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Epiphany Truth Examiner

SOME LIBNITE GERSHONITE ERRORS EXAMINED

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GERSHONISM
CHAPTER II

SOME LIBNITE GERSHONITE ERRORS EXAMINED

WM. CRAWFORD ON JUSTIFICATION. WM. CRAWFORD ON THE END OF ALL THINGS. 

HIDING himself behind the name, The Old Paths Publications, W.C., a former British manager; whose revolutionary course as such has been described in Chapter I, and who was the first Levite to be forced out of the Holy into the Epiphany Court for his gross revolutionisms against the Lord's arrangements for the London Bethel and Tabernacle, has been publishing a series of tracts, one of which, on justification by faith, has been sent us by one of our correspondents. It will be recalled that one of the charges that we then brought against him was his denial, in opposition to our Pastor's teachings, of the Scriptural doctrine that our Lord's merit is during the Gospel Age imputed to the justified; and another was his affirmation that the Church is actually purchased. But the tract shows, even as we should expect of so stubborn a sifter, that he has gone into error on many other points connected with justification. The following are some of these other errors: (1) The Millennial-Age and Gospel-Age justifications are, respectively, physical and by faith. (2) The Ancient Worthies' and our justification are exactly alike. (3) Faith is the only thing that is imputed in justification. (4) Christ does not impute His merit for us Godward. (5) God and Christ do not impute that merit to us. (6) From Pentecost onward God for eternity holds as inalienably His the ransom's merit by right of our actual sale. (7) God must retain it or undo the ransom. (8) The doctrine of Christ's depositing His merit with the Father is untrue. (9) Christ's imputing its credit as a loan for and to us is erroneous. 

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(10) God alone justifies. (11) The justified receive Adam's, not Jesus', right to life and life-rights. (12) The life-rights of the Church will in the Millennium purchase Adam and the world. 

Most of his errors are due to his confusing the work of the Ransomer, High Priest, Advocate, Mediator and Father. If we keep the distinctions in mind between the office works implied in these names, as set forth in Vol. IV, Chap. V, we will see through most of the fallacies of his position. Another thing that will help one to see through his fallacies is a well-rounded view that takes all the pertinent factors into consideration—a thing that he does not do. A third thing helpful in this connection is the teaching of Lev. 12, to the effect that the Little Flock developing Truth was gradually purified from error during the reaping period and was entirely free therefrom at its end, while W.C. in part holds on to the immature views of the early part of the Harvest to the denial of its mature final views. Without naming our Pastor, he almost throughout his tract opposes and seeks to refute our Pastor's mature findings—revolutionism. The above-mentioned twelve points, in addition to the two errors with which we charged him twenty-one years ago, show how he has progressed further in error. We will take up these points in the order given and refute them with Scripture, reason and facts from various viewpoints. 

(1) His first wrong teaching is the following: The Millennial justification is physical in contrast with the Gospel Age's justification as being by faith. Thus stated, his view is soon seen to be both imperfect and specious, hiding, perhaps designedly, the real distinctions in these two forms of justification. The contrast between these two justifications, if the second is called justification by faith, is the following: justification by works as against justification by faith. Again, the Millennial justification will be physical, mental, moral and religious, not simply physical, if one would point out 

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the sides of human nature that are to experience justification. Hence he has given, from the standpoint of the sides of man's nature to experience justification, a very incomplete definition. But if the nature of the condition of justification, as to effects, in these two Ages is to be contrasted, the proper distinction is: the Millennial justification will be actual; the present one is reckoned, not actual. But his teaching denies a reckoned justification, because of the latter's inevitable implications as to the imputation of Christ's merit and a reckoned purchase by Christ as now operative, in contrast with the actual application of Christ's merit and an actual purchase operative in the Millennium. Thus we see the cloven hoof in the clumsy and illogical contrast that he tries to make between Millennial and present justification. He thus runs true to form. 

(2) His next error is that the Ancient Worthies' and our justifications are exactly alike. As a matter of fact, they are alike only on one point, namely, the instrumental cause of justification in both cases is alike, i.e., faith is the only part of righteousness which God has required both classes to exercise in order tentatively to impute righteousness to them. And it is the only thing that He has imputed to both classes as righteousness, and therein their justification (tentative) is much alike. God did not, as W.C. contends He did, impute the robe of righteousness to the Ancient Worthies; for the good reason that such a robe was not then in existence. The tract under review cites Job 29:14, where job says: "I put on righteousness and it clothed me; and my judgment was as a robe and a diadem," as a proof that the robe of righteousness was imputed to the Ancient Worthies. But it confuses God's imputing the robe of righteousness in justification (Is. 61:10) with the Ancient Worthies' and our putting on (clothing ourselves with) the graces, of which righteousness, duty love, is one, in the work of sanctification (1 Pet. 5:5; Col. 3:12). 

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Clearly, job 29:14 and its connection prove that Job refers here to sanctification, not to justification. As we will show under the next point, Christ's righteousness is imputed, first tentatively, then vitalizedly, in our justification, a thing that was not a part of the Ancient Worthies' justification. The only thing that in justification covered their sins was faith (Rom. 4:3-8), which is not the robe of righteousness; while in our justification faith and the robe of righteousness cover our sins (Is. 61:10; Rom. 4:23-25). Nor was there, nor could there have been, a tentative or vitalized imputation of Christ's merit Godward in the justification of the Ancient Worthies (since it was not yet in existence), while there is such an imputation in our justification. Again, life was not imputed to the Ancient Worthies in justification, while it is in our tentative and vitalized justification. The proof of these three points we will give under our third line of argument. Thus, while in one respect these two justifications are similar, in three other very material respects they are quite unlike, which must be kept in mind. 

(3) The tract's third error is that faith is the only thing imputed in justification. As a consequence, it denies that Christ imputes His merit Godward for us, and that God has Him impute it to us. It most confusingly mixes up the ransom with justification, whereas it is not the Ransomer, but the Advocate—Attorney—who acts on our behalf in justification. Justification is a feature of a court scene, which implies God as judge, His justice as the law, the sinner as guilty defendant and Christ as Attorney, who satisfies justice in its twofold demands on the defendant: (1) who has broken the law and thus is guilty, justice, therefore, demanding his death, and (2) additionally, justice demands his perfect obedience to its laws, which demand the sinner cannot meet. As Advocate, Jesus satisfies both of these demands of justice—(1) His death, the evidence of which is His blood, offered as such in heaven 

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after His ascension, satisfying its demands for the sinner's death, and (2) His righteousness as a perfect human being satisfying the demands of justice for the sinner's perfect obedience to all its laws. The tract under review entirely ignores this second part of the Advocate's work Godward and usward, and that for the good reason that it denies what unanswerably flows from it, i.e., the only way that Christ's righteousness can be instantly bestowed, as it is in a faith-justifying dispensation, Godward and manward combinedly, is by imputation; because there cannot be an instantaneous making of a depraved character righteous, as distinct from imputing it righteous. It must, therefore, if it is done instantly, be done by imputation, both Godward and manward; for an actual giving of it instantly would be nonsense in a character-production process, an annihilation of such a process! Hence Christ's human, not new-creaturely, righteousness is in justification as a part of His merit imputed for and to the believer tentatively before and vitalizedly after consecration; for if Christ's human righteousness is imputed to us, it must have before been imputed to Divine justice for us, the former implying the latter. Therefore there are three imputations in justification 

(1) the merit of Christ's death and righteousness imputed to God's justice for us; (2) His righteousness imputed to us; and (3) faith—a part of righteousness—imputed to us for righteousness, i.e., all that the Father insists on our having, if He would justify us. The Advocate's work, therefore, destroys the main erroneous positions of the tract under review, i.e., that faith is the only thing imputed as righteousness in justification, which, without the Advocate, in the case of the Ancient Worthies was the only thing imputed; for it proves that Christ's righteousness is therein imputed Godward and manward. 

