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Preterist Universalism: Walter Balfour - Letters to Moses Stuart (1833) (Pastoral partner of the earliest known FP author, Robert Townley, who converted to Universalism shortly after the publication of his book in 1845. (PDF File)) // Christian History Blog: Forgotten 'Father of Biblical Science'
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Mauro has “a sweet spirit and is clearly an able man.”
"I would like to find out more what had happened to Philip Mauro after he published his famous trilogy. I hope you can give me some pointers. Friedel Hansen Pretoria, South Africa" Please Write if you have any information) |
As far as twentieth century Christian figures are concerned, Philip Mauro stands out as one of the most captivating. After coming to a saving knowledge of the Lord in 1903, at the age of forty five, Mauro, a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and one of the foremost patent lawyers of his day, began his "Testimony" of what was to him the most important event in his life. His repeated successes in courts of law, coupled with his legal briefs, could not but gain recognition, for they were "models of accuracy, conciseness, and literary finish." As such, they were "frequently used by judges in the text of their decisions." Perhaps one of the most important occasions where his legal work was requisitioned was in connection with the famous Tennessee-Scopes trial in 1925. The argument which William Jennings Bryan used, and thereby won the case, was prepared by Philip Mauro. His early twentieth century was a period of great expansion for many errors, such as Dispensationalism and Anglo Israelism. Mauro's book, "The Hope of Israel," which was written three years prior to the Scopes trial, stands as a testament to his astute mind and sharp pen, most dashing in the face of the most formidable adversaries. Rising to the forefront of Christianity's great struggle against these foes, he applied the preparation God had given him, and scored great victories for sound doctrine
"We thus learn that the things prepared by God for the coming age, which are “for our glory,” are “spiritual things.” And not only are they spiritual things, but they are communicated by means of “spiritual words”; and they must be “spiritually discerned” EVOLUTION AT THE BAR | Testimonies of King James Bible defenders | Bob Jones University Misrepresents Mauro's Position | "The Christians Choice: Self-Life or Christ-Life. Which ?" | The Number of Man: The Climax of Civilization | Looking for the Saviour | The Kingdom of God: What, When, Where? (PDF) - An Answer to Mauro's Gospel of the Kingdom "We thus learn that the things prepared by God for the coming age, which are “for our glory,” are “spiritual things.” And not only are they spiritual things, but they are communicated by means of “spiritual words”; and they must be “spiritually discerned” (verse 14)." (CHAPTER SEVEN - God's Pilgrims) (On
The Significance of A.D.70) "Yet, in the face of all this, we have today a widely held scheme of prophetic interpretation, which has for its very cornerstone the idea that, when God's time to remember His promised mercies to Israel shall at last have come, He will gather them into their ancient land again, only to pour upon them calamities and distresses far exceeding even the horrors which attended the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This is, we are convinced, an error of such magnitude as to derange the whole program of unfulfilled prophecy." (On
Matthew 24:34) (On Jeremiah 31:35-37) (On the
Seventy Weeks of Daniel 9:24) (On Romans 11:26) (On the Audience of Galatians) (On the
Forty Years and That Generation) (On the "Two Stage Secret Rapture" Theory) "This remarkable characteristic of speaking as with absolute and supreme authority may be discerned in all the recorded utterances of Christ. Never is the note of authority lacking, as often it would be if He were other than "the Lord of all"; for no pretender could possibly keep his sayings on the superlatively high level that would be necessary in order to support such a claim. But in His case, whether He spoke to the leper, or to the paralytic, or to the blind, or to the lame, or the deaf, or the dead, or to winds and waves, or to the fig-tree, or to the demons, or to His servants when He sent them upon a mission, it was ever as the One whose very word compels obedience, as the One who in the beginning said "Light be," and instantly light was. In a word, every utterance of His is in perfect keeping with His own statement, "All authority is given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore" (Mat. 28:18-20). It is simply an impossibility (and who can fail to recognize it?) that any man could impart to his every word this Divine quality of "having authority," or that men could have invented such a character, and put into his mouth utterances which, no matter under what circumstances they were spoken, are found to be, when closely scrutinized, impregnated with the consciousness of having supreme and absolute authority. But one conclusion is possible from these facts, namely, that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God manifest in the flesh." (Never Man) "But it is simply an impossibility that the prophecy that the seed of Israel should never "cease from being a nation" should apply to the natural seed of Jacob; for they have ceased from being a nation since the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. " Table of Patriarchs from Adam to Great Flood
Adam through Seth
Table of Patriarchs from Flood to Abraham.
