A symbological catechism

Preface

Resolved^ That the more a man studies the Bible under a freedom from prejudice and prepossessions, and with the utmost desire to understand the things taught therein in their plainness and simplicity, the more he will understand them.

Resolved, That let a man study the Bible ever so much under a prejudiced and prepossessed mind, and it is possible for him never to arrive at a certain understanding of but few of the things it really does teach.

Resolved, That although a man should study the Bible ever so much, and yet draw his conclusions timidly, lest he should cross the track of his church or the ministers thereof, is in a fair way to be ^^ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth."

Resolved, That those who would hold the same views as nearly as possible in regard to the things of the Bible, should endeavor, as far as possible, to dispense with all prejudice and prepossessions, and to form their own conclusions, notwithstanding they should thereby cross the well-worn track of their respective churches and the ministers thereof.

Resolved, That the best way for a man to get rid of his prejudice and prepossessions in regard to the things of the Bible, is to make the Book itself his chief study, and to strive with all his might to form his own conclusions, in spite of the teachings of his church or his great ones.

Resolved, That the friends of the Bible should make the Book itself their chief study, seeing it is not because they have searched its pages too much, that they are divided up into so many factions, but because they have searched them too little.

Resolved, That the author of this work does not necessarily vouch for the infallibility of the conclusions set forth therein ; and this for the reason that he is convicted in his own mind of not being as yet cured of all prejudice and prepossessions in regard to Bible things.

Resolved, That should this work turn out to be an assistance to the friends of the Bible in their researches after Bible things, its highest object will be realized.

Chapter I. The Edenic Guards

Question. If, according to Gen. 2 : 9, the tree of life was planted in the midst of the garden of Eden; and if, according to Gen. 3:24, the cherubims and the flaming sword were placed thus and so, how was it possible for them to have kept ^^the way of the tree of life/' except the garden itself had been an inclosure inaccessible to mortal man, except through a single entrance in the east?

Answer. But if its cherubic guards were living entities, and intelligent, is it necessary that it should have been an inclosure? Only, therefore, under the idea that its guards were an artificial means appointed ^^to keep the way of the tree of life,'' would the intimation arise that the garden itself was an inclosure, and inaccessible to mortal man, except through a single entrance.

Q. But could not God, who is supposed to be all-wise and all-powerful, have prevented the

THE EDENIC GUARDS.

man and his wife, from time to time, from reentering their lost home, without the use of guards at all?

A. But what sort of a God would he be of whom it could be said that he might have acted more wisely than he did act?

Q. For the said cherubims, however, with their flaming sword, to have been guards in any effectual sense, is it not required, of course, that they should have been endowed with some power extraordinary?

A. That God might have so endowed them, we could no more question than we could question the reality of Aaron's rod, the brazen serpent, or the urim and thummim.

Q. But would it not be more rational to suppose that such things were only so many natural objects, used to direct the attention of man to where God was about to manifest his power directly?

A. But should it be accounted more difficult for the Almighty to have endowed certain natural objects with such and such supernatural powers and virtues, than it was for him to endow the grain of wheat or the acorn with power, under certain conditions, to germinate and grow? If God is God, what is there that is impossible to him?

THE NOACHIAN SHIP.

Chapter II. The Noachian Ship

Question. Supposing such a craft as Noah's ark to have been a reaUty, is there not room for the notion, entertained by many, that in size, it was not sufficient to have saved alive all the living creatures that could not have survived the flood?

Answer. If, according to Gen. 6:15, its length was three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits; and if a cubit with the ancient Hebrews, as it is well made out, especially in Chapter 16 of a work entitled, '^Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," was a little more than twenty-five inches; and whereas, according to this estimate, Noah's ark must have been more than three hundred feet long, by over one hundred and fifty feet broad, by over sixty feet high; and whereas, therefore, its interior dimensions must have been all of twenty-seven million cubic feet; and whereas, a space of nine cubic feet must have been a sufficient average for its entire crew, counting say from the smallest bird up to a

THE NOACHIAN SHIP.

full grown mastodon; and whereas, under this rule it might have contained a crew of no less than three hundred thousand, great and small, therefore, to doubt its capacity to have saved alive all the living creatures instanced in Gen. 6:18-22, and Gen. 7:1-5, should we not have to conclude that there was more than three hundred thousand of them?

