appearance on the page of New Testament history, in Acts xv. 1-5. Their new-fangled crotchet was, that the belief of the Gospel of the Kingdom, and baptism, were not sufficient for salvation; but that a Gentile must besides, or in addition to these, be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses. This dogma was their stock in trade—the basket of small wares, with which they began the world, and set out in life to make their fortunes. The simple assertion of their dogma brought them into direct collision with the apostles, and especially with Paul. They were the Judaizers, styled in ecclesiastical history, the Ebionites. Their dogma was tantamount to a denial, that “the blood of Jesus Anointed, Son of the Deity, cleanses from all sin”—1 Jno. i. 7; and that “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree”—1 Pet. ii. 24; for if salvation could not be attained without circumcision and obedience to Moses, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, were an insufficient sacrifice for sin. The apostles seeing this, unanimously repudiated the dogma, and labored incessantly to prevent it from obtaining a lodgment in the public mind. Paul being “the teacher of the Gentiles,” was particularly and acutely argumentative against the Judaizers, or Ebionites; who, consequently, denied the divine authority of the epistles, and accused him of being an Antinomian, because opposed to seeking justification in Moses and in Jesus combined. Thus “they turned away from him.”

They seem to have acquired great influence with weak-minded professors in Galatia, so as to alienate them from Paul. In writing to these, he says, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the favor of Christ to another gospel: which, however, is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But, though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” This is plain and unmistakable language. They were preaching “another gospel” than Paul’s, which was communicated to him by the Anointed Jesus himself; and, therefore, he pronounces them “accursed.” Upon this principle, all the pulpit orators of the “Names and Denominations,” are accursed of Paul; for they none of them preach the gospel promulgated by him. They are all Ebionites, upon the principle of perverting the gospel of Christ by their insane traditions, only that the Ebionites, heretical as they were, had more intelligence p. 196 of “the truth as it is in Jesus” than the ecclesiastical leaders of the priest ridden populations of our day.

Paul understood these pretended apostles thoroughly. He styles them, “false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty.” “They zealously affect you,” says he, “but not well. I would that they were even cut off, which trouble you. They desire to make a fair show in the flesh, therefore they constrain you to be circumcised; but only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.” They had no objection to be Christians; but they did not like the tribulation the faith brought upon them by the Jewish power. They determined, therefore, to blend Moses and Jesus in such a way as to avoid persecution. But Paul would admit of no compromise; and all that adhered to his teaching renounced them. In the words of the Spirit, “they were not able to endure these wicked men, who asserted that they were apostles, and are not, and had found them liars.” And, though by joining their faction, they might have become popular (for “they spake of the world, and the world heard them”), they preferred to suffer and patiently endure, and to go on laboring for the Name, unweariedly.

Such was the first estate of the Star-Angels of the apostolic ecclesias. So long as they continued faithful, the congregations flourished in the midst of persecution; but when men stood up the opponents of apostolic teaching and authority, affairs began to go wrong. The hidden principle of lawlessness began to work like leaven until the whole body was leavened with iniquity, and Satan triumphed for a time.

At the crisis, when the Spirit addressed them through John, the Star-Angel of Ephesus was in a fallen state. They had forsaken their “first love.” Grievous wolves had secured a foothold, and were ready for every evil work. The opponents of Paul’s teaching were among the presbyters, and from them nothing but perversion of the truth could be expected. The abandoning of their first love was the effect of their influence; still there was scope for recovery. They had not gone the extent of denying the faith, or of holding principles subversive of it. Though Phygellus and Hermogenes might be presbyters, there were many of the presbytery who had tried them, and found them to be liars, and would not endure them. Hence, the Spirit exhorted them to “remember from whence they had fallen”—to recollect the spiritual health they enjoyed when Paul went in and out among them for three years, declaring to them “all the counsel of the Deity.” They were exhorted to retrace their steps. To put themselves in their original mode of thought and disposition, when in their first love, and to do the first works, lest the Spirit should come and remove from p. 197 them the gifts he had bestowed; and so leave them in outer darkness, a prey to all the wiles and ravening of the grievous wolves, This would be removing the light, without which the stand would be of no account; and, therefore, equivalent to “removing the lightstand out of its place.” But the Star-Angels of the epoch did not recover from their fall. Instead of changing their mind they went on from bad to worse, until at length the time referred to by Paul arrived, when “prophecies (the gift of speaking to edification, exhortation, and comfort, by inspiration) failed; tongues ceased, and (the word of) knowledge vanished away.” The gifts of the Spirit were withdrawn, because they had been abused; and “faith, hope, and love” only remained to a remnant of the saints; and “the greatest of these is love;” for “it rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things; believeth all things; hopeth all things; endureth all things;” and “is the fulfilling of the law”—1 Cor. xiii. 6-13. Hence, “love” is the major term, and comprehensive of “faith and hope;” while a man may believe and hope, but not rejoice in and obey the truth. “Love does not rejoice in iniquity,” therefore, it is hostile to the clerical apostasy in all its forms. Love is the greatest of the three; yet a houseless wanderer in the “religious world,” where none will take him in!

3. The Nikolaitanes

But though fallen from his first estate, the Star-Angel had one redeeming characteristic; namely, that he “hated the works of the Nikolaitanes, which,” says the Spirit, “I also hate.” The word, Nikolaitanes, is used in no other book of the scriptures than this symbolical one of the Apocalypse; and in this, it only occurs twice,—that is, in ch. ii. 6, 15. In the former verse, “the works” of the Nikolaitanes; and in the latter, their “doctrine,” or teaching, is denounced. The word is a symbolical name, like Balaam and Jezebel, in the same chapter. In the original, it is Νικολαϊτων, a word compounded of νικος victory, and λαος people; and as a mystical name, signifies Vanquishers of the People. The class of men so designated, were the “grievous wolves” Paul predicted would stand up among the episcopals of the Presbyteries, and ravin upon the flock. These episcopal men, by their works, and by their teaching, would so bewitch, and deceive the people, as to get a complete ascendancy over them. They would persuade them at length, that they were “the ambassadors of Jesus Christ,” and the true “successors of the apostles;” and that it was to them henceforth professors should look for the consolations of religion, and for a true exposition of the sacred writings, which were too holy and too recondite to p. 198 be interpreted by any save “the called and sent of God as Aaron was,” which they affirmed themselves to be! The people, not holding on to their “first love,” that they might be saved, and neglecting the study of the word for themselves, were easily beguiled by “the working of Satan with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness,” brought to bear upon them. They surrendered themselves to their spiritual guidance, selling themselves to the clergy for their “philosophy and vain deceit”—Col. ii. 8. “For this cause, the Deity sent upon them a strong delusion to their believing in a lie, that all might be condemned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in the unrighteousness”—2 Thess. ii. 9-12. Such was the transgression into which they were beguiled by Hymeneus, Philetus, Alexander, Phygellus, Hermogenes, Demas, Diotrephes, and other men of their stamp; and such is the punishment that came upon them to their exclusion from the kingdom of the Deity. The delusion waxed stronger and stronger, as centuries increased the distance from apostolic times, until now the human mind is so enchained by the clerical system of unrighteousness extant, that the truth has scarcely any influence at all.

