Letters to a millenarian

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5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.}

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THE PRESENT JEW3 NOT THE LAWFUL HEIRS OF THE ABRAHAMIC WILL.

Introduction

cordance with the expressed wishes of a few friends, presents them in this way to the public, hoping to draw the attention of some more able student of the prophets to the distinct question — Who are, at present, the recognized seed of Abraham, to whom the promises belong ?

In these letters, the covenant promises of God to Abraham and his seed, as explained and expounded by the prophets, are viewed under the character of a will, or testament, as Paul calls it, Heb. 9 : 15-19, in which God by covenant promises to bequeath to Abraham and his seed rich legacies, to be paid over to them in successive generations, as these legacies become due according to the terms of the will, and it is taken for granted, that all the prophetic promises to God's covenant people, were included in the covenant promises to Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. With this view before the mind, the 1st. First inquiry which naturally presents itself, at this distant period from the date of the will, is, who are at present the lawful heirs to this will ? And,

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2d. What legacies are still due to these heirs ?

In attempting to find who are at this day, the heirs to the Abrahamic will, the writer does not take it for granted, that every man calling himself a Jew, a descendant of Abraham, is consequently an heir, or that every uncircumcised person is not.

And here, it may perhaps as well be stated, as any where, that the conclusion to which the writer has been led, right or wrong, is, that the present people scattered over the world, calling themselves Jews, have according to their own law, broken their covenant with Grod, forfeited their claim to being, in a scriptural sense, the seed of Abraham and heirs to the promises made to him, and are at present no more to be considered the covenant people of Grod ; because descended from Abraham, than the Ishmaelites or the Edomites ; and that consequently they are not spoken of as the seed of Abraham by any of the Old Testament prophets, after the death of Christ ; and that there appears, therefore, no promise in the Old or New Testament, that

O INTRODUCTION.

they will ever return as a nation, either as the church, or to the church, or any other way, except as individuals in common with the Gentiles.

This result was as unexpected to the writer, when he commenced this investigation, as it can be to the reader, and yet he seems forced to it.

The following process is adopted : > Beginning with Abraham, it is found, that from the first, only a few of the descendants of Abraham were ever counted as heirs, only one of Abraham's eight children, and only one of Isaac's two. After that there were some twenty laws, the penalty of which, was exscision from the people of God, as heirs, and that Gentile converts became heirs. See Ex. 12 : 48. So that when Paul says, " they are not all Israel which are of Israel," he seems to imply, that even then we must apply the terms of the will and law, as explained by the inspired writers, to determine who were the lawful heirs.

In[ these short letters, the writer has followed in a very cursory manner the history of the seed of Abraham, and by applying

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the conditions of the will and the law, has endeavored to determine who in successive ages were the lawful heirs. As stated before, from the first, only a few were. At first they were dropped, so that in the third generation only one sixteenth part were counted, fifteen were dropped out of sixteen. After this they were cut off for the violations of the conditions of the will, as explained by Moses — as was the case with the uncircumcised man-child, and with idolaters. So that the ten tribes, when they as a nation, set up their golden calves, thereby seem to have incurred the penalty of exscision from the heirs of promise, and were in consequence sent captive from Canaan, and that without any promise, that the writer has discovered, connected with the threatened expulsion, that as a nation they would ever be brought back, as was the case repeatedly when afterward Judah was threatened ; except so far as they fell to, and became one with Judah. Here again, ten tribes out of twelve were, or appear to be left out of the heirs, and the smaller part, to be heirs. Then, when we trace the history of Judah,

8 INTRODUCTION.

down to the time of Christ, we see them again divide into two parties, the smaller, as always, following, and the larger rejecting Christ, and refusing to hear or obey Him, and finally causing Him to be put to death, and seem thereby to incur the penalty of final exscision from all future connection with the people of God, according to the law of Moses ; Deut. 18 : 19, as explained by Peter, Acts, 3 : 23, in farther proof of which they have remained separate now for more than 1800 years. The penalty here, as explained by Peter, seems as positive as that of the uncircumcised man-child, and therefore all the heirs that remain after this, are to be found in that party that received Christ as their Saviour, and obeyed Him as their king, and those who fell to him from the other Jews, soon after. To these are afterwards to be added, as always, such Gentile converts as fell to them, however many. So that after this, the line of succession or heirship is to be found, not in the church, as under the old covenant, but only in true believers, as foretold by Jer. 31 : 31. And that therefore, the present Jews are as

