I regret the necessity of carrying on the simultaneous discussion of two distinct propositions; but it was foreseen that unless my respondent receded from the unwarranted and unproved position he assumed regarding the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy, this matter would have to come up all along; for apart from some agreement on this point no profitable and satisfactory discussion is possible. My respondent thinks I complain of this strange turn because it disables me from proving my proposition. Of course, I cannot help it if he throws the testimony of the Scriptures overboard on the pretext that one needs to be inspired to interpret it; but that is not to my discredit. If, for example, he had gone into debate in good faith with a Roman Catholic on some proposition that the Scriptures teach thus and so, and after getting under way his Roman Catholic opponent had suddenly taken the position that the Scriptures cannot be understood by ordinary fallible folk, and that therefore Brother Boles would never be able, to establish his proposition--that would be some handicap to his debate, would it not? And Brother Boles would probably demand in such a case that his opponent recede from that position or else discuss that point to a finish. That is exactly what has happened in this case, and my respondent will neither recede nor face a fair proposition on the issue whether unfulfilled prophecy can be understood just as all other Scripture, but offers me instead a proposition which he should have known I would not accept because it does not represent my contention. Is this worthy of my good brother? I cannot but think that when once he sees the injustice of this attitude he will recede from the position he has taken regarding the testimony of God's word of unfulfilled prophecy. His contention, his very argument, that unfulfilled prophecy [136] cannot be understood, is precisely the same as that which the Roman Catholic Church holds toward all the Scripture. In proof, they, like my respondent, quote 2 Pet. 1:20, and call attention to the many differing interpretations among Protestants, and ask triumphantly: "What guarantee can you give that your interpretations are infallibly correct, or are any better than those of all the rest?" There you have it. It seems strange to see an intelligent brother in Christ falling into Roman Catholic tactics. There is no essential difference between the unfulfilled prophecies and any other part of God's word. I will take my brother's arguments to show that unfulfilled prophecy cannot be interpreted by uninspired man and prove by the same logic that no part of Scripture can be understood by uninspired man.

      I asked my brother to tell me what he means by "interpretation" and "private interpretation." His reply is an evasion. He says he means exactly what Peter means in 2 Pet. 1:20. But he does not tell us what that is. If some one had asked him what he meant by "baptism," he would have given a clear and full explanatory answer. Why does he not tell us what he means by "private interpretation?" He repeatedly accuses me of "private interpretations." I do not know what he means when he speaks of my "interpretations" and "private interpretations." I have repeatedly stated that all the "interpretation" I contend for is the ascertaining of the fair meaning of the language of Scripture. If he objects to that, let him say so, and we will know in that case that he is not willing to accept the testimony of the Scriptures. But if he approves of that (and I am sure he must), he ought not to charge me with some undefined wrong of "private interpretations" of which I am not guilty.

      It was pointed out before that if unfulfilled prophecy cannot be interpreted by uninspired man, then the [137] testimony of the Scripture to such themes as heaven, hell, resurrection, judgment, the second coming of Christ, the great and terrible day of the Lord, and such like matters of highest practical importance, is wiped out. He may call these things "promises" and "warnings," but it does not matter--they are unfulfilled prophecy, and everybody can see that they are. If only infallible interpreters can know what these things mean, there is no definite hope or prospect for the Christian and no definite warning to the wicked. These things may mean anything else than what they say, for nobody could possibly know "when or how they will be fulfilled." He arraigns me alongside of Pastor Russell and Mrs. White, the Seventh-Day Adventist prophetess. (I am grateful, by the way, for this admission that my "interpretation" is different from Russell's and Mrs. Whites.) But I have the same grounds for standing my respondent up by the side of Pastor Russell and Mrs. Ellen G. White; for they teach one thing about hell and hereafter, and Brother Boles another. So whose interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy shall we take--Russell's, Mrs. White's, or Brother Boles'? What guarantee can Brother Boles give us that his interpretation of unfulfilled prophecies of hell and judgment and hereafter are infallibly correct, and that his interpretation is any better than theirs or anybody else's? That is the sort of reasoning my respondent has been using. Let us drop all this and agree that the Scriptures, old or new, fulfilled or unfulfilled, are given us from God, and should be received and believed according to the fair import of their language. It is a pity to waste time and space over such things. Our purpose in this debate is simply to search and see what God has said.