But the Judaizers were not alone the perverters and vanquishers of the people. Another faction arose from among the Gentile element of the Star-Angels. This was composed of the “wolves” referred to in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, ch. vi. 20, where he says to him, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane, vain, babblings, and oppositions of γνωσις, Gnosis, or knowledge falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” These came to be called Gnostics because of their professing what they called Gnosis, or knowledge, a false science, whose principles were subversive of the truth. The same thing is styled in our day “theological science,” “divinity,” “ethics,” “hermeneutics,” and so forth; terms invented to amaze the ignorant, and to impress them with the necessity of schools and colleges for the indoctrination of pious youth in the mysteries they learnedly conceal. Now the principles of this ancient and modern Gnosis are subversive of the truth; for “some professing them,” says Paul, “have erred concerning the faith.” He refers to them again in his second letter, ch. ii. 16, saying, “Shun profane, vain, babblings; for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their word will eat as a gangrene; of whom are Hymeneus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.”

These Gnostics were a sort of immersed philosophers—Gentile professors of “the wisdom” then current in the world among the p. 199 admirers of Plato, and other heathen speculators upon the unknown. They had acquired a smattering in the truth, and had been immersed, and so “brought in unawares.” Having still a hankering after their old foolishness, and not relishing the mockery and persecution their new profession brought upon them from their old associates, they conceived the idea of so commingling the speculations, or fables, of heathenism with the doctrine of the apostles, as to make the compound palatable to the respectability and learning of the age. In this way, they conceived the offence of the cross of Christ would cease with the Gentiles, as it had done with the Jews by mixing up the Gospel with the law. Thus “the thinking of the flesh” set to work to elaborate a theology that would popularize Christianity, make it a respectable and fashionable profession, and acceptable to the learned world. And in this diabolical enterprize they succeeded but too well. Being of the world, they derived their inspiration from the feelings and imaginings of the flesh, from whatever it approved, and therefore “the world hears them”—it heard them then, and it hears them to this day. Their word has eaten gangrenously into the body, reducing it to a mass of wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores; which represents the existing condition of what is “falsely called” Christianity in the world.

The Gnostics commenced their department of the Nikolaïtan University, with the dogma first enunciated by the Serpent in the Eden-Paradise. By this dogma the lie was given direct to the truth of God. The Spirit has declared, that man, without qualification, was dust; and that he should return to dust, if disobedient to the law of Him who created him; in other words, that “dying” he should “die.” But the Serpent, the most sagacious of all animals under man; and endowed with the faculty of speech to express the perceptions and reasonings of its observant brain; by which argumentation it might be proved, whether man would believe and obey the Eternal Spirit, rather than the sophistry of the flesh—the Serpent, I say, denied that death should be the consequence of disobedience. “Ye shall die no death,” said he; “ELOHIM knows that in the day of your eating from it your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as ELOHIM knowing of good and of evil.” The Serpent had seen “Elohim” in Paradise; he had listened to their discourse with man; and was aware of the existence of “the Tree of the Lives in the midst of the Garden.” His brain being merely percipient, reasoning, and propensitive, and therefore utterly devoid of a moral sense, he spoke in harmony with its ratiocination. He had learned, that the Elohim had experienced evil as well as good; and that consequently their eyes had not been opened p. 200 to evil. that the eating from the tree of knowledge would have a like effect upon the human eaters; and that, as to their dying any death at all, was quite out of the question, seeing that all they would have to do was to eat from the tree of their lives, which would prove an antidote to all mortal and corrupting tendencies, the other tree might possibly impart. Such was his speculation upon the premises before his mind. It was a speculation not entirely devoid of truth; for on eating their eyes were opened; they did become as Elohim; and they did know evil as well as good. This is proved by the testimony which says in Gen. iii. 7, “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked;” and in ch. iii. 22, “Behold, said YAHWEH Elohim, the man has become like one of US for to know good and evil; now therefore lest he put forth his hand, and take also from the Tree of Lives, and eat and live during the Olahm; therefore YAHWEH Elohim sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.”

But this was an arrangement not provided for in the Serpent’s speculation. He did not imagine that they would be expelled from Paradise, and a guard be stationed at the life-imparting tree to prevent all access to it by every living thing. This appointment converted his speculation into a lie; and made him “a liar, and the father of a lie”—John viii. 44. His assertion, then, לא־מות תמתון lo-moth temuthun, “YE SHALL DIE NO DEATH,” was the first lie, which, when believed and acted upon, brought the believer under sentence of death. It was a Nikolaïtane, or people-vanquishing principle, which tells the Deity that he lies; and that “the soul that sinneth shall” not “die;” and that “the wages of sin are” not “death.”

From the day of the first transgression to the time we are now writing, the Serpent’s Seed have taken their stand upon their old father’s principle, that the Eternal Spirit’s thinking and purposes are in accord with the feelings and imaginings of unenlightened flesh. Men are lying, unstable, and changeful creatures; and they think that God is such an one as themselves. But he denies this, and affirms that “in Him there is no variableness nor shadow of a turning.” They admit that he says “the soul that sinneth shall die;” but in all their reasonings maintain, in effect, that he does not mean what he says, but the very reverse—that when he uttered those words, he meant, “the body of the soul that sinneth shall die; but the soul itself, when disembodied, shall live for ever”—or, as their father the devil hath it, “It shall die no death.”

