The problem of the ages is the problem of the presence of evil, of the

apparent necessity for suffering, yet with a baffled feeling of frustration.

Men like Job and Asaph and books like Ecclesiastes, ventilate this feeling,

but the consciousness of redeeming love, enables the believer to trust where

he cannot trace.  The present study is set forth with an intense desire, to

borrow the words of Milton `to justify the ways of God with men', to show

that there is a most gracious purpose in process, and that there are

indications of that purpose in sufficient clearness to enable the tried

believer to say with Job `when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold'.

In the present study, we commence with the primary creation of Genesis

1:1 which is followed by the `rent' or gap of Genesis 1:2, and conclude with

the creation of the new heavens and new earth of Revelation 21, which,

according to Peter, is ushered in by a convulsion of nature similar to the

condition described as `without form and void' at the beginning.

By observing the parallel between the word of Ephesians 1:4 and 2

Timothy 1:9 we are able to show that `the ages' commence with the

reconstruction of the earth in Genesis 1:3.  What follows is a series of

`fillings' in the persons of men like Adam, Noah, Abraham, and

Nebuchadnezzar, with the economies associated with them, but all such are

provisional, failing and typical only, and they carry the unfolding purpose

on to `the fulness of time' when `the Seed should come to Whom the promises

were made'.  Adam was but a `filling', he was not `the fulness', that title

belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  The only company of the

redeemed who are themselves called `the fulness' is the Church of the

Mystery, the church of `heavenly places', the church which is most closely

associated with the seated Christ.

Two words found in Matthew 9:16 must ever be kept together in the

course of this study, they are the words `fulness', and `fuller'.  We shall

see presently that God is preparing during the ages, as it were a piece of

`fulled' cloth, so that at last there may be a perfected universe, the `rent'

of Genesis 1:2 healed, and `God all in all'.  Fulling involves several

processes, most of them drastic and rigourous.

`Clooth that cometh fro the wevying is nought comely to were til it be

fulled under foot' (Piers Plowman).

Nitre, soap, the teasel, scouring and bleaching processes at length make the

shrunken cloth `as white as snow' (Mark 9:3).  We can say, therefore,

concerning the problem of the purpose of the ages `no fulness without

fulling'.  We do most earnestly desire that consummation, when the Son of God

shall deliver up to the Father a perfected Kingdom with every vestige of the

`rent' of Genesis 1:2 entirely gone.  We do most ardently desire to be found

in that day, as part of that blessed pleroma or fulness, but we must remember

that every thread that goes to make the `filling' will have passed through

the `fuller's' hands, `fulled under foot' must precede being `far above all'.

At the end of this volume the reader will find a chart, which

endeavours to set forth the way in which the Divine purpose of the Fulness is

accomplished.  At either end of the chart stand `the beginning' and `the

end', the black division that immediately follows the former representing the

catastrophe of Genesis 1:2, `without form or void'; the black division that

immediately precedes the consummation represents the corresponding state of

dissolution indicated in Isaiah 34:4 and 2 Peter 3 leading up to 1

Corinthians 15:24 -28.  Running along the bottom of the chart is `the deep'