Q. Is it not remarkable, however, that a craft so noted, and in dimensions so great, should have been left (if under divine direction) upon the mountains of Ararat, only to be speedil}- hid up in its snowy grave, so that man in a few generations would have no means of knowing for himself that it or the flood had ever been?

A. If that is worthy of note which is had in Josephus, book i, chapter 3, paragraph 6, concerning one Borossus who had it second hand, (third century B. C), that some of the remains of the ark were still to be seen by explorers, does it not follow that its testimony concerning its own reality and that of the flood, was not yet withdrawn from the world for more than two thousand years after its landing upon the mountains of Ararat?

Q. But, allowing it to have been all the while openly exposed to those forces which cause all

I

THE NOACHIAN SHIP. S material things to crumble, is it not vain to suppose that one particle of it would have remained tangibly intact after two thousand years or more?

A. From Gen. 7:11-24, and (len. 8:1-14, we understand that in one hundred and fifty days after the commencement of the flood, the earth was flooded to its greatest depth; that at the very time that the earth was thus flooded to its greatest depth the ark was landed on the mountains of Ararat; that in one hundred and thirteen days after the landing of the ark, the tops of all the mountains were lifted above their watery graves; and that in sixty days more from that time, the earth was dry, and the flood a thing of the past.

Q. But would not the ark, therefore, on the very account of its vast elevation, in several years at most, be so completely buried up in one monstrous field of snow as to forbid its witnessing ever thereafter to the eyes of any explorer, its own reality or the fact that there had ever been a flood so great as to overtop all the high hills, and the mountains too?

A. But from what is known of the habits of those ice-crowned mountains, was it not possi-

THE NOACHIAN SHIP.

ble, and also probable, that after so many centuries it would in some huge glacier be worked to one side and at last be carried down to a more genial clime, there to witness to many an earnest explorer the dreadful happening of many centuries before because of sin on the one hand, but that wondrous deliverance because of fidelity and obedience on the other?

THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

Chapter III. The Confusion Of Tongues

Question. Under the view that Noah's ark and the flood were realities, was it possible that within less than one hundred and fifty years after the flood, and more than two hundred years prior to the death of Noah, any of his descendants should have been so profoundly ignorant of the nature of things as to have really undertaken to build a tower whose top should reach to heaven?

Answer. But if the apparent heaven was meant, or that space which sets in above the clouds, are there any reasons why they might not, after so long a time, have accomplished their purpose? Is it not certain, from Gen. 11:5-9, that, had it not been for the confusion of their language, they would at last, through persistence, have reached a success?

But if, before the flood, right in the face of Noah's preaching and the example set by himself and family, all others became so utterly corrupt as to require that they should be cleanswept from the earth, is it a wonder that his

8 THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

descendants, in one hundred and fifty years, or nearly, should already have learned to invent and to follow their own vagaries?

Q. But if Noah was yet alive at the confusion of tongues, and if, in the words of Gen. 11:9, ^'The Lord did there confound the language of all the earth," does it not follow that Noah himself must have been caught under the curse, and for the reason, of course, that he must have been led away at last by the follies of his near descendants?

A. But there being nothing in the story, all told, to justify the notion that Noah, with the earth's entire population, should have assembled on the plains of Shinar at one and the same time, ostensibly to build the tower of Babel; and whereas, it would be hard to believe that one with an experience such as he alone possessed should have been at last caught in the snare of his own near descendants, not certain at all is it that he, too, fell a victim to the astounding curse.

Q. But if all men then living were not assembled at such a time to build the tower of Babel, and if the language of those who were not assembled on that occasion was not confounded, does

THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

it not follow that the Adamic language must have remained as a living language, notwithstanding the declaration in Gen. 11:9, that "the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth?"

A. As Noah can never with justice be numbered with those who conspired in a work so vain (judging from his course before the flood), and whereas the evidence is wanting to the effect that the earth's entire population did ever for any purpose assemble at one and the same time on the plains of Shinar, therefore should the idea maintain, not that the language of all the living was then and there confounded, 'but that the language that was then common to all the earth was thus affected. Nor is this construction to be at all evaded, in case he is to be upheld as having been honorable throughout, who was the chief but humble instrument for the temporal salvation of a miniature world.

lO THE NUMERIC OFFERING.