Additionally, the idea of substitution which is the special feature of the Advocate's work—that of our 

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Attorney appearing in Court for us as clients—wherein He substituted His death for our death sentence, and a sufficiency of His righteousness for our lacks in righteousness to satisfy instantaneously the two demands of justice on us for our instantaneous justification, and wherein He later substitutes as much of His righteousness as is needed to cover our post-justification sins instantly (1 John 2:1, 2) unanswerably proves that all of the acts in the heavenly Court that produce justification for us are imputative and from the nature of substitution cannot be otherwise. The Ransomer's work can be by the loan of His credit—a reckoned purchase—or by an actual purchase; but the Advocate's cannot be otherwise than by imputation; for the Advocate's work is that of substitution, which in its very nature must be imputative. How could another's death become ours except by imputation? How could another's righteousness become instantaneously ours except by imputation? But His death does become ours (Is. 53:3-12; 1 Cor. 15:3; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 John 2:2); and His righteousness does become ours instantaneously (Rom. 4:20-26; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:16; 3:22; Phil. 3:9; in the first and in the last three citations the expression faith of Jesus Christ means the faithfulness, righteousness, of Jesus Christ as a human being). These considerations on the Advocate's work—substitution—overthrow practically every point of the tract under review in its attacks on our Pastor's teachings on justification. Its errors on this point, let us repeat, are due to its failure to recognize that it is the Advocate's, not the Ransomer's work to effect justification by faith during the Gospel Age. It is the instantaneousness of the Advocate's securing all the features of justification that limits the Advocate's work to this Age; for the Millennial justification will require the thousand years to accomplish, and therefore there will then be no Advocate. 

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We further disprove the proposition that faith is the only imputed thing in justification by another line of thought—everything in the Gospel-Age justification is a matter of imputation. Thus the removal of death that we experience therein is not an actual, but a reckoned thing. So, too, the bestowal of perfect and eternal life that we receive therein is also not actual, but reckoned; otherwise we would not be dying, which we do even apart from sacrificing, and would have perfect bodies (John 5:27, 28; 1 John 5:12). Moreover, our perfection is not an actual, but a reckoned thing (Heb. 10:14); otherwise we would be actually flawless. Admittedly, faith is imputed as righteousness in the present Age (Rom. 4:3-8, 23-25). Undoubtedly, the Bible teaches that Christ in His human righteousness is made our righteousness (Rom. 3:21-26; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:16; 3:22; Phil. 3:9; as pointed out above the expression, faith of Jesus Christ, in the first and last three of the above passages means, the faithfulness, righteousness, of Jesus Christ as a human being); and as we showed above, this cannot be possible in a faith-justification dispensation except as an imputed matter. Above we proved that the use of the merit by the Advocate Godward, in the Court picture, is also an imputed matter; for in a substitution of one for another the substitute's merits cannot be given, they must be imputed to the other. And, finally, a seventh fact proves this: Not His full merit, but only so much of the Substitute's merit is imputed to each one as is needed to bring up his deficiencies to perfection. This principle is manifest from certain features connected with the ransom, but not of the entire ransom-price itself, in the jubilee type: The varying prices paid to redeem, not a debt (which required the whole sum—typical of the debt of the human all surrendered in death and met in the ransom), but a slave or a piece of property, dependent on the length of time to the next jubilee, were typical 

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of the varying amounts of the ransom-merit required for the reckoned purchase to bring people from varying degrees of imperfection to perfection. Such a transaction types how the credit of parts of the ransom-merit are loaned to individuals, squaring each of them with human perfection, which is typed by the jubilee condition—restitution. That this same principle of dealing applies to the Advocate's picture is evident from 1 John 2:1, 2, where the Advocate is shown to make good before Divine justice our sins of weakness and ignorance committed even after we entered the state of both tentative and vitalized justification, the Advocate's picture proving that imputation, not an actual or reckoned buying, is the pertinent act. These seven things connected with justification, covering its every aspect in the present Age, demonstrate that in justification, not only is faith imputed for righteousness, but also Christ's merit (His death and righteousness) is imputed Godward and usward. But they prove more than this. They prove that the buying of the Church by our Lord is not an actual, but a reckoned thing, which fact destroys practically every error of the tract under review in its opposition to the Scriptural views of our Pastor, and, prove our Pastor to have taught correctly on the pertinent subjects, as by 1914 he did on all reaping subjects. 

(4) and (5) The two errors of the tract marked (4) and (5) above, i.e., that Christ does not impute His merit for the Church Godward, but pays it over to God in a finished actual purchase, and that God does not impute Christ's merit to us, are disproved by the two preceding points and need no further discussion. 

(6) The sixth error of the tract is this: From Pentecost onward God for eternity holds as inalienably His the ransom-price by right of an actual sale. The tract attempts to prove this by Heb. 9:12. But the eternal redemption here spoken of was obtained before Jesus entered the Most Holy; "having obtained eternal

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redemption," therefore it has no reference to putting the blood on the antitypical mercy seat, let alone binding it to remain there eternally. It refers to His sin offering merit, which Paul calls our eternal redemption, because it was to secure the latter by its sprinkling on the mercy seat and altar. No Scripture teaches the thought of the tract under review, that God from Pentecost onward must forever hold the ransom as inalienably His. In elaborating this point the tract mixes up the sin-offering with the ransom figure, and utterly neglects to discuss the only feature pertinent to justification—the Advocate's work of substitution—in connection with the discussion of the pertinent point; but claims as proof of its contention that the blood remained on the mercy seat. While the merit used in ransoming and in making atonement is one and the same, the acts differ: the one purchases, the other reconciles. W.C. uses the point that the blood was left on the mercy seat, where it took away God's displeasure at our sins, to prove that nothing was imputed to us of Christ's merit in justification. But he forgot that the same blood was sprinkled upon the altar to reconcile it (Lev. 16:18). This altar represents the humanity of Jesus and the Church. The sprinkling of the bullock's blood on that altar did not type the imputation of Jesus' merit to Himself, for He did not need it for perfection. Rather, it typed His imputation of His merit to us, as distinct from His imputing it to God to take away His anger at our sins (sprinkling it on the mercy seat). These two things complete the first part of our reconciliation to God, making us pleasing to God; while the sprinkling of the goat's blood on the altar types the performing of the second part of our atonement, making God pleasing to us, which occurs through the perfecting of our characters by our sacrificial suffering—the antitypical Goat's blood. This consideration completely refutes his point taken from the blood remaining on the mercy seat, as 

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a proof that Christ's merit is not imputed to us in addition to its being placed on the antitypical mercy seat. The same thing is proven by Lev. 9:9, and is implied in v. 12. Aaron's sons' presenting the bullock's blood to Aaron types the Little Flock's offering their tentatively-received justification—tentatively reckoned perfect bodies, right to life and life-rights—to Christ in consecration; and Aaron's sprinkling it on the altar represents our Lord's performing that part of His; work of vitalizing our justification that consists of His imputing to us the amount of His merit needed to make us pleasing to God; and thus He completes the first part of the at-one-ment, which first part has these two steps: (1) by the blood covering the antitypical mercy seat, taking away God's anger at our sins; and 1 (2) by the blood on the antitypical altar, making Him pleased with us as righteous (by Christ's imputed merit). The sprinkling of the blood not only on the book, but on the people, in principle, disproves this sixth error (Heb. 9:19-23). These considerations destroy the sixth error of W.C.'s tract and lend further proof against the tract's third, fourth and fifth errors. 