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE
Other Works By Philip Mauro Last Call To The Godly Remnant | James, The Epistle of Reality | The Wonders of Bible Chronology | Ruth The Satisfied Stranger | The Church, The Churches and the Kingdom | Evolution at the Bar | Never Man Spake Like This Man | The Number of Man; the Climax of Civilization - 1910 | Dispensationalism Justifies the Crucifixion
"Dispensationalism may be fascinating as a work of art, but as a
revelation it rests upon a foundation of sand. The entire system of
dispensational teaching is modernistic in the strictest sense: it is
modernism, moreover of a very pernicious sort, such that it must have a
Bible of its own (i.e., the Scofield Reference Bible) for the propaganda
of its peculiar doctrines since they are not in the Word of God."
Philip Mauro Biography
Champion of the Kingdom - The Story of Philip Mauro "Although the name of Philip Mauro is not nearly as recognized by Christians today as it was 75 years ago, his works remain important contributions to the furtherance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mr. Gardiner, urged as a young man to study Mauro's books by Mrs. Martha Wing Robinson (the subject of Gardiner's Radiant Glory), was allowed by God to not only develop a personal friendship with Mr. Mauro later in life but to write the only existent biography of his life."
In his definitive biography of Philip Mauro, Gordon P. Gardiner has furnished us with some fascinating information concerning this great man of God. Mr. Gardiner begins the biography with a quotation from Philip Mauro himself; "I came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ on May 24th, 1903, being then in my forty-fifth year. I did not at that time fully understand what had happened to me on that day, and only learned subsequently, through the study of the Scriptures, that, by the grace of God through faith in his Son Jesus Christ, I had then been quickened (Eph. 2:5), and had passed from death unto life (John 5:24)." With these simple words, Philip Mauro, a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and one of the foremost patent lawyers of his day, began his "Testimony" of what to him was the most important event in his life. Steadily rising in his profession, Mr. Mauro was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States on April 21, 1892. Five days later, he began to argue his first case before that august body. One of his most notable cases was that in which he represented the Boyden Brake Company against Westinghouse Air Brake Company. "In this case," so the Columbia Record states, "for the first time, the Supreme Court of the United States was unable after two full presentations to reach a decision and asked for a third argument. Mr. Mauro was employed in the final presentation, and his clients, the Boyden Company, won the case and are understood to have received upward of $1,200,000 as a result. His repeated successes in courts of law, coupled with his extensive knowledge, gave Mr. Mauro great standing with the United States Patent Office. Consequently, he was unanimously chosen by the examiners of the Patent Office to be "their instructor in a class organized for the purpose of studying the practice of the Federal Courts in conducting patent cases and was urged to continue the work long after the other demands upon his time made this impossible." His briefs, too, could not but gain recognition, for they were "models of accuracy, conciseness, and literary finish. " As such, they were "frequently used by judges in the text of their decisions." After his marriage, Mr. Mauro attended the Episcopalian Church of the Epiphany of which he had become a "member and communicant at the age of sixteen and had been for many years thereafter quite a regular attendant." During this time Mr. Mauro "heard innumerable sermons," but for all this, he later confessed, he "was as ignorant as any Hottentot concerning God's one and only way of salvation." Less and less as the years passed, did he attend the church's services. Instead, he would go to the golf course. He was "striving (so earnestly, yet so hopelessly) by the aid of the rushlight of reason alone to perceive the meanings of life and the relations of man to the order of things whereof he is a part." "Having become a thoroughgoing rationalist (and being no more irrational than the generality of those who assume that self-flattering title)," Mr. Mauro continued, "I took the ground that it was possible to believe only what could be made evident to the physical senses." "The succeeding eight years were marked by a decided drift away from all spiritual matters, ending in a lapse into utter indifference thereto, and an entire absorption in business affairs and other temporalities and worldliness." His general attitude toward life in these years is best described in his own words: "There was no aspiration in my soul beyond the gratification of self; and all the exertion which I was putting forth had for its sole object the acquisition and accumulation of means for ministering to that gratification through life .... Such was Philip Mauro's condition when "one never-to- be-forgotten evening, in New York City," in the spring of 1903, he tells, "I strolled out