Dark-minded sinners of all orders of foolishness have been endeavoring, from the beginning, to satisfy themselves that this is true. Pagans, Catholics, Mohammedans, Papists, Protestants, and Jews, with all sorts p. 201 of nondescript professors of pietism, declare it to be their conviction that every human being has within the body a divine and immortal entity, which is the real man that thinks and acts, and is either virtuous or wicked; that this man lives without a body from the time it ceases to breathe, and is buried; that this immortal man, having “shuffled off his mortal coil,” finds himself instantly in heaven’s bliss, or hell-torments; that he remains there ages without end; though upon this point they are not all agreed: some supposing that after being in bliss some few or many thousands of years, as it may happen, immortal men will come back to earth, and, in some way or other, be reclothed with their old grave-eaten mortalities, and then fly back again in all haste to reënter upon their skyanian bliss: and that the same process occurs with respect to the immortals in hell-torments; who, as Cain for example, having lived in fire and brimstone for five thousand years, more or less, are reclothed with their bodies, and straightway find themselves in a breathing body respiring the fumes and flames of burning brimstone. This class of sinners entangles itself, and encumbers its theory, with this body-snatching speculation, to save itself from a point-blank denial of a resurrection. But the subterfuge will avail nothing. The assertion that the immortal enjoys heaven’s bliss or hell’s torments without a body for hundreds or thousands of years, effectually abolishes the body for ever; and makes the doctrine of its resurrection a gratuitous absurdity.

Others, more consistent in their foolishness, unhesitatingly reject all idea of disembodied immortals being brought back to earth to be reclothed with bodies fabricated out of the old dust. Their theory having disembodied them with a Shakespearian shuffle, dismisses them from earth for ever, which they annihilate at some convenient season in a conflagration of the universe itself!

But real Christianity has nothing whatever to do with all this trash, which, in the days of the apostles and many ages before, constituted “the wisdom of the world;” a prime element of which is the dogma, that the real man is in the body; and that he shall die no death at all. This dogma is commonly expressed by the phrase “the immortality of the soul”—the indispensable and vital principle of Nikolaïtane theology.

Being bewitched by this pagan myth, the Gnostics were impelled to the assertion of many things utterly subversive of the gospel of Christ. The first thing they affirmed was that “the resurrection is past already.” This was tantamount to saying that “there is no resurrection of dead ones”—1 Cor. xv. 12; 2 Tim. ii. 18. Upon what ground could they affirm that “it is past?” By falling back upon the resurrection of the p. 202 saints, who came out of their graves after Jesus rose—Matt. xxii. 52. This was a past resurrection, which was admitted by the deniers of a future one. But upon what principle could they deny a future resurrection? Either by affirming that when men died they perished, without exception, as the beasts; or that, having “immortal souls” in their bodies, which passed into heaven or hell instanter, the resurrection and a post-resurrectional judgment were unnecessary and superfluous. There is no other ground for the denial than these. They did not deny it upon the first assumption; because they believed in the salvation of men; not that they all perished as the beasts. They must, therefore, have based their denial upon the assumed immortality of something in the body the heathen called “the soul.” Their argument was, “There is an immortal soul in the body which is the real man; when he puts off the body he goes to his reward beyond the skies, which is his judgment. Men are judged only once, therefore, being judged, there is no necessity for resurrection to judgment; consequently, we deny that there is hereafter any resurrection of the dead.”

The next thing these Nikolaitanes were impelled by their gnosis to affirm was, that the real Son of the Deity was “the Immortal Soul” that tabernacled in the body, which body was nothing else than the son of Joseph and Mary, consequently, that the Son of the Deity had no real humanity. That it was the son of Joseph who died on the cross, was buried, and rose again, while the Son of God being immortal, did not, and could not, die upon the cross, but only appeared to die. Now this was tantamount to saying, that Jesus was not the Christ; because the Christ was to be both Son of Deity and Son of Man, in a special sense, at the same time; but they allowed that Jesus was no more than Son of Man, and therefore could not be the Christ promised in the prophets.

Some of the Gnostics, however, admitted that Jesus was really the Son of God; but then they nullified this admission by affirming that “He did not come in flesh.” They would not allow that he had the same kind of flesh and blood, nor “in flesh,” as we. They considered it a holy and immaculate appearance, entirely free from all the emotions and affections of our nature. The operation of this heresy upon the truth, was to destroy it, and to annihilate the hope of all that confided in it. For, if Jesus Anointed did not partake of our nature, but obtained, somehow or other, a pure physical organization, or was only “a similitude,” such as Daniel beheld by Ulai, then Paul’s testimony is untrue; for he has testified, that “forasmuch as the children (of the Deity) are partakers of flesh and blood, Jesus also himself likewise p. 203 took part of the same;” and “in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren;” and “God sent his own Son in likeness of Sin’s flesh, and for sin condemned the sin in the flesh”—Heb. ii. 14, 17; Rom. viii. 3; but if the principle of corruption had not pervaded the flesh of Jesus, or if he were not flesh, he could not have been tried in all points as we; nor could sin have been condemned there; nor could he have “borne our sins in his own body on the tree.”

Thus the dogma of immortality inherent in Sin’s flesh, impelled the Gnostics to a denial of the faith, and to the subverting of the souls of all who heeded them. They, in concert with the Ebionites, set up a Jesus and a Gospel which were totally at variance with “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” by the apostles. As a whole, it constituted the Nikolaitanism of the first century, and became the foundation of the kingdom of the Clergy, which, as the deadly upas, poisons every thing beneath its shade. Well might the Spirit say, “the works and doctrine of the Nikolaitanes I hate.” They had “a form of godliness, but they denied its power.” These were they “who crept into houses, and led captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so did these also resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, of no judgment concerning the faith”—2 Tim. iii. 5[?]. They blended law, gospel, and heathen philosophy all together, in one indiscriminate hodge-podge, and called it “Christianity.” They founded schools, of which that at Alexandria in Egypt became the most notable, for the education of beardless youths in its mysteries, and from which went forth a multitude that filled the world with strife, debate, and bloodshed in the name of Christ, so that every succeeding century proved the truth of Paul’s words, that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

