lics in Great Britain by the Protestant Reformation Society. The reverend gentleman commenced his first lecture by saying that the Society had ascertained that whilst throughout Europe the Roman Catholic system was rapidly on the decline, in one country alone, it was advancing in influence every day. It was not because there was any fear of political supremacy that it was thus made prominent, but because he believed there were in England two millions of individuals - victims of a great delusion - deeply to be pitied because they had lost the way to reason. ∴ It was with this view that he supported an institution which employed thirty or forty God-fearing laymen who were specially educated in the various points of the Romish controversy, to go amongst the deluded Romanists in this realm. . . . . Now, he believed that "a good time was coming" although he was not a prophet, as the newspaper had represented him to be, predicting the end of the world at a given month and year. He showed them the signs of the ages, the significance of dates, and the moral epochs of the evening twilight of the world's long and chequered day. And now he would endeavour to show that all was to culminate in happiness when the twilight came.
That twilight might have a very dark night, but it would be a very short one, and one which would be followed by a twilight whose sunrise would have no western declension at all. Everybody (illegible text) in a Millenium. The Latins wrote about it and Virgil sang it. The heathen believed in it, and the Christian believed in it, because the Scripture taught it. He (Dr. Cumming) had always said that on those points on which good men differed, and which were non-essentials, he spoke with the utmost carefulness and reserve. When he spoke of the atonement regeneration, and justification by faith, he did so with all the dogmatism. He could, possibly exert, but when was speaking of unfulfilled prophecy he would admit he might be wrong. Why? Because God had not shown so plainly the things which were to come to pass as He had shown them those which had passed and those which were required to teach men the way of redemption. He submitted to his hearers limits and dates and facts, and he asked them to infer as reasonable men, the construction, which appeared to be the most probable. He need hardly tell them that the Millenium meant a thousand years. The reverend gentleman then read and commented on verses 7 to 13 of Peter iii, remarking that he looked for a new heaven, not another heaven; a new eath, not another earth. If they turned to Isiah ix, 17, they could read "Behold I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind;" and a feature in it shall be "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like a bullock, and dust shall be serpent's meat; they shalt not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." They would notice that as the previous economy - the antedeluvian - was cast in the waters of a desolating flood, so, say Peter, this present economy shall pass through a baptism, not -
Page:Item 10 1862.pdf/47
From Historical Hastings
This page has been proofread