To Correspondents, by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 17, 1858

To Correspondents,

By Editor

J. Bostwick. Whether or not Christ did partake of the emblems in his institution of the Lord's Supper, we have positive assurance that he was baptized; not indeed for the same purpose that sinners perform that ordinance; for he was without sin. It must have been for our example.

G. T. Collins. We think the first seven verses of Matt. xxii, refer to the Jews. A special message was sent to them in the days of the first advent, as the seventy weeks were drawing to their close, which is called the king's invitation to the dinner he had prepared. Verse 4. Paul and Barnabas told them that it was necessary that the word of God should first be preached to them. Acts xiii, 46. But they put it away from them. They scoffed at the invitation. They rejected and crucified the Messiah. And the threat pronounced against them in Matt. xxii, 7, God shortly after fulfilled: He destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. If this application be correct, the second embassy of verses 9 and 10, must embrace all those special gospel invitations which are to prepare a people for the wedding, (the marriage of the Lamb) at the present day. We believe this work to be brought to view in the parable of Luke xiv, 16-24, where we read that a certain man made a great supper and bade many. And at a point of time, here called "supper-time," there are three invitations sent forth. These we think synchronize with the three angels' messages of Rev. xiv. Two of them have been given; and the third and last, is now winning its way through the "highways and hedges."

WM. PEABODY. The saints will not of course be taken from the earth till the Saviour appears; and under the sixth plague he says, Behold I come as a thief. Rev. xvi, 15. Therefore he does not come up to that point of time, and we have no evidence that he comes till the plagues are fulfilled; consequently the saints will be on earth while they are poured out. As regards Rev. viii, 1, it is evident that the seventh seal follows in immediate connection with the sixth; and the sixth seal closes with the coming of the great day of wrath, and the prayer of the mighty men of the earth to be hid from the presence of him that sitteth on the throne. The cause of the silence in heaven for the space of half an hour, we are not here prepared to state, unless it be by an extremely literal interpretation of Matt. xxv, 31, which says that the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him. We cannot conceive what else at that momentous period would leave heaven silent. Half an hour, prophetic time, is seven days and a half.