(7) His seventh error is that God must retain the ransom-price or the ransom work would be void. He uses this point against the thought that Christ gets His ransom-merit back from the Father and then loans the credit of it to the Church now, and will give it to the world in the next age. In P '29, 44, par. 6, we give seven facts that prove that God does this very thing. We herewith quote those proofs: 

"We know that God gives back to Jesus the ransom price as an asset after Jesus uses it to purchase Adam's forfeited assets, from the following facts: (1) In the priesthood figure, not only did Aaron sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat (satisfy justice), but he made atonement for the altar (made our humanity reckonedly perfect). (2) In the mediator figure, not only did Moses sprinkle the book (satisfy justice), but he

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also sprinkled of the blood of the bulls and goats on the people (typically lifted the people up to perfection by typically bestowing of his merit on them). (3) John 6:27-58 and 3:15, 16 also show the double giving; for John 3:15, 16 shows that the ransom of the Son cancels the sentence ("not perish") and gives perfection ("eternal life") and John 6:27-58 shows that the meat which endureth unto everlasting life is given by the Son. And that meat is His flesh (v. 27). In v. 33 He shows that this is His humanity and that it gives life to the world, not simply forgiveness of sins. V. 50 shows that His humanity, if appropriated by a person, will keep one from death, frees from and keeps free from the sentence. V. 51 shows that His humanity is that which He will give for the life of the world, that is, for the bestowing of everlasting life upon him who appropriates ("eats") it. John 6:27-58, therefore, shows that our Lord's death not only cancels the sins of the Church and the world, but also bestows life everlasting on the one who appropriates that which He laid down, that is, His humanity and His right to life and life-rights. In these verses His flesh stands for His humanity and His blood for His human right to life and human life-rights. 

"(4) The same is taught in the Lord's Supper: Our eating of the bread represents not only that we appropriate forgiveness, but that we appropriate what He was—a perfect human being with His right to life and life-rights—'This is [represents] My body which is given for you, etc.' This is evidently represented in the Lord's Supper, even as John 6 gives the key to the understanding of that Supper. (5) Heb. 10:14 shows that by His merit He perfects the humanity of the Church, not only that He secures its forgiveness. (6) Jesus, being the Second Adam, as a Father gives life that is His own to the world, as well as imputes it to us, in addition to securing forgiveness. (7) In justification the same things work: God forgives us and the 

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righteousness of Christ is imputed to us as our righteousness (Rom. 3:21, 22; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:16; 3:22; Phil. 3:9). These seven proofs show that Jesus' merit not only cancels the sentence, but also gives perfect humanity with the pertinent rights imputedly to the Church and actually to the world." So far our quotation from P '29, 44, par. 6. We might add to them both proofs previously given above, from Lev. 16:18 and 9:9, 12. Also the jubilee type shows this. To cancel a debt before the jubilee required its full payment: The whole ransom must be reckonedly paid to God to secure us from bankruptcy resulting in slavery to God unto death—the antitype of the debt; but to release one from slavery or one's property from others' ownership before the jubilee required a graded payment, dependent on the varying lengths of time to the jubilee. This types the fact that only so much of the ransom-merit is imputed for and to one as is needed to make him perfect. The above ten proofs demonstrate the falsity of the seventh error, whose folly is now manifest. 

Moreover, his seventh error is transparent nonsense for it implies that one having received full payment in a business transaction, cannot use the purchase price for some other financial matter without voiding the first transaction. In business such things are constantly being done; and who is so foolish as to claim that the later transactions void the earlier? Moreover, there would be no ransom-price available for the purchase of the world unless God and our Lord by a reckoned, not an actual purchase, had so arranged as to let Jesus have a claim on the deposited merit in order later to purchase, actually, the world; for if to make operative a faith-justification method of salvation, our Lord had to surrender forever His claim on His merit by an actual purchase, such an arrangement would have estopped His having the ownership of that merit to purchase the world for a works justification method 

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of salvation. The tract seeks to evade the force of this fact by the claim that the world is not purchased by Christ's ransom-merit, but by the Church's life-rights! The mess it makes of this matter we will consider later. But this evasion shows the straits to which W.C. is put by his errors on justification. 

(8) His next error is the teaching that it is untrue that Christ put His merit on deposit with the Father. This error directly contradicts the proper translation of Luke 23:46. 

(9) His ninth error is: Christ does not impute in the Advocate's figure, or in the ransom figure lend to us the credit of, His merit. Above we have given abundant proof that He does. To prove its point the tract under review claims that one cannot pay a debt by a loan. Then it gives as an illustration of its meaning: a man lending to his creditor for a week the amount of his debt and claiming that he thereby discharges his debt. If that illustration fitted the case that it is alleged to illustrate, of course it would prove the tract's point; but it utterly fails to fit the case. The following is the actual situation: The whole race is involved in the debt of Adam—it stands in full against each and all. It, therefore, requires as much to purchase one as to purchase all. God sees that the race so involved in debt consists of two classes: (1) a faith class, capable of development in character fit for spiritual natures of varying orders; and (2) an unbelief class capable of development no higher than perfect human nature. He desires to help each to attain his highest possibilities. Therefore He determined to deal with the faith class under faith-exacting conditions which they can endure and which will fit them for various spiritual natures—conditions too strenuous for the others to endure because of their lack of faith, whom, therefore, He decides to try under conditions not so exacting as to faith, as under such only can they be successful. But all alike have 

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the same debt against them, whose full equivalent our Lord has, in their interests. It being necessary to test these two classes under two different dispensational provisions, and it taking all Christ's merit to free one or all in the first dispensational process, some arrangement had to be devised to matte it available for the second; otherwise the one and same debt owed by those under the second would have no corresponding-price available to free its subjects. To meet this situation, God arranged for Christ, not actually, but reckonedly to purchase the Church, as follows: (1) to deposit the ransom-price into God's hands (Luke 23:46); (2) to appear before God to purchase (reckonedly) only the Church (Rev. 5:9; 14:3, 4), by imputing the credit of His deposit with God for the Church. God could accept a loan of the credit of this deposit without violating Divine justice, and that for three reasons: (1) The Deposit covered the full debt involved: (2) it left that price fully in His hands; and (3) Christ previously pledged Him that He would put all on whose behalf He loaned the credit of the Deposit into death as humans forever—either into the sacrificial death (Little Flock), or the ministerial death (Great Company), or the second death,—so that God would actually, as long as they lived, have in His hands the full value of their debt to Him, as security for His full rights in them. 

These three things made God fully satisfied by a loan of credit to us which was covered fully by the ransom-price as security. And since this remains in God's hands until the pertinent persons are all dead forever as humans, the involved acts are properly to be regarded as a reckoned purchase. This, also, when all the pertinent persons are dead, leaves the deposit free from claims of the formerly outstanding loans of credit; for the formerly outstanding loans will be no longer loans, the death of the pertinent persons freeing the merit from the embargoes on it; for beings 

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(the human beings) who are dead forever in the hands of justice can no more have the loans formerly made for them, their human all now being forever in the hand of the creditor as owned by Him, which cancels the loans. Hence at the end of this Age the deposited merit will be free from all embargoes formerly resting on it by virtue of the outstanding loans of its credit. Hence Christ, owning this deposit, has it available for an actual purchase of the world, which He will make, to cause the works-justifying process of salvation to operate. The many proofs that we gave above of imputations, which in the ransom figure assume the actuality of a reckoned purchase by a deposit, by a surrender of temporal control over the deposit to God and by loans of credit from our Lord to us, prove that the Gospel-Age arrangement was made effective as above described, and conserve the ownership of the ransom with our Lord actually to purchase the world in the next Age. How utterly unfit to the actual conditions as above described is, therefore, the tract's illustration to prove one cannot pay a debt by a week's loan of the amount of the debt. Our proofs above demonstrate the imputation and the reckoned purchase by Jesus as Advocate and Ransomer. 