      I seriously protest against the statement that "the real issue between us is whether Brother Boll is able to give an absolutely correct interpretation of unfulfilled [138] prophecies." When did the issue get to be that? I did not offer to affirm in this debate my infallibility as an interpreter of unfulfilled prophecy or any other part of Scripture; nor am I under any obligation by the issues of this debate to show any "credentials" to that elect; nor did I assume the responsibility of showing that I am "thoroughly competent to give infallible interpretations." Neither the propositions as drawn, nor my offer to affirm that unfulfilled prophecy can be understood on the same principle as other Scripture, nor yet my "admission" that my proofs for these propositions are drawn from the unfulfilled prophecies--not by any of these am I under obligation to debate Boll's infallibility. The issue is not Boll, I hope, but what has God said, and does God mean what he has said? That, and only that, is the real issue. The proposition I submitted represents precisely what I believe and stand for on this point: "The Scriptures teach that unfulfilled prophecy can be understood on the same principles as the rest of God's word." If Brother Boles denies this, let us debate it; if he concedes it, let us proceed with our next proposition. Which shall it be? I must have his answer to this.

      The Scriptures teach that the event signified by the smiting and destruction of the image in Dan. 2:34, 35 and 44, 45 began to take place on the day of Pentecost."

      In his first affirmative my respondent hardly touched the point at issue. He strove to establish the fact that the kingdom was set up on Pentecost, and that the church began on Pentecost, and that the church is the kingdom which is represented by that stone cut out without hands--none of which was under dispute and all of which I gladly conceded. I thought that strange, because I had pointed the real issue out to him both before the debate began and again in my first negative. But in the second affirmative he again took up the same line, and what [139] could I do more than tell him that I agreed with him on the bulk of his argument? But now he seems to think he has "narrowed down the issue to a very fine point," and that "all extraneous and preliminary matter has been cleared away," etc., and that now there is "nothing else to do except to press the issue." "We have waited for this task until now," he adds. Frankly, I do not understand my brother. He did not narrow down anything to a fine point; the point was that fine and narrow to begin with. In our preliminary correspondence (letter dated January 21, 1927) I wrote to him as follows:

      I have never denied that the kingdom was set up on Pentecost; nor have I contended that the kingdom of Dan. 2:44 is a different kingdom from that which now exists, except in form and manifestation. If you will examine the note on page 20 of my book, "The Kingdom of God," you will see that it is not so much my point to deny the previous existence of the kingdom in some form as that no such phase and manifestation of the kingdom on earth as that represented in Dan. 2:35, 44 has as yet taken place.

      Since he knew this, why did he not address himself to the one point at issue? Did he doubt me when I told him that I believed that the kingdom was set up on Pentecost and that the kingdom of Dan. 2:44 is not a different kingdom? Why, if he knew this, did he wait until now to face the real issue? Why did he fight a straw man in his first two articles? Nay, three times over in this last affirmative he goes so far as to declare that I was "forced" to take these positions, when, in fact, these were my published positions long before the debate. I do not understand this.

      I am glad, however, that the issue proper is now coming in for some attention. Brother Boles reasons that since the mission of the kingdom is the smiting and destroying of the world power, unless the kingdom were an idle kingdom, instead of the militant kingdom which it is, its mission must have begun with its establishment. [140]

      That is to the point. But in this argument he assumes that the kingdom could have had no other preliminary mission; and proceeding upon this assumption, he argues that unless it had done what Daniel said it would do it was an idle kingdom. So he endeavors to show that something like what Dan. 2:35 and 44 predict has been coming to pass. That is what I deny. True, Daniel does not tell us that it had any other mission, but that does not prove that it had no other task to perform. Since there must necessarily have been a longer or shorter space between the first formation of the stone and its destructive descent upon the image, and if elsewhere the Scriptures show that the kingdom passes through a preliminary stage of suffering and humiliation, and it be seen that no smiting or destroying of the world power has as yet taken place, the affirmative's argument is met from every angle.

