"So then, the fact that it was customary for the apostles in that day to speak of the coming of the kingdom of Christ as still future, though very near, is no proof at all that in its higher significance it had not already taken place."-Parousia, p. 111.

This is a confession that the apostles did to the close of the sacred canon speak of Christ's kingdom as future. Very well: If it had come in its higher significance, is it not marvelous that none of them ever spake, or wrote to that effect, but kept their readers and hearers looking forward for its future coming?

"It is proper to add that in this sense of manifestation, the coming of Christ may be regarded as progressive."-Parousia, p. 111.

Progressive "coming" of an omnipresent being!

The kingdom of heaven is like: 1. "A grain of mustard seed." 2. "Leaven hid in meal." 3. "Seed cast into the ground." 4. "A stone cut out without hands," &c. These three parables and one symbol, Dr. Warren quotes in proof of the progressive character of the kingdom of heaven. I admit the progressive development of the kingdom. (1), In the conversion of the individuals who are to inherit the kingdom; (2), In the multiplication of the number of heirs, until the full number is made up. (3), That it is God's work to carry on this preparation as he does the growth of the natural seed, until the harvest. And (4), That when that harvest is ripe, or all the heirs are prepared, Jesus, "the Lord himself, will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:

and so shall we ever be with the Lord." This is the stone, Jesus Christ and all his, in their resurrection bodies, organized, on their ascension, into a kingdom, to come down from heaven together to meet and destroy the kings of the earth and their armies, and possess the "kingdom under the whole heaven" (as foretold Rev. 19th); and thus become the mountain which shall "fill the whole earth"-THE KINGDOM OF THE GOD OF

HEAVEN.

This is all in perfect harmony with the parable of the tares of the field, which teaches that until the harvest, the end of the age, tares and wheat, saints and sinners, are to grow together in the kosmos, when Christ's angels will gather out the tares, "children of the wicked one," to burn them. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Territorially, that kingdom is the kosmos, or world, where tares and wheat once grew. Then, the "six-score obscure persons" who were together in that "upper room," on the day of Pentecost, will have multiplied into "a great multitude which no man can number, out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation," gathered before the throne.

CHAPTER VII.

DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE.

In his chapter on persecutions, under the head of "Judaism," p. 120, Dr. Warren refers to the date of the Apocalypse. The Doctor's whole book is constructed on the hypothesis that John was exiled to Patmos and wrote the Apocalypse, in the reign of Nero, before A.D. 68, as the emperor died that year.

But he says:

"It is freely acknowledged that the weight of external evidence is in favor of the later date; while the internal evidence seems even more decisively to point to the earlier date, viz., A.D. 67, during the reign of the emperor Nero."

There is no internal evidence that can set aside the positive testimony that it was under Domitian, about A.D. 96, that John wrote.

IRENEUS was one of the early Christian fathers, and flourished as a writer about A.D. 178. "He was a pupil to, and trained up under the tutorage of Papias and Polycarp, both of whom were disciples of John the Revelator."-Taylor's Voice of the Church, p. 60. Irenæus says of the Apocalypse: "For it has not been long since it was seen, but almost in our own generation about the end of Domitian's reign." Eusebius says, "No contrary contemporary testimony can be adduced." We can ask for no stronger evidence of its

date, "near the close of the first century." This being the case, all the Doctor's arguments based on the hypothesis of the earlier date, fall to the ground. He has produced no passage from the book which would necessarily require an earlier date-not one. He has assumed certain passages to refer to Nero and his times and then seized on doubtful historical statements to prove that John wrote before Jerusalem's destruction; hence, that he was banished by Nero.

The Doctor continues:

"But even conceding the former opinion [the later date], I see nothing in it to forbid the reference of this portion of the book to the period of the Jewish persecution. If the object of the writer was to console the churches then suffering under the tyrannies of Domitian, he might well do so by referring them to the overthrow of their earlier enemy in Judea.". Parousia, p. 121.

There was no design on John's part, except to write what he saw and heard." It is "the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him. And he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John, who bare record." There is no evidence that John knew any more of its import than we do who live 1800 years later,

The beginning of chapter 4 introduces us to scenes future of the vision: "Come up hither, and I will show thee things which shall be hereafter." Then the series of events which he saw are an unit; they are events of the future of the vision, and have no retrospective character. All Dr. Warren's parallels between Matt. 24 and 25 and the scenes of Revelation do not require us to place either in the past. For I have demonstrated that the record of the Evangelist of Christ's prediction is not yet fulfilled. If not, and John's visions are parallel with

the Evangelist's description, then both relate to things. this side of Jerusalem's overthrow, and are yet to be completed.

APOCALYPTIC EXEGESIS.

We now come to a most interesting part of Dr. Warren's book, his use of Apocalyptic symbols. His application of the beast, false prophet, and dragon will now claim our attention. He says:

"The principal characters engaged in this tragedy [pagan persecution] are portrayed with wonderful power. First, there appears a great bloody-hued, seven-headed dragon, horned and crowned, whose sinuous tail sweeps over the third part of the heavens, dislodging the stars from their spheres. That there may be no doubt as to who is intended by it, we are told that it represented that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.' He is the prime instigator of the persecution. Next there arises out of the sea a hideous beast, of monstrous form, armed with whatever is terrible of horns and fangs and claws, to whom the dragon, his patron, gives power and a throne and great authority. The cabalistic use of the Hebrew numerals shows him to be the reigning emperor Nero. A second monster, less formidable in aspect than the other, but endowed with infernal cunning and wonder-working skill, springs out of the earth and joins the dragon and the beast in their conspiracy against the saints of God. He is evidently the symbol of the pagan religion, with its splendid array of priests and augurs and magical rites with which the established cultus of the empire holds captive the minds of men."—Parousia, pp. 125, 126.

His accepted definitions of the trio are-the dragon is the devil, Satan; the Beast is the Roman emperor Nero; the other beast is the Pagan religion. Let us keep these definitions in mind. This beast, Nero, makes war on the saints, overcomes and kills them. I grant Nero did this to a large extent. But the Doctor does not think such little characteristics as that he had seven heads and ten horns; that he had the mouth of a lion, feet of a bear, and was himself like a leopard; and that