DUPL
A 548938

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Tappan Presbyterian Association
LIBRARY.
Presented by HON. D. BETHUNE DUFFIELD.
From Library of Rev. Geo. Duffield, D.D.
DEO REIPUBLICÆ ET AMICIS

ESTO SEMPER FIDELIS.
Georuffitel
Section
་
ཙམཱལཱ ཀངྑཱརཾ
VARY
BS
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172
снај
228. 18
EXPOSITION
OF THE
BOOK OF REVELATION,
IN A
SERIES OF LECTURES.
BY THE
REV. EDWARD IRVING, A.M.
MINISTER OF THE NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH, REGENT SQUARE,
LONDON.
D
Voli
LONDON:
Printed by Ellerton and Henderson,
Gough Square;
FOR BALDWIN AND CRADOCK,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCXXXI.
} !
J
1
VOLUME II.
CONTAINING
LECT. VI. THE EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF
PERGAMOS.
VII. THE EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF
THYATIRA.
VIII. THE EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF
SARDIS.
A 2
}
}
Tappan Paert, Arsoe.
3-22-1933
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
LECTURE VI.
EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH IN PERGAMOS.
Introduction
page 493
Christ's third Designation
504
Of Discipline
512
Satan's Seat
517
Holding fast Christ's Name
524
Antipas the Faithful Martyr
534
Commendation of the Angel of Pergamos
539
Reproof.
542
The Balaamites
547
The Nicolaitanes
567
The Threatening
572
The Spirit's Promise
581
The Hidden Manna..
583
•
The White Stone..
587
LECTURE VII.
EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
Introduction
Style of the Chief Shepherd
Son of God
Eyes of Fire
Feet of Fine Brass
593
595
ibid.
609
611
614
618
636
662
746
· ·
777
Christ's Message to the Angel
Commendation
Rebuke
•
•
Digression on the Endowment of the Church
The Promise to the Church of Thyatira
Conclusion
vi
CONTENTS.
LECTURE VIII.
EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF SARDIS.
General Observations
•
Christ's Style or Designation · ·
His Instructions to the Angel of the Church
• •
The Threatening
The Approbation..
The Spirit's Exhortation and Promise
Conclusion
page
785
792
813
869
882
903
943
493
LECTURE VI.
THE EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH IN PERGAMOS.
REV. ii. 12-17.
And to the angel of the church in Pergamos, write, These
things saith He which hath the sharp sword with two
edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even
where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name,
and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein
Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among
you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things
against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the
doctrine of Balaam, who taught Baluk to cast a stumbling
block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacri-
ficed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast
thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,
which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto
thee quickly, and will fight against them with the
sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that
and
overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna,
will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new
name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that re-
ceiveth it.
THE view which I have given of these epistles, considered
in general, is, that in them is exhibited the constitution of
true Christian churches under Christ the chief Shepherd in-
visible, and the visible representatives of him, called angels,
for the ministry of word and of sacrament, held together
by the one Spirit of Christ in all love and obedience, and
preserved amongst the nations to hold up, in the midst of
darkness and cruelty, and all temptation, the true and
faithful name of God, to the end that men may believe
thereon, and be saved from the wrath to come. Wherein,
2 U
494
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
as in so many seed-beds, prepared with all good culture,
might be sown the seed of the kingdom, and the children
of the kingdom might grow up, and testify to the Father's
love to his creatures, though apostate, Christ's power to
reclaim and sanctify the chief of sinners; that all men,
having a continual and abiding proof of the promise ful-
filled, may be left without all manner of excuse, if they
do not come unto God, and be in like manner recovered
from the misery and bondage of prodigal outcasts, into
the adoption and liberty of the sons of God. Witnesses
to the power of Christ in the Spirit, are these churches,
as the Jews are witnesses to his power in the word; we,
the proof of his supremacy over spiritual wickednesses,-
they, the proof of his providence over the nations of the
earth; both together, of his lordship over all things which
God hath created and made; forasmuch as though the
spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places have sought
to corrupt us, and the rulers of the darkness of this world
to destroy them, like the burning bush we are never con-
sumed, are preserved by Christ's Spirit and providence,
by his power and sovereignty over things visible and things
invisible. When Jehovah made a covenant with the people
of the former dispensation, it began by setting forth the
holy constitution of law and government, and religion,
under which they should live (Ex. xx-xxiii), by which
they might be judged, and to which they might reduce
themselves, in all after periods of their history: so judge
I, that in this prophetic history of the people of the New
Testament, through all their errors and apostasies, there
is set forth, in the first place, the nature and constitution,
the privileges and obligations, of that society or fellowship
which he wisheth his church to hold by, and if they be
seduced away, thereto to return with all carefulness, lest
he come and visit them with his wrath and indignation. In
no lower a place do I set these seven Epistles, than as the
constitutional charter of the chosen generation and royal
priesthood, and holy nation, and peculiar people of God;
by which all canon law, codes of discipline, acts of eccle-
siastical judicatories should guide themselves, and according
to which they shall all be tried by the great Head of the
church.
Next, as a constituent part of the revelation of Jesus
vi.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Epistles.
495
Christ, these Epistles are entitled to the most exact
consideration. They exhibit Christ as the Head of the
church, the Father of the chosen seed, who, by means of
the ordinances, doth feed and nourish up to manhood all
those to whom God the Father giveth faith in his name.
They present him as the great vine of life, nourishing
fruitful branches in the midst of storms, and perils, and
persecutions of many generations. They shew the church
as a substantial and essential part of the Divine purpose
and decree, against which the gates of hell are not able
to prevail; which persevereth, though all the world be set
against it. And by this superiority to a world's tempta-
tions, by this union with Christ, maintained against a
world's distractions, not only is the supernatural character
of the church demonstrated, but likewise the Divine cha-
racter and power of that Holy Spirit who preserves the
union between Christ and his people against all powers
in creation. For that which prevails against all creation,
inust be the Creator, the very Creator himself. As the
person sustaining our weak and wicked nature in full com-
munion of holiness and will with God, is proved to be one
with God; so he, maintaining the union of the church
with Christ, against all diabolical and worldly attempts, is
proved likewise to be God. The incarnation and resur-
rection of Christ proved him to be God, the preservation
of a church in the midst of a persecuting world, proves
the Holy Ghost to be God: and the manner of the proof
in both cases is the same. That which can withstand and
overcome the creation, must be no less than the Creator,
who is God. In this Divine work of maintaining a church
united to Christ, in despite of a confederate conflicting
world of wicked spirits and wicked men, Christ himself is
the worker. He it is who from himself, as from the heart
and head of power, shoots forth the circulating stream of
vital holiness and supernatural strength, which maintains
their most wondrous life in the midst of so many deaths.
Upon his flesh and blood they are fed, and they live by
him, as he, in the days of his flesh, lived by the Father.
This supernatural, this divine work of gainsaying creation's
evil mind, and withstanding creation's utmost violence, as
it is acted by Christ, proveth him to be Lord of creation,
its Controller, and its Redeemer, and its Saviour; while
2 U 2
496
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the express limitation of bodily place and human power,
to which by incarnation he hath restricted himself, doth
require that the Holy Ghost, by whose service he thus
pervades all place, and resists all evil, and sustains a
perpetual church in the midst of a wicked and rebellious
world, must be himself a Divine and Almighty person,
one with the Creator,-the Creator. The same advantage
which God took of our mortal, sinful, and corrupt nature,
to prove the Divinity of his Son, and his own almighty grace
in endowing it with holiness, and with power, and with
life everlasting, hath he taken of a rebel world, in order
to prove through the church, the Divinity of the Holy
Ghost, and the Lordship of the Man Christ Jesus, from
whom the Holy Ghost proceedeth. Therefore it is, that
throughout this book the nations and the kings of the earth
are allowed to confederate against the Lord and his Anoint-
ed. Satan and the powers of darkness, death and sin, all
cruelty and craftiness and delusive power of Paganism,
subtle craftiness of Papacy, hard heartedness, mockery,
and ridicule of Infidelity, are allowed to combine and work
in all ways against the Lord's faithful ones, to the end that
the antagonist power of the Spirit, and the Spirit's Direc-
tor, the Man Christ Jesus, may be manifested to be above
creation, above all power, whether visible or visible,
which is the same as to manifest that it is altogether cre-
ative and divine. For I hold it as an axiom, that what is
above the creation, is the Creator; that what resists and
overcomes the world, visible and invisible, is the
power
of
God. And this surely is the way in which God proves
his own Godhead, by mighty acts, controlling wickedness,
and bringing huge confederacies of evil to an untimely and
disgraceful end, as when he destroyed Pharaoh and Senna-
cherib; and when he shall destroy evil, it is that “Men
may know that I am God:" "That my name may be
exalted." And above all, when Antichrist is destroyed
by the coming of Christ, in the day of his wrath, then
"all nations shall come and worship before him, for his
judgments are made manifest" (Rev. xv. 4).
Thirdly: These Epistles ought to be contemplated
as together forming a most important part in the struc-
ture of this book; whose plan cannot be studied, whose
completeness cannot be understood, without them.
vi.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Epistles.
197
shall find, when we come to study the book of seals,— and
indeed any one perusing the fifth seal can at once per-
ceive it, that the controversy which God hath with the
earth is for the blood of his martyrs. The same is mani-
fest with respect to his dealings with Babylon, in whom is
found the blood of martyrs and of all that were slain
upon the earth: and when the kings of the earth have
been set aside from their offices of regiment, those who
succeed unto the vacant thrones are these same martyrs.
The groundwork and, as it were, mainspring of the whole
action is, therefore, the martyrdom of Christ's faithful
ones, who are ever and in every place found upon the
earth. Whence the question ariseth, Where is there any
account of these martyrs, or of the provisions of God for
their being reared up in continual supply for this fierce
and consuming battle which their enemies are continually
waging against them? The answer is given by pointing to
these epistles. Here is the provision for rearing up the
army of martyrs. These seven churches are the nurseries
of those hardy soldiers of God and of Christ. Hence issue
those mighty men of war, those soldiers of righteousness,
those champions of the Cross. Therefore it is spoke to
every one of them by the Spirit in the language of battle
and victory, "To him that overcometh;" and by the same
Spirit are held out promises which come into accomplish-
ment against the day of the revelation of Jesus Christ;
honourable titles and high places in the kingdom of the
Son of man. But the Captain-general of the host is Christ
himself, who appears at the head of the vision, with that
same sword procceding out of his mouth with which
he slays all his enemies in the end of the day of wrath.
And his captains subordinate are the angels of the churches,
through whom he ministers the food of everlasting life, by
which they are able to triumph over all the defiances and
deaths of the enemy. Being seen in this light, thesc
epistles stand out as occupying the most noble place in
this glorious structure built for the testimony of Jesus
Christ;-as not of any private interpretation; as not of
any local or temporary application; as not of numerical
limitation to any seven churches, but, according to our
doctrine taught from the beginning, as containing a
constant and abiding, a uniform and universal, action of
2 U 3
498
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Christ in the world, unto the end of producing and repro-
ducing those faithful witnesses, through whom the glory
of the Lord may be manifested in the sight of all men,
and the battles of the Lord waged with the unbelieving
world. It is the first scene in the great drama, wherein
is exhibited that domestic and heavenly condition of peace
and holiness, that righteous discipline and administration
of pure and blessed truth; whereon the invader comes
like a flood to destroy it; into which he insinuates errors
and deceptions, to betray and seduce it into all sorts of
wickedness; but though cruelly he rageth with much
bloodshed, and most cunningly he mimics and mocks the
truth; yet nought prevaileth he to mislead or to terrify
any one of God's elect, and Christ's flock: who come
through the long and laborious conflict of thousands of
years with an unbroken line of conflict, until at length
they reap the victory in the battle of Armageddon, the
battle of the great day of God Almighty, and wear the
bright honours of the first resurrection, and rear upon the
earth the trophies of blessed and righteous government
forever and ever,-of glory to God in the highest, peace
on earth, and good-will among men.
Fourthly: While these are the views which I have been
working with in the interpretation of the two preceding
epistles, I have lately begun to suspect that, in order
to arrive at the completeness of the idea, there is yet
another view necessary to be taken, which is that of suc-
cession- -a succession, however, rather in form and con-
dition, than in precise and exact eras of time; such a
succession, for example, as in the beast is signified by the
seven heads. To this suspicion I have been led by the
growing evidence of my own interpretations; and in the
principle of it I have been confirmed by a most able paper
upon the subject in the sixth Number of the Morning
Watch. What the details of that most able writer's in-
terpretation are, I know but very imperfectly, or rather
not at all and I am the better pleased to work out my
own conviction, that the truth may be confirmed in the
mouth of two witnesses, and that I may not be over-
swayed by the great force and power of reason which
appear in the author of that paper. The idea which I
have got is, that Satan presenteth himself under seven
VI.]
Christ the Universal Bishop-The Epistles.
499
:
forms of temptation to the church, one after the other;
which gives occasion to our living Head to offer to the
Church a sevenfold form of instruction and warning and
hope. The first temptation is, decline of love; the second
is, persecution and death; the third is, amalgamation with
the world, and chastisement, that they may not be de-
stroyed with the wicked; the fourth is, the licence of the
mother of harlots; the fifth is, the formality of a name;
the sixth is, great weakness, "little strength," together
with the opposition of false brethren; the seventh is, self-
sufficiency and vain-glory. Appropriate to these seven
forms of Antichrist in the church, are seven forms of
Christ the good Shepherd, and of the Holy Ghost the
Comforter, in the knowledge and faith of which the saints
may be strengthened to overcome. Now that the seven
churches were exactly in the conditions set forth in these
seven instructions I nothing doubt; and I believe that
these seven, rather than any others, were chosen of very
purpose of being patterns to all the churches which then
were or thereafter should be, and so as to exhibit in their
variety all the possible varieties of condition into which any
and every church of Christ can possibly be brought; to
the end that every church and every angel looking there-
unto might see their own temptations, warnings, and means
of deliverance. But, besides this, I am inclined also to
believe, that in these seven churches are exhibited seven
states into which the church should be brought through-
out all the period of its history; seven progressive con-
ditions of trials through which it should pass; together
with the seven forms of the Spirit, in the strength of
which it should prevail until the day of redemption. This
view of the epistles I have been slow to admit, being
possessed with the three important views of them given
above; but it has been strongly borne in upon my mind
by many coincidences, which were not to be explained as
accidental; and perceiving that this additional bearing did
in no way subvert those other principles which I have on
sure grounds established, but did rather come in as further
trial and confirmation of them, I have given a more
patient consideration to it, and am now very much dis-
posed to take it in along with the rest. To explain it
500
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
as it now appears at present to me, I must cast a glance
backward upon the two former epistles.
The first is of the Great Bishop's carefulness, containing
an invocation of the shepherds not to decline from their
first love, and of the flock to be assured of an heavenly
pasture. Now, if I err not, this will take in the period dur-
ing which the various flocks were gathering out of the na-
tions under their various shepherds, overseen and intended by
the good Shepherd himself, who gave his life for the sheep;
a period which we must begin from the day of Pentecost,
and continue till the next period sets in, which we shall be
in a better case to determine, when we shall have consi-
dered what that second period is. This is evidently the
period of persecution unto the death, of the ten days or
periods of persecution, that state of the church to which
Christ presents himself as the Resurrection and the
Life, and the Spirit as the Preserver from the second
death. Now this period of waste, and tribulation, and
poverty, and death, began from Nero's time, and ended
with that of Constantine. This would determine the
Ephesian period to be the life-time of the Apostles, the
times of Paul and Peter and James, and the other dis-
ciples of the Lord, through whom the Gospel was preached
and the churches planted over the whole Roman empire, as
Paul himself declares: "Have they not heard? Yes, verily,
their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto
the ends of the world." (Rom. x. 18.) This is the period
of primitive love, and increase of the flock through love
and. carefulness: and the next period, which is intro-
duced by reason of the decline of the first love, is the
season of persecution and death. These periods, may also
be realized by the forms of the wickedness or temptation
whereof the first, that of the Nicolaitanes, is, as we have
seen,sensuality; and the second is Judaising, or falling away
to the pomp and circumstance and splendour of the for-
mer dispensation. How much this spirit took hold of the
church during the centuries of persecution, any one con-
versant with the ecclesiastical history of those times well
knows. For though the Ebionites were cast out as heretics,
this did not prevent the leaven of ancient formalities from
introducing itself. The third epistle is not of death by
A
VI.]
Christ the Universal Bishop-The Epistles. 501
martyrdom, but of judgment by the sword, wherein the
Head of the church should be known not as a supporter
under the stroke of the executioner, but as the executioner
himself, wherein the churches should not be in general
faithful to his name, but, because of their corruptness,
should be visited with the judgment of the sword, cutting
off the fair and costly shews which they were making in
the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, visiting with
fierce judgments upon those things in which they gloried,
that they might be taught to glory only in the Lord. This
period, joining to the other, must set in with Constan-
tine, and continue till all the churches were laid waste
by the sword of the barbarians, which brings us down to
the time of Charlemagne, or rather of his father, when the
sword of the barbarous nations was sheathed, both in the
East and in the West, and a new form of the church be-
gan to come into being and activity. The Lombards, last
of a terrible succession in the West, and the Saracens, last
also of the scourges in the East, (for the Turk brought
death to the church, whereas this epistle concerneth only
chastisement,) came to their end by the same instrument-
ality of Charles Martel, the father of Charlemagne. This
period includes five centuries (from 300 to 800); during the
last three of which the Papacy was changing the form of the
church, and preparing that aspect of it to which the fourth
epistle is addressed. This period also may be recognized in
its temptations, which are a priesthood making gain of godli-
ness as Balaam did, and introducing into the Christian church
the abominations of the heathen, together with the sensu-
ality of the Nicolaitanes: and the faithful opposer of their
errors is called Antipas, whose personality, as one of the
church of Pergamos, we do in nothing question, while at
the same time we look at his name, "against all," as casting
light upon the period in question; during which, in the
midst of the weakness brought on by the sword of God,
the pope reared his head and stood forth in that greatness
of strength in which we find him at the reconstitution of
the empire in the person of Charlemagne.
Having opened the succession of these three, it would
be premature to follow out the remaining four, which will
come in their proper place: suffice it to say, that Thyatira,
the fourth, is the church under the seduction of Jezebel, or
the whore of Babylon, whose threatening is not chastise-
502
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ment but death. Sardis, the fifth, is the church under the
temptation of nominal orthodoxy, in which we and our
fathers have long been living, "having a name to live."
Philadelphia, the sixth, is a state of the church just coming
into being, which receiveth fulness of love, and with it
completeness of deliverance. And Laodicea is the last
stage of the church, upon whose deep sleep the Lord shall
descend like an armed man.
If this succession can be established, which will appear in
the sequel, this advantage will be gained;—namely, that the
basis of fact will lie not only in those seven churches, of which
almost all memorial is passed away but in the great outlines.
of church history which can never perish; while the vision
will come to have a prophetical and historical character,
as well as a real and universal one. Still however, as a
constituent part of the book, it will stand as the record of
the things that are; while, as a portion of the Divine reve-
lation, it will occupy the chief place as a system of catho-
lic instruction in canonical and ecclesiastical jurisprudence.
The things which we have already taught remain the same;
and this one thing is added, that the epistles have also a
bearing upon, and an application, to, seven successive con-
ditions of the church in her warfare against Antichrist.
Such being our view of this first vision of Christ and
section of this book, we go about to explain it as con-
taining the milk of valour, and the seed of martyrdom,
the precepts of the Christian warfare, the hopes of the
Christian champion, and the rewards of his painful service.
All things else which we touch are but subsidiary, and,
as it were, by the way; for example, whether the consti-
tutions of these churches answer better to the Presbyterian,
Episcopalian, or Independent platform reared in this island,
is a mere fragment of the subject, on which I would not
spend any great attention or labour, and have not; for
all that I have said on this topic is to maintain this great
principle, That the angel of any church, he who is the
messenger and internuncio between them and Christ, is
free to go to Christ without any interference whatever,
and to fetch from him plenty for all his flock: that no
presbytery, no bishop, nor pope, nor devil, no, nor angel,
may dare to intrude between the man who ministers in
word and ordinances and the Head of the church, the
chief Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. Here is the
vi.]