in my usual unhappy frame of mind, intending to seek diversion at the theatre. This purpose carried me as far as the lobby of a theatre on Broadway and caused me to take my place in the line of ticket purchasers. But an unseen hand turned me aside, and the next thing that I remember was a very faint sound of singing which came to my ears amid the noises in Eighth Avenue, near 44th Street, fully a mile away from the theatre. "There is no natural explanation of my being attracted by, and of my following up, that sound. Nevertheless, I pushed my way into the building (a very plain, unattractive affair, bearing the sign 'Gospel Tabernacle'), whence the sound emanated, and found myself in a prayer meeting. I took a seat and remained through the meeting. "I was not much impressed by the exercises, and in fact was not at all in sympathy with what transpired. What did, however, make an impression upon me was the circumstance that, as I was making my way to the door after the meeting, several persons greeted me with a pleasant word and a shake of the hand, and one inquired about my spiritual state." The fact was that the friendliness shown to Philip Mauro was "the only impression which was really favorable" which he carried away with him from that service. And but for this "interest in and care of th@ stranger he would probably not have gone to that place again." It was because of his own experience in this respect that Mr. Mauro regarded it of the highest importance for Christians and for ushers, in particular, to make visitors to gospel services "feel at home." In the following days after this first visit, unaccountably but irresistibly, Mr. Mauro was repeatedly drawn back to the Gospel Tabernacle of which A.B. Simpson, founder and president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, was then the pastor. "No natural explanation will account for the fact that I was constrained to return to a place so utterly devoid of attractions and so foreign to all my natural tastes and inclinations. The people were not in the social grade to which I had been accustomed, and I would have found nothing at all congenial in their society .... I do not-remember how many times I went to these meetings before I yielded to the Spirit's influence, and I do not remember that I was conscious of any benefit from attending the meetings, which, from the ordinary standpoint, would have been pronounced decidedly dull. "I did not know the nature of what was happening, for I did not believe in sudden conversions. I supposed that a change of nature, if it occurred at all, must be very gradual-an 'evolution,' in fact. But my ignorance of the process did not stand in the way of the mighty power of God, acting in grace, to quicken me into new life. I called upon the name of the Lord with a deep conviction of sin in my heart, and that was enough." Mr. Mauro later reflected, "I should have supposed that, in order to convince me of the truth of the Bible and Christianity, it would be necessary to employ the best efforts of a faculty of the profoundest theologians versed in all the arguments of sceptical philosophy, and able to furnish plausible replies to them. But God, in His wisdom, sent me to learn the way of everlasting life from a company of exceedingly plain, humble people, of little education, to whom I regarded myself as immeasurably superior in all the higher branches of knowledge. It is true that these people knew very little of what is taught in the colleges and seminaries; but they did have that knowledge which is the highest and most excellent of all 'the KNOWLEDGE of Christ Jesus my Lord'..." Mr. Mauro testified further. "Perhaps the most wonderful change which was manifest to my consciousness, was this, that all my doubts, questionings, scepticism, and criticism concerning God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; concerning the full inspiration, accuracy, and authority of the Holy Scriptures ... ; concerning the sufficiency of Christ's Atonement to settle the question of sin, and to provide a ground upon which God could, with perfect righteousness, forgive and justify a sinner; and concerning an assured salvation and perfect acceptance in Christ, were swept away completely.... I had no notion at all that intellectual difficulties and questioning could be removed in any way except by being answered, one by one, to the intellectual satisfaction of the person in whose mind they existed. But my doubts and difficulties were not met in that way. They were simply removed when I believed on the crucified One and accepted Him as the Christ of God, and as my personal Savior." When, at last, Philip Mauro joined his family in Florence, Italy, they found him to be a changed man. For one thing, he was doing something they had never seen him do before. Laughingly one of the girls said, "Look! Father's reading the Bible!" That, they all thought, was the best joke in the family of recent date! Mr. Mauro offered no explanation for the change in him. In fact, "through timidity and fear of comment and ridicule," he tried to keep to himself as much as possible and to conceal the reason for the very evident difference. Whatever the reason, his wife and daughters were soon to find out that it was no joke, but a