INTRODUCTION. 9

essentially Gentile in their true character, though descended from Abraham, as any of the descendants of Ishmael or Esau, and have no more to expect from the promises made to Abraham ; and that the church has no more cause to seek for, and expect their conversion, than that of any other people ; and beyond that, it seems more than intimated, that these scattered Jews as a nation will never be converted, nor amalgamated with other nations, except a few of them, but will always, as now, stand out, in every nation where the Bible is read, as beacons of warning to them of the fearful consequence of rejecting Christ, calling him an impostor, and trampling on his blood.

These views seem corroborated by the teachings of Christ and his apostles, and by the fact, that no prophet of the Old Testament, so far as the writer can discover, has ever distinctly taught, that the Jews would ever go into captivity after they were carried to Babylon, but the contrary ; and still less, that the Jews, as Jews, would be carried captive by the Romans after the final capture and destruction of Jerusalem :

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nor has he been able to find that they speak of them at all, as the seed of Abraham, when referring to a period beyond the death of Christ.

Christ seems the only prophet, who distinctly speaks of their dispersion after his death, and he certainly does not tell us plainly, (nor do any of the New Testament writers, all of whom were Jews in covenant,) that those whom He denominates children of their father, the devil, will ever be brought back to their own land again, as God's covenant people. So that we are led to the final conclusion, that the only seed of Abraham now remaining, who can claim any of the legacies bequeathed to Abraham and his seed, are true believers, such as those to whom Paul refers, when he says, Gal. 3 : 29, " If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs, according to the promise." "Whether these views are substantiated by the following letters, the readers must determine for themselves when they have read them. If they are not, and cannot be, the writer is as anxious as any other to see where he has been led astray.

Letter I

Dear Sir : — So far as I have been able to understand your views on the general subject of millenarianism, they seem to be something like this. The promises made by the Lord to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and repeated, by the Prophets, included great blessings, a small part of which blessings were received by the Jews when they were put in possession of the promised land of Canaan ; but that much the larger part of these promised blessings are yet in reserve for them, and are to be received by them when they shall again have been put in possession of that land, and the Lord Jesus Christ shall in person reign over them in Jerusalem, and be the personal dispenser of these promised blessings.

Or, in plainer terms, that the will of our Lord bequeathed by covenant promise to Abraham and his seed, or descendants, great riches, temporal and spiritual, to be paid over to them in different ages of the world, a small part of which was paid over to the Israelites in former days, but that much the larger part is yet to be paid over to them at a future period of their history, when they shall again be put in possession of the land of their fathers, and Christ shall in person reign over them there. Now, if it be admitted that there are legacies yet due to the seed of Abraham and heirs of the covenant promises, to be paid to them at a future period, then at this distant period from the date of that will, the first question to be examined seems to be, " who are the lawful heirs to these rich legacies ? Does it follow that the present people scattered over the world claiming to be Jews descended from Abraham are certainly the lawful heirs, when it is certain that a larger number of the descendants of Abraham are, or may be still living, who are not known under that name V 9 We think not. Besides, it is an undoubted fact, that a great number of the descendants of Abraham forfeited all claim to these cove-

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nant promises by the violation of those laws the penalty of which was exscision from that people, and many others, such as the descendants of Ishmael and Esau, were never included. The mere fact, therefore, that the present nation of the Jews claim that name, and all nations agree to let them retain it, does not prove that they are the heirs to these rich legacies. It often happens that a large inheritance descends to a female heir, who by marriage has changed her name, and so the estate descends to persons of another name, while there are many relatives of the same name who are not in the line of succession, and therefore though they have the same name, are not heirs of the estate at all. How, then, do we know that the present people claiming the name of Jews, are the lawful heirs, when it is certain that all the descendants of Abraham are not heirs ? For the Lord himself said that the son of the bond woman should not be heir with the son of the free. We think then, that the first question to be settled is, who are at this day the recog- 2

LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN.

nized seed of Abraham and heirs of the promises made to Abraham and his seed.