(10) The tenth proposition as given in the tract is in part erroneous. It is this, viz., God alone justifies. While He is the most important agent in justification, He is one of three agents therein. The complete truth on the subject is this: Three agents justify, but each from a different standpoint: (1) God as Benefactor and judge alone is the originating and efficient cause of justification (Rom. 8:33); (2) Christ alone is the meritorious cause of justification (Rom. 3:22-26; 5:1; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:16; 3:22; Phil. 3:9); (3) Faith is the only instrumental cause of justification, i.e., the only agent that lays hold on and appropriates justification (see passages just referred to and numerous others). 

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(11) The next error of the tract under review is: The justified received Adam's, not Jesus' right to life and life-rights. It falls into this error as follows: Jesus purchases Adam's forfeited rights, which would then be His assets after the purchase; therefore the Church receives Adam's, not Jesus' right to life and life-rights. We have already discussed this question (P '29, 44, 45). Above we gave many proofs to the contrary. Jesus' merit purchases Adam's life-rights; but the Scriptures clearly show, in part by the proofs that we gave under (3) and (7), that it is Jesus' right to life and life-rights that are imputed to us and that will be given to the world. It is the bullock's blood that was sprinkled on the altar—Jesus' and the Church's humanity, but here sprinkled only for the Church's humanity (Lev. 16:18; 9:9, 12). It will be the blood of the antitypical Bullock and Goat that will be sprinkled on the antitypical people—the world (Heb. 9:19-23). Thus He is not only the propitiation for the Church and the world (1 John 2:2), but life for the Church and the world. Adam is not the father of our and the world's justified humanity. Jesus is the reckoned Father—life-giver—of our humanity (John 5:27, 28; 1 John 5:12), and will be the actual Father of the world (Is. 9:6); for He, not the Adam who sinned, and who forever lost life for us, is the Second Adam, the Second Life-Giver, who gives eternal life (1 Cor. 15:45-48); for, as per P '29, 44, 45, quoted above, God arranged with Jesus to have the right of imputing or giving His, not Adam's, rights. Adam's are not used at all in these acts, reckonedly or actually. 

(12) The final error of the tract under review that we will answer is this: The life-rights of the Church will purchase Adam and the world in the Millennium. The tract's author thinks that this is true, because the Church is the antitype of the Lord's goat as a sin-offering. This error, in the first place, is based on a confusion of the ransom and the Church's share in the

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sin-offering; and is supposed to be taught by the type of Lev. 16. But its propounder has seemingly forgotten that it is the merit of the antitypical Bullock that constitutes the merit of the antitypical Goat, and not, as he says, the merit of the antitypical Goat that constitutes the merit of the second sin-offering's blood-sprinkling. The type of Lev. 9 was given for the express purpose of denying that it is the Church's merit that atones (Lev. 9:7); for Lev. 9:7 shows that it was the bullock's blood that made atonement for everyone in Israel: priests, Levites and Israelites, though the goat's blood was connected with it in this service. Please read our Pastor's remarks on this in T 79. The proper thought is this: Christ's merit is by and through the second sin-offering-the humanity of the Church—made available for the purchase of the world; thus Christ's merit through the Church's sin-offering purchases the world, makes propitiation for the world (1 John 2:2), seals the Covenant world-ward (blood of bulls and goats; Heb. 9:19-23), gives the right to life and life-rights (Second Adam), etc., etc., etc.

But the real mess that W.C. makes of his thought that the Church's life-rights will purchase—ransom—Adam and the world, comes out in the way the tract tries to explain how the life-rights of 144,000 persons can ransom Adam and his race: He puts it like this: Christ and the Church as the Mystery have but one individuality; hence the 144,00 life-rights are a corresponding price for Adam and the race. This is a total error. They are indeed one Company, one Body, and have but one will and, therefore, but one identity, but they have 144,001 individualities. Each member of the Christ is an individual ("We being many are one Body"), though they have only one identity—the Head. The Body's human life-rights are those of 144,000 individuals. Hence these cannot be the corresponding price—the purchase-price—of 

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the life-rights of Adam (his lost race never had life-rights or the right to life). A corresponding-price—a perfect human being with the right to life and life-rights—is the purchase-price for Adam; and this corresponding-price, including among its life-rights the right to beget a race with the right to life with its accompanying life-rights, covers all the needs of the race lost in Adam by that particular life-right. Thus our Lord alone ransoms the Church by a reckoned purchase and Adam and his race by an actual purchase. The Church shares in the ransom, not from the standpoint of its merit being the ransom-price for the world, but from the standpoint (1) that: Her sacrifice, as sharing in His sufferings, makes Christ's ransom-price available for use in purchasing the world; and (2) as members of His, sharing with Him in the ownership of His human merit, or as His Bride, sharing with Him, Her Husband, in all His possessions (and this thought underlies all pertinent types and literal Scriptures); but (3) not by her own human life-rights being used as the purchase-price is Adam and the world ransomed; for these are the life-rights of 144,000 individuals, and no amount of juggling with words can make them a corresponding-price to Adam's forfeited rights. Christ's merit and Christ's merit alone is the ransom-price. A humble spirit would never have taught the error that we have just refuted. 

Before closing this subject we desire to refer to an error that is not held by W.C., so far as we know, but that a correspondent of ours has allowed to deceive her into endorsing the teachings of an elder whose views we refuted in P '29, 44, 45, under the title, Some Ransom Considerations. She says that she was led to endorse his view which denies that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, because, she says, it is impossible to spot the robe of Christ's righteousness. If she had understood that our Lord imputes to each one, not all 

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of His human righteousness, but only so much as is needed to bring up his imperfect qualities to perfection, she would perhaps be able to see how we can spot our own robes, which are called Christ's righteousness, because He supplements our lacks of perfection until we are brought up to perfection. E.g., Paul may have lacked ten per cent of perfection; hence (as the jubilee type, as above explained, proves) our Lord would in his case impute but ten per cent of His human righteousness, which would make him reckonedly perfect and would constitute with his ninety per cent of perfection his robe (Col. 2:10; 2 Cor. 12:9). So viewed, our robe of righteousness, properly called, Christ's righteousness, can be spotted, not in that part of it which our Lord imputed, but in that part of it which we in ourselves had of good, though imperfect, and therefore had to be supplemented by as much of Christ's merit as is needed to make us reckonedly perfect. Our sins do not spot His merit, but our good. 

Let us be on our guard, Beloved, especially on the ransom and sin-offerings; for these are Satan's chief target, and he above all things seeks to make the Feet dash against that Rock (Ps. 91:12). If we dwell—are faithful—in the secret place—the antitypical Holy we will be kept safe (Ps. 91:1-6). 

In the Oct., Nov. and Dec., 1932, Berean Bible Student is published an article entitled, The End Of All Things, written by W.C., who was the first Levite to be led to the gate, who now masks himself under the name of The Old Paths Publications, and who in this, as in other tracts of his, forsakes the old paths as they were pointed out to the Lord's people by that Servant and points to new and devious paths for their feet. Apart from the one just examined and the one that we are now about to examine, we will not devote any more space to the examination of the numerous errors in his many other articles and tracts. Now to the one before us. We will first quote G. K. Bolger's 

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endorsement of it (an endorsement of revolutionism) and his analysis of it, so that our readers may see what the teachings of the article are. Then we will give our understanding of the main pertinent points as a basis for our refutation of its positions. G. K. Bolger's comments are as follows 

"If the reader will turn to the Comments on Daniel, chapters 2 and 7, and Revelation, chapters 12, 13 and 17, he will be instantly convinced that the present study is indeed a supplementary contribution which establishes more firmly than ever the Truth already brought from the 'storehouse' by our beloved Pastor. It bears the unmistakable evidence of having been produced by one of the faithful 'scribes' (writers) of whom Jesus spoke in Matt. 13:52, who, 'instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven' is like 'a householder who bringeth forth out of his treasury things new and old.' In order that the reader may visualize beforehand the salient features that are different, as well as those points that are identical with the views already given of the 'Gentile beast' in 'Studies in The Scriptures,' the following outline is herewith given: It must be borne in mind throughout this study that the 'Four Beasts' of Daniel are identical with the first four [heads] of the 'seven beasts' [heads] of Revelation which depicts but one beast 'having seven heads,' and also an 'eighth, which is of the seven.' It is therefore evident that the seven stages of the one long period of Gentile dominion, are most vividly represented by seven heads upon the one Gentile beast, whose first head was Babylon. 