The heresies of the Nikolaitane Ebionites and Gnostics were the germ of what Paul terms “THE APOSTASY,” and John, “The Deceiver and THE ANTICHRIST.” “Many deceivers are entered into the world,” saith the latter, “who do not confess that Jesus Anointed is come in flesh. This is the Deceiver and the Antichrist”—2 John 7. And again, “Every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Anointed came in flesh, is not from the Deity; and this is that of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it comes, and is now already in the world”—1 John iv. 3. The spirit of a thing precedes the thing itself. First, the idea, and then its embodiment. The ideas of Nikolaitanism were its spirit. These were first conceived in the brains of corrupt and shallow men, who sought a present distinction and position in the world, at all hazards. Their ideas were perverse and perverting, and were spoken for the purpose p. 204 of drawing away disciples after them. All who received their dogmata imbibed their spirit, and as they increased in number and influence among the people, became a power which continued to grow, until it was prepared to contend with older powers for the ascendancy, and in the struggle gain the victory. This has been the career of the Nikolaitane heresy. It began by affirming the insufficiency of the gospel without the law for salvation; affirming, also, the immortality of an inner man; and denying the proper humanity of Jesus; and it prevails as the ANTICHRISTIAN APOSTASY embodied in the Beasts, False Prophet, and appendices thereto belonging, as apocalyptically exhibited in the book in hand. If men had been faithful to the principle of “the gospel being the power of God for salvation to the believer”—Rom. i. 16, they would not have tried to commend themselves to the Deity by Mosaic observances in respect of sabbaths, meats, drinks, holy days, &c. If they had closed their ears against the dogma of an immortal man in the mortal body, they would not have denied the resurrection and the judgment taught in the scriptures; nor would they have believed in going to heaven when the body ceases to breathe; nor in purgatory; nor in wicked impostors, called priests, praying souls out of its flames for a fee, or retaining them in its fires for want of it; nor would they have worshipped the ghosts of dead men, they call saints. If some of them, while admitting that Jesus was flesh, had not affirmed the spotlessness of that flesh, “the immaculate conception of the Virgin” would not have been invented in order to account for it. All these old wives’ fables, and lying traditions, are embodied in the ecclesiastical institutions of the world. The Protestant abominations are all based upon immortal-soulism. With respect to this dogma, they are as pagan as Plato and the papists. Their superstitions are all Gnostic schemes to save a “soul” that has no existence, save in the imagination of the flesh. Their heaven and hell are as fabulous as purgatory, and the paradise of Mohammed. In short, “the Mother of Harlots and All the Abominations of the earth”—the Babylonish Jezebel of Rome, and all her Protestant and Sectarian progeny, are Nikolaitanism fully manifested—the plant of the first century become a tree in the midst of the earth, in whose boughs the fowls of the heaven rest, and by which all the beasts of the nations are sheltered and fed. “I hate it,” saith the Spirit. Then hew it down as a cumberer of the ground! This is its coming fate.

4. “He that hath an Ear, let him hear!”

“He that hath an ear, let him hearken to what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias!” These words occur in each of the letters to the Seven Ecclesias. p. 205 They are addressed to every one that hath an ear for the truth; to every one of “the servants of the Deity,” for whose instruction the Apocalypse was communicated. By hearing, or attending to what is spoken, as exhorted imperatively to do, they would be preserved from “grievous wolves,” “seducing spirits,” “demons,” and “deceivers,” with whom religious society abounded, as at this day; and their minds would be kept in lively expectation of the promises. Thus they would be “blessed,” and prepared to receive the blessings of the covenants.

These words seven times repeated, give us to understand, that what is said in each particular letter is not confined to the particular ecclesia addressed, but to all the ecclesias whose spiritual condition at a certain stage of apostasy was represented by that particular one. The promises made in all of them, are promises to all true believers of all ages and generations, who are members of the One Mystical Christ, styled by Paul, “the One Body.” The words are not “let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Star-Angel of the Ephesian ecclesia.” One might hear this and feel no personal interest in the matter. He might say, that the promises beginning, “to him that overcomes,” imported, “to him of the particular Star-Angel addressed that overcomes, I will give;” but this restriction is excluded by the phrase “what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias;” showing that it is spoken to the saints in general.

Lastly, the text informs us, that what is spoken is uttered by the Spirit; and that the speaker is “he that holds the Seven Stars in his right hand.” Now, this holder of the Seven Stars is the same whose similitude John describes in the first chapter, where he styles it “like a Son of man.” The Eternal Spirit, or Theos, incipiently manifested in Jesus by the Effluent Logos; and hereafter to be manifested in that almighty multitude typified by the Son of Man, “saith,” through the Anointed Jesus, thus and so. In all these letters, then, we hear “what the Spirit saith,” who gave the apocalypse to the Anointed Jesus to exhibit to his servants things which must come to pass speedily.

5. “To Him that Overcomes”

“To him that overcomes,” saith the Spirit, “to him will I give to eat from the Wood of the Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of the Deity.” “Whosoever,” says John, “is begotten of the Deity overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world—our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that p. 206 believeth that Jesus is the Son of the Deity”—1 Jno. v. 4. No other class of persons can gain this victory but such; nevertheless, there were many who professed to believe that “Jesus is the Son of God,” who did not overcome the beguiling influence of the world, “which is not of the Father;” but made up of “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”—1 Jno. ii. 16. The Nikolaïtanes professed to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, in a sense of their own; but their “faith” did not incite them to a contest with the world, nor strengthen them in conflict for its subjugation. Many, however, did overcome the world. The apostles overcame it, and all who adhered to their teaching. Their conquest was evinced by their “denying themselves of all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly, εν τω νυν αιωνι, in the present course of things; looking for that blessed hope, even the appearance of the glory of our great Deity and Saviour, Jesus Anointed; who gave himself for us, that he might ransom us from all lawlessness, and purify for himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works”—Tit. ii. 12. They sat their mind upon the things which are higher than the things on earth; and no efforts the world could bring to bear against them, could turn them aside from the hope of the calling. They knew in whom they believed; and that “their life was hid with the Anointed in the Deity; and that when the Anointed One, their life, should be manifested, then they also would appear with him in glory”—Cor. iii. 2-4.

How unlike modern professors of faith in the Divine Sonship of Jesus were these! Instead of such modern professors overcoming the world by faith, the world has overcome them in subjecting them to its lusts. What are called “the churches” are made up of devotees to “the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” from the martext in the pulpit to the sexton at the door. “The Church” has become “World;” and between the two, consequently, there is peace and amity. “Love not the world, neither the things in the world,” says John; “for if any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him”—1 Jno. ii. 15: for “the friendship of the world is enmity against the Deity; whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”—James iv. 4. From these premises it is clear, that the clergy and their “churches” of all their “Names and Denominations,” are “the enemies of God.” They neither believe his promises, nor obey his will. They are all “miserable sinners” self-confessed; and while they glory in the honor mutually bestowed, they are regardless of the honor that comes “from God only.” Therefore they do not, and cannot, believe—Jno. v. 44. Hence, none of the promises of the apocalypse are for them. Their portion is in the terrible p. 207 threatenings of the book; whose judgments are for the destruction of the Kingdom of the Clergy, and the emancipation of “christendom” from their superstitions and misrule.