503
Christ the Universal Bishop-The Epistles.
common ground on which the churches in this land meet,
whether they be Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Inde-
pendent. For I know it to be the constitution of the
Church of Scotland, and I understand it to be the consti-
tution of the Church of England, that when a minister
hath received his ordination over a flock, he is expected
to act there with a view to Christ only, to his glory only;
and the less occasion they have to meddle with him, the
better they account of him, the better soldier they esteem
him. Nay more, they expect it of him to lie open to all
truth, to draw largely upon the great source of the sup-
ply, and to make known for the whole church whatever
profit he makes beyond his brethren. And the church
expects of her ministers to help on the work of perfecting
her in all sound doctrine and holy discipline. It is a to-
tally incorrect idea of church creeds and canons, that
they are boundaries to the living spirit of the church, say-
ing evermore, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further:
and equally false is it to set them down as a standard
of infallibility ever saying, This is right, and whatever
contravenes this is certainly wrong. He who thus uses the
creeds and canons of the church makes an idol of them,
and grieves the Spirit of Christ, and of the holy men who
framed them for the good use of testifying against the
errors that they saw around them, to the best of their
ability, without dreaming that they also were not liable
to err. For the purpose of giving every angel of the
church his true standing, as the perpetual passer between
Christ and his people, free as the air which he breathes,
and full, full of confidence in his Divine Teacher; this
standing to make good for myself and for all ministers of
truth, that they may not be hand-fastened nor foot-bound
by all the necessary or unnecessary creeds and canons of
the church: this is the reason why I have gone into these
questions for the common good of ministers, and through
them of their flocks, not for the magnifying of any parti
cular form of church government, or for justifying the ordi-
nance of established churches, which, though important
questions in their place, are beside our present subject,
and far beneath our present aim.
Having thus recollected, and a little added to, our ge.
neral idea of these seven epistles, we now proceed to
504
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
open according to our common method, that which was
written for the church of Pergamos; premising merely
in this place, that this was the chief city of Mysia, and
the residence of the Attalian kings, distant from Smyrna
about sixty miles towards the north; being still a town of
some consequence, with a population of about 15,000,
and having in it two Christian churches, and nine or ten
Mohammedan mosques. In another part of the epistle,
our attention is called to its irreligious character, and
that will be the place to introduce any historical notices
which remain of it. Meanwhile we proceed, according to
our method, to treat, first, of the style which Christ chooseth
for himself in speaking to them.
THE EPISTLE TO PERGAMOS-CHRIST'S STYLE.
"These things saith He which hath the sharp sword
with two edges." This is a very different style from the two
preceding, adopted towards the churches of Ephesus and
Smyrna; whereof the former imported pastoral watch-
fulness and security, the latter omnipresent and omni-
potent life, to sustain under persecutions, and to overcome
the power of death: but this now before us brings our
tender and merciful Shepherd into view, with weapons of
war, sharp and two-edged, with which he threatens some,
that if they repent not, he will "come quickly, and will
fight against them," So at times appears the shepherd
amongst his flock, with the instruments of death to cut
off such as are visited with a pestilent disease, that the
others be not infected; so also sometimes comes the vine-
dresser, not with his pruning hook, to clear the branches
from incumbrance, but with his axe in hand to lop away
such as have from any cause become utterly unfruitful :
and so also into the bosom of the sweetest, happiest family,
is the chirurgeon with his instruments welcomed; and by
no one so much as by the poor patient distracted with suf-
fering, which nothing but the knife can cure, haply worn
down with the gnawing pain of toothache, or threatened
with death by the fast-spreading gangrene of some incurable
member. Yet not his first nor his second approach maketh
our blessed Lord in this more severe, though not less lov-
ing aspect, but the third time, when neither the authority
and care of the good Shepherd nor the assurance of death's
VI.]
505
Epistle to Pergamos-Christ's Style.
Conqueror have availed to preserve his church in purity
from the temptations of the wicked. Then, lest, for want
of timely correction, he should lose his dear-bought and
well-beloved children, he appears amongst them with the
emblems of chastisement, and of destruction, in order to
enforce the word which he is about to utter; and wishing
now to be listened to as well by the fear as by the affec-
tion and trust of the church, he speaketh in the character
of the Judge and the Avenger, saying, "These things saith
He which hath the sharp sword with two edges."
We have already, in our third Lecture, ascertained the
import of this symbol to be, not conversion, as some, from
the circumstance of its going forth from the mouth would
fain seduce themselves to believe, but chastisement, even
unto cutting off and destruction, as is evidenced in the
battle of the Lamb against the beast, where the sword
is called into use (xix. 15), to slay all the enemies of
the Lord, who had not been taken alive and cast into the
lake of fire burning with brimstone; and as to the circum-
stance of its proceeding out of his mouth, it betokeneth
the destruction to proceed from word, from breath of
speech, from "saying, and it is done;" as it is written
(Hos. vi. 6), “I have hewed them by the prophets, I have
slain them by the words of my mouth :" and again (Isai.
xi. 4), "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked."
Without repeating what hath been there set forth con-
cerning the certain meaning of this symbol, we proceed
now, according to our method, to gather from the other
Scriptures light around this name and style of our Great
Bishop, and to hold it up in due prominency, right pro-
portions, and proper application, before the church, es-
pecially in this our day and generation, the vineyard that
we are specially called upon to keep.
It hath been one of the sweetest recreations of my soul,
in the midst of these pious labours, to search the Scripture
for the origin of those names, figures, and symbols, which
are used in the Apocalypse: and in no case hath this been
attended with more edification than in the case of the
sword proceeding out of Messiah's mouth; which carries
our attention at once to the xlix th chap. of the Prophecies
of Isaiah, where is found the original of this symbol in
2 x
506
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
these words: "The Lord hath called me from the womb;
from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my
name. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me
a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; and said
unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will
be glorified." Where, by means of the two similitudes of
the sword and the polished shaft, a fuller idea is conveyed
than in the text itself; the former pointing out the origin
of all judgments in the word of Messiah's mouth, the
latter pointing out the effect of these words in the hearts
of the King's enemies: for as the sword declares the
strength of him who useth it, the arrow declares the de-
struction of him who receiveth it into his bosom. This
text doth further declare, that for a season after Messiah's
mouth had been thus endowed with all power in heaven
and in earth, and all judgment given unto his hand, be-
cause he is the Son of Man, he was to be hidden in the
shadow of Jehovah's hand, and in his quiver laid up in
store; until the day of grace and salvation should have run
out its appointed term, and he shall come to the battle of the
great day of God Almighty, in which the wicked one shall
be consumed with the breath of his mouth, and destroyed with
the brightness of his coming. And because he would have
all men to know how very great and powerful, and how much
sharper than a two-edged sword, is that word of his which
now speaketh from heaven, and will then execute every
jot and tittle of all which it hath spoken; he begins this,
the sublimest strain of prophecy, with the annunciation of
himself as such, and in right of this superlative exaltation.
as God's avenger, he calleth upon all to give good ear to
his words: "Listen, O isles unto me; and hearken, ye
peoples, from far." And to the effect it might be known
that as man, and the Son of Man, he had received and
would yet execute the judgment, he addeth, "Jehovah
hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my
mother hath he made mention of my name." And from
this place forward to the conclusion of the Prophet, that
is, throughout seventeen chapters, we have a series of
words spoken by the Judge of all the earth, to the Jews
and to the Gentiles; to those that fear God, and to those
who fear him not, concluding with these words: "For
VI.]
507
Epistle to Pergamos-Christ's Style.
behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots
like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his
rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire, and by his sword,
will the Lord plead with all flesh; and the slain of the
Lord shall be many" (Isai. Ixvi. 15, 16). And so in the
Apocalypse, Christ appeareth first with the sword pro-
ceeding from his mouth (i. 16), and declareth himself by
this name unto his church in this third epistle, and this
done, hideth himself for a long season in the quiver of
God, until in the great crisis and consummation he re-
appears "to judge and make war" (xix. 11), and to plead
with all flesh by fire and sword; by fire against the beast
and false prophet, by sword against the remnant who had
dared to array themselves against the Lamb, and those that
are with him, who are "called and faithful and chosen."
Whosoever will turn these things in his mind, must be
convinced that great light should be cast upon Christ's
action as the swordsman, from studying these chapters of
our prophet; which might well be denominated the Reve-
lation of Jesus Christ unto the Jew.
I do not propose to myself in this place such a weighty
task as to give a particular account of the substance of
that glorious revelation of Jesus Christ; but only to de-
rive from it light upon the style or designation which he
assumeth to himself in the passage before us.
But it may
be said, What evidence is there, that the last seventeen
chapters of Isaiah are indeed one strain of prophecy?
The same evidence as there is that the whole book of Re-
velation concerneth that one person who appeareth in the
first chapter in such symbolical raiment, as being taken
piecemeal, might afford the means of identifying him
throughout the various scenes and actions of the book.
So in the first few verses of the xlixth chapter, such cha-
racteristics are put upon him as enable us to recognize the
same person every where in the following chapters. There
are, first, his being from the womb called and named of
God, and fitted for his work (ver. 1): the second is, the
office to which he was called, "to be his servant, to bring
Jacob again to him" (ver. 5); "his servant Israel, in
whom he would be glorified" (ver. 3): the third is, his
failure the first time in this service;
"I have spent my
strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely my judgment
'
2 x 2
508
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
is with the Lord, and my work with my God" (ver. 4);
though Israel be not gathered" (ver. 5): the fourth is,
his being hidden for a season with God after he had
received his power and glory, and abiding there till the
times of the Father be accomplished (ver. 2): the fifth
is, his being in the mean time, while he is despised and
abhorred of the nations, given as a light to the Gentiles;
for the Apostle positively refers the acceptable time and
the day of salvation of verse eight to the present dispen-
sation of the Gentiles (2 Cor. vi. 2): and the last is, his
being preserved safe until the time when Jehovah shall
give him for a covenant of the people, to establish the
earth, and to cause to inherit the desolate heritages, to
say to the prisoners, Go forth, &c. which is the restoration
of Israel, and in them the blessedness of the whole earth.
Now, let any one take these six features of Messiah, and,
with them in his mind, read the chapters which follow, and
he will find how they are bound together and most closely
interwoven in all their parts. The xlixth chapter is like an
epitome of the whol~ series, which together forms a glorious
discourse upon these the purposes of God for revealing his
great and holy name, and justifying the goodness of his acts
by Israel his servant. The 1th chapter assigns for the reason
of their being cast off, that they had rejected him when he
came and spake unto them wisdom, and preached unto
them comfort (ver. 4), nor would obey the voice of him
whom God had chosen for his servant (ver. 10). This
chapter is good against the deniers of Christ's weak hu-
manity, of his living by faith, and being taught of the
Father; and by the Father exalted; who are so full of
his Godhead, or affect to be so jealous of it, that they will
not look at his Manhood, or listen to any one who speaks
of it let them listen to the Prophet Isaiah, or the Holy
Ghost speaking by him in the 1th chapter of his prophecy.
The list and liid chapters contain a various discourse from
the mouth of Messiah, to the people that follow after
righteousness, and claim Abraham for their father, and
Sarah for their mother, into the fellowship of whose in-
heritance we are entered by faith (Gal. iii. 14); and the
liiid, including the last three verses of the liid, refers the
glory of the work accomplished for Zion, to Him who is
God's servant (lii. 13; liii. 11); and the liv th chapter makes
vi.]
509
Epistle to Pergamos-Christ's Style.
his blessedness for ever sure. These four chapters are a
song of loves, containing, first, the cause of the temporary
separation of Messiah from his beloved Zion (1.1); then
her lamentable case, yet certain safety, during her aliena-
tion (li. 16); then her adorning as a bride for her bride-
groom (lii. I); and her redemption without price (ver. 3);
and safe settlement in her inheritance (ver. 11). Upon
which the strain changes as to its person, but not as to
its subject; from the church to her husband, from Rachel
the wife to Israel the servant of many labours; and re-
counts the consummate wisdom and love with which he
had won for himself and his beloved one such glory on
the earth (lii. 13; liii. 12). The love, the devoted love of
the bridegroom having thus been sung, behold, in chapter
liv., the blessedness of the marriage, her fruitfulness
(ver. 1), the rank of her husband (ver. 5), his eternal love
and faithfulness (ver. 6-10), the blessedness of her chil-
dren (ver. 11, 15), the destruction of all who rise up against
her for ever and ever (ver. 15-17). No one can doubt
that these four chapters are constructed upon the principle
of the marriage between Christ and his church, and that
chap. liii. so much and so deservedly prized, is the ac-
count of what lowliness Christ submits to in order to win
the beloved of his heart. Indeed the very outset of the
prophecy in chap. xlix. shews it to be constructed upon
the symbolical history of Jacob or Israel serving for his
beloved one, and after a period of service finding him-
self disappointed of her by the will of the father. Now
behold how leading an idea in the Revelation is this same
symbol of the marriage which not only is presented as the
consummation, from chap. xix. to the end, but is indeed
prepared for throughout the whole progress of the story;
for example, in the next epistle, by the promise of sitting
with him on his throne, and in the next again by the pro-
mise of the white raiment, and in the fifth seal by the
gift of that bridal attire; while it is also set out by the
contrast of Babylon the harlot, which being removed,
straightway the faithful and chaste spouse cometh with
Christ her husband, to rule the world. But first (xix. 11)
she must come along with him to the battle; and take part
in the action of the sword; which is preliminary to the
marriage and coronation and government. This order hath
2 x 3
510
[LECT
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
no similitude in the world, since chivalry ceased; but of
all chivalry it is the foundation. The future husband first
acts the soldier, to deliver his captive princess, and the
young knight enters into battle with some love-token from
the lady of his heart, to animate him to noble deeds; and
fair ladies were wont to look on and behold the prowess
of their champions, and were oft proposed as the prize of
battle;-all this, I say, hath its origin in the fruitful idea
of Christ the Redeemer of his church, which comes with
him, yea and calls upon him to go forth (Psalm xlv.) as
the champion of her meekness, and gentleness, and truth.
Some may make light of such allusions to a state of so-
ciety which is now wont to be very much despised; I would
there were something worthy to be compared with it in
these sinful days. It is not however the abuses which I
have to do with, but the idea; and how just, how pure,
how noble that was, and how congenial to the highest
faculties of reason, let the works of poetry and the deeds
of valour which it hath inspired testify. But whether the
illustration of chivalry be admitted or not, the idea of
Christ redeeming his dispossessed and captive church out
of the house of bondage, and then bringing her with him
as his betrothed bride, to witness the destruction of his ene-
mies, and to possess along with him the inheritance which
they had usurped, is the true one. This much, therefore,
we gather from the examination of these chapters of Isaiah,
drawn into comparison with the xlv th Psalm, and the book
of Revelations, that the sword with two edges belongs to
him as the champion of the church, of the meek and lowly
church, against her proud and cruel oppressors. That it
characterises him as the man of war, who shall yet by war
make war to cease unto the ends of the earth (Psalm xlvi).
The examination of the remaining chapters of Isaiah,
casts still stronger light upon this designation of our Re-
deemer "as Him who hath the sharp sword with two
edges." There is presented to us in the lviith chapter, the
prophecy of the sorceress or the oppressor of the people of
the Lord, out of whose hands they are delivered by the
Redeemer (lix. 20), whereupon follows the glory of Israel
in having righteous dominion over those Gentiles, by whom
they had been oppressed. The lx th, lxist, lxiid, and lxiiid
chapters, contain a continual reference to this act of bring-
9
vi.]
511
Epistle to Pergamos-Christ's Style.
ing the Gentiles by the edge of the sword, under the
supremacy of the Jews: indeed, this idea as the action of
the sword is given so far back as the song of Moses, Deut.
xxxii. 44; where, after recounting the oppression of his
people under the Gentiles, and chiding them for their un-
belief as the cause of it all, the Lord gathereth wrath
against the Gentiles, and their false gods, saying thus:
If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold
on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies,
and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine
arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh;
and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives,
from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy." (Deut.
xxxii. 41, 42.) This passage, which contains both the
sword and the arrows of the Lord, is the true origin of
the symbolical raiment and action of the xlv th Psalm,
which represents Christ as coming in the character of His
Father's and His people's avenger. As also it is of the
symbols in the xlix th chapter of Isaiah; and likewise of the
day of vengeance (Isaiah lxi. 2); as also of "the day of
vengeance, and the year of my redeemed
redeemed" (lxiii. 4). This
last passage is remarkably the action of the sword, being the
same with the action of the xxxiv th chapter, as we know
by the use of the self-same language, ver. 8: “ For it is the
day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompence
for the controversies of Zion." Now the action of that
chapter is expressly declared to be the action of the
sword of the Lord: "For my sword shall be bathed in
heaven: behold it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon
the people of my curse to judgment: the sword of the
Lordis filled with blood," &c. (ver.5). And the lxiiid chapter
refers to the Redeemer as coming from this slaughter of
Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah. And this action
being accomplished of smiting the apostasy of Edom, the
sword is drawn once more against all flesh: "For by fire
and by sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the
slain of the Lord shall be many." (Isaiah lxvi. 16.) From
these researches, which might be extended to other parts of
Scripture, we derive this most important conclusion, that
the symbol of the sword by which Christ would be known
to the church of Pergamos, doth point Him out not merely
as the executioner of the Father's anger in general, but also
in particular as the executioner of that judgment which is
512
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
*
to be brought upon the nations for their oppression of His
people; the judgment I mean upon the quick, which is
described at length in the xxv th chapter of Matthew, from
the 31st verse, where all the nations are tried by their
treatment of His people, and judged accordingly. But
no attribute of God or of Christ is understood aright by
being merely understood historically, because these blessed
persons are not in time subsistent, but the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever. Though, therefore, we have been at
pains to gather the import of this attribute of Christ, sym-
bolically expressed by the sword, by referring to the his-
torical event of the judgment of the Gentiles in which it
will be most remarkably illustrated; we now return with
the information thus gathered, and say that our great
Shepherd desireth the church of Pergamos, and all other
churches to regard him continually in the light of the
Judge, as well as the Saviour of the church. Shepherd as
He is, good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep, He
bears a rod for chastisement, as well as a staff for defence,
and a crook for pastoral care. True Vine though he is,
and parent Stem of all the branches, and their continual
sustenance and nourishment, he would have it to be
understood that he also fulfilleth the part of the vine
dresser, which, though personally it belong to the Father,
yet officially is it performed by Christ, into whose hands
all judgment hath been committed by the Father. As
Head of the church, he would have it to be known that
he doth execute regal authority as well as parental affec-
tion, priestly intercession, and prophetical counsel. That
it is as much his prerogative to cut off the wicked from
his house, as to keep the righteous in safety in one word,
that discipline is as essential an attribute of Christ as is
baptizing with the Holy Ghost, or feeding with his body
and blood. And this out of love and unto salvation; de-
struction of the flesh, that the soul may be saved in the day
of the Lord. Of discipline, therefore, we would say that
this epistle entreateth, and to this as the informing and
peculiar principle of it we will have respect in our inter-
pretation.
THE EPISTLE OF DISCIPLINE.
The epistle consisteth of three parts: the first, commend-
ation; the second, censure; and the third, exhortation to
VI.]
Epistle to Pergamos-of Discipline.
513
repentance. I have already observed how constantly
throughout these epistles commendation hath the lead of
every other feeling; although some of the churches had
arrived at as low a pass as can well be supposed. Even
in the case before us, things were in so bad a condition
that our good Shepherd presents himself armed with his
sharp two-edged sword, and departs with the announce-
ment of prompt and speedy execution if they repent not,
and yet he opens his mouth with words of commendation.
He sees it needful to bethink himself, and to forewarn
them of discipline; but still his love is the same unabated,
grateful affection as ever, and doth express itself in cordial
acknowledgment of the angel's good services in time past :
one would say he almost pleadeth his apology, by twice
over putting forth the peculiar hardships and temptations.
of his station. Can any clearer proof be given of the spirit
of love in which discipline should be gone about? Can any
more forcible command be given to the church with what
kindly and gentle words she should approach this ungenial
part of her duty. And in the way in which censure and
discipline are gone about, its willingness or unwillingness,
we have a sure means of ascertaining whether Christ is
present in those actings of his church, or not. The Roman
apostasy, fortified with hypocrisy at all points, understood
this well, and practised it most dexterously in every case
of discipline, however unjust and atrocious. Their feigned
forms of the true spirit, we Protestants have been honest
enough to set aside : let us beware whether we have not set
aside the spirit also. If, for example, any court of the church
assemble to take cognizance of a brother's real or supposed
fault, and approach the subject with rapid haste, break
down the venerable forms of justice and charity, and burst
out into bitter railings, and inflame themselves with vio-
lent speeches, until their assembly have more of the tem-
pestuous sea or boiling whirlpool, than of calm de-
liberate judgment, or soothing pity and love; then
what shall we say, but that this is not moved by the
Spirit of Christ to the work of holy discipline, but driven
on by the passion of anger and revenge ? And what shall
we expect to come forth from the boiling cauldron of its
rage, the wisdom which cometh from above? I trow
not. For that is "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and
easy to be entreated; full of mercy and good fruits, with-
514
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
out partiality and without hypocrisy." What then?