"First Head, Babylon, represented by Nebuchadnezzar. 

"Second Head, the Kingdom of Medo-Persia. 

"Third Head, the Kingdom of Greece. 

"Fourth Head, Imperial Rome. 

"Fifth Head, Papal Rome. 

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"Sixth Head, Protestantism—the English 'Mother' church and her daughters. 

"Seventh Head, 'The League of Nations'—not as now seen, in the making—but as the 'image of the Beast,' possessing life and great power. 

"Eighth Head, Papacy, the Man of Sin, Son of Perdition—'the beast that was, and is not, and yet now is' restored to temporal power—having 'ascended out of the bottomless pit.' This 'head' will be the last 'end' of the Gentile 'beast,' which 'goeth into perdition'—utter destruction, oblivion." 

Thus it is seen that G. K. B. credulously swallows this view, hook, line, sinker, bobber and pole, just as he did Adam Rutherford's view on, Behold the Bridegroom. Though recognizing that it differs materially from our Pastor's, he claims that it substantiates his view and while at it he betrays him with Judas-like kisses, "our dear Pastor," as he has often before done while advocating teachings contrary to his. As a means of furnishing a firm foundation for our refutation of these "new views," we will make some general remarks on the fourth beast of Dan. 7, and on the beasts of Rev. 12, 13 and 17. 

Not only in general does Studies, Vol. III, pp. 19-226, cover the main features of Rev. 12, 13 and 17, but specifically on page 131 do we find a diagram that gives us a partial key to the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of Rev. 17 and a fairly full key to the seven-headed and ten-horned beasts of Rev. 12 and 13. Please see the diagram. The foregoing remark leads to another consideration that must be kept in mind to enable us to see daylight on the subject of Daniel's ten- (eleven, counting the little—papal—horn) horned beast and the three seven-headed and ten-horned beasts of Rev. 12, 13 and 17. While in general they represent the Roman government, they represent it from four not just identical standpoints. The ten horns of Daniel's beast are not the same ten

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horns as those of the three Revelation beasts. The following are the eleven horns of Daniel's beast: The Roman Republic; The Roman Empire; The Western Empire; The Kingdom of the Heruli; The Kingdom of the Ostrogoths; The Papacy; The Exarchate of Ravenna; The Kingdom of the Longobards; The Holy Roman Empire; The Kingdom of Naples, and The Kingdom of Italy. The seventh, eighth and tenth of these did not hold sway over the city of Rome; the others did; and all of them held sway over more or less of Italy. The reason why we begin with the Roman Republic is because the fourth beast of Daniel 7 had it as its first form to come under the scope of Scriptural prophecy. Again, the seven heads of the beasts of Rev. 12 and 13 are not just the same as the seven heads of the beast of Rev. 17, though much alike. The diagram (Studies, Vol. III, 131) shows that he there counts Rome as a republic as the first head, and this is correct for the beasts of Rev. 12 and 13, but it is not correct for the beast of Rev. 17. Why, one may ask, should we differentiate between the ten (eleven) horns of Daniel's beast and the ten horns of the three Revelation beasts? We answer that the ten horns of the Revelation beasts are contemporaneous and exist at present (Rev. 17:12-17), while the fact that three horns were plucked up to make way for the little horn proves that all of the horns of Daniel's beast were not mainly contemporaneous, but arose successively, just as the seven heads of the (Rev. 12, 13) beasts are not contemporaneous, but arose successively, and those of the Rev. 17, except two, are not contemporaneous, but all arose successively. Again, most of the ten horns of Daniel's beast exist no more, while the ten horns of the Revelation beast all now exist. Briefly, we would say that we understand the ten horns of the Dan. 7 beast to represent successive powers that ruled in Italy, either in or outside of Rome, while the ten horns of the Revelation beasts

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represent the ten language nations of Europe, reigning for most of the time contemporaneously (Zech. 8:23). The connection shows this passage to apply at the end of this Age. Europe for centuries has consisted of more than ten nations. There are now over twenty of them there. But for centuries Europe has consisted, and still consists (as Zechariah says), of ten language nations—"ten men of all the languages of the [European] nations," even as Israel, with Hebrew as its national language, though citizened in many nations, is spoken of as an eleventh man in the same verse. These ten language nations are as follows: Greek, Turkish, Slavic, Magyar, Scandinavian, English, Hispanian, French, Germanic and Italian. There is, apart from scattered Israel, no other language group existing governmentally in Europe than these ten. Thus Zech. 8:23 gives us the key to the ten horns of the three beasts. 

But why, one may ask, do we claim a difference between the seven heads of the beasts of Rev. 12 and 13 and the seven heads of the beast of Rev. 17? We reply: From the diagram in Studies, Vol. III, 131, we see that Rome as a republic was the first head of Rev. 12 and 13. This cannot be true of the first head of Rev. 17; for Rome as a republic had ceased to be before our Lord's birth, Augustus being the first Roman Emperor, and Tiberius, his successor, being on the throne years before our Lord's baptism and death (Luke 2:1; 3:1-3), while, according to Rev. 17:9, 10, the Roman Catholic Church, which did not arise until nearly three centuries later, sat on all seven of the heads of the Rev. 17 beast, i.e., was supported by all seven of these heads. Hence its first head came after Rome as a republic ceased to exist. Moreover, it was only after the Dioclesian persecution ceased, 313 A. D., that the Roman Catholic Church began to be supported by the Roman Empire, i.e., after Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, came to the throne. 

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Hence the Pagan Roman had changed into the so called Christian Roman Empire, when the Roman Catholic Church began to sit on the first of the heads on which she has sat. Hence, from the standpoint of Rev. 17, we may call the first head of its beast, the so-called Christian Roman Empire. Its next five heads are the following: The Western Empire, the Kingdom of the Heruli, the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, the Papacy and the Kingdom of Italy founded by the House of Savoy in 1870, which, as our Pastor correctly taught, is the seventh head of the beasts of Rev. 12 and 13. A marked difference between the eleven horns of Daniel's beast and the seven heads of the three Revelation beasts is this: all of these heads ruled at Rome; but not all of Daniel's horns ruled at Rome, though all ruled in Italy. 