Chapter IV. The Numeric Offering

Question. Whereas, according to Gen. 15:7, it must be conceded that Abraham was personally to inherit the land of Canaan; and whereas, his inquiry as set forth in Gen. 15:8, necessarily implies that he expected so to inherit it, how is it, after all, as may be fairly inferred from Gen. 15:13-16, that although he was to be buried '^in a good old age," his promised Canaan was still to be in the hands of his enemies?

Answer. Letting the three beasts and the two birds mentioned in Gen. 15:9 stand for nineteen whole numbers and sixty-eight hundredths, and supposing Isaac to have been in his eighteenth year at the time his father undertook, as set forth in Gen. 22:1-13, to offer him up as a burnt offering, and should it turn out, that, from that occurrence, to the crucifixion of Christ was indeed about nineteen centurial generations and sixty-eight years over, we should then have about the same distance, in years, from the attempted offering up of Isaac to the crucifixion of Christ that it was to be from bis crucifixion

THE NUMERIC OFFERING. II

I to the first year of the millennium inclusive, the : year in which Abraham, with all his faithful de- [scendants, through Isaac in the resurrected state, are personally to inherit their promised land, which is then to include all that country that extends all the way from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Q. But what basis is there for the idea that the said beasts and birds altogether were a representation of any specific number of years, great or small? What is there in the text to support the plan?

A. The simple fact that in answer to Abraham's earnest inquiry as to how he was to know that he was personally to inherit so great a country, he was told to take unto him three beasts of the age of three years each; also a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And inasmuch as he divided each of the said beasts in two equal parts, it is fair to conclude that he was told so to divide them. But although he might not have understood from this that an equal number of years was to be chronicled both backward and forward of the date that the all-sufficient sacrifice was to be made, yet in answer to his question, as to how he was to know that he

THE NUMERIC OFFERING.

was personally to inherit all the land that was promised him, what significance could the whole affair have had to him in case he perceived not that he was not so to inherit it until after the lapse of so many centurial generations, after the offering up of the one all-sufficient sacrifice?

Q. But so long as we can conceive of no numerical significance for the said offering all told, what assurance have we that to Abraham it might have had a significance above what was common to an ordinary sacrifice?

A. Were we to multiply three, the number of the said beasts, by two, the number of pieces into which each was divided, and that again by three, the age of each, and to the product add one for the age of the turtle dove, supposing it to have been a yearling just, and to this again add .68 for the age of the young pigeon, supposing it to have been a little more than eight months old, we should obtain nineteen whole numbers and sixty-eight hundreths as a mere digital significance of all.

But as generations with Abraham were centurial, and as he would certainly estimate generations to come by what had been their average length, it would seem almost certain,

THE NUMERIC OFFERING. I3

under a numerical significance for his offering, that he would not understand that, within no more than nineteen years and a fraction, he and his children, (when as yet he had none,) would be the personal inheritors of their promised land. And not only this, but inasmuch as it is clearly implied in Gen. 15:13-16, that he was not to inherit it in his mortality, therefore is it certain that had he seen a digital significance at all in his offering, it would have been one implying so many centurial generations, and not so many single years.

Q. But while such might seem to have the semblance of fair reasoning, yet how was Abraham to know through what space the generations supposed to be meant, were to be laid?

A. Whereas, according to the true chain of Bible chronology, it was a little more than two thousand years, counting from the fifty-second year of Abraham's life to the birth of Christ; and whereas, with thirty- three years added to his fifty-second year, he was brought to his eighty-fifth year; and whereas, it may be fairly inferred from Gen. 12:4-5, and Gen. 16:1-3, that eighty-five was about his age at the time he offered in sacrifice the said three beasts and two birds; and whereas, thirty-three years deducted from two thousand and one years would leave nineteen hundred and sixty-eight years, therefore did his offering tableau the distance in years from the time it was made to the birth of Christ, whether he so understood it or not. But did he understand it? Who would say that the father of the faithful would be content ere he had searched out the meaning of an offering so strangely composed?

Q. But how was he to know, if such was the fact, that the said offering was, under some numerical significance, to span out the distance in years from his attempted sacrifice of Isaac onward to the crucifixion of Christ?