If a careful examination of this question leads to the conclusion that the present Jews claiming to be the seed of Abraham, have forfeited all claim to those legacies, and are therefore not in the line of succession, as we are inclined to think it will, then it will follow that no promises made to Abraham and his seed by the Lord, and repeated by the Prophets, can belong to them, and we must look elsewhere for the heirs of all the legacies yet due to the seed of Abraham.

It has, therefore, appeared to me, that a definite answer to the question who are the heirs to the unfulfilled prophetic promises to Abraham and his seed, would relieve the ^explanation of the prophecies relating to ■the Jews of some of their difficulties. If it ;be found that the Jews, who are scattered through the different nations of the world, both Israel and Judah, are the heirs of these rich legacies, then these prophecies are to be explained so as to meet that view. But if, on the contrary, it be found that they have, according to the plain law of God, forfeited all claim to those promises, and that Abraham has other children who have not, and are therefore the legitimate heirs to these unfulfilled prophetic promises, or those rich legacies, then the prophecies must be explained to meet that view.

Now, although an answer to this question has generally been admitted to be given in a sufficiently clear manner by the Prophets themselves, yet it is manifest that the different writers on the prophecies relating to the Jews have had different, though it may be not very definite answers to this question before their minds, which has led to equally different views, as to the true meaning of some of these prophecies.

The object of the following letters will be, as far as possible, to determine who are the lawful heirs to these unpaid prophetic legacies, and thus to endeavor to open the way to a more uniform understanding of the Scriptures and the consequent duties of the Church to the scattered tribes of Israel.

In examining the question who are heirs to a will, both the law of the land and the conditions of the will are to be carefully examined. Some time since a report reached this country by a letter from England, that a man in England by the name of Townly had died and left a large estate to his heirs, who were in America, and were supposed to be in New Jersey. Persons of tihat name supposing they were no doubt the heirs, collected together and sent to England to learn more about the matter, when to their sorrow, they learned that the only heir to said deceased was a daughter named Mary, who married a man w r hose name was Lawrence ; so that, according to the law of descent, the heirs were now called by a different name, and that therefore no man by the name of Townly could now be an heir unless by another change in a future marriage ; so that though the testator was Townly, yet the lawful heirs were not, but were called by another name.

Now, suppose that after this, the conditions of the will had been found to be, as the will was in England,

1. That if any of the descendants were unbaptized, they were to be cut off* from the heirs, and consequently from the inheritance, and it was found that half of the descendants were actually unbaptized, would not any judge decide that the estate belonged not to the unbaptized, but wholly to the baptized, for so the testator had decreed ? But suppose

2. The will further stated, that if any of those who were baptized should not receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after they arrived at the age of twenty years, that then they should be cut off from the number of his heirs and forfeit their inheritance. Would not a judge decide again, that all over twenty years who could not prove that they had received the sacrament, though baptized had forfeited their part of the inheritance, and that the whole belonged to that part of the baptized descendants, who could prove that they had received the sacrament ? But suppose

3. The will stated further, that all who did not receive the sacrament from the hand of a Presbyterian minister, though they re-

2* ceived it from ministers of other denominations, should forfeit their heirship and be cut off, and it was found that many of the baptized descendants who had received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, were not in connection with the Presbyterian Church, and had therefore received the sacrament — not from a Presbyterian minister, but from others. Would not the judge again be compelled to decide that all such had forfeited their inheritance, and that the whole belonged to the few that had not forfeited their heirship by violating the conditions of the will of the testator ? I think all will admit that the judge must so decide, whether he thought the will a good one or not.

Now must we not follow the same rule in examining the will of our Lord and Saviour in which he has bequeathed rich legacies to Abraham and his seed ; and if it be found that a large part of the descendants of Abraham have, by violating the conditions of that will, forfeited their character as heirs, and consequently their inheritance, must we not conclude that all that is still due of those legacies belongs to that part of the heirs who have not violated the conditions of the will, by whatever name they may be called ? Why is it not as true in the latter case as in the former? In this conclusion it is thought all will agree.

