The mystic numbers of the word

Front matter

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Introduction

That the Mystic Numbers of the Holy Bible have an allusion few will deny, but to what they allude is a question that* has taxed the minds of the greatest Scholars, Theologians, and Geologists from the remotest records of history to the present time.

Upon the supposition that the number seven referred to time, and that the seven days in the week corresponded to seven thousand years, and that, as in six days God made the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh, so six thousand years should complete the probation of man, and on the seventh, the Millennial glory must commence, all the delusions of 1843 and subsequent periods have had their origin.

Notwithstanding this error in reference to the second coming of our Saviour and the close of time, the Mystic Numbers remain ; their history commences with Creation and follows through every dispensation and administration to the close of the Sacred history — from Genesis to Revelation. In this discussion we will endeavor to show that the number seven does not allude to time, or its duration, but still it has an allusion.

VI INTRODUCTION.

The Mystic Number Seven, by its strange relations to matter and to man, lias led to the wildest speculations and the most astonishing theological absurdities. Peichaed, perhaps the greatest writer on ethnology, gathers all his conclusions from the mystical seven. He thus analytically divides the human skull, and draws his conclusions of races therefrom, viz. : First, the Iranian, from Iran, the primeval Persian or Arian race, embracing the Caucasian, with portions of the Asiatic and African nations. Second, the Turanian or Mongolian. Third, the American, including the Esquimaux. Fourth, the Hottentot and Bushman. Fifth, the Negro. Sixth, the Papuan, or wooly-haired Polynesian. And, seventh, the Australian.

Thus the different races have been distinguished by the formation of the cranium to seven different molds.

The earth, by Mr. Hugh Miller, has been geologically divided into seven different strata, and it is a fact worthy of notice, that there are seven channels to the intellectual mind, viz. : Two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and the organs of speech.

Science, Nature, Man, is, indeed, robed in the Mystic Numbers of the Word.

Chapter I

What is Theology? — How Divided? — What aee Attributes? — Who made the World? — How? — Three in One — Is God Divisible? — The Seven Spirits op God — Their Work — The Length op the Days of Creation — Each Attribute in its separate Work — The Seven Colors of Light — How many kinds of Light? — How are Attributes distinguished? — Light self-progressive — The Sun's Light.

UESTION. What is Theology?

Ans. Divinity. The unfolding of the Creator in his works, character, and attributes.

Q. What are His works?

A. The world and its surroundings — the sun, moon, and stars, and Man, the governor of all livingcreatures, and the grand object of God's special care.

Q. How is Theology divided ? •

A. Into revealed and unrepealed; or into natural and revealed theology.

Q. What is natural theology?

A. Natural theology pertains to the probable cause of all that we behold — the Author or Maker, as only known by the majesty, grandeur, and power revealed in the motions of the heavenly bodies, and in the conceptions and aspirations of our intellectual powers.

Q. What is revealed theology ?

A. The Holy Scriptures, wherein God's person and attributes are unfolded.

Q. What are attributes?

A. They are acting -mental properties, upon which the conception of a moral action is predicated.

Q. Who made the world ?

A. God.

Q. How?

A. Not by an agency, nor by any delegated power, but by himself alone.

Q. How does revealed theology represent him to us ?

A. By the association of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit.

Q. How can we comprehend three in one — only one, yet three?

A. By every pebble on the sea-shore, by ever} T rock on the mountain side, and by every orb in the expanse of heaven ; each and all inhere in the Mystical Number three, and in their entities unfold to man the unity of Deity.

Q. How so ?

A. The rock is a triplicity, three in one, and yet but one, there being in its composition substance, cohesion, and gravity. These are easily comprehended by the human mind, and as no substance can be devoid, or divested of these properties, no one need doubt their application to Jehovah, who said: "Let us make man."