6. “The Wood of the Life”

To him, then, who “believes the things concerning the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Anointed;” and has therefore been immersed (Acts viii. 12) and thenceforth, “by a patient continuance in well doing, seeks for glory, and honor, and incorruptibility (Rom. ii. 7): and thus overcomes the world—“to him,” saith the Spirit, “I will give to eat from the Wood of the Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of the Deity.”

The reader will perceive that I have here rendered εκ του ξυλον της ζωης, which, in the English version, is expressed by the phrase “of the Tree of Life,” by the words from the Wood of the Life. This is not a departure from the common form for the sake of singularity, as the following remarks will show.

In the Apocalypse there are two Greek words, as ξυλον and δενδρον, which are both rendered tree in the English version, but incorrectly, as I believe. I cannot suppose, that the Spirit selected these two different words to express exactly the same idea; but the rather, because there was a distinction of ideas, which required different words to convey it. To translate xulon by “tree,” involves one in a difficulty respecting Rev. xxii. 2, from which there is no satisfactory extrication. This passage reads thus, “In the midst of her broad place and on this side and that side of the river a Xulon of life, bearing twelve fruits,” etc. Now, if xulon be rendered “tree,” the difficulty is, how can a tree be at one and the same time on both sides of a river? The difficulty, however, vanishes by rendering xulon by the word wood. A wood may be “on this side and the other” of a river, and yet be one wood; a singular of plurality, which harmonizes with the structure of other apocalyptic symbols, which are formed upon the principle of many in one; as, many sons of men in One Son of man; many emperors in One Head of the Beast; many popes in One False Prophet; and many δενδρα, or trees, in One ξυλον, or Wood.

The word dendron, “a tree,” occurs in Rev. vii. 1, 3; viii. 7; ix. 4, and is so rendered there correctly enough; but in Rev. ii. 7; xxii. 2, 14, “tree,” in the English Version, is xulon in the Greek; and in ch. xviii. 12, it is also xulon twice, but in both instances rendered wood; as “thyine wood” and “precious wood.”

p. 208 We may here remark that while dendron, in the singular, only represents one tree, the word xulon, in the singular, may represent a plurality; as “they made their feet fast in the stocks”—“eis to xulon.” In short, the matter of all trees is used symbolically for any number of individual trees—one material, or xulon, typical of a whole forest, or aggregation of dendra.

The idea of plurality in connection with what is commonly styled “the Tree of Life,” is first suggested in Gen. ii. 9, where it is styled by Moses, עץ החיים aitz ha-chayim, A TREE OF THE LIVES. In this phrase, the tree is the type of the lives, and though single represents plurality. It was in the midst of Eden’s garden, and would have imparted life for the Olahm had Adam and Eve, the representatives of the whole family of man, been permitted to take of the fruit of the tree and eat thereof. But they were excluded on account of disobedience; and the eating of a tree of life was set before the race as a thing to be attained consequent upon obedience to the commands of God.

This tree in the Mosaic Paradise was allegorical of the wood in the apocalyptic. The original phrase here suffers a sort of transposition Lives is changed into life, and tree into wood; that is, the idea of plurality is found in the wood, and the oneness in the life. Thus, the Spirit in Jesus said, “I am the life;” “I am the Vine, and ye (my apostles) are the branches.” Here was a tree consisting of fourteen living persons, all animated by one and the same life-principle; namely, the Spirit, Jesus, and the Twelve Apostles. Now let this idea be extended so as to embrace “the multitude which no man can number”—all IN Jesus Anointed”—and we have a tree, which in the beginning was “as a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden, and it grew and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air came and lodged in the branches of it (Luke xiii. 18)—a tree, which with its feathered songsters of the aërial, is apocalyptically symbolized by a Wood of trees in the Garden, or Paradise of the Deity.

As Jesus anointed with holy spirit was a vine-tree, so are all his brethren trees also. Speaking of the man who delights in the instruction of Yahweh, the Spirit in David says, “He shall be as a tree planted by the channels of waters, which shall yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf shall not fade; and whatsoever he shall work shall prosper. This is a perennial tree which lives for ever; for “its leaf shall not fade;” which is affirmable only of a tree incapable of decay.

The Spirit also in Isaiah, speaking of the same class, informs us, that Messiah’s mission is, among other things, “to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they p. 209 might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he might be glorified”—ch. lxi. 3.

“As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the Sons”—Cant. ii. 3. In this, the Messiah is likened to an apple tree, and his brethren, the Sons of Deity, to “the trees of the wood.”

“To him that overcomes, saith the Spirit, I will give to eat from the wood of life.” A man’s victory over the world is not complete so long as he is engaged in the conflict of life. In this state of existence, then, a man does not eat from the wood of the life promised; he is, therefore, in no sense immortal. The promise of life is, that we shall have it when the victory is won. “I will give to him to eat,” points us to the future. We must first appear before the throne by resurrection, to learn whether we are accounted worthy of the life; and then, if the verdict be in our favor, we shall be permitted to eat; otherwise, not.

“I will give to eat.” Mastication, deglutition, and assimilation, constitute the whole process of eating, which is the conversion of food into blood, which is the life. But the life of the saints in the Millennial Aion is not blood; for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” for it is corruptible, and the kingdom of God is indestructible, and not to be left to a succession; hence, “corruption cannot inherit incorruption.” Their life in that Aion is holy spirit. When this is poured out upon their bodies, posterior to their resurrection, it assimilates to itself, “in the twinkling of an eye,” all the particles of their flesh and bones; and they become transformed into incorruptible, deathless, and glorious bodies, according to Paul’s testimony, who says, “the Lord Jesus Anointed, shall change the nature of the body of our humiliation, that it may become of like form with the body of his glory, by the inworking of what enables him also to subdue all things to himself”—Phil. iii. 21,—that is, of the Spirit. This inworking, by which the nature of the resurrected body is changed, so as that it becomes a spirit-body, or spirit, is the giving to eat of the wood of life. When the victor has thus eaten he becomes an element of the wood, whose leaf shall never fade, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

7. “The Paradise of the Deity”

The wood of the formative spirit-life is to stand “in the midst of the Paradise of the Deity.” This word paradise is merely a transfer from one language to another,—that is, it is not translated. It is originally, a Persian word, transferred from that tongue to the Hebrew; and from p. 210 the Hebrew to the Greek; and from the Greek to the English. In the Perso-Hebraic form it is פרדס pardais, and occurs in Nehem. ii. 8, where one Asaph is designated as “the keeper of the pardais which belongs to the king” of Persia; that is, a pardais in Palestine, from which the king authorized Nehemiah to take “timber to make beams for the gates of the palace,” and so forth. It is evident, from this, that a pardais was a tract of land containing trees, from which timber might be hewn. In the English version it is translated by the word “forest.”