That, I fear, which is described by the Apostle James, in
these words: "But if ye have bitter envying and strife
in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly,
sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there
is confusion and every evil work." (James iii. 14-16.)
The discipline of the church may either become the
instrument of the most hideous injustice and cruel op-
pression, as in the Church of Rome it became from the
time of Dominick; or it may remain, what it was intend-
ed to be, the parent of union, the preserver against error,
the blessed peace-maker amongst the brethren. Nor is it
difficult to trace how it passeth over from the one extreme
to the other. The Lord hath laid down the golden rule
of discipline in these words: "Moreover, if thy brother
shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault
between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou
hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of
two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the
church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be
unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." (Matt. xviii.
15-17.) I will be bold to say, that wherever this rule is
observed in the Spirit, there will be peace and harmony
and love in the bosom of the church; and discipline will
be found, next to doctrine, to be the best gift of Heaven
to men but, on the other hand, when this rule fails to be
observed, either in the letter or the spirit of it, discipline
will become no better than a deadly weapon in the hands
of the strong to oppress the weak, in the hands of the
ungodly and hypocritical to put away the hateful reproofs
of the godly and sincere, in the hands of those who love
to be in darkness to hide and bury in oblivion the light of
those whom God hath kindled. A rule it is of the most
exquisite beauty and ample blessing, containing, first, an
injunction, when we feel offended in a brother on account
of any of his ways and doings, whether affecting us or
not, so that it affect the honour and glory of Him in whom
we live, and for whom we ought to live, we should straight-
way, if we cannot forbear any longer, go to himself, or
in some way or other communicate with him, break the
VI.]
515
Epistle to Pergamos-of Discipline.
matter to his own private ear, and deal with him as brother
ought with brother, after a most tender and kindly sort;
all with the view of gaining him over to God and goodness,
without thought or threatening of further proceeding,
in faith and hope of a happy termination, through the
common Spirit of truth and love. But if God be pleased
to try still further our faithfulness, and forbear his blessing
of peace, we are, as the second step, required to take one
or two along with us, and in their presence to set forth
the grounds of the offence, "that in the mouth of two or
three witnesses every word may be established;" that
they may lend their help to convince the conscience of the
brother who is thought to have erred: and if he have not
erred, that in their hearing he may justify himself, and so
in sweet conference the form and measure of the truth
may be ascertained. But if in the face of their judgment
the error or offence should be pertinaciously persisted in,
we are then commanded to lay the whole matter before
the church, as the ultimate tribunal beyond which there
is no higher upon the earth. To whose sentence, if
he likewise prove refractory, then is he to be held as
a heathen man and a publican, excommunicated from the
fellowship, and put forth from the blessed privileges of
the church; that he may know the misery of the howling
wilderness which is without, and come as a humble peni-
tent seeking to be restored to the protection and privileges,
the security and salvation of the fold. Then, to give
awful sanction to the church's voice on earth, he adds
these mighty words, "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever
ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven;"-words which have made emperors tremble
upon their thrones, and which were intended to make all
living men to reverence and stand in awe of the church,
as Christ's voice of truth and witness upon the earth,
through whom he pronounceth the doom not of kings only,
but of kingdoms, and of the earth itself, yea, and to the invi-
sible potentates of heaven doth make known the manifold
wisdom of God. So much the more careful ought the church
to be in giving judgment: so much the more reverent ought
we to be of the judgments which she giveth. And, seeing
the issues of her judgment-seat are so awful, so much the
more solicitous to prevent the interference of so terrible a
516
A
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
[LECT.
tribunal, and to conciliate differences in these earlier
stages by secret communion between ourselves, or pri-
vate conference in the presence of one or two witnesses.
To which also the Lord leads us on by the promise of a won-
derful blessing upon concord and concurrence between bro-
ther and brother; no less a blessing than that of receiving
whatever they shall ask of Heaven: "Again I say unto you,
that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any
thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my
Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst
of them" (Matt. xviii. 19, 20).
It is very delightful to study this, the golden rule of
discipline, upon which all forms of process against any
member of the church must, and in our church do, rest:
experience hath taught me that there is in the practice
of it a very great reward, and that it generally succeeds
in restoring those who have erred from the truth. How
painful to see it so trampled under foot in these days of high
pretension, so invariably departed from by those who are
loudest in their professions, and holiest in the names which
they have appropriated to themselves! Do they deem a
brother to have erred in any point of doctrine, or come
short in any point of duty, they give their first notice of
it in some of their publications circulating over the whole
earth and to his astonishment he finds himself delated
over all Christendom as a vile and worthless person, with-
out knowing wherefore, without having heard one word of
explanation, one counsel of wisdom, one entreaty of love.
Then it becomes the subject of universal conversation,
misrepresentation, and accusation; and, after it hath been
ripened by much busy hatching of others, it becomes the
subject of conversation, debate, and inquiry in the courts
of the church, haply without one solitary minister or
elder having sought by personal conference either to
know the truth of the things asserted, or to recover
their brother to the way of godliness, if so be that he hath
erred. And thus inflated with windy rumour, thus in-
flamed with popular heats, they clamour for justice against
the offender, who all the while knows not wherein his
offence consisteth, and is stunned with the hideous errors
which are imputed to him, and which most likely exist
no where but in the malicious bosoms of the anonymous
VI.]
517
Epistle to Pergamos-Satan's Seat.
defamer who first raised the hue and cry against an un-
offending man, wresting his words, deforming his opinions,
and skilfully seeking to overthrow his good name and
influence in the church. When the discipline of the
church comes thus to be administered, it is as bad as the
Inquisition, with which it hath many things in common;
such as, a hidden accuser, torture of the most exquisite
kind which words can inflict before judgment, loss of
every thing which is dear to the innocent before trial is
begun. Ah me! what a thing this is! But there is a thing
more evil and portentous still; which is, the sympathy
felt with the secret and malicious accuser.
It has stung
me almost beyond endurance, to find the willingness
with which an evil report is entertained, and the part
that is taken with the publishers of it: though they present.
neither name, nor argument, nor evidence of any sort ;
though in the doing of it there may be the grossest
calumny, the most malicious spirit, the most wanton
cruelty, and the most indecent levity. Woe is me! what
a pass discipline is come to! It makes me tremble! I
count it an especial privilege that in this state of things, and
especially after what I have witnessed in the church these
last few months, I should be called upon, in the course of
Providence to open that epistle of our great Bishop which
treats of discipline. God give me the words of the wise,
and the spirit of the faithful witnesses of God.
PERGAMOS-SATAN'S SEAT.
"I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where
Satan's seat is."--The city of Pergamos arose into metro-
politan dignity more than three centuries before the Chris-
tian era, by the treachery of the treasurer of Lysimachus,
who, carrying hither great wealth, founded the dynasty
of the Attalian kings, which continued to subsist for nearly
two centuries, when the last of them made over his trea-
sure and his kingdom to the Romans. Besides its celebrity
for great wealth it also bore the palm among the cities of
Asia for its magnificent library, second only to that of the
Ptolemies in Alexandria. Its situation is in the midst of a
most fertile valley, whose very fertility inclines the people
to indolence and ease. These causes together, wealth,
luxury, and learning, had, it is likely, acquired for it the
2 Y
518
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
bad pre-eminence which it hath given to it in the text, as
Satan's Seat. I have not been able to find any more
distinct ground in history for this characteristic twice over
given to it in the epistle. The wealth of the Attalian kings.
was proverbial amongst the Romans; and the fulness and
indolence of the people, from the exceeding richness of
the country round, is observed by travellers. Sir Paul
Recault's description brought forcibly to my mind the
prophet's description of Samaria: "Woe to the crown of
pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty
is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys
of them that are overcome with wine!" (Isai. xxviii. 1.)
They were so devoted to their library that when the
Ptolemies, out of envy, introduced the exportation of
papyrus to write upon, they invented parchment; which
to this day in the Latin language bears the name of their
city. Now we know on which side the learning of those
days arrayed itself, the philosophy, the fables, and the
vain janglings. "Not many wise, not many noble are
called." A proof of the greater intensity of their hatred
to the Gospel is given in the next topic of the epistle, where
honourable mention is made of one who had already suffered
martyrdom there; a state of things not realized in any
other of the epistles. But whether there were any traces
in history or not, we may not doubt, having the word of
God for it, that Pergamos was well entitled to the cha-
racteristic of the text, "where Satan's seat is," "where
Satan dwelleth."
If again we take up the notion laid down above of a
reality in succession, as well as a reality in place, being
proper to these epistles, and upon the principles there
given assign to Pergamos the period from the "ten days of
persecution" proper to Sardis, onward till Jezebel, the
mother of harlots, obtained the sway; we have indeed
a most appropriate and significant interpretation of this
word; because then in very truth, was the church taken
into the bosom of Rome, and exalted on high beside the
imperial throne, which were the city and seat of Satan.
This is accurately determined in the xiii th chapter of this
book, which contains the vision of the Papal Roman
Empire; where it is said (ver. 2), " And the dragon gave
him his power, and HIS SEAT, and great authority. Now
vi.]
519
Epistle to Pergamos-Satan's Seat.
"the dragon" is identified with "the devil" in the xiith
chapter, verse 9: "And the great dragon was cast out,
that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan." Moreover
the seat of the whore who is confederate in place and action
with the beast, riding upon him and doing miracles before
him, is declared to be "that great city which reigneth over
the kings of the earth;" also, "the seven heads are seven
mountains, where the woman sitteth." (xvii. 9, 18.) Rome,
therefore, beyond a question, is the "seat of Satan ;" and
the time during which it was his seat, is the time be-
fore he gave it up to the beast, the time antecedent
to the Papal supremacy, when the symbol of chap. xiii.
began to come into being: that is, from the age of Con-
stantine, when Christianity became the religion of imperial
Rome, until the time of Justinian, when the Papacy was
hatched, and from which its life is reckoned; or, rather,
until the time of Charlemagne, when it came into full de-
velopment of its power and energy. How great a temp-
tation her establishment by the civil power became to the
church, has been so obvious to all men, that not a few,
led away by the manifest corruptions which followed,
have gone astray into the error that these were owing to
that imperial act, and that every establishment is a wicked
thing. If these men would a little more diligently go into
the examination of the church's corruptions, they would
find them to be all of an older date than the time of Con-
stantine; kept under, indeed, by the oppressive hand of
power, prevented from revealing themselves by him who
letteth," but ready to burst forth whenever occasion should
be presented. This we shall have ample occasion to shew
when we come to treat of the seals. Meanwhile, as there
exists such a fearful error upon the duties of kings to es-
tablish the Christian religion within their dominions, we
think it not amiss in this place to make a brief extract,
containing the argument upon this subject which we have
exhibited in our work on the responsibility of the church.
and state to God and to one another.
"I do not mean by this to impugn the act of Constan-
tine in establishing the church, which I believe to have
been the beginning of God's actings against the enemies
of Christ, whereof the first was paganism; and therefore
I do the rather devoutly contemplate it, as the first great
2 y 2
520
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
achievement of our King. A hard thing indeed it were,
and most unbeseeming royal dignity and power, if a king
might not in his estate do that which any nobleman or
master doth in his, when he says, that all his servants
shall fear the Lord, observe the ordinances of his worship,
keep holy the Sabbath, and walk according to his precepts
and commandments. And a very foolish and wicked thing
were it, for me, or any preacher of God's verity, to say
unto the heads of families, that they might not so enforce
obedience to the Gospel law within their house, because
it will place temptations to hypocrisy in the way of their
servants. The answer to all such quibbles is, I must save
my own soul; I must discharge myself of my own respon-
sibility unto the Lord, whose steward I am. And so must
every king he must save his own soul, by ordering that
estate which God hath given him in charge, according to
the ordinances of the kingdom of Christ, who is Prince of
the kings of the earth. Therefore do I deem that Con-
stantine performed a right dutiful and a right godly act,
when he established Christianity as the religion of the
empire; whereby, no doubt, the church of Christ was led
into temptation; just as the Church of Scotland and Church
of England are led into temptation by being established in
their several estates. But is it a new doctrine, that God
leadeth his people into temptation, that his mighty power
may be glorified in them over all his enemies? or is it not
the old doctrine, contained in the Lord's Prayer, 'Lead us
not into temptation?' And here it may be said, 'Well,
then; and ought not the church to pray against the temp-
tation of being established by secular princes?' To that
I answer, that, if it hath proved a temptation to the church
to be established, or to have the power upon its side, it
hath proved the destruction of the Reformed churches
of Spain, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, to have the
power set in array against them; while it hath proved the
salvation of the Protestant faith in this island to have had
the power on its side, although, doubtless, not without a
temptation. But, ah me! how shall we escape temptation.
in this wicked world? And though, in acknowledgment
of our weakness, we pray to be preserved from that to
which we so often yield, and to have from God as mild a
measure of trial as may be consistent with his own pur,
vi.]
521
Epistle to Pergamos-Satan's Seat.
pose; yet we do never look to be out of the fire of temp-
tation, until we are delivered from the militant state of the
church. Nay, but the church is not her own mistress in
this matter, so as to refuse to receive into her communion
a man because he is a king; and if that man, who is a
king, take on the profession of Christ, he cannot withhold,
he must not withhold, from ordering his household accord-
ing to the ordinances of Christ; and if he do withhold, the
preacher of the Gospel must tell him out his duty, as did
Knox and Latimer in the days of old. When Constantine,
therefore, established Christianity in his house, and ordered
the estate of his kingdom according to the discipline of
Christ, he did a most noble and praise-worthy act of sove-
reign power, which ought to have been a pattern unto all
kings which should come after. Yet it is not to be doubted,
that from this time forth began, or rather advanced with
more rapid strides, that spirit of courtly flattery, and epis-
copal ambition, of avarice and worldly dignity, which in
the course of two centuries vexed the Lord to that degree
that, weary of resisting, he gave them up to the lust of
their own minds; constituting over them a king of that
mongrel kind, half prince half priest, which they strove
after in the wickedness of their hearts."
While I agree therefore that the establishment of the
Christian religion by the Emperor gave a new impulse to
that spirit of Antichrist which was latent in the Apostle's
days, and is ever present in the church, I hold as firmly
as did all our Reformers, that it is the first duty of the
Magistrate to declare his subordination to Christ, by
establishing his law of love and liberty, as the law of his
kingdom, and requiring all office-bearers and persons to con-
form thereto. And it is the part of the church to receive
this dignity as a great boon from her Head, and to occupy
with all diligence and constancy the new position which
she hath received as the authorized guardian of the realm
in all which respects things spiritual. New temptations,
no doubt, arise from this new station; temptations to
hypocrisy and dissimulation; temptations to wealth, and
glory, and power; in one word, temptations to worldli
ness; against which she must be on her guard, and of
which she is well warned in this very epistle: but she is
not, through the fierceness of temptation, to shrink from
2 Y 3
522
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
serving her King and Lord, though it were in the fiery
furnace and in the lion's den, and in the place of dragons.
And, if I err not, the presence of an established church
is necessary to the production and growth of liberty in a
monarchy, and if the church be faithful, liberty upon true
and lasting principles, will never fail of arising upon the
land. This is a thing so little understood, that I make
no apology for quoting another passage from that work in
which I have argued all these questions at large.
"The king, so long as he cannot intermeddle in the
church, hath a distinct limit put to his power, and is most
effectually prevented from arrogating to himself tyranny
over the persons of his subjects, and Divine honours unto
his own person. For, consider what the church is; not a
silent thing, but full of all manner of voices concerning
God, concerning Christ, concerning grace and righteous-
ness, and mercy and peace, and every other holy and
heavenly thing. Nor is the church an inactive thing, but,
all the day long, all the year round, employed in holy
offices, not only teaching their duties unto all men, but
likewise, with pastoral care, seeing that these duties be
righteously discharged, not only teaching doctrine, but
exercising discipline within the bounds of the kingdom.
And what is discipline, but law under the form of love?
In this discipline of the church, the king may as little in-
terfere as in its doctrine. It belongeth to the church to
regulate it, and likewise to enforce it; and it is of the
free will of every member of the church to submit to it or
not, according to his fear of God, according to his love
of Christ, and his fellowship with the Holy Ghost. While
the king therefore interposeth not within the pale of the
church, there is not only a bound set within which he
cannot go, a limit to his will, but there is also the con-
stant operation of such holy principles and holy practices,
in the bosom of the kingdom, as tend, yea and never fail
to produce, the amelioration of every evil thing, the
sweetening of every relation, the comforting of every in-
firmity, the prosperity and the honour of every individual
in his proper estate. And not only so, but this barrier
presented to the will of the king, this operation beyond
and above his power, doth ever remind him of the supre-
macy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever Satan, by all
+
VI.] Epistle to Pergamos-Salan's Seat.
523
the temptations of high estate, by all the prerogatives of
sovereign power, would whisper in his ear that he is inde-
pendent and irresponsible of all; the continual presence
and testimony of the inviolate church doth ever recal to
his mind that there is one, even Christ, who is over him,
and with whose church he may not intermeddle. But, if
this barrier be broken down, if the king may enter into
the sanctuary of the church; to do any of the offices
thereof, to alter or to abrogate, to add or to limit; then,
behold, there is nothing left to represent the supremacy
of Christ over the king. That true check, that only
effectual check to arbitrary and tyrannical power, which
God hath set and constituted, in the separateness and in-
violateness of Christ's church, is removed; and nothing
is left of a constitutional and permanent kind, to recal
unto the mind of the sovereign that truth, necessary to
his own preservation, most wholesome for the well-being
of his kingdom,-the truth, that Jesus Christ is over him,
and hath within his dominions a visible, active, institution
with which the king may not intermeddle, before which
the king is only as a sinful person, needing the common
redemption of all, and to the ordinances of which he is
all submissive and obedient as one of the common people.
I have heard it said, that our present king, whom may
God long preserve the great head of the protestation
against the union of royalty and priesthood in one person,
did say unto the minister who was to preach before him,
Forget that thy king is before thee, and preach to me as
to another man. This was wisdom, this was the wisdom
of a king; this was piety, this was the piety of a king.
Now, consider with yourselves what a salutary effect the
continual presence of such a feeling to the mind of a
sovereign, the open expression of it every Sabbath in the
presence of the people; its solemn recognition every time
he takes the sacrament, every time he kneels with his fa-
mily before the Lord, in domestic devotion; consider, I
say, what a most wholesome and salutary effect upon his
mind, to incline it to the fear of God and the obedience
of Christ, must be wrought by the perpetual presence of
the sentiment of his inferiority and responsibility to Christ.
But if this be broken down, by giving him any ecclesias-
tical power whatever, then behold there is nothing to re-
6
الي
524
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
[LECT.
mind him of God, and of Christ, as his superior; of his
dignity to stand and rule under Him alone; of the spirit
in which he should govern, and of the laws and righteous-
ness and equity which he should execute. He therefore
doth necessarily become arbitrary, tyrannical, blasphe-
mous, satanic, or else checks are introduced of a violent
and of an evil kind, which tend to bring up another error,
That the king hath his authority from the people, and is
responsible, for the exercise of it, to the people."
So much have I thought it necessary to say upon the
expression, "where Satan's seat is," as connected with
the order in succession which this epistle occupies, lest
any one should be betrayed by a word into the baneful
and ruinous notion now circulated upon every wind, that
a church-establishment is in itself an essentially unchris-
tian thing, and pernicious to the liberties of mankind. It
is true that "the kingdoms of the earth and the power of
them are Satan's ;" but are they not also capable of being
wrested and redeemed out of his hand? Is he there the
supreme one? Is Christ there not his Lord also, whose
name is Prince of the kings of the earth; idle name, if so
be they cannot escape as kings from Satan's dominion,
but must, however they serve Christ personally, serve
Satan royally. Away with such doctrine, alike derogatory
to Christ, and to the king and to the people.