Q. Is God divisible ? can He be divided ?

A. Not in entity, but by association He is infinitely so. He can personify whatever he chooses, and His Creative Spirit pervades all His works, and superintends all the vast surroundings of His Throne. His works, as revealed to us, show Him in His triplicity. First, as the infinite center and stability of all things visible and invisible, the pillar of eternal strength, the unchanging God ; Secondly, as the Creator of all things ; and, Thirdly, as the Redeemer of a sin-ruined world.

Q. Who of the Three, that bear record in heaven, made the world and its surroundings ?

A. The Holy Spirit, or the Seven Spirits, or attributes of God.

Q. What are these Seven Eyes — these Seven Spirits — these Seven attributes — the Holy Ghost?

A. They are Light, Life, Holiness, Justice, Mercy, Truth, and Love.

Or, as arranged in their creative work, are Light, Justice, Holiness, Truth, Life, Mercy, and Love — the "Seven Spirits of God."

Q. How do we understand that the Spirit of God made the world and its forces ?

A. By revealed theology. Gen. i: 2: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

If then the Spirit of God, which is the Holy Spirit, displaced the vapor of the chaotic world and began its present arrangement, with a design to adapt it to the uses of man, we see no good reason to doubt that the Holy Spirit continued the work and finished it.

We find that the Holy Spirit became the reprover of the world immediately after the fall of man, for God declares: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man."

Thence we learn that God's Spirit not only made the world, but became the moral luminary to all responsible creatures, and began its work, or revealed its work, of striving with man, as recorded in Gen. vi: 3.

Here we have the first and second reference to the Spirit of God. One in Creation, the other in Redemption: the first shows the Spirit's power in fashioning the earth for man ; the second reveals the Spirit, as a reprover of the world, in man.

Q. How did the world appear at the announcement of Creation ?

A. Chaotic — without form and void; perhaps surrounded by vapor, or covered with water.

Q. What was the personified nature of the first attribute, or Spirit of God, revealed in Creation?

A. Light. His work was to create light for all coming ages, and to so arrange that light, that the seven colors should be embraced in its matter, and that the flames of light thus created should be self-luminous and perpetual.

Thus the light created is supposed to be incandescent burning hydrogen in its essence, yet tempered by the atmosphere to the wants of those for whom the light was made. "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."

The London Astronomer, in examining some of the photographs, taken by Dr. Zollner during the great eclipse, representing the "colored prominences " in the solar atmosphere, thus records his amazement :

" Here," he says, "is a vast cone-shaped flame, with a mushroom-shaped head of enormous proportions, the whole object standing 16,000 or 17,000 miles from the sun's surface. In the cone figure we see the uprush of lately imprisoned gases, in the outspreading head the sudden diminution of pressure as these gases reach the rarer upper atmosphere. But turn from this object to a series of six pictures placed beside it, and we see the solar forces in action. First, there is a vast flame, some 18,000 miles high, bowed toward the right, as though some fierce wind were blowing upon it. It extends in this direction some four or five thousand miles. The next picture represents the same object ten minutes later. The figure of the prominence has wholly changed. It is now a globe-shaped mass, standing on a narrow stalk of light above a. row of flame hillocks. It is bowed toward the left, so that in those short minutes the whole mass of the flames has swept thousands of miles away from its former position. Only two minutes later, and again a complete change of appearance. The stalk and the flame hillocks have vanished, and the globe-shaped mass has become elongated. Three minutes later, the shape of the prominence has altered so completely that one can hardly recognize it for the same. The star is again visible, but the upper mass is bowed down on the right, so that the whole figure resembles a gigantic A, without the cross bar, and with the down stroke abnormally thick. This great A is some twenty thousand miles in height, and the whole mass of our earth might be bowled between its legs without touching them ! Four minutes pass, and again the figure has changed. The flame hillocks re-appear, the clown stroke of the A begins to raise itself from the sun's surface. Lastly, after yet another interval of four minutes, the figure of the prominence has lost all resemblance to an A, and may now be likened to a camel's head looking toward the right. The whole series of changes has occupied

OF THE WOBD. 15

but twenty-three minutes, yet the flame exceeded our earth in volume tenfold at the least."