living reality, a way of life which was to revolutionize the entire family. Margaret, his oldest daughter, was subject to periodic spells of deep depression such as he himself had known for so long. Now she was in one of these awful states. Deeply he sympathized with her and longed that she should be set free, as he had been, for since his conversion, his "old condition of mental distress and unrest" had passed away so completely that he could hardly recall it. "You can get up and harangue a bench of old judges when you wouldn't face your wife and daughters," was the word that came into his soul and finally goaded him into speaking just a word for Jesus. At last, seeing the suffering of his beloved daughter and realizing he knew the remedy which would cure her, he felt "compelled" to "open his lips" and to "preach Christ for the first time." With his knees shaking and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, Mr. Mauro fearfully ventured into the room of his suffering daughter and simply said, "Margaret, what you need is the Lord Jesus Christ." Her father later recalled, "What effort the delivery of this sermon cost me cannot be described, and after that utterance, the preacher had not another word to say, and the only visible result was a very awkward and constrained silence. Yet this simple, clumsily-given testimony, together with some verses of Scripture read at random, were used by the Spirit of God to quicken another dead soul." Back in New York City, Mr. Mauro returned to the place of his spiritual birth, the Gospel Tabernacle, and attended the meetings there regularly. "At one of these," recalled Mr. Mauro, "where saints were seekir g a deeper experience of the grace and power of God (all of which was strange and unintelligible to me in my utter ignorance of spiritual things), my attention was drawn to a man, poorly dressed, and evidently in humble circumstances, who was kneeling in the aisle a little in front of me. He seemed in great distress of mind, and my pity was so awakened that I leaned forward, and, with a vague notion of expressing sympathy, whispered something in his ear. Without turning his head to see who was endeavoring to comfort him, he uttered just these four words, 'You are a smoker.' "That was all, but it was enough. Never did a shot go straighter to the mark or produce a more immediate result. In a flash, I saw that smoking was unbecoming a child of God; and I was enabled without a moment's hesitation to say, 'No, I was a smoker, but am one no longer.' And this I must have spoken in the power of the Spirit; for it was the truth. That instant I ceased to be a smoker. My soul escaped 'as a bird out of the snare of the fowler.' . . . I had been enslaved by it, as I found when, under the stimulus of impressive warnings from my physician, I endeavored to break the chain. In the daily routine of my life in those days, the first act on rising was to light a cigar or cigarette; and from then to bed-time, it was only when at meals (and not always then) or in places where smoking was not permitted that I was not indulging in the practice." The very fact that a materialistic, scientific lawyer of such high reputation as Mr. Mauro had become such an earnest Christian and such an able advocate of Christianity, both by his pen and public addresses, caused him to be sought for increasingly as a speaker at Bible conferences and in Christian circles generally. Perhaps one of the most important occasions where his legal help was requisitioned was in connection with the famous Tennessee-Scopes trial in 1925. True, William Jennings Bryan, the "silver-tongued" orator, thrice Democratic nominee for President of the United States, devout Christian and popular Bible teacher, was retained by the State of Tennessee to defend its law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in its public schools. The brief or argument which Bryan used, however, and thereby won the case, was prepared by Philip Mauro. This was a great victory inasmuch as the defense attorney was none other than Clarence Darrow, the brilliant and successful criminal lawyer. And if others did not forget Mauro's legal ability, neither did he forget his former business and legal associates. These he had faithfully and personally witnessed to after his conversion and fervently prayed that they, as he had been, might be brought out of darkness into light. One of the most famous of these was Thomas A. Edison.
The story of their interview is best told be Mr. Mauro himself as printed in The Last Hour, edited and published by himself. "Mr. Edison is now in his eightieth year; but his mind is evidently as keen as ever. All his life his attitude regarding things not seen- God, the human soul, life hereafter, etc.- has been severely skeptical. But now, in the sunset of his days, he has undertaken the investigation of those great matters, with a desire to know the truth, but with insistence upon PROOF. 'I want FACTS,' was the way he expressed the attitude of his mind. Owing to Mr. Edison's deafness, it was difficult for the editor to speak to him. But it was better so; and the promise was given that he would read attentively a short letter on the matter discussed." This Mr. Mauro wrote "the day following the interview."
