receive from sacred Here we see the old do likewise to them whom they are about to baptism. Likewise we teach them the creed." forms, but without their old significance. The catechumenate precedes baptism, but infant baptism has contracted its formerly proud dimensions into an almost meaningless rite. It is easily seen that while infant baptism hastened its downfall, the general prevalence of Christianity would obviate its supposed necessity, even had not the tendency of more modern thought made it an impossibility. 3 Such was the catechumenate. It is perhaps impossible for us to fully enter into the spirit of those ancient days, and thus to make real to us the existence and peculiar conditions of the uninitiated believers. Under the changed conditions of to-day we can scarcely believe that such an institution ever imposed itself upon aspiring faith. It is almost impossible to believe that the exclusiveness of Christianity could be so distorted and exaggerated. It has already been intimated that it was grounded in a necessity. Indeed, Fleury1 tells us that Xavier established schools of catechumens in India, about 1550, to train the candidates "for a long time," because otherwise they were apt to return to idolatry. This seems to be a fair illustration of the beginnings of the catechumenate of the early church. We pass by Bellarmine's suggestion that the catechumenate is evidence that the church held to the Real Presence. Coleman's 2 supposition that it was caused by persecution, accounts for but few of the facts. Jamieson's opinion that it was to guard the purity of the church is worthy of note, but does not cover its development. These all bear upon the reasons for the institution, but not upon the facts of its peculiar progress. Perhaps we cannot better explain its development than by referring to the well-known corruptions of Christianity by the heathenism of the first centuries, the adoption of Pagan rites and customs, and their incorporation into the Christian service. The procession of the Host, the rise of the mass, the exclusive character of the priesthood, are familiar illustrations. The catechumenate followed in the wake of the ancient religious mysteries the Pythagorean secresy, the esoteric doctrines of the Theraputa. It grew with the growth of the idea which sprang out of the philosophic Christianity of Alexandria, that religious conversion, or personal change, is a thing of human teaching rather than of the operations of the Holy Spirit-that men were to learn religion, rather than experience it. It was one of history's repetitions, arising from 2 Chr. Antiq., pp. 36 and 50. 4 1 Hist. Eccles. Tom. 41, ch. 112. Quoted by Coleman from "Manners of Primitive Christians." the action of the force of progress upon the constant factor of the human mind. It held its truth, as does every error. It declared the need of instruction for the ignorant Pagan. Its error was in an extravagant provision for the need. It involved the truth of believer's baptism, and so declined as infant baptism became universal. Its error was in covering the requirements of God with a crust of rigid formalism, the commandments of men. It held its germ of truth, as Mariolatry, as infallibility; and fell, as they will fall, when its truth fell away from it, and left its error unalloyed. SOUTH NORWALK, Conn. JAMES MONROE TAYLOR. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.-DANIEL ii. 44. THE HE subject suggested by this verse is "The Kingdom of the God of Heaven." We do not propose, in the discussion of this subject, to follow a logical order, but will be guided in our remarks by the phraseology of the passage. Nor will we attempt, for the present, to define the phrase-The Kingdom of the God of Heaven. The meaning we attach to the expression will depend, to a great extent, upon the interpretation of the statements made in regard to it in the passage. We will consider I. The Period when this Kingdom is set up. In the days of these kings, etc. These words are found in Daniel's interpretation of the vision of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet and toes of iron and clay, or earthen-ware. By the different metals were represented four universal monarchies. In the Old Testament Scriptures we learn the names of three; namely, the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, and the Grecian. In the New Testament we learn the name of the fourththe Roman, the empire of the Caesars. A short time before the birth of Jesus, as recorded in Luke, chapter ii, "There went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. In the book of Daniel we have revealed "the course, character and consummation" of Gentile power. The Saviour said of the Jews (Luke xxi): "They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” God had committed the sovereignty to his chosen people. "When the Most High divided to the nations," i. e., the Gentiles, "their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel." Deut. xxxii. 8. When they obeyed him, and trusted in his power, they kept in subjection the surrounding nations; but when disobedient, God used these nations to chastise them. He was long suffering, however, towards them, and dwelt in the midst of them until the period of the Babylonian captivity. Ezekiel saw in vision the withdrawal of the symbol of the Divine presence from Jerusalem; first from the Temple, Ezekiel x. 18: "Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house," and next from the Holy City. Ezekiel xi. 23: "And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city." Sovereignty in the earth was committed to the Gentiles, and the "times of the Gentiles began." Paul said, though Nero, the basest of men, was emperor: "The powers that be are ordained of God." God said to Nebuchadnezzar by the prophet: "Thou, O king, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven, hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold." In the prophecy of Jeremiah the same grant of power is spoken of, chapter xxvii. 5, 6: Thus saith the Lord of hosts. . . . I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. In the great image of the second chapter of Daniel we have the alphabet of prophecy. The outline of anticipative history, written by the Spirit of God, as to the course and crisis of Gentile power. In the seventh chapter we have the same history-the great monarchies being represented by four beasts. In the intervening chapters, from the second to the seventh, we have the characteristics of this same Gentile power as foreshadowed in its first head, and his successor on the throne of Babylon. This part of the book, namely, from the fourth verse of the second chapter, to the end of the seventh, is written in Chaldee; from the eighth chapter, to the end of the book, written in Hebrew. We have the history of the same power in its relations to Daniel's people-the Jews; and in the Apocalypse, in its relations to apostate Christianity. We have taken this wide survey in order to show the unity of this book. God teaches us by successive visions; and in interpreting the first, which is a brief outline, we must avail ourselves of the details. of subsequent visions. We again turn to the phrase, "In the days of these kings." In these prophecies the terms king and kingdom, are sometimes used interchangeably. Are we, therefore, to understand by "these kings," the representative heads of the four great monarchies? This cannot be the correct interpretation, for the term is plural, "kings." The four kings were not contemporaneous, but succeeded each other; and the phrase, "the days of these kings," when applied to them, would not serve to mark a definite period. We learn also from the vision that the fourth monarchy was in its last form as represented by "the feet and the ten toes," when the "stone" fell upon it. We pass, therefore, to the seventh chapter in which the four monarchies are represented by four beasts. A lion, a bear, a leopard, and a nameless beast, "dreadful and terrible, with great iron teeth; and it had ten horns." In the Apocalypse we learn why this beast was not named in the book of Daniel. The beast, as seen by John, "was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." The characteristics of the former three were found in the fourth. The dead peoples lived in their successors; and the meaning of an obscure parenthetical statement in Daniel, in regard to the former three, is clearly revealed; namely, "they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time." The last beast is a counterpart of the "image," which stood intact until the stone fell upon its feet. "Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors." In the seventh chapter of Daniel we are taught that the ten horns of the fourth beast, are ten kings that shall arise. The fourth, i. e., the Roman empire, would be divided, as intimated in the vision of the second chapter, by the ten toes of the image, and also by the use of the plural number in the passage, "In the days of these kings," etc. |