THE KING’S BUSINESS
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symbol of corruption, permeates the whole mass; and so on. As a prescription to cure the unscriptural, strabismic, falsely-focused optimism of. this theory, see 2 Tim. iii. 1-5; iv. 3, 4; 1 Tim. iv. 1; 2 Thess. ii. 3-10; 2 Peter iii. 3, 4; and Jude 17, 18. And quite as irrational is the concept that the mil lennial state foretold can be brought about while the power of “the god of this world” is operative. The fulfilment of the wilderness-notice is seen in Rev. xx. 1, 2. Satan is bound and evicted, his domain overthrown and deleted. The world-system, then, by the dethrone ment of its head, is destined to be over thrown and destroyed. And what is the destiny of the world- people ? All through the centuries they who have renounced their allegiance to Satan, and have submitted themselves to God and His Christ, have ceased to be world-people and have become of the church. As »they have gone out of life they have gone to God (Eccl. xii. 7; 2 Cor. v. 8; Phil. 1 23), in whose presence is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures forever more (Ps. xvi, 11). This is the destiny of all once world-people who cease to be such and become church-people, i.e., truly regen erate. Those who do not become church- people but continue to be world-people, they, being let go, go to their own com pany (Acts iv. 23; Matt. xxv. 41), “whose end is destruction” (Phil. iii. 19), “who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess i. 9). The destiny, then, of the world-people is everlasting destruction,—which is not anni hilation, for, according to the scientific doc trine of the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, that notion is unthinkable, and only a perverse exegesis can deduce it from the Bible. And, finally, what is the destiny of the material world, i.e. our earth? The material world was divinely pro nounced to be “good” (Gen. i. 10), and our exegesis and exposition have been con
ducted in accordance with this idea. This declaration concerning it, however, was made before the Fall. Sin came and because of the sinner a curse came: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Gen. iii. 17); “The creation was subjected to vanity,” frailty,, liability to change and decay, “not of its own will, but by reason of him who sub jected it” (Rom. viii. 20). How far wrong: Milton was, if at all, we may not say, when hymning that evilly-fateful, Eden hour, he sang: “Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost.” - But this subjection was “in hope” of deliv erance. Whatever of sin-consequence, beyond the volitional sphere of the world- system and the world-peoplp, disturbed the harmony of creation, that discord is to' be composed. A day of “regeneration”' (Matt. xix. 28), of “restitution” (Acts iii.. 21), “waiteth” (Rom. viii. 19). Says St.. Peter, “The day of the Lord will come: as a thief in the night, in the which the: heavens shall pass away with a great noise;, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter iii. 10, 13). This is the prophesied and promised regenesis of which Isaiah speaks, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth” (lxv. 17), and which St. John saw as having taken place: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed, away” (Rev. xxi. 1). We must not lose sight of the fact that: the original grant of dominion to the sin less Adam and his posterity was “over all the earth” (Gen. i. 26). Of this original grant, Psa. cxv. 16 is the record: “The heaven, even the heaven of heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath he given to the children of men.” And elsewhere it is- written: “Those that wait upon the Lord,, they shall inherit the earth” (Psa. xxxvii.. 9 ); “the meek shall inherit the earth” (v,.
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