HOLDING FAST CHRIST'S NAME AND FAITH.
"And thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied
my faith."-To hold fast the name of Christ, is to hold
fast the power to save : “There is no name given under
heaven, amongst men, whereby we must be saved:" the
power to heal, and work all signs and wonders :
" And
that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy
holy child Jesus:" to assert its supremacy
"above every
name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow
in heaven and on earth." And, in one word, to speak
only in that name, and not to be perverted by the com-
mandments of the wicked, given forth that "we should
not speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus." In
Scripture, the name of Jehovah in the Old Testament and
of Jesus in the New, signify the same with his power;
which the Sanhedrim well understood, when they ques-
VI.] Epistle to Pergamos-Christ's Name and Faith. 525
""
tioned Peter and John, "By what name, or by what
power have ye done this?"
done this?" And Peter in his reply iden-
tifies the name with the very person : "Be it known unto
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom
God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man
stand here before you whole (Acts iv. 10). Now, be it
observed, that "holding fast the name is a different
thing from " abiding stedfast in the faith of Jesus;" for
both of which the angel of this church is commended.
And what is this distinction? The distinction, I think,
standeth in this, that while the faith hath respect to the
inward work of the Spirit, in uniting the believing soul
to Christ, and preserving the reality and the assuredness
thereof ever present for our sanctification; the name hath
respect to the outward signs of that indwelling Spirit of
Christ, such as are enumerated in the conclusion of the
Gospel according to Mark. First comes the work of faith,
“He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but
he that believeth not, shall be damned" (Mark xvi. 16);-
after which immediately come the signs, which are con-
nected with the name as clearly as the faith is connected
with the Gospel : "And these signs shall follow them that
believe In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall
speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and
if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark
xvi. 17, 18). I regard it therefore to be as much of the sub-
stance of a complete testimony to maintain that the power
of the name of Christ prevaileth to work signs and wonders
in the earth, and in the body of man, as it is to maintain
the power of faith to sanctify the soul; and herein the Pro-
testant churches have been very faithless if the Papists
have assumed another name, we have not confessed to the
name of Christ. And what has been the consequence?
Just in proportion as the true doctrine of signs, that they are
the evidence of Christ the Redeemer present by the Spirit
in the church, and the manifestation of the same Spirit,
went out, the false doctrine came in, that they were helps
to establish the doctrine, as if the doctrine were not es-
sential truth, which needeth no help but an honest con-
science; a conscience made honest by the Holy Ghost;
:
:
526
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
1
by which false notion more sceptics have been made than by
all the sceptical writers, turning the attention of men from
the ever-present and only adequate evidence of Christi-
anity in their own created and fallen being, away to re-
mote questions of Christian antiquities, very difficult even
for the learned, to the unlearned wholly inaccessible; the
very soil of scepticism; necessarily so, whether the question
were of Christianity or of any thing else. And in proportion
as the true doctrine of signs, that they are the manifestation
of the name and power of Christ is again revived in the
church, and the spell is even now broken, just in that
proportion will Christianity be placed upon its own basis;
which is, that Christ hath redeemed us from all evil, and,
though departed out of the world, hath a presence and
a power still in every believer through the Holy Ghost,
mighty enough to overcome the devil, and disease, and
death itself. The signs are really signs; signs of this
thing, that Jesus, the Redeemer, is in the person who
useth them: their evidence is not in their being miracu-
lous, but in their being of that kind of working which
Jesus alone was competent to work. He cast the devils out,
he healed the diseases of the body, he subjected the ele-
ments of nature so that they should not hurt man; he
testified to the truth of God's being come in the flesh to
save man: and when a poor weak worm of a man is made
to do these same things, it is the proof positive, that not
his own spirit but the Almighty Spirit of Christ is in him.
If, for example, his tongue is taken hold of, and without
his understanding made to utter holy and heavenly truths,
mysteries in the spirit, then is it proved that another in-
telligent Spirit than his own hath possession of him: which
Spirit, if it confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that
Christ is come in the flesh, can be no other than the Spirit
of God. And so by these signs, and especially the sign
of tongues, and this through the ignorance of the person
as to what he utters, is the great doctrine of Christ's dwell-
ing in many human persons in the world, at the same
time that he is out of the world, the doctrine of the
church's oneness with him, and with each other, and the
doctrine of a personal and Divine Spirit to maintain this
union, and be the worker of this power, and consequently
the Divinity of Christ himself, of the Man Christ Jesus, - all
VI.] Epistle to Pergamos-Christ's Name and Faith. 527
these doctrines become realities, observable truths, truths
of sense, truths to be seen and heard; which, without
the signs, would not have been credible. For how could
we believe that the spirit of a dead man, risen from the
dead and departed to the Father, should at once occupy
me and all the church living in the world? It is one
thing to hand down a doctrine by tradition, and quite
another thing to get for it a first establishment amongst
men. The doctrine of our oneness of Spirit—not likeness
but oneness, identity, very sameness-could never, I dare
to say, have obtained credence among men, by other
means than the signs; and now that it is never discoursed
of at all, or only as a figure and metaphor, and is hardly
believed by any, I think God will have recourse to the
same method of reviving it, by reviving the signs of
the Holy Ghost. And if so be, then I perceive, by the
way in which all parties, Moderate and Evangelical,
have entertained the question of the possibility of such
things, that if the Holy Ghost again reappear, he will
be blasphemed, and thus the Protestant churches will fall
for ever.
God prevent it. O rash men, reflect, and think
not that all wisdom is contained in Paley's Evidences, or
Campbell's Answer to Hume on Miracles. I challenge
any man, to set forth an argument to shew that God
intended these signs to abide only for a season in
the church. It is not possible to find in all the Scrip-
tures the shadow of evidence or argument for such an
opinion.
While thus I maintain that "to hold fast the name of
Christ" is to assert the power of that name, to beat back
the empire of Satan every where, and at all times, to
the end of giving the demonstration so often as it is needed,
that the same Jesus of Nazareth is both Christ and Lord,
and that the Son of God is come in the flesh, by ex-
hibiting his power in flesh-that is, in the living mem-
bers of the church-over all the power of the enemy,
I am very far from placing this as the whole or the
chief matter of a Christian minister's testimony; for
though it be a most important matter, placed as it is
first in the commendation of the angel of the church of
Pergamos, we are told by the Lord himself, that "many
shall say on that day, Lord, have we not cast out devils in
thy name, and in thy name done many wonderful works ?"
528
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
to whom Christ shall profess, "I never knew you; depart
from me, ye workers of iniquity." This second and still
more important part of a Christian's testimony consisteth
in not denying the faith of Jesus, which, as distinguished
from the former, I consider as having respect to the
Gospel, or good news of salvation, the proper objects
of faith, the thing believed in to the saving of the soul.
The faith of Christ hath respect to things invisible and yet
to come: the name of Christ hath respect to a present
putting forth of power. From holding fast the power of
Christ's name, we are continually tempted by the apparent
and ordinary course of nature, saying, "All things continue
as they were from the beginning:" from adhering to the
faith of Christ, we are tempted by the enjoyment of
things seen, and the terrors of the wicked. The law of
nature, which is a law of sin and death, holds its steady
and apparently irreversible course, and that a word should
be able to oversway it passeth almost the possibility of
belief. Yet this is what a Christian beareth testimony to,
when in the name of Jesus he maketh prayer of faith unto
the Father. What are such utterances but declarations of
the powerful name of Jesus to bring the thing besought to
pass, be it to cast out a devil or to heal disease, or to ob-
tain any gift, or to be delivered from any impending trial.
Faith in the name of Christ is the basis of all prayer, and
no prayer of faith offered in that name shall remain un-
fulfilled. The church on earth inhabited by the Holy
Spirit, and by Him inspired with thoughts and desires,
and knowledge agreeable to the will of God, doth breathe
these forth to the Father in the name of Christ; and
the Father by granting the things besought doth both
testify to his own being and give glory to Christ, and prove
the course of events to be wholly under Christ's controul
and government. If the church did offer bootless
prayer to the Father in the name of Christ, then would the
Father and the Son want a testimony on the earth; which
testimony standeth not in things past alone, but in things
continually occurring,-not in words written, but in works
doing. The church is a body of living men, who have
power to foreknow and supplicate for future things through
the Spirit, and those prayers publicly made unto the Father
in the name of Christ, and as publicly granted and done,
do demonstrate the Father and the Son to be no barren
VI.]
529
Christ's Name and Faith.
names or ideas, but very powers and persons in whose hand
are all future events, and who rule the world in righteous-
ness, and dwell in men's hearts, and admonish them of the
future, and enable them to admonish the world. Prayer
and the answer of prayer are therefore a continual de-
monstration of the power of Christ's name, and the man
who offers faithful prayers and observes the answer of the
same with thankfulness, is the man who holdeth fast the
name of Christ. These two methods which we have opened
of holding fast Christ's name, by outward workings of the
Spirit, and continual offering of prayer, are beautifully com-
bined in that "promise of the Father," which our Lord
gave the church in his last discourse with the Apostles.
(John xiv.) After declaring that the Father was in
him both speaking the words and doing the works, he adds
in his most solemn and sacred manner, "Verily, verily I
say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I
do, shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he
do; because I go unto my Father." (v. 12.) This promise
is made to every believer whatsoever without restriction,
without condition of any sort. You might as well say,
that these words " Verily, verily I say unto you, He that
believeth on me hath everlasting life," was only for the
Christians of the first two or three centuries, as say that
this promise of doing his works and greater works than
his were only for such a time. And be it observed, they
are works for witness; of which he had just said, "Believe
me for the very work's sake." It is the gift, moreover,
which they receive, in consequence of his going to the
Father, and therefore briefly denominated "the promise
of the Father" (Acts i. 4); and "the promise of the
Holy Ghost received of the Father." (Acts iii. 32.) This
was given on the day of Pentecost, to the believing church,
and wherefore it is not possessed by her still, is to me not
a mysterious and unaccountable thing, but a plain matter-
of-fact demonstration of her want of faith; for to every one
who believeth is it promised. Upon this bequest of the
inheritance of power, follows the ample privilege of peti-
tioning in the name of Christ, whatever is agreeable to the
Father's will: "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." (John
2 Z
530
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
xiv. 13, 14.) Now let no one make void this great dowry
by alleging, that because we know not the Father's will,
we can present no prayer with any confidence. Then pre-
sent none at all, live prayerless and die prayerless; for it
is written, "but ask in faith nothing doubting...let not
him that doubteth think he shall receive any thing of
the Lord." It is true, as the Apostle saith, "we know not
what things we should pray for as we ought;" but it is like-
wise true, as in the same place he likewise saith, that "the
Spirit helpeth our infirmities with groanings which cannot
be uttered." And in that very discourse, where these two
most precious legacies are bequeathed to the church by
her dying Lord; over and over again doth he drive the evil
heart of unbelief away from this subterfuge, by assuring her
of the presence of the Holy Ghost to teach her all things, to
manifest unto her the Father and the Son, to lead her into
all truth, and to teach her things to come. I know not whe-
ther I am more grieved or enkindled against the weak and
wicked arguments of men, by which they would turn our
prayers into random words and venturesome intrusions,
from being spirit-suggested desires, utterances of the
needful members to the sympathising and all-supplying
Head. Prayer of faith, and preaching in faith, and any
other work done in faith, are as much supernatural works
of the Spirit within us, as the gift of tongues, or the gift of
healing, or the working of miracles. That division of the
gifts of the Spirit into extraordinary and ordinary, into
miraculous and not miraculous, is utterly futile; they are
all alike supernatural, all alike extraordinary, and when
enumerated by the Apostle (1 Cor. xii. 7-12) all com-
bined together as parts and subdivisions of one operating
Spirit. These are indeed inward and outward; the one,
the Spirit working with our spirit; the other, the Spirit
using the tongue, or the hand, or some other member of
the body, for the demonstration unto others of his inward
operation. Prayer is inward in the conception, or inspira-
tion of it; it is outward in the wording and the answer of
it. O God, inspire my prayers! teach me to ask only
what thou wilt grant, and suffer me not to ask any thing
besides that Thou and thy Son may be glorified in me!
O that I might hold fast the name of Christ.
This is a great point of faithfulness; but it is not all,
VI.]
531
Christ's Name and Faith.
as hath been set forth above. To the present and current
demonstration of the name of Christ, must be added the
not denying his faith; the not yielding it to the temptations
of the world, nor to the artifices of the enemy of all truth
and righteousness; the contending for it earnestly, as it
was once delivered unto the saints. Very early did Satan
introduce errors of every kind into the Christian faith, and
wrought most subtilly to corrupt the fountain head of
Christian truth. And what he could abide the least of all
was, that Christ is come in the flesh; both out of diabolical
spite against him who drave him out of this his palace
and domain, but also out of a subtle craft to keep men
from the knowledge of that which can alone emancipate
them out of his thraldom. For as no one could redeem
flesh but Christ only by coming in it, so there is no re-
demption to us but by the honour of this his work in the
faith of it. Misgive in the faith of this, that he dwelt
during the days of his flesh in this mortal, corruptible, pas-
sive, and temptable flesh, and you entirely miss the mark.
Believe it to have been changed from ours in order to his
taking of it, to have been differenced in any one atom from
ours, and you believe a lie, a soul-destroying lie. This
was the great point of faith contended for in the primitive
church, and it is beginning to be the great point con-
tended for again. And he denies the faith, who doth not
stand stiffly up to all gainsayers, and denounce it as a lie
of Satan, that Christ's flesh was in any thing different
from ours. Holy it was, yea most holy, but only through
the information of the soul of Christ by the Holy Ghost,
not from any difference in itself. It was flesh ever pre-
sented holy, by the power of the Son of God, acting in
a human will. In itself sinful, but as under his will most
holy. As taken by him, sinful; as made by him, always
holy. Holy, not from any will of its own, but from the
will of the Spirit. Redeemed to be holy, not created holy.
A holy thing, by generation of the Son into it, and by the
life of the Son in it, not without him. I insist the more
on this great truth, because I perceive it is the truth by
which the sons of Levi are to be separated and purified.
Blessed is he that endureth the fiery trial. And here I
cannot help offering publicly my thanksgivings to God,
that the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
2 z 2
532
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
were lately prevented from uttering any thing but ortho-
doxy on this great head. So may
So may it always be.
always be. While
this was the point chiefly or always assailed of Satan by
heresies within the church, the point of doctrine commonly
attacked from without was, That Jesus is the Lord, to
whom every knee must bow of things in heaven and things
on earth, and to whom every tongue must confess. This
strikes at the root of all idolatry and tyranny, as the other
doth at the root of all unholiness: this, the crucifixion of
the world, that, the crucifixion of the flesh. That He is a
King was the noble confession which Christ witnessed
before Pontius Pilate; that He is the King of kings, who
only may receive worship, is the doctrine for the testi-
mony of which the martyrs of the primitive church wore
their crown; and in contending against the usurper of his
name and dignity, the Roman pontiff, the martyrs of the
second band, were also slain; and the martyrs of Scotland
likewise died for the testimony of "Christ's royal office in
his house." So very important is this doctrine held by the
Apostle Paul, that he gives it as one of the tests of spirits
(1 Cor. xii. 3): "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord
but by the Holy Ghost ;" and John's test is this,-"Every
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in (the)
flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this
is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it
should come; and even now already is it in the world."
(1 John iv. 2, 3.) I regard these two points of doctrine
as the chief things worth contending for; the one respect-
ing the work of Christ done in the flesh, the other re-
specting the work which he is now doing in the Spirit,
and which he is to do when he comes again into the world.
These are those three works of Christ: first, his work in
mortal and corruptible and sinful flesh, to do God's will
therein, in conforming it to all righteousness, and in rais-
ing it from the grave to honour and immortality: secondly,
there is his work in the Spirit, whereby he doth work in the
elect the same power of restraining the law of the flesh,
and presenting its members holiness unto the Lord, where-
by also he doth unite them into oneness with himself, and
through the church express the manifold wisdom, put
forth the power, and communicate the holiness of God,
vi.]
533
Christ's Name and Faith.
in spite of the adverse fallen creature: thirdly, there is
the work of his glorious advent, when he shall put forth
his power in the body also, raising from the dead his
saints, and purifying the material heavens and earth from
all uncleanness, separating the goats from the sheep, and
sending through the elements that liquid stream of fire
which shall sweep away into the pit of hell every thing
which will not abide the fiery proof; and after this over a
purified world he shall reign and worship-worship the
Father, and reign over the Father's work for ever and ever.
These three progressive parts of Christ's work He doth
in his characters of Prophet, Priest, and King; shewing
God, purifying the earthly and the heavenly things, and
ruling over the visible and invisible creation. His work
in flesh is as much a work of power as his work in the
spirit, or his work in the body of glory, and as much needing
all the might of God: but it is not manifestly so, though
inwardly it is the most so, just as to defeat an enemy
with his own weapons, wrested out of his own hand, is a
work of greater prowess than to come upon him, armed
cap-a-pée from the armoury of God. But into these great
heads of faith we may not enter at large: only we will say
this further, that on these two doctrines, a holy work in weak
and mortal, sinful and corruptible flesh, and a work of
power in raising it from the grave, and with it all the
elect, and delivering the creation from the bondage of
corruption, -on these two points hang all the Law and the
Prophets, all the creeds and confessions of the orthodox
church. Give me them, and I will demonstrate a Trinity,
a redemption, a restitution of all things. Take them from
me, and I can prove nothing. How important then these
two points, which are now before the church in the form
of controversy! which Satan hath the hardihood to con-
trovert anew, and which I fear he will find force enough
to resist and withstand, and perhaps to cast out of the
church. Let us ministers beware. It is a time of sifting
trial, when very few seem able to stand. The storms
are loosened from their resting places; the winds are
no longer restrained: judgment is about to begin at the
house of God; and if the righteous hardly escape, where
shall the sinner and the ungodly appear.
2 z 3
534
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
ANTIPAS THE FAITHFUL MARTYR.
(6
"Even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful
martyr, who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth."
Concerning this person whose eulogy is thus gloriously
pronounced by the Son of God, we have no authentic
records, and that which is related in the menology of the
Greeks, that he was put into a brazen bull and burned to
death, is generally regarded as fabulous. But be this as it
may, his record is on high; and his name alone among all
the martyrs of Christ hath been written in the book of
Jesus Christ the faithful Martyr. It is very noble to be
equalled in style with the Son of God himself: such no-
bility hath Antipas received. In the first chapter, where
the style of the Trinity is given in names appropriate to
this vision, that of Jesus Christ is "the faithful Martyr;"
and here that of Antipas is the same,
'my faithful
martyr." The only difference is, that whereas Christ
was the faithful Witness to God, we are the faithful
witnesses to Christ. He died to testify of the Father:
we die for the witness of Jesus; setting to our seal that
his testimony to the Father was true. This is our calling,
our highest calling, to hold fast the name and not to deny
the faith of Jesus; to assert him, to proclaim him, to
serve him in the sight and hearing of all kings, and of all
men, as the only Christ and the only Lord; and to uphold
the testimony which he gave concerning the invisible.
God as the only truth, and entirely to be depended on.
Witnesses we are not to any thing new, not to any thing
of our own, but to the word of Christ, which he revealeth
to us by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit doth not
speak of himself, but only what he heareth from Christ,
who speaketh what he heareth from the Father; whereby
from the Father unto the world there is a stream of faithful
and loving witness, good news of salvation flowing through
the way of Christ by the Spirit into the church, and out of
the church unto the world; calling thence as many as
have received the like precious faith, and condemning the
rest because they have not believed upon the only be-
gotten Son of the Father. Now it is ever to be borne in
mind that though it be the minister's province to give the
example hereof unto the church, it is the church's part
vi.]