Is it this man, Philip Mauro, with his keen brilliant mind so logical and so incisive who has written the book, Which Version? Authorized or Revised, on one of the most complex and intricate subjects any mind could ever study. The following is written for the instruction and enlightenment of the average layman. Mr. Mauro readily admitted that he was not a theological or linguistic scholar, but he has demonstrated in this book the fact that any layman who applies himself assiduously to such a subject can secure an overall picture of just what has gone on over the past century since 1881 by way of "holding down the truth in unrighteousness" and perverting it to suit the whims and fancies of scholars who refuse to hold the Bible for what it claims to be; namely, the infallible, inspired, inerrant Word of the living God.
What do YOU think ?
CommentsMauro was NOT a preterist. He was a futurist but not a dispensationalist; his writings make it clear that he was, mistakenly, still awaiting the second coming of Christ. [TDD: You are correct! That is why at the top it says "Preterist Commentaries by Historicists," because he was most definitely a historicist]
CommentsThe heart of preterism is the (mistaken) belief that Christ's second advent occurred in a day and hour (that cannot be specifically identified) during the AD 70 destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Mauro's commentaries make it crystal clear that he disagreed completely with that assertion. For example, Mauro wrote that in AD 30 "Christ had disowned the temple at Jerusalem (Mt. 23:38) calling it 'your house' AND HENCEFORTH IT IS NOT RECOGNIZED AS THE HOUSE OF GOD" (The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation, Chapter VII). On balance, Mauro's views more properly would be included under the heading "Anti-Preterist Commentaries by Historicists."
CommentsThe question that I have in my mind regarding the last Article, just above this comment box. The statement: "But it is simply an impossibility that the prophecy that the seed of Israel should never "cease from being a nation" should apply to the natural seed of Jacob; for they have ceased from being a nation since the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70." I would like to know if Philip Mauro would have continued to hold that belief in 1948 when Israel became a nation again? It's events like these that stump me when trying to embrace a preterist viewpoint.
CommentsThe forming of "Israel" in 1948, or whenever has nothing to do with the true Israel. Mauro wrote a book titled "The Hope of Israel - what is it?" in which he fully explains the biblical explanations of Paul, and many other both NT and OT writings that show that the true Israel is the body of Christianity, and the only Israellites who accept Christ will be part of the true Israelites (church) The teaching concerning modern day Israel is a terrible misconception and resurrection of the misconceptions of the Jews which caused them to miss the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. His writings are right on.
CommentsIt is difficult, at first, to distinguish that the geo-political state of Israel today is not "the Israel of God" NOR any other "Israel", but has merely mis-appropriated the name. Confirmation of this can be found in the best Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox JEWISH opinions. Those interested can check Neturei Karta, Jewsnotzionists, and Jewsagainstzionism websites. The best article I know of that identifies the true Israel is Pastor Cohen Reckhart's article, "Who is the Israel of God". He is an futurist "Jesus only" Apostolic, whose other beliefs I may disagree with, but that particular article is the best I have read, and most enlightening.
CommentsFor the last year I have been in God's skillfull guiding into my whole thinking has been changed. For every i I had and every t that I that thought was crossed. For all of my ducks that was in a row. He erased the dots on my i's He uncross all of my t's. and shot every duck that I have. So now I have started all over, the history, the Hope of Israel, the church, the Apostolic mission. The plan That God had intended. it is my life now. Date: 22 Apr 2005 Date: 22 Apr 2005 Date: 16 Nov 2005 Since the destruction of the temple , and the destruction of Jerusalem, was LITERAL, back in 70 A.D., all these other happenings spoken of by Christ, also must be literal. I think you guy's have one big problem to solve. Rev. Morgan Sorensen. [Consider Christ's statement: "my kingdom is not of this world"; and that of Peter "Therefore (David) being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ"; and Paul "But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." The big problem is looking for things in the Old Jerusalem which are revealed to be in the New Jerusalem.] Date: 07 Feb 2006 Date: 07 Dec 2006 Date: 08 Jun 2007
Date: 10 Sep 2005 If you can push yourself beyond the historical background contained
in the first 3-4 chapters this is a life changing book! Date: 23 Oct 2005 Date: 17 Aug 2006 Date: 24 Sep 2006 Date: 24 Apr 2009
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