What is the seventh head of the beast of Rev. 17? It must have come into existence years after 1870; for the angel's statement (Rev. 17:10) to the effect that the sixth head—the Italian Kingdom as the seventh of the Rev. 12 and 13 beasts—was in existence, was made from 1891 onward to 1914; and, as we will show that the State of the Vatican recently established is the eighth head, the seventh must have already come. What, then, is it? We reply: It is the Fascist Italian State, which, having overthrown the Italian Constitution adopted under the House of Savoy and having destroyed parliamentarianism, an essential part of the Italian Kingdom, has organized an entirely different form of government from the limited monarchy established by the House of Savoy. Its establishment followed the Fascist Revolution of late Oct., 1922, whose climax was the Fascists' march to, and occupation of Rome. Hence it is another kingdom and is the seventh head of the Rev. 17 beast. The viewpoints of the pictures of Rev. 12 and 13, beginning with the Rome republic, when Rome first came to view in prophecy, and stopping short of the Time of Trouble, 

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1914, naturally do not contemplate the Fascist Italian State within their scope; while the Rev. 17 viewpoint, embracing exclusively the period of the Roman Catholic Church in its being supported by the Roman State (the woman seated on the seven heads), begins with the time of Constantine, shortly after 313, and ends with the harlot's annihilation in Armageddon. From this last viewpoint, we understand the Fascist Italian State to be the seventh and the Vatican State to be the eighth, head of the Rev. 17 beast. 

There are some contrasted expressions that should be kept in mind while thinking on the subject of the beasts in Revelation. One of these is this: Whereas in Rev. 12, 13 and 16 the Roman government as a political power exclusively in its various phases is meant by the dragon, beginning with Rev. 13, and always afterward, the expression, the beast, applies to it as it exists in the papacy, one of its heads. Hence from Rev. 12 onward, the civil power as distinct from the papacy is called the dragon, while in contrast the papacy invariably from Rev. 13 onward is called the beast. This contrast can be seen especially as between chapters 12 and 13 and also in chapter 13, and is very manifest in Rev. 16:13, as it is also in part seen in Ps. 91:13. This also applies to chapter 17. Thus the sixth head of the beasts of Rev. 12 and 13 and the fifth and eighth heads of the beast of Rev. 17, are the papacy; and, while at the same time it thus is meant by certain heads, it also from Rev. 13 onward is called the beast. Another peculiarity of contrasted expressions that should be kept in mind is the clear-cut distinction that Rev. 17 makes between the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy, which most people look upon as the same. The Roman Catholic Church is a denomination. The papacy (in its full sense) is the hierarchy, which has as its head the pope, and which has usurped control of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church existed before the papacy. This distinction is shown in several 

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ways in Rev. 17. The Roman Catholic Church is the harlot who sits on the beast (Rev. 17:3), which is the papacy. Again, she is the woman who sits on the seven heads, one of which, as well as the beast, is the papacy (Rev. 17:9). 

The seven heads are defined (v. 9) first in a figurative way, as seven mountains, and then, literally, as seven kings, which word in prophecy is frequently used for kingdoms (Dan. 2:44; 7:17, 24; 8:20; 11:5, 6, etc.), while in many passages, the word, mountain, is used figuratively to represent a kingdom (Dan. 2:35; Is. 2:2, 3; 11:9; 25:6, 7, 10; 30:29; 56:7; 57:7, 13; 65:11; 25; 66:20, etc.). The time that God's people began to expound, etc., the message of Vol. III as to the Roman government in its various heads was especially from 1891, when Vol. III was published, onward; and since the papal head ceased to be in 1870, the beast from 1891 until just recently could truly be spoken of as having once been, as not longer being and as later coming to be again (vs. 8, 11). This was repeatedly done by them, as all of us know, from 1891 onward. All of us know that they spoke of the beast (papacy) being from 539 until 1870, then of its being out of existence as a temporal power, and then as coming again later into existence as a temporal power. Certainly the papacy originally, when it became the fifth head, ascended out of the abyss—error (Rev. 11:7); and in its second time of becoming a head—the eighth—it came out of the abyss—error, especially its claims to temporal power by Divine right as an alleged necessity of its office requirements (v. 8). God says it goes to destruction. 

At the time when God's people were expounding the message of, and matters germane to Vol. III, they taught that the so-called Christian Roman Empire, the Western Empire, the Kingdom of the Heruli, the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Papacy—the five kings—had fallen—ceased to be—and that another

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(the sixth of the Rev. 17 kings, or heads) reigned, viz., the Italian Kingdom of the House of Savoy. They also, without understanding its character, forecast the coming of another—the seventh—which has proven to be the Fascist Italian State. They did not know exactly the length of the stay of what proved to be the Fascist State, but from v. 10, as well as from the chronology, they knew that its stay would be short. It will probably last until the symbolic earthquake, although it could fall before, and if it should, the papacy would get exclusive power in Rome; for if another power should do this before Armageddon, there would be nine heads—a thing contradictory to the Scriptures (vs. 9-11). The Lord's people often mistakenly spoke of an eighth beast coming, calling it a headless beast, mistakenly understanding that it would be the form of government following the Revolution. Their mistake on this point is, of course, not shown in the angel's speech. On the contrary, the first time the angel says anything about the eighth (king, i.e., head) he speaks of it as an already existing thing—"The beast … is himself an eighth [king]." This proves that the true interpretation would not be clearly declared by the Lord's people until the beast as the eighth (king, i.e., head) would be here. The fulfilment has finally enabled us to understand its character and the time of its coming, as we knew and declared beforehand, on the basis of Rev. 17:9-11, that some kind of an eighth power would come. The angel's statement, therefore, proves that now is the due time for the Lord's people to declare, especially to one another, the presence of its eighth king, or head. 

The beast (v. 11)—the papacy—which was until 1870, and which, at least from 1891 onward until recently, was spoken of by God's people as not being, i.e., not existing as a temporal power, becomes the eighth king. We add the word king after the word ogdoos (masculine), eighth, because the masculine adjective

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ogdoos requires a masculine noun for completeness, and the connection (vs. 9, 10) shows that the angel is speaking of the heads as representing kingsbasileis (plural), basileus (singular). The word beast (therion), being neuter in Greek, cannot be supplied after the word ogdoos, whose masculine form cannot be used with the neuter therion. If therion were to be supplied, the word form for eighth would be ogdoon. Moreover, the facts of the case disprove the reading, eighth beast; for nowhere do the Scriptures speak of such a thing, when treating on this subject. Nor can the word head (though it is the proper symbol for the thing meant—v. 9) be inserted after the word ogdoos; for the Greek word for head (kephale), used in this connection, is feminine, and to agree with it the Greek word for eighth would have to be feminine in form which, therefore would have to read ogdoe. Hence, properly, the connection shows that basileus, king, must be supplied after the word ogdoos—eighth. Hence the following is the proper translation: "And the beast which was, and is not, is also an eighth [king] himself, and is [one] of the seven." The papacy, as the fifth king of the Rev. 17 beast, is self-evidently, as the eighth, one of the seven kings—kingdoms. Praise be to God for the next clause: "and he goes down into destruction." 

The above points, vindicating our Pastor's view and adding to it certain harmonious things that have occurred since his death in fulfilment of Rev. 17, give us a basis from which it is easy to refute W.C.'s views, as expressed in his booklet, "The End Of All Things," and republished in the Oct., Nov. and Dec. Berean Bible Student. We will now proceed to refute the view, first refuting it on general lines and then refuting its more or less essential details. 

(1) W.C.'s view sets aside that Servant's demonstrably true views on the three seven-headed beasts of Revelation, on the two-horned beast of Rev. 13 and on 

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the image of the beast of Revelation, and sets in their place demonstrably false views. This is Azazelian revolutionism—just what we should expect to come from one who has the unenviable lot of having been the first member of Azazel's Goat to be led to the gate and the fit man in the Epiphany. In this action he has shown that he pays our Pastor the same contemptuous disregard that he accorded him in his place as that Servant in charge of the London Bethel and Tabernacle. Certainly the Lord would not use such an one to bring forth things new. 

(2) W.C. claims that Bro. Russell's view has not been sustained by historical facts; hence, he claims, it must be set aside for one that is (allegedly) so sustained. He has not put himself to the pains of pointing out even one particular wherein our Pastor's view of Daniel's and Revelation's beasts is unhistorical. We are certain he cannot do this. Above we have shown it to be thoroughly in harmony with the fulfilled facts of history. Hence his claim for the necessity of a contrary view falls to the ground. 