535
Christ the Universal Bishop-Antipas.
to follow the example which he sets of faithful witness-
bearing. And in the prosecution of this sacred calling, it
will needs come to pass, that he must reject and resist,
and seek to put down the errors which are ever afloat
amongst men of natural understanding without spiritual.
regeneration and it will as certainly follow that the na-
tural man who cannot receive the things of the Spirit of
God will resist as dreams, doatings, and ravings of mad-
ness, as mopings of melancholy, signs of a dissocial and
evil temper, malignant aspersions, and unjust judgments,
and blasphemous expressions and innovations, and fami-
liarities with God, and deceivings of the people, and
resistances of authority, and perhaps suggestions of the
devil, those true and faithful witness-bearings of the
Spirit, which the man of God cannot choose but declare
in the hearing of all men. And straightway there ariseth
between the children of the Spirit and the children of this
world a strong controversy and unceasing contention,
which, beginning in words, most frequently endeth in
imprisonment and death; for the world cannot change itself
from being the persecutor of the church to become her fa-
vourer and friend. If she love the world or the things of
the world, the love of the Father is not in her. "Marvel
not," saith the Lord, "that the world hate you: it hated me
before it hated you: if you were of the world, the world
would love its own, but because ye are not of the world,
and I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you." Thus by the natural contradiction be-
tween the devil-possessed world, and the spirit-possessed
church, he who began with witness-bearing commonly
endeth with martyrdom: insomuch that the same word in
the Greek is used to express both a witness and a martyr.
A martyr is no more than a witness concluding and scaling
his testimony: a witness is no less than a martyr entering
upon his course of imprisonment and death. Many, yea
most, witnesses are deterred before they come to that ex-
tremity. They are seduced by the smooth flatteries of
men, they yield to the fond and easy suggestions of the
flesh, they are deterred by the fear of the world's frown;
they dread singularity, and they are astounded by the ter-
rors of heresy and blasphemy charged upon them from
the worldling ministers, the hireling shepherds around:
536
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
Not
they have not confidence in the teaching of Christ; their
soul mistrusts the admonitions of the Spirit; they lose
themselves in arguments and speculations of the natural
understanding, and seek not to the Spirit to find them-
selves again; and so one drops off, and another from the
royal course; and few, few there be of those who were
called with the heavenly calling who win the heavenly
goal and are crowned with the martyr's crown.
so with Antipas the faithful: in days when death came
stalking in to the house of God, and with grim voice com-
manded him to renounce the name and forego the faith of
Christ, he would not obey the king of terrors, but abode
constant and true to Him who hath the keys of hell and
death. Methinks it is even more perilous now-a-days to
contend for truth than it was then. There were pastors
over the churches faithful and true, who, like Timothy of
Ephesus, and Polycarp of Smyrna, and the angel of the
church of Pergamos, stood true to the great Shepherd, and
gave the example of constancy to the people. But now
behold the ministers of the Gospel are for the most part
devoted to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the
pride of life: and those who have a little strength are
jealous of those who have more, are content to remain
babes in Christ, and war in the foremost ranks against
those who strive steadily towards perfection. So that
the most fervent and feverish opposition to the doctrines
of Christ's being come in very flesh, in that which is com-
mon to the church; and of his being Lord over the spi-
ritualities to resist Satan's evil supremacy over the body
and over the world by overcoming disease and deadly
things; and of his coming as Lord to cast out the princi-
palities and powers of darkness from the creation of God,
are abhorred by those who are called of themselves evan-
gelical, but who seem to me to be exactly in the state in
which Paul describeth the Corinthian church to have been,
"carnal, even babes in Christ." Hence the trial, hence the
peril to the faithful witnesses, when they find those they
were wont to call brethren and fellow-labourers, whom
the constant voice of the churches calleth faithful and
true, who have been found wrestling against the worldli-
ness and wickedness of their cold and lukewarm brethren,
who are consecrated from missionary and Bible purposes,
vi.] Christ the Universal Bishop-Antipas.
537
and carry a full sail of popular applause,-when those men,
idolized by religious magazines, and trumpeted forth in
religious newspapers, the saints of Protestantism, who
stand to us for apostles and prophets, though they have
made void the bulk of the apostolic and prophetic writings
by their glosses, and interpretations, and traditions,-when
these the cardinals of the Evangelical church, some witness
for the truth as the Spirit hath taught it to him, and the
Scriptures confirmed it, finds arrayed against him, mad
against him, stirred up with a fierceness of zeal unex-
ampled, he yields, partly by terror, mostly by doubting of
the Spirit's witness within him, the point or smooths it away
with art of words, and suffers the enemy of the truth to
ride over his head. Oh! thou man, whosoever thou art,
that thus findest thyself, hear the Lord pronounce from
heaven the name of Antipas, and call him his faithful
witness let this one voice outweigh the tumult of a thou-
sand men. Oh! ye ministers of the truth, let Christ's com-
mendation of the angel of Pergamos for not surrendering
the banner in such a fearful time of controversy as now
rageth, encourage thee. The time is near at hand when
trials of as stern a kind will need to be proved, battles
of a fiercer edge have to be endured: make ready your
armour. "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about
with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteous-
ness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the
Gospel of peace: above all, taking the shield of faith,
wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying
always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,
and watching thereunto with all perseverance, and suppli-
cation for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be
given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to
make known the mystery of the Gospel" (Eph. vi.
14-19).
If now from the literal Perganos, one of the seven
places chosen to substantiate these prophecies, and realize
these truths of ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline, we
turn to that period of the church which authenticates it
in time, and presents to us who look back afar off, and
have not the very condition of those places present to
538
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
us, and know of them only through tradition, the same ad-
vantage of a distinct object in treating which the early
churches had in the place itself; we will find a very won-
derful correspondence indeed between the language of this.
verse, and the period in question, which is the period from
the time that the church was established by Constantine,
until the Papacy got the upper hand; that is, the period
between the termination of the ten-days' persecution of the
church of Smyrna, and the authority of the woman Jezebel
in the church of Thyatira. The ten days' persecution is the
subject of chapter xii., which also contains the woman
in her beauty, in her persecution, and in her flight into
the wilderness; nor does she reappear as the Jezebel
mother of harlotry and patroness of idolatry, till the xvii th
chapter, when in this fearful disguise, drunk with the blood
of martyrs, she is seen ascending out of the wilderness.
The intervening time between her going into the wilderness,
and her coming up, must then be the period of the mar-
tyrdoms historically set forth by the reality of the martyr.
dom of Antipas. This intervening period is contained in the
xiiith chapter, which however contains not only the period
of Pergamos, but also of Thyatira, because it contains the
whole period of the woman's supremacy; for in the xviith
chapter she is brought up to her ignominious execution.
The historical period proper to the church of Pergamos,
comes so far into the period of the xiiith chapter, as brings
us down to the time of the Papal supremacy, when the
woman came into the condition of riding upon the beast.
The period again of the church of Thyatira, beginning
from that point, occupies the time during which the woman
is permitted to rule in the church: the one, presenting us
with the opposition of Satan, through the means of the
state; the other, with the same opposition through the
means of the Church of Rome: the one, the period of the
beast; the other, the period of the image of the beast:
the one, the period during which the beast from the sea,
that is, the emperor, had the ascendancy; the other, the
period during which the beast from the earth, that is, the
pope, had the ascendancy: and these two periods com-
pose the forty-and-two months, or 1260 years, of the Papal
Roman Empire; being but one period of the actings of
the beast, namely, the Papal period as distinguished from
•
vi.]
539
Christ the Universal Bishop-Antipas.
<<
“
the Pagan which went before, and the Infidel which follows
after. Observe now, the name Antipas, the martyr of
this period, doth signify in the Greek against every one,
against all;" and when we examine the xiiith chapter,
we find (ver. 3) that "all the world wondered after the
beast;" and again (ver. 7),
power was given to him
over all kindreds and nations and tongues, and all that
dwell upon the earth, shall worship him, whose names are
not written in the book of life, of the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world." This language, in a very
remarkable manner draws our attention to the universality
of his dominion, and constitutes a ground for the name
of Antipas," against all," being given to the witnesses.
who witnessed against him. Again, the angel of the
church of Pergamos is commended for his faithfulness, in
that he held fast the name of Christ: now the same chapter
of this prophecy informs us, that another name than the
name of Jesus was introduced into the church, whose
number is six hundred three score and six, which, ac-
cording to the earliest, and I think, the best interpreta-
tion, signifies in the Greek, THE LATIN KINGDOM, and
in the Hebrew, ROME. But be this as it may, it is cer-
tain that one form of the mystery of iniquity, constituted
during that period, is the mystery of another name than
the name of Christ; namely, the name of the beast, which
is mentioned more than once in this book of the Revelation
of Jesus Christ (xiii. 17; xv. 2). Moreover, as we shall
see in the sequel of this Lecture, the promise of the
new name is especially made to the faithful ones of this
church, indicating that their peculiar province in the
mystery of godliness, was to resist the false name intro-
duced by the mystery of iniquity. The martyrs signified
by the name Antipas, I should therefore regard as those
who stood forth in all parts of the church to resist the
pretensions of the Papal see, advocated and supported
by all the power of the emperors; as, for example, the
Waldenses and the Albigenses. Moreover, the angel is
commended for not denying the faith of Jesus; and we
observe from all the language of the xiiith chapter, that
there was a steady purpose of introducing a worship alto-
gether new and different from the worship of the Father
and the Son, even the worship of the beast and his image.
540
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
But this is so very remarkable a work of evil, that we
deem it worthy of a little more careful study. Let us
address ourselves therefore for a few moments to the con-
sideration of the mystery of iniquity, contained in the
xiiith chapter, and we shall see how perfect a design it was
for overthrowing the name and faith of our Lord Jesus.
The first effort of Satan against the church, as detailed
in the xiith chapter, and briefly set forth in the trials of
the former church, the church of Smyrna, was a rude
attempt of cruelty and violence, to subvert the faith of
the disciples by pains and penalties, by imprisonment and
death. It went on without art or artifice; it was straight-
forward work, designed to terrify men out of their faith.
But, in process of time, when Satan found that he la-
boured in vain by these methods, and did but promote
what he would destroy, he addressed himself to his wiles,
and did compass the most refined artifice, and consummate
deception which the world ever saw; and which in Scrip-
ture is denominated THE mystery of Iniquity, in contra-
distinction to THE mystery of Godliness. This consisteth,
like that which it so cunningly counterfeits, of two powers,
persons, or agents; the one the beast with seven heads and
ten horns, to whom Satan gave his seat and his power,
and great authority, and for whom he exacteth and ob-
taineth the worship of all the world; the other the beast
out of the earth, with two horns like a lamb, whose first
work it is to win from the other the wicked ascendancy
over mankind, which he doth by devilish power of craft,
and wonder-working; and this done, he maketh an image
to the other beast, and procureth that these should share
the worship of mankind. And both together so prevail
against God and his church, and so perplex and captivate
men, that no one is preserved from their delusion, whom
God hath not written in the Lamb's book of life; and
together, these two deceivers make to themselves a
name, above every name upon the earth. This is the
machinery of the xiiith chapter, expressive of the per-
fect counterfeit of the Father and the Son; the former
beast personating the Father, the latter beast personating
the Son. As the Son proceedeth from the substance of
the Father, so the second beast procecdeth out of the
earth, which is the substance of the former, coming out of
vi.] Christ the Universal Bishop-Antipas.
541
the earth, and being substantially the same, having the
same territory, and the same subjects, and the same
dominion; the one dwells before or in the presence of the
other, and works all his works for the sake of the other,
to obtain for him worship and service; and in consideration
thereof becomes the image of the former, which Christ
by the resurrection became in flesh,as before he had been
in spirit (holy likewise before in flesh, though not in the
glory and strength of God); to which image he procures
worship co-ordinate and commensurate with the worship
bestowed upon the former. It may be a question, and I
know is with many a question, whether the papal (called holy)
Roman empire with its two powers, imperial and papal,
does well answer as a fair interpretation of this complex
symbol; and this is one of those questions upon which
men will ever remain much divided, for it requires no small
store of historical knowledge, and very great judgment,
to take in the several subjects according to their proper
size and value: but I think no doubt can remain that this
chapter exhibits in principle the full-length portraiture and
completed form of that antichrist whose special character
the Apostle John declareth to be this, that he denieth the
Father and the Son: " He is antichrist that denieth the
Father and the Son" (1 John ii. 22). This xiiith chapter
is the embodiment of that antichrist, is the triumph of his
power, find it historically where and when you please. I
hold, for reasons which fall to be stated hereafter, that the
whole had symbolical accomplishment in the papal, or as
they term it, the holy Roman empire: but it is too great
and grand a demonstration to end there; it will embody
itself really, as every symbol, if it have not done so in time
past, must do in time to come. This has not in time past
been embodied, and therefore, like the changing of the sun,
moon, and stars, under the sixth seal, I believe its reality
outstandeth still, and waiteth accomplishment: for nothing
but a thing real can become a symbol. Now in the time
when this symbol was fulfilling itself, the period of the
Pergamos church doubtless falleth ; Satan's seat, the name,
the faith, and other things, as we shall see, are common
to this church with that vision. Which are not coinci-
dences accidental, but such as have along with others forced
me to adopt the view of the epistles, as being in succession
3 A
542
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of time, as well as reality of place, and universality of
application. In power imperial, and in power ecclesi-
astical, in the state and in the church, combining for the
casting out of both Father and Son, and endeavouring to
set themselves up in their stead; in the energy, power,
and authority of churches established by the civil power,
and by it sustained, I believe that the great work of anti-
christ hath been and will be accomplished. It may end
in the raising up of a person at the head of the state,
who, with the person at the head of the church, will give
personal accomplishment to this mystery of iniquity: it
may be accomplished in many places, and by many bye-
plots, but the principle will be the same for ever; the
church and the state combining their several powers to
cast out the true worshippers of God and of the Lamb,
and calling upon us to deny their Name. How far it hath
ripened itself in these lands, how near it is to come, 1
believe that no man is so fully apprised as to say: but I
perceive it to be very near in that land which is nearest
my heart, and in that church to which my duty is most
due; and I commend it to the prayers of all who can
discern in these my words something more than the doatings
of folly, or the ravings of madness, to give themselves
night and day to prayer and intercession, that none of
those things may come to pass. Is it so strange that a
church constituted of God should cast out Jesus and his
disciples? Did not the Jewish church so? And what saith
the Apostle to the Gentiles? "And if some of the
branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive-tree,
wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of
the root and fatness of the olive-tree; boast not against
the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the
root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say, then, The branches
were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well:
because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou
standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if
God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he
also spare not thee" (Rom. xi. 17—21).
THE REPROOF.
After this commendation of the angel of Pergamos,
and enumeration of his faithful workers, the Watchman and
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop - The Reproof. 543
Shepherd of Israel proceedeth to the work of reproof,
which is introduced with as much courtesy, and worded
with as much gentleness, as the subject would admit of:
"But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast
there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught
Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of
Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit
fornication" (Rev. ii. 14). The angel is reproved for the
neglect of wholesome discipline, and for permitting to
remain in the church of Pergamos certain who held
erroneous and evil doctrines; whereof two are mentioned,
the one that of Balaam, the other that of the Nico-
laitanes. The Lord does not say what the minister of the
church ought to have done with such, but simply charges
it against him as an offence, that such persons should be
found within the bounds of his jurisdiction: thou hast
there, that is in Pergamos, them that hold the doctrines of
Balaam and the Nicolaitanes. This bears out the idea of
a local bounds or diocese, of which the several ministers
of the churches were regarded by Christ as having the
responsibility. Of these Balaamites and Nicolaitanes,
because they are resident in his city, he is to bear the
blame; just as the vicegerent and ambassador of any king
would have to bear the blame if he were not stirred up to
wrath, and moved to proceed against any who should take
upon them in the name of his king to promulgate false-
hood, with the stamp of the king to issue base coin, as
the subjects of the king to carry on contraband traffic, or
in any other way whatever to offend the laws and prostitute
the name of him whose person he represents. Even so
the angel of a church being planted in any town, or city,
or district of the world, is not only called upon to testify
against the various violations and false religions which
there prevail; but also to keep a vigilant eye upon the
professors of the true religion, lest they set forth any thing.
in the Name of the Lord Jesus, which is not of the truth,
and therefore dishonourable to, and contradictory of, Him
who is the Truth. Not only doth Christ expect it of
every angel of the church to do a pastor's part in feeding
the flock and preventing roots of bitterness from spring-
ing up; but also to do an ambassador, or messenger, or
angel's part in taking observation that no one in all these
3 A 2
544
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The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
parts do utter any thing to the injury of his high and holy
prerogatives: he expecteth that his angel or nuncio to
those regions should not only proclaim him King over all
the earth, and call upon the people, and especially the
magistrates, to come in with their allegiance to Him, as
Christ and Lord; but also to take heed lest any coming in
the same Name should put forth erroneous views on those
things which concern his Person, his office, or the holy
laws of his kingdom. Many ministers of Christ think
they have fulfilled their part in feeding their own flock,
and preserving light and love and purity there; and that
they ought to bear themselves indifferently or inoffensively
to others, of whatever sect or denomination they be.—It
is not so and he that thinketh thus snugly to keep his
house and home in security, shall not long have either house
or home to hold. For enemies are all abroad, and ever
active to overthrow the dominion, and cast out the Name
of our King; against whom if we will not arm in loyal
zeal, and march to the borders of the kingdom, and go
round the bulwarks of Zion, and do the duty of the tented
field, there shall soon be neither light, nor peace, nor love,
nor purity in any house or habitation of the people. I am
called upon here in London, where God in his providence
hath cast my lot, to do my diligence to denounce every
one whatever who promulgates in Christ's name what
Christ would blush to acknowledge. For example; if any
man say He came not in tempted and tempting flesh, I
must withstand him to the uttermost, as, God helping me,
I most surely will; or, that coming so, he made not that
flesh holy and sinless at all times and in all estates of this
mortal life, I must challenge and fight him: or, that he
came not in love to all, and to make atonement for all,
then down must my gauntlet go again or that he was
not Very Man, or that he was not Very God, or that he
was not the Messiah promised to the Jews, or that he is
not the only Sovereign of kings, or that any other person,
as the Pope, may have the supremacy; or if any thing
be advanced contrary to the laws of his kingdom, as that
we should not be holy and perfect, but may content.
ourselves with some short-coming; or that we may not
take confidence to ourselves in his Name, but must seek
for some evidence or sign superadded thereto; if any of
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop - The Reproof.
545
these, or the other multitudinous errors which are afloat,
be broached in the hearing, or promulgated in the neigh-
bourhood, of any minister of Christ, he is bound by his
honour and loyalty to take arms against it, and contend
unto the death like a valiant soldier, good and true, for
the integrity of the Name, and the observance of the
commandment of his great King and Lord. Is it enough
that I purge my own flock of such abominations? It is
not enough. I am not a pastor only, but an angel,
minister, or ambassador of Christ, to represent his person,
and stand for his honour in all those parts, and put down
with the spiritual weapons of our warfare all who would
deceive redeemed men as to the work and worth of their
Redeemer: I insist upon this point the more because it
seems to me to present a fuller and more perfect view of
the name "angel of the church" than I have been able
to give before. He is Christ's commissioner, his plenipo-
tentiary, his representative, in all those parts; not merely
his delegate to feed one particular flock. And in what
way, at what times, and by what means, is he to bear
this testimony against every form of error, which men,
under the banner of Christ, may broach? In all ways,
in all times, and by all means; but chiefly in his preach-
ing, prayers, and public ministry; in his writings, and in
his daily disputations with the enemies of the truth; al-
ways remembering to do nothing by strife or vain glory,
for the man of God must not strive, but be gentle unto
all men, apt to teach, meekly instructing those that op-
pose themselves, if peradventure God may give them re-
pentance to the acknowledgment of the truth.
"
Seeing then that it is the office of the angels of the
churches," not only to bear the banner of the truth, but
also to fight under it, against every banner hostile to the
truth, or hypocritically pretending to be for the truth, and
we, the "angels of the churches," like the captains of
an army, do only set the example of valour, and shew the
manner of the fight, and give the command to the fighting
men, who are dishonoured when they follow not their
leader's footsteps, it is manifest that this work of con-
tending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,
is as much the duty of the private Christian, as of the of
ficial minister, as much of the members of the church,
3 A 3
546
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
as of her pastors. There is no more fatal error than that
any man, in his Christian liberty, may not set his hand to
any work which Christ bath commanded. He must, he
cannot be free from the obligation of a perfect and com-
plete faith, of a perfect and complete witness, of a perfect
and complete obedience. We ministers are the stewards over
Christ's house to feed it, but we are not the house; we
are the commissariot of the army, to find it in provisions
and arms, but not the army: in one word, the church is
not made for the ministry, but the ministry for the church.