A. If Abraham's age was eighty-five at the time of his strangely composed offering, and if Isaac was born fifteen years after that, as may be made out from Gen. 21:5, and if, as before supposed, Isaac was in his eighteenth year at the time he was about to be offered up, then was it thirty-three years from the time of Abraham's strangely composed offering forward to the year, inclusive, of his strange attempt to offer up the only heir of jjromise, and which would mean, of course, that if it was nineteen hundred and sixty-eight years from his strangely composed offering to the birth of Christ, it was also the same number of years from his strange attempt to offer up Isaac to the crucifixion of Christ.

x\nd again, if it was to be two thousand years from the birth of Christ to the first year of the millennium, inclusive, and if thirty-three years was his age at his passion, then was it to be nineteen hundred and sixty-eight years from that time to the first year of the millennium, inclusive.

But if, according to Heb. 11:17-19, after Abraham had been restrained from offering up his only son of promise, ^^he received him in a figure," the question arises, What could the affair have been a figure of, other than the offering up of Christ as the all-sufficient sacrifice? And if he so understood it, why may it not have been flashed upon him even then that, as his numeric offering had spanned out for him the distance in years from the time it was made to the birth of Christ, it would also not only span out for him the distance in years from his attempted offering up of the son of promise to the real offering up of the only-begotten son of l6 THE NUMERIC OFFERING.

God, but also the distance in years from that immaculate offering to the time that he, with all his faithful children through Isaac's line, are in the resurrected state to be in actual possession of all the land that was promised them.

But aside from what Abraham may have understood, and if we may be direct without pretending to be positive ; if from the fifty-second year of Abraham's life to the time of his numeric oifering was thirty-three years, and if from that offering to the birth of Christ was nineteen hundred and sixty-eight years — then was it about two thousand and one years, inclusive, from Abraham's fifty-second year to the birth of Christ. And again, if from his numeric offering to his attempted offering up of Isaac was thirty-three years, inclusive, and if from that attempted offering to the crucifixion of Christ was nineteen hundred and sixty-eight years, then was it about two thousand and one years, inclusive, from his numeric offering to the crucifixion of Christ. And lastly, if from the birth to the crucifixion of Christ was thirty-three years, and if from his crucifixion to the first year of the millennium, inclusive, was to be nineteen hundred and sixty-eight years, then was it to be about two thousand

THE NUMERIC OFFERING. I 7 and one years from the birth of Christ to the first year of the millennium, inclusive — the year in which Abraham, with all his worthy progeny through the chosen line, are to be the personal inheritors of that which was promised them, all of four thousand years before.

Q. But what connection is to be established between all this and the patriarch's dream of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp? Gen.

15:17-

A. That as a dream it was fraught with meaning, we have but to contemplate this much, that -'a smoking furnace and a burning lamp" would be just about the description that would be expected to be given of a railroad engine as seen in motion after night, by one especially such as was Abraham, who had never before as much as seen or heard of a steam engine of whatever sort. So that, to contemplate the fact, in view of present railroad prospects, that before Abraham and his faithful children in the resurrected state are to be in actual possession of their promised land, that it is to be belted over with its railroads, and with one probably passing directly over the very ground where his noted offering was made, we have a reason apparent enough, not only why he should have dreamed what he did just after his offering was made, but also why the number of centurial generations indicated thereby should extend, in their final application, onward from the time of the all-sufficient sacrifice to the millennium begun, the time that the promised land, all of it. is to be restored to its rightful owners once for all.

THE JUDAIC SCEPTER. I9

Chapter V. '['he Judaic Sckptkr

Question. In Gen. 49:10, if what is said is really meant, is it not in certain conflict with the plainest facts in history? Is it not certain that the scepter did depart from the Jews, and a law-giver from their midst, more than once before the days of Christ; and that now for many centuries they have been without even the semblance of a government of their own?

Answer. While, in a regal sense, we can never doubt that the scepter did more than once depart from them prior to the days of Christ, and that, in that sense, it has now for many centuries been departed from them, yet in the sense of authoritative foremanship or pre-eminence in regard to the other tribes of Israel, has not the scepter always been with the Jews? In Gen. 37:23-28, in the case of the enmity of Joseph's brethren against him, it was through the foremanship of Judah that he was rescued from his living grave and sold to the Midianites. In Gen. 43:1-14, Judah is recognized by his father as the foreman of his brelh-

THE JUDAIC SCEPTER.

ren in their second expedition to buy corn from the Egyptians; and if he was their foreman then, the thought is not foreign that he might have been such during their first expedition to the land of the Pharaohs for the same purpose. In Gen. 46:26-28, upon the arrival of Jacob and his colony in Egypt, Judah, over any of his brethren, was sent in advance to Joseph to obtain directions as to their settlement in the land of Goshen. In Gen. 49:8. Judah was the one whom his brethren were to praise, and before whom his father's children were to bow down. In Psalms 78:67-68. the tribe of Judah was the one which God chose in preference even to ''the tabernacle of Joseph ' or ''the tribe of Ephraim." And whereas, it is declared in Heb. 7:14 in substance, that Christ was of the tribe of Judah, therefore is it certain, not only that the patriarchial foremanship was conferred upon Judah in person, but also that the tribal scepter was to continue with his tribe until Christ should come to be their Shiloh forever.