This word occurs in two other places of the scriptures; first, in Eccl. ii. 5. Here Solomon says, “I made for myself gardens, and pardaisim, and I planted trees in them of all fruits; I made me pools of waters for to irrigate with these the wood, making the trees to grow.” In the English version, pardaisim is rendered “orchards.” From this text it is easy to perceive what pardaisim were understood to be in Solomon’s time. They were tracts of land planted with all kinds of fruit trees, and irrigated with streams of water, to make the trees productive.

The third place where the word occurs is in Cant. iv. 13. The passage reads thus, “A garden enclosed is my sister bride, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy sprouts are a pardais of pomegranate trees, with fruits of most pleasant ones; cyprus-flowers with spikenards. Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief of the spices; a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” The literal of this exhibits a pardais as a very beautiful enclosure, and illustrates the sort of garden our first parents were placed in at the beginning. Speaking of this, Moses says, “YAHWEH Elohim planted a garden in Eden of the East. And YAHWEH Elohim made to grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; and a Tree of the Lives in the midst of the garden, and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And a river went out of Eden for to water the garden; and from thence it was divided, and became into four heads. The name of the first Pishon; that encompassing the whole region of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that region is good: there is the pearl and stone of the onyx. And the name of the second river Gihon; that encompassing the whole region of Khush. And the name of the third river Hiddekel; that flowing eastward of Asshur. And the fourth river the Euphrates”—Gen. ii. 8.

From these examples we may know what the Hebrews understood by a pardais, namely, a tract of land well watered, and abounding with choice trees, pleasant to the eyes, and yielding luscious fruits, and fragrant flowers; and rich in gold, and pearls, and precious stones. The Greeks called the Hebrew and Persian pardais by the word παραδεισος, p. 211 which has been transferred into our language, and anglicised by changing εισος into ise, and so making paradise.

The Hebrews were instructed out of the law and the prophets. Hence, all the truth they believed was in harmony with these writings, while all their errors obtained place in their minds by adopting the speculations of the heathen, and thinking after their own vain conceits, as Jews and Gentiles do at this day. Corrupted as they were by myths and traditions, they never imagined paradise to be the grave, or sheol, or hades, or some ethereal region “beyond the solar system,” or in the skies! It remained for the reverend and learned dunces of the Nikolaitan Apostasy to proclaim this marvellous absurdity. The Jews knew what paradise signified, for they were taught it in glowing terms by many of the prophets.

Instructed by these, they knew that the area of Paradise belonged to the country styled “Eden.” When Moses wrote the passage quoted above, he was westward in “the wilderness of the land of Egypt.” He says, “YAHWEH-Elohim planted a garden in Eden of the East.” This region was so named because of the delightful and pleasant character of the land and climate, from עדן Eden, “delight, pleasure.” Eden was a part of the East, as Ohio is a part of the West. It was quite an extensive range of country, and in after times became the seat of powerful dominions. It appears to have been well watered by the tributaries to “a river that flowed out of Eden.” These were four principal streams—the Choaspes, the Gyndes, the Hiddekel, and Euphrates; of which the Hiddekel, or Tigris, and the Euphrates, are well known. The Hiddekel, Moses says, “is eastward of Asshur;” that is, eastward of Nimrod’s original settlements between the Tigris and Euphrates. The Choaspes, or Pishon, flows down from Media; and the Gyndes, or Gihon, is the river of Khushistan. These four rivers water the Eden of the East; and flowing out of it in a confluence of waters, empty themselves at length into the Persian Gulph.

This country, in after ages, came to be denominated “the Garden of Yahweh;” and the Powers reigning in it, “the Trees of Eden.” It came, doubtless, to be styled Yahweh’s Garden, as a whole, from the fact of his having in the beginning planted a garden in it for Adam and Eve; so that the name of a small part of Eden came to be applied by his family, in the time of Abraham and his posterity, to the whole region; more especially as the prophets of their race testify that the future paradise is to occupy a considerable portion of its ancient limits.

That the Holy Land is a part of the Eden of the East, appears from certain prophecies of Ezekiel. In setting forth the certainty of the p. 212 overthrow of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, by the king of Babylon, the Spirit recapitulates the power and dominion of the Ninevite dynasty of Assyria; which, however, was not able to withstand the king of Babylon, “the mighty one of the heathen;” and, therefore, there was no hope for Egypt of a successful resistance. In the recapitulation, the Ninevite Assyrian is styled “a cedar in Lebanon;” that is, his dominion extended over the land of the Ten Tribes of Israel, in which are the cedar-crowned mountains of Lebanon. After describing the greatness of his power by the magnitude of the cedar, the Spirit saith, “the cedars in the Garden of Elohim could not hide him; nor was any tree in the Garden of Elohim like to him in his beauty. I made him fair by the multitude of his branches; so that all the trees of Eden in the Garden of the Elohim envied him”—ch. xxxi. 3, 8, 9. These trees were the royalties of Mesopotamia, Syria, Israel, and so forth, which the kings of Assyria had abolished (Isai. xxxvii. 11-13), and which “could not hide him,” or prevent him getting the ascendancy over them. It is clear, then, from the terms of this beautiful allegory, that the countries I have indicated were parts of the Eden of the East; that as a whole it is styled the Garden of the Elohim; and that the trees are the royalties of the land.

That Eden extended to the Mediterranean, or “Great Sea,” appears from Ezekiel’s prophecy against Tyre. Addressing this Power, he says, “Thou hast been in Eden a Garden of Elohim. Thou hast been upon the holy mountain of Elohim. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee. Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of Elohim. Thou shalt be a terror, and nothing of thee during the olahm”—xxviii. 13-19. The meaning of this is obvious to one acquainted with the history of the kingdom of Tyre. It was a royalty of Palestine in Upper Galilee, whose king, Hiram, was in intimate alliance with Solomon. He appears to have been a proselyte of Judaism, which his successors sometime afterwards abandoned; and therefore YAHWEH Tz’avāoth suppressed the kingdom of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar for seventy years; and for the rest of the olahm, by the Greeks.