I cannot but think, that there exists a most unwarrantable
usurpation on the part of the ministry, when they think
that with them lies the whole privilege of redarguing error
and propagating truth: which, joined with the rigorous
custom of requiring so many years of regular education
in a university, does truly leave the laity in a condi-
tion of indifference and indisposition to truth and error,
which is now beginning to be felt with fatal influence by
every one engaged in working the mighty vessel of the
church out of the narrow creeks, where she hath been
long laid up, into the broad and deep seas, where she
may serve her office. We find the people in a lethargy,
and what is worse, in a paralysis of all their powers of
discerning truth from error, arising from no other cause
than this, that they have of a long time left these things
to their ministers, to whom, being attached by the ties of
natural love and esteem, they are become lamentably sub-
servient, and are driven at their pleasure. It is not clear
to me, but that the base subjection to authorities, may lead
again to the persecution of those who dare to stand up and
say to these authorities, You are abusing, you are neglect-
ing your trust, you are rocking the people in false security,
or leading them to perdition. If a layman were to set
aside the use of the ministry, he setteth Christ aside in
his ordinance, if, having used the ordinance of a ministry,
he do not maintain the truth as it is in Jesus, against all
error as it is in Satan, he hath used it to little purpose
indeed, or rather he hath not used it at all; for as an or-
dinance in the church, the very use of the ministry is to
testify unto the truth, and shew out the full truth unto
the Spirit witnessing in the people. Was it to the ministry,
or to the people, that Jude wrote, "that they should
vi.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 547
contend earnestly for the faith, as it was once delivered to
the saints;" that John wrote, " ye have an unction from
the holy one, and ye know all things;" that Jesus pro-
mised of the Comforter," that he should lead them into
all truth, and shew them things to come." The angels
are the messengers of the truth, the churches are those
who have set to their seal that their message is true; and,
this done, are bound by word and deed, by life and death,
to maintain the truth in all ways which are proper to a
spiritual man.
The very ground of the reproof to the angel of the
church of Pergamos, is, not that he himself had failed
in holding fast Christ's name, or in affirming his truth; but
that he had been unmindful of the errors in which others
were snared, and in which they were seeking to snare unstable
souls. "Wherefore," saith He, who hath the stars in
his right hand," Thou art to be blamed because thou hast
not felt grieved and wounded for the truth, and for my
sake, neither afflicted for thy brother's sake, but hast suf-
fered such an error quietly to root and grow up beside
thee, for the destruction of many. I endure not such sloth
in thee, such indifference, such saving of thyself. Thou
shouldest have offered thyself to the combat, thou oughtest
to have put on thine armour, and gone forth to battle; thou
hast been too fearful of thyself, too little devoted unto
me. Go forth quickly, and root out that nest of evil, go
quickly and enlighten that dark region of my church, go
quickly and summon these disobedient people to surrender
to the truth, or else I will come quickly and fight against
them with the sword of my mouth."-Here I must pause and
confess my sin unto God: of nothing doth my conscience
more loudly rebuke me, than of not having contended
enough for the faith. Lord, thou knowest my repentance,
and thou knowest my purpose. Be my helper, O God!
THE BALAAMITES.
Having thus ascertained the general ground of the re-
buke, and applied it to the purpose of doctrine, we now
proceed to examine the nature of those two errors, for the
allowance of which the angel of the church of Pergamos
was reproved. The first is denominated thus ; "those
who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to
548
(LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
#
cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to
eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication."
This avaricious and obstinate prophet is in other places of
the New Testament used as a warning to the Christian
ministry, as in the Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle
of Jude; to which I would carry your attention, that we may
have before us the whole of the commentary of the Holy
Ghost on that Old-Testament history. In the former of the
places referred to (2 Pet. ii. 15), it occurs in the midst of
a very various discourse concerning the apostasy in the
church, which is to draw on the judgment of the quick
and the perdition of the ungodly, at the coming of the Lord.
That epistle, in which this full-length portraiture of the
last apostasy occurreth, hath more of the manner of the
ancient prophets about it than any other book of the New
Testament except the Apocalypse. Behold how it is con-
structed. There is first the delineation of our standing
in grace, through faith (1. 1-5): then of the certain con-
tinuance therein through active holiness (i. 5-11), until
the time when the entrance shall be ministered to us
abundantly into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. This is the introductory part, containing
the Gospel of our assured salvation. Then follows the ex-
press object and purpose of the epistle, "to keep them in
remembrance of what he had taught them concerning the
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (i. 11-16),
of the certainty of which they might not doubt after
what had been seen on the mount of transfiguration, which
was the seal of all the prophets whom God had set for the
testimony of his coming in glory and majesty (i. 16-21).
Thus having announced his subject, and the dignity of it,
he proceeds in the next place to lay out the sad and
miserable character of the false teachers who should come
into the church, and the havoc which they should work
in the vineyard of the Lord. This is the view which
Peter had of the times between his day and the coming of
the Lord; and he was anxious to give them to the church,
because he felt his end approaching. Without staying upon
this awful forewarning, so awfully fulfilled in the Papacy,
and, if I err not, more awfully to be fulfilled yet in the
downright infidelity which is taking possession of the
whole church, Protestant and Papal, and of none so hastily,
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 549
I think, as in the Church of Scotland itself, I go on to
conclude the digest of this prophetical epistle. The second
chapter being wholly taken up with this exhibition of the
church, as Peter foresaw it was to be, the third opens with
a reiteration of his entreaty to the faithful in the midst of
this apostasy, to cleave unto the words of the prophets and
the commandments of the Apostles concerning the coming
of the Lord, because there would arrive a general oblivion
and scoffing of that blessed hope, as beyond and beside the
course of nature; whereupon when, though the Lord
might long delay, he would come at length, to the per-
dition of the ungodly and the purgation of the elements of
creation, after which, in the new heavens and the new
earth, the righteous shall reign in righteousness. Such is
the bird's-eye view which Peter had of the future fate of the
church; so very much in keeping with the old prophets,
that by the very style of it I could have known it to be in-
spired by the same Spirit. An apostasy, embodying all
forms of wickedness, introducing a contempt for and pro-
fanation of the hope of the Lord's coming, which should
draw on that very judgment upon the world, from which his
people should be drawn out, as Lot was from Sodom.
What fatal blindness holds the eyes of this generation,
that they should not see this now to be in existence; it is
that they have agreed to deceive themselves with a false
view of the future times, in every respect contradictory of
the truth: namely, that there neither is nor is to be an
apostasy, but a glorious growing of truth and righteousness.
upon the earth for one thousand years before that the
Lord shall come: and having this preached to them from
a thousand smooth tongues, and in a thousand dulcet
strains, they are cajoled into that fatal security, which no-
thing will break but the trump of God. They will grow
blinder and blinder, more and more fierce against the
truth, more and more infected with the madness of Balaam
the Prophet.
This notice of Balaam stands in the very heart of that
fearful description of the apostates, which we now return
to study more carefully as it is laid down in the second
chapter. It begins with predicting false teachers in the
church, who should deny the lordship, the ownership
(dεOTOTηy) of Christ, and bring in other damnable heresies;
550
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
E
such as, that he came not in our flesh; that his flesh had
not in it the law of the flesh for the Spirit to over-
come, lay asleep, and lap up in death. With respect to
the heresy which is named, it is remarkable that the mar-
tyrs' souls, who cry from under the altar, address Christ
as their Lord (dεσπorns, despot, owner, master of slaves),
signifying that they had died for the testimony of
that very truth. Now we know for what the first army
of martyrs died, even for the testimony of Christ's right
of sovereignty over men and the sovereigns of men. If
this be any key to the heresy named, it will prove to be
that rejection of Christ's right of dominion and govern-
ment which is now possessing the world, and hath now pre-
vailed even in the constitution of this kingdom; and given
way to the infidel maxim, that every man is his own lord,
and save as he resigns up to another of his own consent
and covenant, that other can have no authority over him.
French republicanism hath supplanted Christian polity.
And if the cause of this falling away be looked into a
little more deeply, it will be found where this passage
places it, namely, in denying that Christ by his death bought
the world with his blood, that mankind are his, and that
magistrates placed over them are the shepherds of his
people. This truth Evangelicalism hath supplanted, to
make way for the error that Christ hath only purchased
the elect and therefore, say they, what have we, what
hath religion, what hath Christ, to do with worldly kings,
worldly governments, and worldly people. Insatiate men!
when will ye be contented with self-applause and contempt
of others? I believe, as I have said, that these two
truths, the flesh of Christ and the lordship of Christ, the
one the demonstration of his Humanity, the other of
his Divinity, are the two pillars, the Jachin and the Boaz,
of the spiritual temple. By these errors, with others
which enter in their train, it is said that these false pro-
phets will so mightily prevail in the church as to make
it a shame and a disgrace to hold the truth, which is even
now the case. To this they should add covetousness,
self-seeking, worldly reputation, creature comfort, riches,
and respectability, and deal in the merchandize of souls,
getting good livings by their prostitution of the truth. For
all which, the judgment of old decreed and written, should
:
1.] Christ the Universal Bishop – The Balaamites. 551
certainly and speedily come to pass. And a proof that God
could and would judge his church which had apostatized
from her proper standing of grace, holiness and self-denial,
the Apostle referreth to the evil angels, and to the ante-
deluvian world, and to the cities of the plain: yet though
he was most certainly to bring the judgment written of
old against this apostasy, he would as certainly deliver
the few faithful ones, as he had delivered Lot out of
Sodom. This is in brief the substance of the matter.
But not content with this historical sketch, be addresseth
himself most patiently to describe the character of those
apostates that the church might not without the fullest
warning be led astray. This portrait of an apostate church-
man begins at verse 10th, and consists of the following
traits the first, They walk after the flesh in the lust of
uncleanness: the second, They despise government;
upon which is given the following commentary: "Pre-
sumptuous self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of
dignities." The third is their covetousness, beguiling
unstable souls; an heart they have exercised with co-
vetous practices, children of curse; which have forsaken
the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of
Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrigh-
teousness. These their features, sensuality, liberalism, or li-
centiousness, and making gain of godliness, are illustrated
with wonderful variety of similitudes: and the certain and
miserable destruction of the apostates is foretold in fearful
expressions. They are likened to the savage animals of the
wood, made to be taken and destroyed; the mist of dark-
ness is reserved for them for ever; they shall perish in
their own corruption; the latter end is worse with them
than the beginning. The corresponding passage in Jude
(for the correspondence is most remarkable) gives also
three features; the first, the way of Cain; the second,
the error of Balaam for reward; and the third, the gain-
saying of Core: of which the two latter are certainly co-
vetousness and insurgency, and the first is the preference
of the lower and earthy and sensual man after which
Cain's posterity followed in preference to the spiritual
man, to which the line of Seth were more disposed. The
same three temptations and wanderings of the wicked
seem to be described by John under another form,—“ the
552
[LECT
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
lust of the flesh, or sensuality; the lust of the eye, or
covetousness, and the pride of life, or ambitition, leading
on to insubordination; and I think they are still the same
with the three temptations of our Lord, the temptation of
the sense, the temptation of the sight, and the pride of
confidence or self-exaltation. And perhaps they are the
same with the three forms of the beast in the Apocalypse;
the first, the Pagan form of brutal violence; the second, the
Papal form of making merchandise of souls through cun-
ning craftiness; and the third, the infidel form of misrule
and independence of all authority. However this may
be, one thing clearly results from this examination —
namely, that the history of Balaam is not slightly to be
passed over, but ought diligently to be studied as contain-
ing in it a remarkable type of one form of the triple wicked-
ness which was in time to be revealed in the Christian
church. To the study of this history let us now proceed,
with the feeling of those who have been directed thither
by the finger of the Holy Ghost.
The passage in the epistle to the church of Pergamos
directs our attention especially to that part of Balaam's
conduct wherein he acted as an evil counsellor of the king
of Moab, and advised him to tempt the people whom he
could not curse, and to lead astray the people whom he
could not destroy. It was not for want of will that
Balaam cursed them not, but for want of power: his
covetousness prompted him in all possible ways to com-
pass the desire of Balak the king of Moab, but God with-
held him; and when he utterly failed, and three several
times blessed the people, and foretold how they should
smite the four corners of Moab, he gave counsel to the
king to tempt them by the women unto the sacrifice of
Peor : "And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all
the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of
Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass
against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a
plague among the congregation of the Lord" (Numb. xxxi.
14-16). The particulars of this trespass are detailed in
the xxvth chapter verses 1-3: "And Israel abode in
Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with
the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto
the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 553
1.
bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto
Baal-peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel." This part of Balaam's conduct, being different from
that which is referred to by Peter and Jude, doth only the
more confirm the conclusion that, from first to last, the his-
tory of this prophet is typical of the Christian church.
Behold then how it standeth in the history. The chil-
dren of Israel being come to the very edge of the pro-
mised land, pitched on the plains of Moab on this side
Jordan by Jericho; and the king of Moab, terrified by
their approach and by the rumour of their mighty deeds,
sent to Balaam, a prophet of the true God, and brought
him from afar to curse the people. He sought none of
the prophets of Peor whom his people served, but sent for
Balaam the son of Zippor, a true prophet, in whose mouth
was the word of God, but in his heart all covetous practices;
out of whose mouth he heard only the truth of God, but
out of his guileful heart he learned the way of leading
them astray by women and winning them over to the wor
ship of his gods. For which the Lord's anger was kindled
against the people, and he thus commanded Moses:
"Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up
before the Lord, against the sun, that the fierce anger of
the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses
said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his
men that were joined unto Baal-peor" (Numb. xxv. 4, 5).
This purification by a sacrifice being accomplished, the
people are numbered, the law of the conditions of the in-
heritance of the land is re-appointed; after which Moses
is commanded to “ avenge the children of Israel of the
Midianites, or Moabites:" and this done he is "gathered
unto his people" (Numb. xxxi. 2). The man of God accord-
ingly addresseth himself to this the last of his works, and
slew the kings of Midian, and Balaam along with them,
all the males also, and all the women, save those who were
virgins and of the plunder every thing which could pass.
through the fire was with fire purified, and the rest with
the water of separation, and all the people who had a hand
in the war, washed their clothes and abode without the
camp seven days. And thus ended the actions of the
children of Israel in the wilderness.
Now, even though this remarkable history had not in
3 B
554
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
these three several places of the New Testament been
applied to the Christian church, I could, from its very
structure, have pronounced it to be a typical history of
the actings of the powers that be, against the church, to
prevent her from coming to her inheritance of the earth.
The powers that be, though ordained of God, are, where-
ever the Gospel hath not redeemed them, the servants of
Satan, who is therefore styled by our Lord the prince of
this world; and the kingdoms which they govern are ex-
pressly promised and predetermined for the meek and the
poor in spirit, and all who are faithful to Christ unto the
death. No wonder then that Satan, the present holder,
and, since Christ's victory over him, the usurper of the
inheritance, should eye with dread and with malice, that
church which is destined to supplant him; the true heirs
and children of the kingdom, who are ever standing on
the edge of their inheritance, and waiting the day of his
coming to take possession, when the kingdoms of this
world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his
Christ. To forewarn the gods, or kings, or magistrates,
concerning this temptation of Satan, has been one of the
chief objects of God's revelation from the beginning: and
in the person of Nebuchadnezzar, the first king of kings,
God shewed forth in many ways, both prophetical and
emblematical, the nature and history of the apostasy of
his chief servants upon the earth, the kings and magi-
strates of the people. Of this kind also is the trans-
action between Balak and the church of God. It signifies
that the powers of the world, desirous to hinder and de-
stroy the church, would find a prophet of God, who
having the truth in his mouth, but covetousness in his
heart, should teach how to seduce them by harlotry from
the worship of the living and true God. Which accord-
ingly was effected in the primitive churches, as that of
Corinth and others, wherein Paul writes against this cor-
ruption; and in this church of Pergamos also. And, no
doubt, it was one great form of seduction over the whole
primitive church, to amalgamate, as far as they could,
both with the Jews and with the heathen. While the
Apostles lived, their devoted and uncompromising spirit
stayed this evil disposition; which yet drew in Peter and
James, and Barnabas also, but was nobly and successfully
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop—The Baalamites. 555
man.
resisted by Paul. Yet even during this, the Ephesian state
of the church, the great Shepherd had to complain of
the Nicolaitanes, who followed after sensual indulgen-
cies. The persecutions which arose after the decease of
the Apostles, and continued throughout the Smyrna pe-
riod of the church, were the means of preventing the
same evil; for the sword and the stake are not the in-
struments of seduction. When, however, this period con-
cluded, and made way for the Pergamos condition of the
church, that is, from the time of Constantine forward, we
are astonished chiefly at two things; the first, the ortho-
doxy of word pronounced by the church in all her coun-
cils, to a noble succession of which we owe all our creeds;
and, secondly, the covetousness of worldly grandeur, and
worldly possessions, and worldly power, which at the same
time burst forth in all parts of Christendom. Now this is
exactly the state of things of which Balaam is the type;
a true prophet, but a most wicked and unprincipled
By the operation of this covetous disposition, it
came to pass that various forms of idolatry, or spiritual
fornication were introduced, which Rome gathering and
cementing into one, is on that account called the mother
of harlots; and, with this spiritual adultery, entered in,
the innumerable heathen superstitions which now deface
and entirely hide the primitive forms of the church in that
apostasy. This triumph of Jezebel, the patroness of for-
nication, is properly the period of the Thyatira church ;
but for which it is the special property of this church to
prepare the way, being the time of counsel-giving, anterior
to the time of carrying into effect;-the period during
which Balak, the head of temporal power, is receiving from
Balaam, the true but covetous prophet, instructions how
to proceed in bringing the church low, even to the ground.
It is, in one word, the action of the xiiith chapter of the
Apocalypse, set forth by a historical type; and behold
how the hundred-forty-and-four thousand are described
(xiv. 4), as "they which were not defiled with women;"
to signify that all the action of the xiiith chapter is equal
to, and parallel with, the action of the children of Israel,
in defiling themselves with the daughters of Moab. Be-
hold also how every one of those worshippers and followers
of the beast, and false prophet, who had given way to
3 B 2
556
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
their seductions, are destroyed in the action of the seventh
vial (xix. 20, 21), after having been variously tormented
by the plagues of the preceding six, in order, if possible,
to lead them to repentance. And all those of the children
of Israel who had sinned with the daughters of Moab,
were in like manner destroyed. And thus it is that the
language of the text, and the historical type of Balaam
are to be interpreted. But, besides these real and exact
coincidences, there arise many other things of conse-
quence, as to the future, which may be laid down as con-
jecture, if not as positive certainty. For example, it is the
last act of the wilderness state of the church, to overthrow
Balak and Balaam; and so to destroy the apostate powers of
the earth, is the last act of the church, before she is brought
into the kingdom. It is the last act of Moses, the con-
ductor of the church through the wilderness, who then
gives up his office to Joshua, the man of war;
and so
thereafter I believe the church will come, under the guid-
ance of Christ as the man of war.
Thus unfolding the mystery of Balaam and Balak's
dealings, we have been forced a little out of our method,
which is to explain the literal application to the times then
being, before entering either upon the historical application
to the period set out by the church of Pergamos, or upon
the general application of it to all states and times of the
church. We return therefore to explain the nature of
this seduction to which the church of Pergamos stood
exposed. It lay in eating things offered in sacrifice to
idols, and in committing fornication. There being no
records whatever concerning this church, beyond what are
contained in this epistle, we are fain to gather our infor-
mation from the records of other contemporary churches,
in which the same offence occurred. Peculiarly in point
is the Corinthian church, to which the Apostle, in his first
Letter, is at great pains to give instruction upon this very
temptation; and because no doubt the same circumstances
produced nearly the same effects in all the churches, let
us address ourselves to these instructions, both for infor-
mation concerning the particular seduction, and likewise
for apostolical canons of discipline in respect of it. The
subject is introduced at the eighth chapter of the First
Epistle, and he enters upon it with a severe rebuke of the
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 557
pride of knowledge in which it originated. The Christians,
knowing the vanity and falsehood of all idolatry, had said,
These meats are not altered by being offered to that which
is not a nonentity, like the Jupiter, and the Venus, and
the Apollo, can have no effect upon meats and drinks :
why then should we scruple to eat whatever is set before
us? The Apostle, agreeing in their reasoning, rejecteth
their conclusion; for, saith he, I have others to think of
beside myself; who not having the same knowledge, may
by my example be led to act in like manner without the
same clearness of conscience, and so doing that which the
conscience doth not approve, they may contract guilt;
and rather than thus make a weak brother to offend, I will
not eat bread while the world lasteth.