The same writer begs those who consider this subject to bear in mind the enormous size of the sun ; so great, that if he were represented by a globe two feet in diameter, the earth would appear no larger than a cherry stone.

Q. Do we understand the days of Creation to , each have been of twenty-four hours' duration, or periods of time ?

A. Periods, or epochs of time.

Q. How many years constituted a cycle of Creation — a period — a day?

A. Probably a thousand years.

Q. Why so?

A. Because it would have taken that length of time for light to be transmitted to all the orbs and worlds in the expanse of the solar system, and reveal them on earth, even allowing light to travel with its almost incomprehensible velocity.

Q. How did the attribute, Light, accomplish this object?

A. By forming an imponderable body of a radiating quality, and. suspending the same in mid-heaven, till other attributes had finished their work.

Q. Could an attribute of God create matter?

A. The matter of the earth was already in existence, and called chaotic in its relation to the wants of a being shortly to be created.

Q. But how could an attribute form light, air, fire, or water ?

A. Just as easy as the sense of sight can measure distances. We need not pace off the number of steps from one object to another before we can tell the distance, for we measure it by the eye ; hence the eye can measure heights, the size of substances, and distances. Is not this, then, as strange as that an attribute of God should arrange the light for the eye, so that it could be in possession of a power without which the eye would be useless ?

The sense of sight is also a property of the body, and an attribute is a property of Deity; then what the eye does the man does, and what an attribute of God does is done by His sovereign will.

Q. Was this attribute conducive only in bringing to view earthly and heavenly objects, or did it occupy a higher and nobler position, bringing to view the ever-blessed God?

A. It is an attribute of God, hence it is no delegated power, but is God ; therefore it brings Him to our comprehension.

Q. How many kinds of light are there in the natural world ?

A. Seven. This mystical number reveals itself in the Creative work of all the attributes, and indeed tends to the solution of the otherwise hidden problems of Theology by its intrinsic qualities.

It gives, in its peerless rays, the seven prismatic colors, viz : Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red. Each of these again exhibit seven varieties, which, in respect to their gradations, are entirely equal and alike.

Still farther, the objects from which positive and reflective light appear, are also read by the septenary number, which are, Positive, or solar light ; Reflex, or borrowed light ; Electric, or polar light; Combustion, or fire light; Decomposition light, as seen in decayed or rotten wood ; Chemical light, or phosphoretic ; and Living light, as seen in the fire-fly or glow-worm. Thus we readily discover the wonderful harmony in God's creative works, even by the power of a single attribute; and indeed when the works of all his attributes reveal themselves to our astonished vision, we shall more clearly understand this fact, that all the works of God are perfect harmonies, as are seen in the intermingling of the rays of the rainbow or in the perfect harmony of the colors upon the grasses, and upon the feathered songsters, and upon the fishes, and upon the beasts.

Q. Are all the attributes of God complete harmonies ?

A. They are transcendently so. Light is not in any way antagonistical to Life ; but Life is aided by it, uses it, and could not perform the offices assigned to it unless it had this power by which it is illuminated. 2

18 MYSTrC NUMBERS

Light and Life are in perfect harmony with Holiness ; and Life, Light, and Holiness, are in perfect unison with Justice, with Truth, with Love, and Mercy.

So all these attributes harmonize together, aiding, assisting, and helping each other, and can not act in contradistinction or in opposition.

These are the Primitive Attributes, all others that we call attributes are only derivatives. From Light comes Knowledge, Intelligence, Perception, etc. From Life comes Power, Majesty, Purpose. From Love comes Affection, Tenderness, Peace, Joy, Hope. From Mercy comes Compassion, Pity, Forbearance, Long Suffering, Faith, Charity. From Justice comes Equity, Honor, and Righteousness. From Holiness comes Innocence, Purity, Piety. From Truth comes Decision, Infallibility, Unchangeableness, Authority.