      The prophecy of Dan. 2 views the kingdom in its seizure of the world sovereignty. That period of the kingdom which is represented by the church from its beginning until its triumph in judgment upon the world comes in for no notice in Daniel, except in the brief reference to the stone's being cut out without hands previous to its descent. The kingdom of God as represented by "the church militant" belongs to the period preceding the descent of the stone upon the feet of the image. The stone descending is the church triumphant, when she appears in glory with her Lord. (Col. 3:4.) The church is indeed a militant church; at least, it ought to be. But the present militancy of the church is not directed against any world power or against any human government. The church is always loyal and subject to the civil government, and her influence and teaching and prayer is helpful rather than detrimental to "the powers that be." The church did not destroy Rome; she rather even by her presence counteracted Rome's inward moral rottenness and thus delayed her fall. The militant church [141] has never overthrown or destroyed any civil government either by physical or spiritual means, and never will. The "church militant" is a suffering church. She is always comparatively small, poor; and she is persecuted and despised in proportion as she is true to her Lord. As he was, so is she in the world. It has already been pointed out that in the last days she will be smaller rather than larger, and will be almost swamped by the world. (Luke 18:8; 2 Tim. 3:1-5.) During the whole period of Christ's absence while he is gathering out this people for himself, the forces of evil prevail. The mystery of lawlessness does already work, but before the day of the Lord shall come evil will be at a maximum; the falling away shall come first, and the "man of sin" is revealed, and there will be an all but universal delusion. At his glorious coming with his saints, Christ will handle the situation and will deal with it in judgment, and will bring this "man of sin" to naught "by the manifestation of his coming." (2 Thess. 2.) This makes a very much different picture from what Brother Boles would set before us. A little examination and reflection will convince the reader that the present mission and militancy of the church cannot be that of the smiting and destruction of the image. Centuries passed away after the establishment of the kingdom on Pentecost. Rome still stood; yea, she flourished and grew and increased. The church did not hurt Rome in any wise; but Rome hurt the church, by fierce persecutions at first, by corrupting her afterwards. The "image" still stood, but the "stone" would have been hard to find. By the time Rome fell the great bulk of the professing church had become so changed and corrupted that Brother Boles would not have recognized it nor fellowshiped it. Where was the church? A few hunted, persecuted believers, who dwelt in mountain fastnesses and in caves and holes of the earth, represented her in those evil days and for centuries after. These are simple facts which Brother [142] Boles will not deny. When Rome finally fell, there was no traceable connection, even remotely, between her downfall and the mission or militancy of the church. Nothing that the church did by way of either physical or moral conflict had anything whatever to do with Rome's fall. My respondent ought to prove that the stone did something to the image that could reasonably be called "smiting" and "destruction." But his theory that this smiting and destruction began on Pentecost is contrary to all the facts in the case. And after Rome fell there was nothing corresponding to the small fragments "like the chaff of the summer's threshing floor," as there should have been if the stone had smitten it; but the large chunks of it remain unto this day and even show some symptoms of reuniting; and none of the remains have blown away. But the church was almost reduced to chaff and blown away. There is absolutely no correspondence between the prophecy and Brother Boles' alleged fulfillment of it.

      For the purposes of the present proposition, I do not care whether or not he believes that the last world power is coming back or not to be smitten by the stone in fulfillment of God's word. That matter will come up in a future proposition. But it is his business to prove that the stone (which is the kingdom, the church) has smitten the image, or began to do so on Pentecost. He cannot show either by fact or Scripture that such a thing has happened. If it was "the mission of the kingdom" to smite and destroy the image, then, in all honesty, he is forced to confess that the kingdom has thus far been a complete and dismal failure; for, instead of smiting and destroying any world power, it has never done anything of the sort, even partially, nor anything that by any reasonable exegesis can be construed that way. And the Scripture does not intimate that such a thing will be before Christ comes. [143]

      We have arrived at the close of the second proposition. The affirmative was to prove that the smiting and destruction of the image, according to Dan. 2:35, 44, took place, or began to take place, on the day of Pentecost. He set forth many things, well and ably; but this, so far as I am able to judge, he did not prove. The first two affirmatives were misdirected toward the proving of an issue that was not in dispute. On the point at issue he made but one serious argument (the one above replied to) to prove that the stone, the kingdom of God, began its work of smiting and destroying the image, representing the Gentile world power. It was shown that in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as interpreted by Daniel, (1) the stone was cut out without hands; (2) it descended upon the image and smote it upon its feet; (3) the image was broken into small fragments like the chaff; (4) the winds carried them away and there was no place found for them; (5) the stone became a mighty mountain and filled the whole earth. The affirmative's duty was to prove, not that the stone was cut out, that the kingdom began on Pentecost, but that it then began to smite and destroy the image. The negative pointed out that nothing comparable to such an event ever came to pass or began to come to pass on Pentecost or has been traceable since.

      It was shown by the negative that--

      (1) The stone's impact upon the feet signifies, not moral influence, but destructive force.

      (2) That the stone and the image are not represented as at any time coexisting side by side: the coming of the one means the destruction and removal of the other.

      (3) There is nothing in the prophecy to indicate that the stone would permeate the image with its influence, or that it would gradually wear away or absorb the image, or that the stone in its expansive growth would gradually crowd the image off the scene (for the stone [144] does not grow nor take possession of the earth until the image is wholly destroyed and removed).

      (4) That there is no correspondence whatever between the prophecy of Dan. 2:34, 35, and 44, 45 and the alleged fulfillment as claimed by the affirmative.

      When Christ comes in glory with his saints, he will shatter the opposing world power, and the announcement will go forth at the seventh trumpet's sound: "The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of the Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign forever and ever." (Rev. 11:15.) This is the point which the prophecy of Dan. 2 and of Dan. 7 has in view.

      Throughout the negative has endeavored to preserve brotherly esteem and the high plane of the discussion with which we started out, and intends to continue so or do even better; and I shall count on Brother Boles' consent and help in this our common purpose. [145]

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