This is the argu-
ment of the eighth chapter; and also of the tenth, where the
same subject is introduced; but treated a little differently.
For now he speaks of the idols not as to what they profess
to be, but as to what they are: and he asserteth that the
whole system is a system of dæmon-worship, and that to
mingle in their rites and to partake of their sacrifices, is
to countenance and help on the idolatry against which we
ought stedfastly to protest. Therefore he utterly discou-
rageth and I think interdicteth, all participation in the
idol-feasts which went on in the idol-temples: but with
respect to those parts of the victims offered there, which
came to be sold in the shambles, and might find their way
to the feasts of their unbelieving friends and neighbours,
he gives them liberty to eat of them, if no brother re-
mark upon
it or be offended by it: but if so, not to eat,
out of a regard to his conscience and their own edification.
Now it would seem that, contrary to this sound advice of
the Apostle, there were other teachers who followed the
way of Balaam, and out of a vain conceit of knowledge,
or a licentious use of liberty, went about to encourage in
the people this participation with the idolatries of the
world around, to the puffing up of their own minds, and
the casting of a stumbling-block in the way of the church.
This, however insignificant it may appear to us to be, and
determined by the Apostle rather upon principles of ex-
pediency than of positive law, was, in fact, a very great
question in those times, as will appear from considering
the condition in which the Christian Churches then stood.
3 в 3
558
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
The Pagan was a very tolerant religion. Amongst the
Romans it was so by the law and custom of the State,
which, with an ample toleration and an ambitious policy,
took all gods and goddesses under the wing of the Roman
senate and people. To the Christian religion they would
have had little or no objection, as one amongst many more,
provided it would have entered into fraternal union with
the rest, and not held aloof in the attitude of severe and
uncompromising enmity. If the Christians would have gone
up to their Pagan temples, and eaten of their feasts, and
not rudely repelled the whole ceremony as false and fool-
ish, they would have been content that the Christians
should also have their own proper feasts, to which the
Pagans in their turn might have been willing to lend their
countenance. But this might never be; because it would
have been to encourage the Pagans in that easy hearted
confidence in a delusion, from which it was the very
object of the Christian religion to deliver them. The
Christian religion is essentially uncompromising, because
it alone is true, and all others are false and wicked.
For believers, to do any thing but frown upon their su-
perstitions, would have been to contradict their own belief
by their practice: even as if I, believing that any one who
trusteth in masses for his salvation will be damned, would
be a most inconsistent and cruel-hearted man, if I were to
go and countenance the mass, or that superstition of which
the mass is a chief part. Even as if I, believing that a
man who gives himself up to disbelief of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and blasphemes God's name and his ordinances,
shall surely perish, would grievously err against him and
against my own soul, if I were to permit him in his
evil course without challenge, or join him therein. All
such questions, as our attendance upon stage-plays, upon
horse-races, dancing assemblies, card parties, gaming ta-
bles, and the like forms of worldly profligacy, have to be
determined upon the same principles as those given by the
Apostle concerning idol-sacrifices and fornication. And
for the same reasons those who countenance such things
do err as these Balaamites did. And, if I mistake not,
those who introduce into the service of the church customs
which savour of Popery commit the same offence. On
this account it was, that almost all the reformers of the
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 559
Church of England would have had her stripped of many
of those dresses and forms and names and offices which
came down from the corruption of the Latin church. But
this brings us to the general bearing of the subject.
Such being the history and mystery of Balaam's deal-
ings with Balak against the people of God, and such the
verification of it in the primitive church, and in that
period of the church history, which, according to our
view, answereth to the church of Pergamos, we come next
to consider wherein lies the evil of the thing itself, and in
how far we are liable to, or guilty of, it in these our days.
The evil consists in the accommodation of the Christian
verity to the wisdom of this world, and of the Christian
discipline to the prudence of this world; in the presenta-
tion unto the believers, of such natural enticements and
inducements as may beguile them from the simplicity and
purity of their spiritual faith and conversation. The first
principle of the school of Christ is, that, in order to learn
any of its lessons, in order to become his disciples, we
must first have forsaken father and mother and brother
and sister, and our own life also; and thus sitting at his
feet denuded of nature's chief delights, denied to nature's
daily affections, we may surely expect to make progress in
the house of Christ, and to become vessels unto honour,
and meet for the Master's use. This which is the first
principle of the Christian church is also the vital principle
of it; in which it must live and move and breathe and
have its being. The natural man must continue to be
denied, mortified, crucified, buried, under the power and
mastery of the spiritual man: they are deadly enemies
and can live only in the suppression and destruction
of one another. Therefore it is that baptism the ini-
tiatory act done as it were upon the threshhold of the
church, is the off-stripping and down-laying of the natural
man, that we may enter into the temple and do its offices
in the spiritual man, by whom spiritual things are dis-
cerned, spiritual duties performed, and spiritual enjoy-
ments partaken. It is like the Rabbinical notion that Enoch
and Elijah left their bodies outside the wall of heaven:
the baptized leave their bodies outside of the church, and
no longer having the organ for natural ideas and occupa-
tions; to all such they are concluded dead, and ought
560
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ever so to be. But because this is a work of the believing
soul, of the spirit-possessed will, ever willing to put down
and keep down the natural man with his corruptions and
lusts, and not the very annihilation of his being nor his
change into another state where he hath no offensive in-
clinations; its completeness at any time, and its conti-
nuance at all times, dependeth upon the entireness of our
heart towards God, and the complete subjection of our
mind to the Holy Ghost; and this as being an act of our
will dependeth upon the co-operation therein of our will-
inguess with the willingness of God; or, as the Scripture bet-
ter expresseth it, upon our "being fellow-workers with God;"
which being relaxed, straightway the enemy is upon us,
and riding over our heads. Whensoever therefore any one
for himself, or for another, doth dress up an affection or an
object of the natural man in such fascinating attire as to
darken and blind the perception, or deceive the judgment
of the spiritual man, he is chargeable with the wickedness
reproved in our text, of casting a stumbling block before the
people of God, of causing them to eat things sacrificed
unto idols, and to commit fornication. The natural man
is the origin of idolatry, and affords the sacrifices which
are meet to idolatry, and for a spiritual man to turn from
the love of God with the whole heart and soul and strength
and mind, to the love of any natural object is to commit
adultery for every member of his body had been married
unto Christ, and cannot but by adultery be joined to the
world which is the enemy of Christ. There is a love indeed
toward every thing which hath a being, such love as that
wherewith the Creator loveth all his creatures, a purely
spiritual love, a truly catholic love, of which the church is
the blessed possessor, and with which her every word and
work should be inspired. This, however, is not a devotedness
of heart unto them, for the spiritual heart is devoted only
unto God and godliness: it is a love of them as creatures
of the Almighty's hand, and a burning desire that they
should be reclaimed to the Almighty's service and so
attain their own blessedness. But when, instead of this holy
love, this godlike love of all his creatures, there entereth
into the heart an affection for the creature itself, a love of
it unmingled with pity for it, a love of its enjoyment un-
mingled with hatred of its sin, a wedded espoused love;
:
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 561
it is rank fornication, it is adultery of the heart, it is
worshipping the creature instead of the Creator, it is
idolatry, and very evil in the sight of God, for which
wrath cometh upon the children of disobedience.
Now, if I do not greatly err, there is much, very much,
of this evil intermixture of the unholy with the holy;
much, very much, of this prostration of the Spirit before the
beautiful and goodly forms of nature, in this our generation
of the church. Beauty of discourse is very much affected
by the preachers, and sought after by the people; strength
of natural reasoning very much depended upon for the
establishment of the truth, for the confutation of the
error; views intelligible to the natural man are craved,
and views only intelligible to the spiritual man are
nauseated; power of argumentation to put down error,
controversial weapons for humbling an adversary, know-
ledge in every kind rather than charity; talents rather than
graces; gifts of nature more than gifts of the Holy Ghost,
are every where in request. I am set for the speaking of
truth, and woe is unto me if I speak not the truth: there-
fore I take up my burden and proceed. Satire and
wit and scorn and ridicule are brought into the church's
temple, and made to do the service thereof. A great name,
a numerous following, much wealth, and great respecta-
bility are the very sinews of the professing church. Poli-
tical partizans are enlisted into the service; and the organs
of political parties, newspapers, are used to blaspheme
the truth, and their service is hailed as an auspicious.
omen of the renovated age. By which means the church
is become a miserable receptacle of all odious passions and
prejudices; a whited sepulchre, outwardly beautiful, but
inwardly full of dead men's bones. The men who are thus
with a high hand introducing carnal weapons of warfare,
and erecting beautiful forms of natural reason and imagi-
nation in the house of God, are guilty of the sin of Ba-
laam the son of Bosor who loved the wages of iniquity.
Above all other bodies in the church those are liable to
this evil, who adopt the false doctrine, the most pernicious
and abominable doctrine, that God loves only the elect,
and loves not the rest of mankind; and that when giving
the manifestation of his love, in sending his Son to be the
propitiation of our sins, he did contemplate the elect only,
562
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
;
for whom Christ died, and not for all the world. This doc-
trine which seems to be so severely holy, like all errors
on the side of sanctimoniousness, ends in the destruction
of sanctity. For man having in him bowels of mercies and
yearnings of love to all men, and strong sympathies with
all natural objects, and being under this doctrine forcibly
deprived thereof by the duty which he owes to God, finds
out secret channels of self-deception by which he may in-
dulge it. The lie, the very great lie, that God hath not
loved all, and died for all in Christ Jesus, but only for a
part of men, necessarily forceth the believer of it, into the
same form of spirit, to love and sacrifice himself only for
a part of men. It becomes the sanctification of schism
the great generator of division upon the face of the earth
as may be seen at this day in my own poor country and
church, where they can agree about nothing, but fight
about every thing, save the persecution of the truth, to
which they are wondrously accordant. Instead of ob-
taining from God a licence to love all his creatures with-
out partaking of their unholiness, this most pernicious.
doctrine obtains a licence only to love a part, and a posi-
tive prohibition from loving the rest. But as I said, man's
heart cannot do this and be happy. There is a craving in
him for the catholic; there is an inclination in him towards
all. Religion, true religion, the religion of Jesus Christ,
shews him such love in God, and enables him to attain to
the fellowship of it, whereby his soul is exceedingly com-
forted; and needs no secret subterfuges for gratifying itself;
but walks in love and liberty, and holiness, over the wide
and waste world; blessing all with the presence of a godlike
person. But that schismatic principle tolerating no such
generous and universal benevolence, leaves the heart with-
out its object, and sends it into every devious path to
seek it. And so you find amongst the falsely called spiri-
tual party who thus believe, the greatest appetite for na-
tural talents, for natural beauty of sentiment, for meta-
physical subtleties, for men of rank, title, and influence,
together with all sorts of expedients to carry their ends into
execution. What they aim at, numbers, is a great shew in
the flesh, a majority in the courts of the church; which
being obtained, then woe, woe to the faith; they will not
leave a man who dares avow it standing in his place. These
vi.]
Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 563
are all fruits of the flesh; stumbling-blocks which they are
casting in the way of the faithful in Christ Jesus; and if
they repent not, Christ will come and fight against them
with the sword of his mouth.
Such is the radical principle and general form of the
evil reproved under the figure of Balaam; but it hath yet
a more specific form and application which it would be
wrong to omit, and unkindness not to specify to this our own
generation of the church, with whom especially we living
men have to do. The special form of the wickedness in the
text is, that the prophet should teach the king how to
lead God's people astray, that the church should teach the
state how to destroy God's people in the land. This evil
office, being fulfilled, as we have seen, by the Christian
church after the era of persecution, brought in the supre-
macy of Babylon, the mother of harlots. It hath been
always the way which the hypocritical and false church
hath taken to put out of sight the faithful and true. For
example, when the Chaldeans, who were the religionists of
Babylon, wrought with Nebuchadnezzar to set up the golden
image upon the plain of Dura, and to require all to wor-
ship it; they gave a historical emblem of what the worldly
part of the church have ever and will ever do, while Satan
hath any hold of this earth. And every one in the church
who is unregenerate, is as ready for the devil's service in
this matter as these Chaldeans were. How diligent, for
example, during the last century, were what is called the
Moderate party in the Church of Scotland, to misrepre-
sent the faithful and true ministers as not so well disposed
to the powers that be, as fomenters of resistance amongst
the people; by which false teaching of the counsellors
of the king, they almost overwhelmed the faithful in the
church. How steadily again did the bishops in the Church
of England, during the same period, prevent by all means
the introduction of ministers holding higher doctrine than
their own vile Arminianism, or rather Pelagianism. In
both these instances, they did the part of Balaam, the
son of Bosor, and though some of them might do it with-
out any covetous motive, I believe that the generality will
be found to have their eye upon the good things which
Balak the king hath to bestow; the good livings, the places
and preferments in the church. These last forty years,
564
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
which have changed all things, have wrought a very great
change here also. The opposition and antagonism of those
two parties is fast dying away: they are far nearer to each
other, than old prejudices will allow them to believe; and
they only want a common cause far enough removed from
the old battle ground, to rush into each other's arms, and
unite their forces against the truth. There is nearly as
much worldliness in the spirit of the one party as of the
other, though in the one it be less cunningly disguised;
and wherever the prophets are natural men, or, being spi-
ritual, are but babes in Christ, and at the same time strong
in carnality, they are ever ready to serve Satan in stirring
up the state against the prophets who minister the word
of the Lord to the wants of the spiritual people of the
Lord. Now, I do see such a bright and clear shining
out of truth upon these three great and all-inclusive heads,
the unchangeable love of the Father, the work of the Son
in the flesh, to reconcile all flesh unto God, the work of
Christ in the Spirit to redeem the church from the power
of all evil, and to present her holy and victorious in the
day of his coming, as must stir up the jealousy of those
who are contented with the present condition of their se-
veral sects and parties, and must lead them to combine with
one accord to extinguish the light. It is manifest to me at
this moment in our church, that the coalition is formed, of
religionists and worldlings, of Evangelical and Moderate,
of Churchmen and Seceders, of Presbyterians and Epis-
copalians and Independents, of infidels and believers,
against those who hold fast these great heads of truth,—the
universal love of God, the fallen flesh of Christ, the mighty
work in the Spirit, and the glorious advent; and that it
will labour most diligently to awaken the hostility of public
opinion, to excite the odium and horror of the people, to
alienate the possessors of power and government, from
those who hold the truth, to prevent them from places and
stations of authority in the church and kingdom, to cast
them out from those which they possess, and otherwise to
impede the work of God by all the means in their power.
I believe this condition of things to be already in exist-
ence, and no one knows how rapid its progress will be.
For my own part, I should not be surprised to see the
church using all her authority to deprive the state of the
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Balaamites. 565
services of every faithful minister who holds these great
points of truth; and if so, they shall then have consum-
mated in Protestant Britain that profane union between
Church and State, for the suppression of the faithful, and
for the misguidance of all men, which heretofore was accom-
plished in Papal Europe, and we shall come into the con-
dition of being included in and mixed up with the rest of
the Apostasy. At this moment I perceive the prophets
of all denominations most diligently traducing the preach-
ers of the truth, casting stumbling blocks before the people
of God, and leading them away from the true spiritual
doctrines, to those intermixtures and intermarriages be-
tween the carnal and the spiritual which God abominates.
I perceive in the Church of Scotland and the Church of
England a distinct and a common form of this evil prac-
tice, which it would be very unfaithful and unkind in me not
to open and reprove. The evil in the former is her sys-
tematic theology and legal jurisprudence, as distinguished
from the multiplicity of sensible forms in the latter, such
as priests' dresses, pictures, organs, kneeling, crossing,
bowing, and the like; the one addressing the natural reason,
the other the natural sense of man. Our systematic the-
ology, so much countenanced by and embodied in the
Westminster Confession, I regard as a very great stum-
bling-block both to ministers and people, leading them to
fancy that they know the truth when they are familiar
with its signs, and apt at the use of them in theological
argument or discourse from the pulpit. And our very
exact legal jurisprudence has introduced into our courts
of discipline the rigour of law instead of the mildness of
charity, and the zealotry of party instead of the protec-
tion of catholic love. I have no hesitation in saying, that
the spirit of party, in which for a long time almost every
presbytery, synod, and general assembly of the church
have met, and in which almost every member of them
hath deliberated and spoken, has done more to banish the
Spirit of God from the meetings of the elders, than all the
false doctrines, erroneous principles, and unworthy cha-
racters, which have found access there. In the pulpit
systematic theology, abstract terms, the algebra of religion,
and in the courts, the spirit of law and of party, have done
most awful injury to the church, from which I fear there
3 c
566
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
is no hope of her recovering herself. These are the cun-
ning seductions with which so many ministers are con-
tinually snared and ensnaring others. Mine it is not to
meddle so much with the Church of England, although in
what I write, I write out of charity alone: but this I do
most certainly perceive that the pomp and state of bishops,
the secular offices of the parish clergy as magistrates, their
pluralities and non-residences, the numerous ceremonies,
and the rigid adherence to printed forms, are a stumbling-
block to the people. No one that hath not reflected on it,
or made the experiment, can believe how the one nation is
locked up in the understanding, and the other in the sense,
and hindered from entering into the things of the Spirit. A
religion is presented to them, to which they think that they
themselves can bring no small share of the materials. Their
following of the argument, their perceiving of the proper
word in its proper place, their recognizing of the orthodox
sentences, their amens and answers and genuflexions, and
other exercises of the natural man, work sad effects in
beguiling them from that simple reliance upon God and
Jesus Christ which is the sum and substance of religion,
And the common evil which under this head I have to la-
ment is, their giving false instruction to the state. By their
continual courting of the powers that be, they do more
than all others besides to make the powers that be look
upon religion merely as a state engine, which they can
work for the ends of worldly policy. However much in
the canons of the church it be maintained that the state
hath no power to interfere in the ordering of the church,
and how many soever martyrs may have died for that
testimony, it is no less true, that the bare adulation of the
authorities for the patronage which they possess doth
completely throw the church into their arms, to do with
her whatsoever they please. The see of Rome had as
good canons to shew, and as full a martyrology, yet did this
not prevent her from becoming the base paramour of the
empire no more will the canons and constitutions of the
churches of Britain prevent the same catastrophe from
coming to pass. See in a late instance what wretched and
abominable counsel was given to the state by both
churches in the matter of the Papacy, when they either
advised, or did not, as churchmen, oppose that apostasy,
vi.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Nicolaitanes. 567
from being laid like an incubus upon the breast of this over-
burthened country. Their ignorance and their slavish-
ness sold the kingdom into the hands of its enemies. And
worse things are preparing. And you will find that the
state will act in concert with her right-trusty and well-
beloved churchmen, to resist and suppress the voice of truth
and the true worshippers within the land. God grant that
my fears may not be realized! Not many years wilt de-
termine. Even now a reformed liturgy begins to be talked
of. It will be done beyond question by the advice and
with the consent of the lords spiritual. In all this I am not
reasoning against an establishment of religion, but point-
ing out the way in which the regularly ordained ministers
of the word are fulfilling the evil part towards the state,
which Balaam did to Balak; whereby many are offended.
Heretofore, out of this, more than out of all other things
put together, arose the disputes and secessions which now
destroy the unity of this kingdom, and tear up the very
vitals of its peace. Out of imposed ceremonies, made into
a term of communion, they arose in England; out of the
patronage of the state, ill gotten and used to oppress the in-
alienable rights of the people, the secession arose in Scot-
land. And both of these have now come to imbibe the spirit
of direct enemies and antagonists of the churches, which,
notwithstanding all their faults, I uphold as true churches
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
THE NICOLAITANES.
Besides these doctors of Balaam's school, there were also
others of the school of the Nicolaitanes, whom the angel
permitted to be at ease and to propagate their sensual
doctrines in the city of his habitation; against whom he
was not stirred up like the angel of the Ephesian church
with a hatred congenial with that in which they were held
by the Universal Bishop of Christendom, the Head of all
the Churches. Twice over doth Christ say, "Which
thing I hate." And he commendeth well his minister in
Ephesus because he likewise hated their deeds. But the
over-gentle angel of Pergamos permitted them even to
hold their doctrine unmolested; for which, and for the
other evil doctrine which he allowed, his Master is so
indignant that he commands him to repent, or else he
3 c 2
568
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
will come unto him quickly and fight against them with
the breath of his mouth.