All these attributes combined is Wisdom.

Q. With what does the attribute, Light, most harmonize ?

A. With Justice.

Q. Why with Justice ?

A. Because the attribute, Justice, made the firmament and adjusted it to the rays of light.

Q. Did the sun at first become the source of light ?

A. It does not so appear, for the fourth attribute established the sun, and moon, and stars, as the bearers of Light.

Q. Are celestial bodies illuminated by the same attribute as are bodies terrestrial?

A. Most assuredly. God is the author of all light, and bestows it alike throughout all the realms of boundless space, as the Apostle hath said: "There are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." So it may be said of the light that illuminates the unseen worlds : its glory here may differ from the glory of the Celestial City, still the same attribute shines at the throne of God as the created light shines upon the world. / Q. Why did Jehovah pronounce the work of each day "good" at the close of its labors?

A: Because the harmonies of each day's labor must be recognized before the innumerable hosts of heaven.

*Q. How are attributes distinguished from powers, faculties, or passions ?

A. By being self-progressive and reproducing.

Q. Is wisdom, then, an attribute of God ?

A. It is not ; because it is the decision or resultant of all the attributes, and is infallible. * Wisdom could not exist were it not that each attribute of God concurs in all decisions. To illustrate : if we were called upon to decide a certain case, in which human life was concerned, it would become importantly necessary, in giving a wise decision, that we should understand the nature of the crime from every possible stand-point, lest we should be guilty of too much leniency or severity. In order to do this we must have mercy, tempered with justice, that we by our decisions show our wisdom. - How much more of Deity, in whose hand is the sword or the pardon, the death or the life of the soul, the day of eternal glory or the night of eternal despair.

Wisdom, then, must be the embodiment of all God's attributes, and not in itself, a single point of observation, as it requires the active testimony of Light, Life, Holiness, Justice, Mercy, Love, and Truth to establish infinite and infallible wisdom. Hence the wisdom of God can not be an attribute, but a decision from them all.

Q. Is not the action of a single attribute of God infallible?

Certainly, in its single capacity, but it would not do to say that Light is an infallible attribute of Justice, but both are perfect in themselves. Wisdom, being the decision of all the attributes, can not be self-progressive or reproducing. The wise man hath said : "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." Prov. ix: 1. Then the building of God's wisdom is surrounded by the seven pillars of God's eternal attributes.

Q. Is not %>ower, then, an attribute of God?

A. By no means, for life is the grand center of voluntary power, neither could power produce power, nor is power self-progressive.

Lot us illustrate the idea of power being an attribute. Here is a powerful engine, it has great power; then, if the logic of power being an attribute is correct, it has a great attribute. But was it not the attribute, Life, that gave power to the engine ? Did not the living man give it ^ts form, condense its steam, apply the machinery, as well as make the engine entire ? If this be true, power is not an attribute, but simply the result of an attribute — the work of a man.

So in God's economy, nothing has voluntary power but that in which He has placed the attribute, Life ; and to the Life of God is alone due the honor of infinite Power.

Knowledge, also, being derived from the attributes, can not become an attribute, more than the power of the engine becomes an attribute, because the machine was the work of a man.

Knowledge is the summing up of the testimony; wisdom, the justness and necessity of the decision.

Q. Is Light self-progressive ?

A. Certainly; because it is not only inexhaustive, but eternal. The French party, who made many discoveries at the time of the great eclipse, August 18, 1868, under the guidance of the great astronomer, Sir M. Jassen, made the following report in reference to light : " The first glance of the red flames, through the Spectroscope, showed that when their light was analyzed by the prism, instead of forming a continuous series of the seven prismatic colors, with which all are so familiar, it formed only a collection of bright lines, separated by wide, dark spaces. The question was settled. The flames were self-luminous and gaseous." If self-luminous, they must be self-progressive. So that when the sun, and the moon, and the stars are rendered opaque by the withdrawal of the light now surrounding the sun as a wave-dashing ocean, many thousand miles in depth, the self-progressive and incomprehensible volume of light will not diminish in brilliancy, for " God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all."