Q. But is it not true, at all events, that the Jews were without a law-giver more than once before the days of Christ, and have now been continuously so for many centuries?

A. Supposing the history of the Jews to have begun with their settlement in Goshen in the land of Egypt, they would at the present time aggregate a chronology of not less than thirty-six and a half centuries. But if a Jew has ever been a Jew, and is as much a Jew to-day as he ever was, how shall we account for the fact, (aside from the miraculous), except from the inference that a law-giver of some sort should have ever been in their midst, to perpetuate that sort of legislation without which they could not have been preserved as a race distinct, in spite of all captivity and the continuous seductive influences of other nations?

While we might think of a Chinaman as being to-day just what a Chinaman was centuries and centuries ago, and this for the very reason that his government and country have always been so very exclusive of other nations, yet when we think of the length of time the Jews we^e in bondage to the Egyptians, the length of time they formed a part of one great nation with the other tribes of Israel, the length of time they were the captives of the Babylonians, the many times they were raided and spoiled by their numerous foes, and the many centuries throughout which they have now been so thoroughly dispersed throughout other nations, it is no easy matter to think of their having been at any time entirely destitute of legislators, that were at least such to them, and that were at least Israelitish, if not directly Judaic. In Psalms 60:7. David is made to call Judah his law-giver; and in what sense that would seem to be more consistent than that the common legislators, for the house of Judah at least, would always be required to be as nearly Judaic as the race from time to time might afford ?

Q. But was not Moses, the great law-giver for the whole house of Israel, of the tribe of Levi? And has it not always been held that the Jewish Sanhedrim, in part at least, was always composed of members from that tribe?

A. While it was true enough that Jewish councils extraordinary were composed probably always of certain priestly officials who had to be of course of the tribe of Levi, it is nevertheless not certain from any scripture declaration that the ''elders of the people,'' as they were called, or any part of them, were of that tribe. But if we could make the elders of the people, that is, seventy of them, their Sanhedrim proper, none of them being of the tribe of Levi, we could understand of course what would be the source of their common legislation, at least during the time of their concentered nationality.

Q. But has not the law of Moses as dispensed always by certain priestly officials of the Aaronic school, been the very means of their preservation so long as a distinct race ?

A. But how could a written law, no matter how perfect it might be, continue under the world's changing scenes, to be available with any people, without a system of living legislation to keep it in vogue? While therefore, in a general way, it was true that certain priestly officials amongst the Jews were the proper expounders, dispensers and judges of the Mosaic law, it does not follow that they were the legislators for the people, only so far as they, the dispensers and judges of the Mosaic law, might see cause to ratify or veto the enactments of the elders of the people.

(2- But would not this plan have made their priestly officials superior to their legislators?

A. It would, and just as it should do, seeing that the executive and judicial departments in any government ought to be superior to its legislative department, and expressly so, to prevent the passage of obnoxious and nullifying laws.

Q. But although such might have been true throughout a portion of Jewish history, or that part of their history during which certain Levite priests seemed to be the guardians of the Mosaic law, what becomes of the plan before that law was given, and while they were subjects of the Pharaohs, and not under their own laws at all ?

A. While in that case we could not think of the Israelites, all told, as having been openly subject to any civil or political enactments other than those imposed by the Pharaohs, yet the moment we concede the fact that they must have remained in the mass a theocratic people throughout their bondage, it is only folly to conclude that they were not observant of certain rules and traditions heralded by or through their elders, if but covertly, that would tend to preserve them distinctly as the descendants of their ever honored ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Nor could we understand at all how their several tribes should have been so distinguishable one from the other, even to the very close of their hard bondage, except under the conception that some sort of legislation had not unfrequently been had amongst them, if but stealthily, through their elders.