In looking over the will of our Lord, among many things a little obscure, the following seem to be plain in the conditions of the will as recorded.

1. That of the seed of Abraham, the uncircumcised man-child shall be cut off. — G-en. 17 : 14.

2. That of the circumcised seed, Isaac shall alone be heir. — G-en. 21 : 12.

3. That of Isaac's seed, Jacob only should be heir.— Gen. 27 : 27-29, and 28 : 10-14.

4. That a proselyte from the Gentiles, who was circumcised and partook of the Passover and had all his males circumcised, was counted an heir as one born in the land. See Exodus 12: 48.

5. That for idolatry and many other crimes they were to be cut off from the seed of Abraham.— See Ex. 22 : 20, & Lev. 17 : 9, 10-14, & 18 : 1-29.

6. That the man who, without a specified reason, should neglect to keep the Passover, should be cut off from the people of God, the heirs of the inheritance promised to the seed of Abraham, &c. — See Num. 9 : 13.

7. That those of the seed of Abraham as before described, who should refuse to hear and obey the promised Saviour when he should come, should be cut off from the people of God, and those only who had not been cut off would be counted for the seed and heirs of the promises. — See Deut. 18 : 15-19. Explained more fully, Acts 3: 22, 23, & Gal. 3: 29.

Now, if the forementioned conditions of the will are plain, and all who have violated those conditions, and especially the last, have forfeited their claim to their inheritance, then it seems to follow, that in determining the question who are the lawful heirs to the inheritance promised to the seed of Abraham, we must try it by the conditions therein plainly specified, and especially the last, which seems plainest of all, and which we think is fully explained by Christ and his apostles.

This conclusion, we think, is not weakened by the fact, that when the execution of the law was in the hands of. or committed to the hands of fallible Jews, the penalties of the law were often not executed. A wrong decision in a lower court is no reason why a higher court should not correct it so far as it can be corrected. If the Jews suffered their laws to be * trampled upon when the Lord committed to their hands their execution, it is no reason for us to suppose that when Christ takes in his own hands their execution, that he will suffer the conditions of His will to be broken with impunity.

Let us then see if we can determine who are now the lawful heirs to the inheritance promised and yet due to the seed of Abraham.

We shall here take it for granted that all the prophetic promises made to the seed of Abraham and David, are included in the promise made to Abraham, and are only repeated and amplified by the Jewish prophets. Yours, &c, A. W.

Letter II

Dear Sir : — Let us now see if we can determine who, at this distant period, are the heirs to the Abrahamic will. Since Paul says, Rom. 9: 6, " They are not all Israel which are of Israel," who then are ?

When God first called Abraham from his father's house, and promised to bless him and his posterity, there was nothing in the form of the promise as recorded, by which he could determine whether all his children were to share in the blessings of the promise, or only a part of them. The Lord simply said, Gen. 12: 2, " I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing," &c. In this general way the promise was first made, and, if nothing more had been said, we might have been led to suppose that all the descendants of Abraham were included in this promise. But the history of the event shows that they were not. V. 7, we are told that after Abraham and Sarah had reached and passed over a part of the land of Canaan, M The Lord appeared unto Abraham, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land" — namely, the land of Canaan. Here, again, it would seem as if all were included. About four years after this we are told, Gren. 13: 14, 16, " the Lord said unto Abraham, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever, and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth then shall thy seed also be numbered." Here, again, there is nothing in the form of the promise intimating that any of Abraham's children would be excluded, still less that persons descending from others should be numbered as the children or seed of Abraham, and yet the history of Abraham seems to imply that both events happened, though as yet they were not revealed. Ought not this to teach us to be cautious how we build theories on predictions?