Prof. M. Jassen remarks : '' The entire sun is surrounded by an atmosphere of incandescent hydrogen, a thousand miles deep ; the flames are elevated portions of this atmosphere, an ocean of fire, with waves many thousand miles in height." In beholding this light the Apostle remarked: "Our God is a consuming fire."

Q. What brought out the attributes of Deity in the development of their excellence ?

A. The plan of human redemption, through which God designed to unfold to all sentient intelligences, and through the vast cycles of eternity, the excellences of His incomprehensible nature, that He might be the Supreme object of Love.

Q. Had the attribute, Light, any thing to do with the plan of redemption ?

A. Every thing. The world was only illuminated by a substance of imponderable burning hydrogen, in the infinitely heated, incandescent state; while the attribute itself, incomprehensibly more brilliant, became the moral luminary of the world, and now "lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

By this light of the attribute only we get our impress of the Eternal God, "for no man can see God and live." This attribute, then, diminishes the overwhelming brilliancy of the throne of God by its reflex light, as taken from the plan of redemption, till we can say in the simplicity of a -child: "Our Father, who art in heaven."

Q. How does light reproduce light ?

A. By reflection. The light of the attribute of God upon the human soul dissipates the darkness, and brings " life and immortality to light," and this reflex light in the soul mirrors itself in the soul of another, till it can truly be said of the Church of God : "Ye are the light of the world."

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Chapter II

The Work of the Attribute, Justice — The Formation op the Atmosphere — The Water— The Clouds — The Seven Properties op the Atmosphere — The Seven Harmonious Attributes — The Seven Tones in Music — The Language op Music — Man's Seven Attributes — Instrumental Music — The Height of the Atmosphere — Seven Kinds of Clouds — The Vastness of this Day's Work.

UESTIOK What Attribute performed the second day's labor in the process of Creation ?

Ans. Justice.

Q. Why was he the second day's laborer ?

A. Because, to construct the Atmosphere in perfect adaptation to the wants of man — to balance the clouds in mid-heaven — to vitalize the waters in all their relations to animated life — to give the life power to all waters, both fresh and salt ; and in all this labor harmonize every department with the attribute, Light, required one of the (24)

noblest as well as one of the most perfect attributes of God.

Q.. How did Justice arrange the firmament?

A. By condensing the mist, and gathering it into a mysterious vessel, called the cloud ; and causing this to ride upon the atmosphere, carrying its millions of tons of water, and gently distributing the same upon the earth, to prepare the aerial ocean for the rays of light, to adapt it to all the variety of colors, and to give to the atmosphere the undulating harmony of sound.

Q. But do we not read that Christ made all things ''visible and invisible, and that by Him all things consist? "

A. Most assuredly, and this is just what we are proving beyond a doubt, for by "faith the worlds were made." "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Ps. xxxiii : 6. Hence we see that God made the heavens and the earth ; the " breath " (mind) " of the Lord made the host of them;" and the Eternal Archetype - the Mediator — made the heavens. So we see that the Seven Attributes, or Spirits of God, is God ; the Archetypal Jehovah is God ; and the Eternal, " I Am that I Am," is God ; and these are the only one living and true God.

Q. What are the properties of the atmosphere ?

A. The atmosphere also embraces the Septenary number, and is composed of Nitrogen,

Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Electricity, Impenetrability, and Density — Seven. It is also susceptible of seven other divisions, viz : Refractibility, Ponderability, Compressibility, Dilatability, Decomposition, and the agent of Combustion, and of the Harmonies of Sound.