Eden has been a field of blood from the beginning of the contest between the “Seed of the Woman,” and the “Seed of the Serpent,” until now; and will yet continue to be until the Serpent Power be broken upon the mountains of Israel. It was in Eden that Abel died by the hand of Cain. There also Abel’s antitype was wounded in the heel when “he was made a curse for his brethren” by hanging upon a tree—Gal. iii. 13; and lastly, to fill up the measure of the iniquity of the blood-defiled land, the serpents of Israel slew the son of Barachus p. 213 between the temple and the altar. But the blood of the saints shed in Eden did not cry to him in vain for vengeance; for as the Lord Jesus predicted, so it came to pass. “Behold,” said he, to that generation of vipers, “I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye will kill and crucify; and some of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the land, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zecharias, son of Barachus, whom ye will slay between the temple and the altar”—Mat. xviii. 35.

The Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Assyria Proper, are manifestly countries of Eden. But in the beginning, Eden contained a Garden, pardais or PARADISE; so also in the beginning of the Millennial Aion, the same Eden will rejoice in a paradise adapted to the necessities and enjoyment, not of two persons only, but of “a great multitude which no man can number”—Rev. vii. 9. Adam and Eve’s paradise was upon a small scale, yet ample enough for them. From its Mosaic geography no other locality, I believe, can be reasonably assigned to it than between the Gulph of Persia and the confluence of the four rivers named. The text reads, “and a river went out of Eden to water the Garden: and from thence it was divided, and became into four heads.” This I understand to mean, that a river, formed by the confluence of four others flowing out of Eden, was caused to water the garden on its way to the sea; and that, tracing this river northward from the garden, it diverged into its tributaries which terminated in four several heads. The heads were not in the garden, but at remote distances from it; therefore, they err who locate Adam’s paradise at the heads, or original sources, of the Tigris and Euphrates in the mountains of Armenia. A warmer climate was necessary for the comfortable existence of two naked persons. The heads, I say, were not in the garden, for it was watered by one only; as it is written, “a river went out to water it,” which certainly excludes the four from its inclosure.

From subsequent developments in the history of their posterity, the Babylonian region of Eden was a very appropriate locality for the origination of “sin, which is the transgression of law.” In the Adamic Paradise was laid the foundation of that gigantic system of iniquity, which is styled, apocalyptically, “Mystery, BABYLON THE GREAT, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth.” The principle, which may be termed, “the vital principle,” of this “mystery,” is disobedience. Adam’s paradise was the birthplace of this principle, and at once the arena of the Serpent’s victory and defeat.

The individual serpent prevailed, and was cursed in the paradise of p. 214 the first Adam; so also he has prevailed, and is destined to be bruised in the paradise of the Second. The serpent principles, embodied in the Power symbolized by the Goat and his Five Horns (Dan. viii. 8, 9), have thus far prevailed. The Power has desolated the Holy Land, and made it a field of blood. But this fair portion of Eden is not always to lie in ruins under the serpent-dominion; for the sentence is, “Thy Head, O Serpent, the Woman’s Seed shall bruise:” the dominion will therefore be destroyed, and the Holy Land in Eden of the East be delivered from the enemy.

That the Holy Land is to become the Paradise of the Deity is manifest from the following testimonies, which, every one acquainted with the history of Eden, in whole, or in part, knows have never yet been accomplished. Thus the Spirit saith, “Thy land, O Zion, shall no more be termed ‘Desolate;’ but thou shalt be called Hephzibah (that is, My Beloved is in her), and thy land Beulah (that is, Married): for YAHWEH delighteth in thee, and thy Land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thine Elohim rejoice over thee”—Isa. lxii. 4, 5. Here Zion and the Holy Land are represented as a Virgin-Bride; and the Elohim, or Messiah and his brethren in their One Spirit-Body manifestation, as the Bridegroom. This Virgin-Bride and her Bridegroom are the loving couple, whose loves are celebrated by Solomon in his “Song of Songs.” The land, in its paradisaic development, is typified in his “garden enclosed,” and which, as king, he styles, “my sister spouse,” as already quoted. This is the literal, which is also allegorical of something more recondite, as hereafter will be shown. At present we have to do chiefly with the geo-material aspects of the subject.

When the marriage, or union, between the Sons of Zion and their King, as the Bridegroom, and the Holy Land as the virgin-bride, comes to pass, the country will become the Paradise of Yahweh, which his own right hath planted. Thus, the Spirit saith, “Yahweh shall comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the Garden of Yahweh; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody”—Isa. li. 3. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to Yahweh for a renown, for a memorial of the Olahm, which shall not be cut off”—Isa. lv. 13. At that time, “I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water; I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle tree, and the oil p. 215 tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box together, that they (Israel) may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of Yahweh hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it”—Isa. xli. 17-20.

Lastly upon this point Ezekiel’s testimony may be adduced; as, “Thus saith Adonai Yahweh; in the day that I shall have cleansed you, O Israel, from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the Garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities fenced, and inhabited. Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I, Yahweh, build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I, Yahweh, have spoken it, and I will do it”—Ezek. xxxvi. 33.

When thus converted into Paradise, the same prophet tells us that there will be “a river that can not be passed over” by wading; and that it will be formed by a confluence of “waters springing out from under the threshold of the temple eastward, from its right side, at the south of the altar”—ch. xlvii. 1-5. He then informs us that “on the bank of the river was a great wood, עץ רב, aitz rav, (both words in the singular number) on the one side and on the other. The waters issue from Mount Moriah down its south side, and flow on toward the east through a vast cleft in the Mount of Olives (Zech. xiv. 4, 8.) When they have past this valley they divide into two rivers, the one flowing through the desert and emptying into the Dead Sea; and the other into the Mediterranean: both of them abundant and never failing streams.

The effect of the eastern river upon the Dead Sea will be to heal its waters. Both streams are healing waters; for the prophet says, that “It shall be, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the two rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither; for they (of the Dead Sea) shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. And it shall be, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engeddi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the Great Sea (or Mediterranean) exceeding many.