(3) W.C.'s view violates the Bible's usage, that only one beast is used to symbolize one government, though it may symbolize that one government's varying forms by a number of horns or heads; but never does the Bible use one beast to represent a number of successive governments, as W.C.'s view holds. Nebuchadnezzar's metallic image is used to represent a number of successive governments by its various parts; but never is a beast in Biblical symbols so used. Thus the various beasts of Daniel 7 and 8 in each case represent but one government. This is true of the four beasts of Revelation, as Bro. Russell's Biblically and historically corroborated view proves. Hence pertinent Biblical usage defeats W.C.'s view. 

(4) Neither the Babylonian, Persian nor Grecian empires (nor the Pagan Roman Republic and Empire, which made Rome a universal government) ever supported 

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the Roman Catholic Church, because as universal empires (as such the four beasts of Daniel are presented) they were out of existence centuries before the Roman Catholic Church arose; nor as existent non-universal kingdoms have they, since their destruction as universal empires, ever supported the Roman Catholic Church. But all seven heads of the beast of Rev. 17 have supported the Roman Catholic Church ("on which the woman sitteth," Rev. 17:9). Therefore the Babylonian, Persian and Grecian empires cannot be three of the heads of the beast of Rev. 17. Nor can republican nor imperial Pagan Rome be one of these heads, since they never supported the Roman Catholic Church, which first began to receive support from the Roman beast when it became nominally Christian, under Constantine, and that after the last Pagan Roman persecution ended, in 313 A.D. No sophistry of W.C. on the preceding empire's being (allegedly) assimilated into the later picture can meet this point. It simply annihilates his entire view so far as Rev. 17 is concerned; and it does the same with his view of the red dragon's and beast's heads of Rev. 12 and 13; for he makes them the same as those of the Rev. 17 beast. That the heads of the red dragon of Rev. 12, which are identical with the heads of the Rev. 13 beast, are not the same in every case as those of the Rev. 17 beast, is evident from the facts that all seven of the latter supported the Roman Catholic Church while the pagan head (Pagan Rome) of the red dragon persecuted both the Roman, as well as the True Church. 

(5) As proven above, the ten (yea, eleven) horns of the Daniel 7 beast are not in most cases identical with the ten horns of the three Revelation beasts, as is evident from the fact that most of these eleven horns are now extinct, whereas all of the ten horns of the three Revelation beasts still exist. But W.C.'s view, requiring these to be identical, is by their diversity proved to be false. As a matter of fact, the Roman 

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beast, coming into such varied contact with God's people in fulfilled prophecy, both before and during the Gospel Age, had to be given from varied standpoints. These four beasts, in each case, give a different viewpoint of the Roman beast and to make them identical is a demonstrated fallacy. Above we have pointed out these differences, against which W.C.'s view impinges with disastrous effects upon itself. 

(6) The fact that three other beasts in Dan. 7 are used to identify Babylonian, Persian and Grecian empires as separate and distinct from the fourth beast, which, generally speaking, is used to point out the same government (the Roman Government) as is symbolized by the three ten-horned and seven-headed beasts of Revelation, proves that the Babylonian, Persian and Grecian empires are not symbolized in these three Revelation ten-horned and seven-headed beasts, which argument, from the standpoint of separate beasts being used to symbolize separate governments, disproves completely W.C.'s view. 

(7) The scope of the book of Revelation, as a symbolic-prophetic history of the Christ, precludes the Babylonian, Persian and Grecian empires from symbolization in a symbolic-prophetic picture of the Christ, since the Christ never came into factual contact with those empires by reason of their non-existence setting in before the Christ began to exist; while the Revelation beasts are introduced into the symbolic-prophetic history because of the Christ's coming into factual contact with its four beasts—the fourth being the two-horned beast. Hence those three empires cannot be symbolized by three of the seven heads. 

(8) Nowhere in the Bible nor in Bro. Russell's writings does the expression of the thought, "the Gentile beast," occur, as representing the four universal monarchies of the Times of the Gentiles. It is an invention of W.C., to palm off his error under review, and is contrary to the Biblical use of figurative beasts,

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each one used exclusively to designate one particular government. 

(9) Protestantism never was, nor is now, a government. Therefore it cannot be one of the seven heads, all of which symbolize governments ("Seven kings," Rev. 17:9). Protestantism is a designation of a number of religious denominations opposed to Romanism, some of which have been married to governments. But it is not a government. If it were such, all of the Protestant denominations would not only be under one political unit, but would have to be that political unit. But such things have never been the case; hence Protestantism cannot be the sixth head, inasmuch as all seven heads are kingdoms—governments (Rev. 17:10, 11). 

(10) The League of Nations is not a governments—a kingdom (Rev. 17:10, 11); therefore it is not, nor can be, the seventh head, which, like the other heads, must be a kingdom. It is a very loose association of governments, not even having the cohesion of a real alliance of governments. This association of governments is very little more than a debating club on international matters. It has no sovereign authority, nor has it a citizenry, which a government always has. It has very little more than advisory powers, i.e., beyond advising it has bluffing powers, when a small power offends or is in the way of an ambitious large power; but when a strong power wrongs a weak power, e.g., Japan wronging China in the Manchurian and Shanghai affairs, it has not even bluffing powers—it is utterly impotent. It is merely a football kicked about by the stronger powers, particularly France. It lacks all the essentials of a government, prominent among which are sovereignty and citizenry, both of which it lacks, its members being nations and not citizens of one or more nations. Hence it is no government, and therefore cannot be the seventh head of the three Revelation ten-horned and seven-headed beasts. 

To adapt G.K. Bolger's language, above quoted, to

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the facts of the case, we would say that these ten points thoroughly prove that the article under review "bears the unmistakable evidence of [not] having been produced by one of the faithful scribes [writers (?)] of whom Jesus spoke in Matt. 13:52." We might let the case rest on these ten points, but will answer W.C.'s main details, referring to these as they are paged in his booklet, and not as they are reproduced in the Berean Bible Student. On page 3 he says that the degeneracy symbolized by the change of the metals (from more to less valuable ones) in Nebuchadnezzar's image is that from absolute power to democracy. This is untrue to facts; for Persia was more autocratic than Babylonia, since the Persian monarch was so absolute, beside being regarded infallible, that his law could not be altered. Moreover imperial Rome from 155 A. D. onward and papal Rome were the most autocratic governments that ever existed. Bro. Russell's thought is better—increasing governmental degradation is represented by the progressive degradation of the image's metals. Contrary to W.C.'s claim, God's ideal for qualified man, apart from his own government, which must be absolute, is not that of an absolute monarchy, but that of a democracy, as is evidenced by the democracy that He established in Israel as between man and man politically (under His own theocracy), and that will follow the Little Season after the Millennium. While with destructive power the stone kingdom did not smite the image until the Times of the Gentiles were fulfilled, it certainly made verbal—Truth—attacks on it from 1874 and 1878 onward; the latter kind of a smiting W.C. denies by saying that the smiting began in 1914. His claim that chronology does not extend beyond 1914 contradicts not only our Pastor, who pointed out April, 1918, from the parallel dispensations, but also many other chronological fulfillments, pointed out in The Present Truth for the Epiphany. 