Q. To what does all this mystical Seven allude ?

A. To the Holy Spirit — the Seven Spirits of God — the Comforter — the attributes, who made, or fashioned, the earth for the abode of man, the climax of the Creation of God.

Q. How are the harmonies of Music explained ?

A. By the Seven Attributes. These are harmonies in the mind of Deity, and in all their associations are harmonies in Creation; and as there can be but seven tones in music, so there can be but seven attributes of the Spirit.

Q. What special harmonies do we see in the attributes ?

A. The most beautiful that the human mind can conceive. Here is Love and Mercy ; what can harmonize better ? Not even a fifth 'can have a sweeter tone or a more perfect harmony. Holiness and Justice are also perfect harmonies, as are also Light and Life. And, that man might freely converse with his Creator, it became necessary that the atmosphere should accord to these attributes, that music might become praise and deA'otion, and thus be accepted of God.

Here is an object that is surprisingly lovely : now, if that lovely creature should be destitute of the attribute, Mercy ; had no compassion, no forbearance, no sympathy, its loveliness would deteriorate just in proportion to its want of the outflowing streams originating in the fountain of Mercy. The harmonies of these two attributes are so interchangeable that we say, that that which is lovely is also merciful, and that which is merciful is also lovely.

So we may say of Holiness and Justice ; they perfectly intermingle. with each other, and can never create a discord, for they are indissolubly united.

Q. Then the laws that govern vocal and instrumental sound are unalterably fixed in the formation of the atmosphere ?

A. So it would appear from the fact that wherever the atmosphere exists the harmonies of sound also exist, and move its properties in every possible direction, conveying a pleasurable sensation wherever the affinities of sound are harmonized, or where tones in harmony are uttered.

Q. Is every tone in music, then, a harmony ?

A. Not if isolated and alone, but when simultaneously sounded with certain other tones, they are unalterably so.

Q. Then all concords are the result of these harmonies ?

A. Perfectly so, for in the scale of music there n/ are five full tones, and two semi-tones, or half tones ; so in the attributes there are those that are easily separated by the natural mind, as Holiness and Truth, which can readily be understood in their separate capacity ; but when we attempt to disengage Mercy and Love, we find a connection not unlike a semi-tone ; and so on in all their relations ; and when some skillful lover of the art of Music shall examine this subject in this light, his investigations will abundantly establish this theory.

Q. How could this peculiar relation of the atmosphere to the seven tones in music be developed?

A. Only by the creation of Man, in whom are all the attributes essential to its development.

Q. Then the harmonies of sound extend from heaven to earth, and thereby cause our songs of praise to be heard in heaven above ?

A. So it would appear when our natures are restored by the operation of the Holy Spirit, for it is equally true that we can not sing to the praise of God without the "Spirit helpeth our infirmities," as it is true that we can not pray as we ought. The polyphony of the attributes is the cause of the polyphony of sound, and, like a stringed musical instrument, whose strings are in harmony with five thousand other instruments of similar kind, the operator need only cause one single string to vibrate, and the whole five thousand will vibrate with it ; so the operator, which is the Seven Spirits of God, need only touch the harmonious chord in the human soul to create praise in heaven. The Apostle even declares that " our conversation is in heaven," and surely our prayers could never be answered if not heard in heaven.

Q. Is the language of music, then, a universal language that can not be altered or changed ?

A. Emphatically so ; and to meet all its various harmonies, God has been pleased to incorporate in our spiritual natures the divisible seven, so that we can divide ourselves into seven parts, that is, we can understandingly play five parts, keep the time or till the bellows with the foot, and sing a part of the music or the words of the hymn or song; but we can not go beyond the number seven.

The power of this mystical number, in its divisibility, is more clearly seen in our relation to music than in any other relation. A man may so school himself as to carry on a conversation with another party and write a letter at the same time, but could not write letters with even both hands at the same time and converse ; but he can play five parts on a musical instrument and converse quite understandingly at the same time, only because of the attributes.