Again, G-en. 15: 18, after the Lord had informed Abraham that his "seed should certainly be a stranger in a strange land, four hundred years, " we are told, he " made a covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto thy seed have I given all this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates." Still, no intimation is recorded that any are to be excluded. But, after the birth of Isaac, when Sarah complains of the conduct of the son of Ishmael, Abraham's first born, Gen. 21: 10, 12, the Lord said that " The son of the bond woman should not be heir with the son of the free woman," and that " in Isaac his seed should be called ;" and this was confirmed by the fact that only the descendants of Isaac went into Egypt, where the Lord had declared tha seed of Abraham should be in bondage, as we shall hereafter see. Again, Gen. 17: 19, after God had entered into a formal covenant with Abraham and his seed, to be their God, and to give to them the land of Canaan, of which covenant circumcision was to be

LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN.

the seal ; and, after declaring in the same covenant, v. 14, that the uncircumcised man-child should be cut off from his people, he says again, " Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard thee ; behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly, but my covenant will I establish with Isaac."

Here it is very manifest that the covenant promise was restricted to Isaac alone, who was not yet born, and to his seed, though Abraham had seven other sons after this, as we shall see. So that, from the beginning, only a very small part of the natural descendants of Abraham were actually included among the heirs to the bequests of that will, which bequeathed such rich legacies to Abraham and his seed.

Now, as the general promise of God, to

give to the seed of Abraham the whole land

of Canaan, did not prove that all his children

were included, so the promise to Isaac and his seed may not secure all his, or even prove that no others will be admitted. We ask then, again, who are the heirs that can, at this distant period, lay claim to these rich legacies ? Were all those who were circumcised, heirs ? — as those who were not, were to be cut off. We think not, for all the males in Abraham's house were circumcised. — See Gen. 17 : 23. Still this was to be the token of the covenant between God and his peoplej and the man-child who was uncircumcised was to be cut off; while Ishmael, and the other six children of Abraham, though children, and circumcised, were, for no crime mentioned, to be cast off or not reckoned among the people of God : thus showing that as yet we have no definite rule by which we can determine who are the seed and heirs according to the promise, since the great mass were dropped, and not counted, and only a few counted from the first promulgation of the promise. After this, in Gen. 22: 15-18, a little more than twenty years later, the Lord renewed the promise to Abraham, without any intimation that any of Isaac's children were to be excluded. In Gen. 25, we have the account of Abraham's second marriage — " Then again Abraham took a wife, whose name was Keturah," by whom he had six children, none of whom are counted among the seed of Abraham, as before stated. In Gren. 26 : 24, the promise is repeated to Isaac : " And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father, fear not, for I am with thee and will bless thee, and will multiplythy seed, for myservant Abraham'ssake."

In chap. 25 : 23, we read, " The Lord said unto Rebekah, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thee, and the one people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger." Here we have the first intimation that a part of Isaac's descendants are to be excluded from the heirs of promise, and yet not so that it could be certainly known how many of Isaac's descendants should be excluded. It was now about eightyfive years since the first promise was made to Abraham, and still as yet we find no certain rule by which to determine who were to be the heirs, except as guided by the successive revelations given from the Lord to the fathers. In chap. 26 : 3-5, the promise which was made to Abraham is repeated to Isaac : " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," but as yet it is general. In the same chapter, verses 33-35, we have the account of Esau selling his birth-right to Jacob ; and chap. 27: 27-9, we have the account of Isaac blessing Jacob, and, by the deception practiced by Jacob and his mother, giving him the blessing he intended for Esau, but which the Lord had intimated to his mother was intended for Jacob, though the younger. After this Esau seems no longer counted among the heirs. So that, in the third generation, we find that only one-sixteenth part of the children of Abraham are actually counted as heirs. Who, then, at this distant period, will venture to say which of Abraham's descendants are the lawful heirs to these promises, without the plain declarations of His word or will to guide us ?

Yours, &c, A. W.

Letter III

Rom. 9 : 6, For they are not all Israel which are of Israel.

Dear Sir : — We have seen in our previous examination, that in the third generation, only one sixteenth part of the descendants of Abraham were actually counted as the heirs of the promise to Abraham, to whom Grod would give the land of Canaan — a very small part, when yet, the promises were as full to them then, as they are now to the seed of Abraham ; for they were the same, and if these promises did not prove that all the seed of Abraham were then heirs, how can they prove that all or any of those, who now claim to be descended from Abraham, are the lawful heirs ?