“And by the river on the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall come up every tree for food, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be exhausted; for its months it shall yield, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for food, and the leaf thereof for healing.”

p. 216 After these statements, the Spirit then proceeds to point out the boundaries of Paradise. He commences the line from the Mediterranean at the outlet of the Orontes, called “the entering in to Hamath,” and passes on in a direct course of one hundred and thirty-three miles to Berothah upon the Euphrates. This is marked out as the natural boundary on the north by the range of mountains, called Amanus, which, as a natural barrier, extends across the country from the Great Mediterranean sea to Berothah; to which the Euphrates is navigable from the Persian Gulph. When Messiah is enthroned king of the land, and proceeds to take possession of it to its utmost limits, he will then say to his companions, “Come with me from Lebanon, my Spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lion’s dens, from the mountains of the leopards”—Cant. iv. 8. Taking up their position upon that commanding border, the Sons of Zion may view the landscape of a goodly and glorious land, fragrant of rich odors, and flowing with milk and honey, outstretching eastward in all the length of Euphrates to the East Sea. This is its border on the east. From the junction of the Euphrates with the Persian Gulph in lat. 30°, the frontier is drawn “from Tamar to Meribah of Kadesh, to the river towards the Great (or Mediterranean) Sea.” This is the south border of Paradise; a line of over a thousand miles abutting upon the Nile, and thence to the sea; and affording free access to the Red Sea by the Elanitic Gulph. The boundary on the west “shall be the Great Sea from the border (south) till a man come over against (the entering in to) Hamath.”

Thus we have an ample area; containing by estimation three hundred thousand square miles, for the length and “breadth of Immanuel’s land,” extending, as covenanted to Abraham and his Seed, “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates, for a possession in the Olahm”—Gen. xv. 18.

Such is the territorial paradise or kingdom of the Deity; which all the prophets testify shall be inhabited by the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and their nobles, all of them Priests and Kings with Messiah preëminent in all things over all. The twelve tribes will have had a new heart given them, and a new spirit put within them, by the refining process they will have been previously subjected to. Their present stony heart will have been abolished, and a heart of flesh substituted in its stead, as it is testified in Ezek. xxvi. 25-32. Then, for the first time since their revolt from the house of David in the days of his grandson Rehoboam, they will again become “one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all.” They will then rejoice in Jesus of Nazareth, as High Priest upon the p. 217 throne of his father David after the order of Melchizedec for the “season and a time,” or Olahm of a thousand years. The former troubles will all be forgotten; and they will “no more be made a reproach among the nations”—Joel ii. 19.

Under this new and glorious constitution of the Hebrew Kingdom, the tribes will be settled in Paradise in parallel cantonments, extending across the country from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Dan’s canton is the first reckoning from the north border. Then Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, and Judah. This brings us down to “the midst of the Paradise of the Deity.” South of Judah is the Foursquare Oblation, “a holy portion of the land,” containing “the sanctuary, the Most Holy;” the holy portion for the Levites; and the “Profane Place for the City, for dwelling, and for suburbs. On the east and west is the Prince’s portion, the foursquare oblation being in his portion, and bounded north by the canton of Judah and south by that of Benjamin. Thus, “Yahweh shall inherit in the (canton) of Judah his portion upon the land of holiness, and shall delight in Jerusalem again”—Zech. ii. 12.—the Holy Oblation and Prince’s portion being thus reckoned of the canton of Judah.

The Holy Oblation is to contain the Millennial Temple described by Ezekiel, which is to be in the midst of the Most Holy Portion of the Oblation, “upon the top of the mountain, the whole limit whereof is Most Holy”—ch. xliii. 12. The details are given in ch. xlv. 1-8, which concludes with the remark, that “in the land shall be his (Messiah the Prince’s) possession in Israel: and my princes (who will then be the saints) shall no more oppress my people: and the rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes.”

The City, which will be square, will be 4,500 measures on each side, or 18,000 in circumference. Its twelve gates will open into suburbs of 250 measures broad; and to the east and west there will be areas of 10,000 measures each, making altogether “a profane place” of 25,000 measures from east to west, by 5,000 from north to south, which “shall be for the whole house of Israel:” and “the name of the city from that day shall be YAHWEH-SHAMMAH,” because “He who shall be is there.”

Next to the Holy Oblation a portion is allotted to Benjamin, and successively afterwards to Simeon, Issachar, Zebulon, and Gad, which is the most southerly of all the tribes. Such is the area of Paradise from north to south, and from east to west, a royal domain larger than that of any kingdom or empire of Europe, Russia alone excepted. It exceeds in the aggregate amount of square miles, the territories of ten p. 218 kingdoms of Europe, as Prussia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Wirtemberg, Denmark, Sardinia, and Greece; and its relative proportion to Great Britain and Ireland is 300 to 118, or more than two and a half to one.

The situation of Paradise is peculiar in relation to its borders. The Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulph, form on the west, the south, and the east, borders of a land which, but for these inland seas, would be wholly encircled by Asia, Africa, and Europe, and shut out from all direct communication with the Pacific and Atlantic, and lesser oceans of the globe. The river of Egypt to the Mediterranean, and that sea from the mouth of the Nile to the estuary of the Orontes, and the Euphrates from the foot of Amanus to the Persian Gulph, leave not the smallest portion of the west side, or of the east side, that is not actually or virtually a navigable coast to the extent on both sides of two thousand miles; while on the north, the intermediate barrier of Amanus, at the breadth of less than one hundred, renders the land “a Garden Enclosed.” No country could be better situated for the establishment of a kingdom whose sovereignty is destined to rule all nations, peoples, and tribes, inhabiting the land and sea to their utmost bounds.

Such, then, are the geographical and the literal of the Paradise of Deity. It belongs to the earth, and is as real, visible, and actual a region, as Britain or America. The literal Paradise, however, differs from these in that its literality is also symbolical and allegorical of things pertaining to that great incorporation of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Israel, styled by Daniel and other sacred writers, “the Saints.” Thus its literal river is symbolical of the spirit to be received from the throne, and through the altar Jesus, by the trees of righteousness that come out of the earth by resurrection. Ezekiel’s river is therefore placed among the apocalyptical symbols of Rev. xxii. 1. So also, his aitz rav, or GREAT WOOD, on both sides of his river, is adopted as a symbol by the Spirit in the same chapter, and there styled “the xulon on this side and that side of the river of water of life,” and representative of the aggregate of the saints, each saint being an element of the wood. The leaf of the Ezekiel wood is for healing; as an apocalyptic symbol it is representative of the saints, who are leaves as well as trees of the xulon of life, through whom the Spirit breathes “for the healing of the nations,” symbolized by the waters of the Dead Sea.

To eat of the wood of the life in the midst of the Paradise of the Deity is to be an unfading leaf—an immortal possessor of the glory, honor, and incorruptibility of the kingdom, which the God of heaven p. 219 shall set up in the Holy Land. It is to be one of the priests of the Most Holy Portion of the Holy Oblation, to whom it shall be said by the King, “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the State”—Matt. xxv. 34.