His making the Church of England the mother of the 

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Protestant churches (p. 31), is "a rare bird" in mental gymnastics and natural law; for this alleged mother must have had four daughters: the Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist and Unitarian churches, respectively 17, 14, 13 and 4 years before she was born! Moreover, the Bible calls the Roman Church the mother of Protestant churches (Rev. 17:5). His statement (p. 14) that "each phase of Gentile rule … is the embodiment of its predecessors, and the Gentile rule, as a whole being one unit, the last phase is the embodiment of the lot," is a clear sophism, contrary to the facts of the case, as proven by the facts showing that the four universal monarchies were not a unit and are set forth as separate and distinct in the Bible. None of the four points that he offers in proof demonstrates this view: (1) The fact that the metallic image (p. 14) is one and that its five parts cover the whole Times of the Gentiles, does not, as W.C. claims, prove that these were a unit; for we have shown the opposite from the four separate beasts, which are the things by which he must prove them to be the Gentile unit rule. (2) Nor does the fact (p. 15) that all parts of the image are destroyed in the end prove his Gentile unit rule, for as universal empires Dan. 7 shows they were each destroyed in turn to make way for the succeeding empire. Rather, as our Pastor shows, the remnant kingdoms that have survived after these universal empires were destroyed are the things that will be destroyed in the end of the Age, e.g., the present little kingdoms of Iraq and Persia, the republic of Greece and Europe's ten language nations. 

(3) The Roman Catholic Church sitting on the seven heads does not prove his Gentile unit rule, as he claims (p. 15), for several reasons. First, she never sat on the first three of his alleged heads, for these alleged heads became non-existent hundreds of years before she came into existence. Second, because if one does a number of acts, some in the past and some

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in the present and some in the future, the present tense is the one to use to cover all of the acts. Thus, at the time the angel spoke five of the heads had fallen, one was then present and the seventh was future. Hence the propriety of using the present tense, "sitteth," as a universal present to cover the past, present and future acts of the woman mentioned in Rev. 17:9. This disproves his pertinent contention. 

(4) His fourth point (pp. 16 and 30) in proof of his alleged Gentile unit rule, i.e., that the fifth head of the Rev. 13 beast is described with certain characteristics of the lion (Babylonia), bear (Medo-Persia), leopard (Greece) and dragon (Rome), falls to the ground when we remember that the papacy in fulfilling the pertinent 1845 years parallels actually acted out at the parallel times the characteristics of the four beasts of Dan. 7. Please see the Edgar chart VII on the Four Empires' Parallels, in the Berean Manual, page 12; and the detailed discussion of these in the Great Pyramid Passages, Vol. II, 199-204 (new edition); 226-233 (old edition). Thus the four proofs that he offers for his "Gentile unit rule" are in each case shown to be no proofs of his position. Like other Levite leaders he blames (p. 17) Bro. Russell for teaching the deliverance of the Church by Oct., 1914, and fails to state that he corrected this mistake quite a while before Oct., 1914. In this course the Levite leaders disparage Bro. Russell as nominal-church writers do. Again (p. 28), he applies Dan. 8:24 to Pagan Rome and the Jewish nation, and v. 25 to our Lord's death; whereas our Pastor rightly applies v. 23 to the papacy and the devastation of v. 24 to the papacy's devastating of the Gospel-Age saints and v. 25 to the end of the Gospel Age, when the beast will war with the Lamb and the Lamb will overthrow him (Rev. 19:19). He perverts the Truth for his errors! 

The last point in his booklet that we will examine is

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the following statement with reference to the two-horned beast (Rev. 13:11): "According to the Diaglott translation, the word two should be omitted, as it is not found in the original text." This statement, in both of its parts, is not true to facts; for the word two is found in the original text according to every recension of the original text made since recensions have been printed. Nor does the Diaglott translation intimate that it is no part of the original text; nor does it omit the word from its Greek text, from its word-for-word translation, nor from its idiomatic English translation proper. The following are the facts: While retaining the word dyo (two) in its Greek text and in its two translations, it brackets the word in the Greek text and the word two in the word-for-word translation immediately under the pertinent Greek word, and puts an asterisk beside the word dyo referring to a note at the bottom of the page, to the effect that Vatican Manuscript No. 1160 omits this word. The Vatican MS. No. 1160 is not the Vatican MS. that text critics, antitypical Amram Gershonites, signify by the letter B, which is No. 1209, and which so far as it goes is the most exact of existing MSS. of the New Testament, and whose readings, as far as it goes, the Diaglott gives when it varies from Griesbach's Greek text, the Greek text of the Diaglott; but this MS. from Heb. 9:14 onward lacks the rest of this epistle, the two Timothies, Titus, Philemon and Revelation. The readings of the Sinaitic, the second most exact of our MSS., were not yet available when the Diaglott was edited by Dr. Wilson. Accordingly, its main authority at that time for the book of Revelation was the Alexandrian MS., the third best New Testament MS. that we have. And Dr. Wilson, therefore, in Revelation offers the variants of Vatican MS. No. 1160 whenever it differs from his Greek text, not to indicate that his text is wrong, but to show that that MS. varies from his text. The fact that he kept the word, two in his 

Some Libnite Gershonite Errors Examined. 

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idiomatic English translation proves that he considered that reading to be correct. 

Not only is the Vatican MS. No. 1160 an unimportant one, but when later the Sinaitic MS. was found it read just like the Alexandrian MS. on this word, even as do all other more reliable MSS. So little weight is to be placed on this variant reading that no recensionist since the art of printing has been used has given it as his text in this passage, though such recensionists as make it their business to print at the bottom of their pages all sorts of variants, like Tischendorf and Von Sodom point it out, but only as an unimportant and negligible variant. Souter, who next to Tischendorf and Von Soden gives the largest number of variants does not give this as one. Even the R.V. and the A.R.V., which indicate even many unimportant variants in their margins, pass this one by in silence. We looked up this word in every worthwhile recension of the last two centuries, and in none of them is it omitted from the text. Hence the word dyo (two) belongs in the text of Rev. 13:11 and, therefore, is found in the original text. What follows from this? It completely refutes W.C.'s claim that the two-horned beast is Protestantism, as the two horns as well as the beast itself are unexplainable from that standpoint; hence to palm off his theory he tries to eliminate the word for two from the original text! The fact that the two-horned beast is called another beast than the ten-horned and seven-headed beast of Rev. 13, is also against his view; since his view of Protestantism as being the sixth head would require it to be symbolized by the ten-horned and seven-headed beast and not by another beast, just as the papacy, the real sixth head of the red dragon and of the first beast of Rev. 13, and the fifth and eighth head of the beast of Rev. 17, is symbolized in these three beasts and not by a separate one. Against his seventh head, the League of Nations, which, borrowing from J.F.R, he claims is the beast's 

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image, it must also be said that his sixth head, Protestantism, did not make it; for it was made by Romanist, Greek, Protestant and heathen governments, not religions. Thus his whole position, in so far as it differs from that of our Pastor, utterly collapses and is demonstrated to be another piece of Jambresian folly, indorsed by the Jambresite, G.K. Bolger, who, barren of ideas, borrows from others, as he formerly indorsed Adam Rutherford's folly on, Behold The Bridegroom, part of which W.C. also borrows, i.e., on the Bridegroom's tarrying. Accordingly, another Azazelite attack on our Pastor's teachings falls manifestly and incurably to the ground. We will review no more of W.C.'s errors, which abound in his numerous tracts. He left the B.S.C. (Bible Students Committee), which is in the charge of H.J.S. But there is a doctrinal looseness among its adherents. The B.S.C. recommends the P.B.I. Herald and presumably endorses its errors on the Chronology, Revelation and Daniel. Many of the members of this committee, like F.G. Guard, Sr., W.C. and others, have left the B.S.C. and have fallen into serious errors. E.g., F.G. Guard and numerous others have endorsed the Sin-offering, Mediator, and Covenant errors of the 1908-1911 sifters, which errors are making much headway among the P.B.I. The Shimite Gershonite errors of doctrine and arrangement we will discuss in the rest of this book.