I have nothing to add to what was set forth in the
fourth Lecture concerning the doctrine and deeds of the
Nicolaitanes; every thing being said there which is surely
known. All that can be affirmed is, that it was of that
sensual character which grew up alongside of the doctrine
of grace and forgiveness, and nourished itself by physical
pictures and representations of the paradise which is pre-
pared for the people of God in the millennial kingdom of
his saints. Several who are engaged in the evil work of
resisting the hope of Christ's coming and kingdom now set
forth to the church by many of his servants, attempt to
fasten those gross sensualities which in the time of John
prevailed and have been handed down to us by the name
of Cerinthianism, upon the doctrine of a real bodily pre-
sence of Christ and his saints at the beginning of the
thousand years, and a real substantial kingdom by them
established upon the earth. But though beyond question
this, like every other doctrine of the truth, is capable of
being wrested, and, because of its being of the truth, is
diligently wrested by Satan and wicked men to their own
destruction; yet can it with no justice be alleged that the
gross sensualities into which the first heretics fell had
their origin in this cause; but for the most part, as those
skilled in ecclesiastical history know, from fundamental
errors concerning the nature of good and evil, and con-
cerning the true flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ. Deriving
from the Greek schools of philosophy and from the still
older fountain of the eastern magi, false and fantastical
notions concerning the body and the soul; they greatly
undervalued the former, vilified it, and could not bring
themselves to believe that Christ's body was really com-
posed of the bare elements of flesh and blood, but of some
spiritual, celestial, or sidereal substance which assumed the
shews and appearances of suffering and death, but was
totally incapable of being troubled by ought which man
could inflict. This being once admitted, the flesh came to
be looked upon as a thing incapable of redemption or
obedience to any Divine law of holiness; forasmuch as
Christ avoided it, and would have no fellowship with it.
It must be left to work on in its own wickedness, and reli-
gion must be placed in knowledge (Gnosticism), in commu-
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop - The Nicolaitanes. 569
nity of goods, of wives, and every thing else whatever. The
basis of all flesh-mortification and body sacrifice is in this,
that the Godhead did take it as we have it, and make it
to be holy as he would have us to make it. He subjected
and subordinated it by Incarnation to the holy will of
God; and thereby subjected and subordinated all nature,
visible and invisible, whereof man is the created lord.
Thus believing, I am armed against the flesh with power of
faith to bring it under, to present my whole body a living
sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God, and to prove in
myself what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of
God. This great point of doctrine being now denied by the
great body of the evangelicals,—at least so far as appears,
and there was made of late a fearful demonstration against
it, they can no longer preach man capable of a real holi-
ness, the holiness which is by faith; they do not believe that
the Son of God ever dwelt in flesh under the law of flesh,
or that he did prevail over that law, and how can they believe
that he will do it in their case. At the best it can only be
a conventional or pharisaical holiness, that which may be
produced by the fear of man, and by the dread of hell,
not that which can be produced by the reality of an in-
dwelling God. If this sect which denies that Christ took
very flesh under the law of flesh and brought it into obe-
dience to the law of the Spirit,-for it is only a sect and
not the church which can deny that truth,—if this schismatic
faction in the church prevail through general ignorance.
and apathy by their noise and numbers to establish their
false doctrine, then I prognosticate such a deluge of Pha-
risaical cruelty, scorn, and wickedness in the church as these
lands hath never yet seen. The denial of Christ's work in
the flesh, the doctrine that it was not our flesh which he
took and sanctified, amounts to the affirmation that our
flesh admits not of sanctification; and has little or nothing
to do with true holiness, seeing that Christ the holy One
would have nothing to do with it, and conditioned that it
should be transubstantiated before he would take it into
the fellowship of his Divinity. This falsehood was the
chief root of those Nicolaitane sensualities to which the
heretics of the primitive church were addicted.
It is true that this concurring with the heresy of Hyme-
neusand Philetus (for no heresy can stand alone), namely, that
3 c 3
570
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
1
the resurrection was past already-not the general resur-
rection, for to believe so of this before death passeth the
extravagance even of heresy, but the first resurrection
proper to the people of God, with which chiefly or en-
tirely the primitive church was exercised either in the way
of orthodoxy or heterodoxy,-I say the heresy that the
first resurrection is past, that it is but a figure, as our mo-
derns preach, for the regeneration of the soul, being intro-
troduced into the primitive church, full of the faith, hope,
and desire of the Millennium, did necessarily bring with it
these Cerinthian or Nicolaitane crudities and sensualities
in which the early heretics indulged themselves. For the
joys of that estate being described in Scripture by every
natural appetite, as of eating and drinking, and ruling and
enjoying, so soon as they got themselves persuaded that
the first resurrection was past in the act of the rege-
neration, they immediately concluded that to them the
thousand years of abundant enjoyment was begun, and
so they plunged into it with their flesh all around them,
and were taken in the devil's snare. Our modern evan-
gelicals make no scruple to hold with Hymeneus and
Philetus that the resurrection is past already, in our rege-
neration; but they are preserved from the banquets and
indulgences, by having no faith of any kind whatever in the
Millennium, except that it is an improved state of society,
during which their bodies are in the unconsciousness of
death, and their souls in heaven. Thus the two errors most
fortunately neutralize one another; because, in truth,
there is no faith, either upon the first resurrection, or the
Millennium, and therefore it is of no consequence to them
whether they believe one way or another.
But the origin of these Nicolaitane errors was still
deeper, in that abuse of the doctrines of grace which is
known by the name of Antinomianism, but were better
designated by the name of Antichristianism (for it is not
the law, but Christ, it opposeth), and which by the
Apostle is thus stated, "Let us sin that grace may
abound." Men, not understanding the nature of their
own being, nor realizing their theological system in
the conscience, are astonished how the doctrine of no
law and no imputation of sin, and constant, continual
forgiveness, should be compatible with repentance, holi-
ness, and the habitual obedience of all God's command-
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Nicolaitanes. 571
ments. And many there be at this day, who, in their
ignorance and error, have impugned the doctrine of uni-
versal atonement and pardon, as being full of all licen-
tiousness. Now conceive men with such inadequate
views of Gospel truth, to be, by some means or other,
brought to receive the doctrine of God's continual forgive-
ness, and non-imputation of sin; and the result would be
to open all the flood-gates of wickedness, and to make
God the patron of all iniquity. You have only to sup-
pose that the doctors, who in this day are vainly striving
against universal atonement, to receive from Scripture, or
demonstration of the preacher, or by some other means,
the true doctrine, while they are in their present carnal
state, and the result would be, what they themselves so
cogently and eloquently have set forth, a thorough con-
fusion of the good with the evil; the removal of all
incentives to holiness; and, in one word, the subversion
of all morality. Such was the state of Simon Magus,
and the early heretics, who, being still in the gall of
bitterness and the bond of iniquity, yet, perceiving the
demonstration of the Spirit, and power, which accom-
panied certain preachers of certain doctrines, were fain
to receive them into their unsanctified intellect, not as
spiritual truths but as abstract conceptions: and the
consequence was the revelation of them in the sense by
all manner of excesses; the more violent the better,
because according to their excessive violence the firmness
and the strength of their faith was demonstrated. It is
only the total absence of faith as a principle, and the
substitution of theological terms instead of spiritual truths,
which prevent the intellectualism of the church in this
day from revealing itself in the same sensual indulgences.
It is not our religion, but our social habits, good police,
and oversight of public opinion, which keeps our
manners in that punctual condition in which they are
found, from which when we escape by removing to
other lands, behold into what fearful irreligion and
wickedness even the children of our church, privileged
above all others, fall! It is punctuality and not principle,
the dread of consequences here or hereafter, not the righ-
teousness of faith, which keeps us decent as we are. In
the primitive age, when there existed no such restraints
as Christianity hath produced in the world, no standard of
572
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
morals, no sense of decorum, no force of public opinion, every
thing depended upon the principles which a man held con-
cerning God and duty; and when the natural man adopted,
for he cannot receive, the doctrines of God's forgiveness of
all sins and non-imputation of any sin, of the flesh being put
to death and buried, and the spiritual man quickened, who
cannot sin, of God's calling upon his people to rejoice in the
community of the saints, where there is neither Jew nor
Greek, male nor female, he became, as it were, intoxicated
with his liberty, sin became sanctified, wickedness com-
manded, and all his inclinations gratified to the uttermost.
And so were produced those hideous practices in the worship
of God, of which the very narrative splits a modern ear with
horror. How much or how little of these sensualities the
Nicolaitanes adopted we have no further means of ascer-
taining, than from the Stromata of Clement, which we have
quoted in our Fourth Lecture: but doubtless it was to this
type of heresy that they belonged. Of these there are
traces in all the churches to which the Apostolic Epistles
are addressed; and therefore it is they are so particular in
enumerating the open breaches of morality, and con-
demning them; such as fornication, theft, uncleanness, and
so forth; which now are topics seldom adverted to but in
the police report. In truth, Christianity had to form a
police, a law, a sentiment, a feeling, and every thing else
which now are wardens around the common weal, and
those writings which feed the church have therefore con-
tinual reference to such excesses and enormities. There
was the breaking in of mankind; the rough work of re-
claiming men from the most abominable wickedness to the
most delicate saintliness. No wonder that some should
prove refractory-that all in whom the natural man ruled
should prove so-and set up a head against the holy
Jesus, and his holy Apostles, against the Holy Ghost, and
the doctrine and discipline of the church. To preserve from
such roots of bitterness the flock of Christ, was the very
intention of his placing delegates in those cities, and this
office he expected them faithfully and diligently to fulfil.
THE THREATENING.
In this function the angel of the church of Pergamos
had notably failed, and therefore the Lord enjoins him to
repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and fight
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Threatening. 573
against them with the sword of my mouth." The Lord
regards his sufferance of such sensual and worldly doc-
trines as a high offence not to be passed over, but to be
reproved, and, if not repented of, to be chastened and
punished. He therefore calls upon his messenger to
change his mind, and seek a holier and severer spirit, to
think less of his own ease and more of his Master's glory,
to think less of pleasing men, and more of pleasing God,
to awaken from his sluggish rest, and go forth as a good
soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ, against the enemies of
his cross.
What a lesson to the multitude of pastors who
are content to sit still in their towns and villages, cities
and kingdoms, and permit the rankest heresy and most.
abominable wickedness to be propagated beside and around
them. If I understand any thing concerning the nature of
an established church, it is constituted as well for the
guardianship of sound doctrine, as for the exercise of mini-
sterial and pastoral offices, within the king's dominions,
whereby an obligation resteth upon every one of the mi-
nisters to stir up his gifts against every form of error which
may arise, and by every spiritual weapon to root it out. The
members of the church are as much the king's soldiers for
the defence of truth, as the army and navy are for the de-
fence of the person and honour of the king, and for the safety
of the kingdom. There is a large and wide field of valiant
enterprize in the service of the kingdom upon which every
young minister is called upon to win for himself a high
degree in the church of Christ. In thus speaking of the
obligations of Christians, considered as established by the
state, our object is merely to shew the extent to which
this duty of superintending the true faith, lies upon every
one, and not to interpose any third party between us and
the Master whom we serve. Nevertheless, though we stand
directly bound as angels or messengers unto Him who sent
us to represent himself, he doth so order it in his provi-
dence, as that we should in our obedience both honour
the magistrate's dignity, and also the communion and fel-
lowship of the catholic church; the one by the reverence
and observance of the power which hath established the
church for great ends of the nation's well-being, the other
by our reverence and obedience of the ecclesiastical go-
vernment of which we are a part. I judge, therefore, that
Christ, in calling upon this angel of Pergamos to repent,
574
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
doth call upon almost every minister of his within our land,
to repent of the like tolerance of erroneous doctrine, the
same obsequiousness to the various sects which exist in the
country as heads of error. In these last days the weapons
of controversy for the truth have been dropped, and a
spurious amalgamation of all parties with one another hath
been introduced under the pretence of charity, which re-
joiceth not in iniquity, and hath sympathy of joy only with
the truth. The cold and frowning aspect in which, before
these times, the church stood towards all sects, who, by se-
parating, had signified that there were some very important
errors in the church for which she was not to be endured,
though it savoured of uncharitableness and pride, and
might often favour those fruits of the flesh, did yet arise
from the most excellent desire of maintaining the unity
of the truth, and the unity of the church, and was intended
as a testimony against the false doctrine, or schismatical
spirit in which these separations arose, and by which they
were maintained. I have already blamed the church for
casting stumbling-blocks in the way of God's people, by
introducing as terms of communion, what ought never to
have been advanced to such a degree; but when Satan,
taking advantage of this error, did drive others into the
greater error of separating from a church which held the
true doctrine and discipline, and of forming another, and
yet not another, for no other can there be than one church,
she was called upon to reprove this transgression, and to
shew her high dissatisfaction with all who followed such
divisive courses. And thus she did, and continued to do
until the days arrived for building walls with untempered
mortar, when all at once a general cry arose for amal-
gamating into one, without any regard to the great
points of truth, for the testimony of which each party
conceived itself to be set. And into one they rush-
ed, even not to the exclusion of the Socinian or the In-
fidel, or the notorious evil-liver, provided they were willing.
to lend a hand in the holy alliance, as they deemed it, for
converting the world. Ah me! what a rushing into the
battle without counting the host. This straightway in-
troduced a devout and pious hatred of all controversy, an
avoidance of all doubtful ground, a voluntary silence upon
all disputed questions, a spirit of accommodation and to-
leration which admitted Roman Catholics on the one hand,
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The Threatening. 375
and Socinians on the other; and otherwise to proceed,
became quite intolerable, and was treated as savouring of
an evil spirit. This habit of the times has brought almost
every minister in the church, especially of those who are
called Evangelical, under the charge of the angel of Per-
gamos, unto all whom, as unto him, Christ saith," Repent,
or else I come quickly, and will fight against them with
the sword of my mouth." For my own part I have taken
my Lord's admonition to heart, and am resolved from
henceforth to gird on my armour of war, and go forth to
the combat. The enemies are very many and strong, and
of our own household; but He that is with us is greater
than all who can be against us. I call upon every one to
do the same. I urge it upon them by the commands of
their Lord and Master, and I enforce it upon the consi-
deration presented to the angel of Pergamos; that if they
do not, Christ will come quickly and fight against the
enemies of the truth with the sword of his mouth.
It is very instructive to observe how the threatening is
addressed not against the angel directly, who held the truth
himself, but against the members of his charge, who were
abiding in the error. Through them, through his affection
for them, the angel is wounded, as a father is stricken by
the affliction and death of his children. Though he had
forgotten his love and duty to them, so far as to allow
them to remain in soul-destroying error, the Lord will not
indulge him in this distance and estrangement, but treats
with him, and threatens to deal with him all the same as
if his heart was entire before him, and perfect in its love
to his children There is something, to my mind, very
beautiful in this, and most remarkably illustrative of the
perseverance of God in the way of his ordinances. Let
the minister neglect the people, and the people neglect
their minister, God will still deal with both according to
the relation of minister and people; threatening him with
the wounding of that love which, whether he feel it or
not, he ought ever to feel. This adhesiveness of God
to his appointed ordinances, civil or ecclesiastical, domestic
or public, is the stability of the world. Generation is
thereby enabled to learn, from the experience of genera-
tions past, age from the experience of youth; and the
world is preserved from utter dissolution. There is an
inflexibility in the laws of the Divine government, which
576
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
permits them to be calculated upon, and to become the
subjects of hope and fear, of pursuit and of avoidance.
There is also a continual opening for repentance, and re-
turning to the ways of righteousness. How long so ever
you may have neglected or contravened the ordained
laws of your office and station in the church and state,
they remain unaltered by your transgression, they are as
generous and as gracious as ever; and if at any time,
through the evils incident upon neglect or transgression,
you are brought to feel your error, and to desire the better
way of righteousness, you have but to return, like the
prodigal son, and, lo! your Father's heart and your Fa-
ther's home are the same as when you left them, to go
astray after the imaginations of your own heart.
ministers, therefore, who have permitted roots of bitter-
ness to spring up in the midst of the flock, and sects of
various names and errors to rise up beside us, to whom we
have given the right hand of fellowship, without consider-
ing the false and schismatical doctrines for which they have
erected a banner, if we will now take these people into
more loving consideration, and do our endeavour to root
out the errors by which they are destroyed, and expose
the corruptions of which they are taken captive, shall
find our great Shepherd as ready to help and to approve us
as heretofore, so wondrous is his grace and forgiveness,
so ever open is the door of repentance, with pardon
written over it in letters of blood.
We
But if we will allow our people to be carried away
by the licentiousness of the world, by conformity to its
covetous and ungodly customs on the one hand, and on
the other by the spirit of liberalism to all parties and pro-
fessions, saying, "Let us be, and we will let you be," it
will come to pass, that, upon these our poor indulged
people, God will bring his sword, and that speedily, to do
the work of chastisement and discipline which we had
not heart enough to do. It is painful to look on sores,
but they must both be looked upon and dressed before
they can be healed. I know who have seen affliction,
what a trial of courage and affection it is, to look into the
grievous sores either of the body or of the soul, and pa-
tiently to treat them with the oft painful remedies which
are required; and how much easier and pleasanter it is to
smooth the matter up, and to suppose that all is well. But,
VI.] Christ Universal Bishop-Pergamos: Threatening. 577
alas! soon nature takes upon herself the physician's ne-
glected place, and by one of her mighty and strong efforts,
which end either in cure or death, she labours to throw
off the accumulation of evil with which she is distressed.
And so also doth nature's kind and wise Redeemer. When
the pastoral care, and the discipline of the church have
not prevented the growth of evil and gangrenous matters
in the members of his body, he himself rather than they
should perish, comes with his sword, and executes the
office of the Judge, that they may not be condemned with
the world. This coming with the sword to fight against
the holders and practisers of error, I therefore regard
as a last effort of the great Shepherd to prevent the sad
consummation of apostacy. It is in the heart of epistles
to the churches, that this is written; and the sword is
a part of his attire who is their Bishop, and it is used
against his own people: I conclude therefore, that it is not
for destruction as yet, but for loving chastisement that it
is used. Of this there are many instances in the Scriptures,
and particularly two in the First Epistle to the Corinthians;
the one an individual, the other a general instance.
The particular instance is that recorded, in the fifth chap-
ter, of a person who was living in incestuous fornication
with his father's wife, concerning whom the Apostle de-
livereth sentence in these words: "Deliver such an one
unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. v. 5). Again,
referring to the same person, he saith, "What have I to
do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge
them that are within? But them that are without God
judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that
wicked person" (ver. 12, 13). And in reference to this
same person I think it is written in the Second Epistle
(ii. 6-11), in language of consolation and forgiveness to
him personally, and of instruction to the church concern-
ing his readmission to their communion. From this in-
stance it is manifest, that, even in the extremest case of
discipline, the power of the sword is used not for de-
struction of the soul, but for destruction of the flesh,
to the saving of the soul. And accordingly the excom-
munication service of the church proceeds upon this prin-
ciple. They are cut off in the flesh, but still united in
3 D
578
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the spirit; they are the subject of continual prayer in the
churches, and of studious avoidance by the people, to the
end that they may taste the bitterness of their condition,
and earnestly crave peace and restoration to the bosom of
the faithful. This is the true meaning of excommunication,
an outward and visible separation, for the chastisement
and destruction of that fleshly nature which hath offended,
to the end that the spiritual communion may be restored
and preserved unimpaired. This is the individual case;
and for the general one it is to be found in the xith chap-
ter, which treateth of the communion of the Lord's Sup-
per, in the observance of which the Corinthian church had
greatly erred by introducing both pride and sensuality into
that most humbling and spiritual ordinance. Whereupon
he commandeth that every one should examine or prove
himself, and be satisfied in his own conscience that he is
not profaning that blessed service with unholy ideas and
practices; for if so, he is profaning the body and blood
of Christ, which were present therein under the symbols
of bread and wine. Then he addeth, that the person who
eateth and drinketh in an unworthy or unsuitable manner
did eat and drink judgment to himself; and straightway
he proceeds to explain what this judgment is, and how
executed. "Because of this among you many are weak,
and sickly, and many sleep." These are all judgments
in the flesh to weaken and destroy it, because it had led
the spirit astray from the right use of that holy ordinance.
The flesh had offended; it should have been kept under;
it should never have arisen after baptism into life or
action; and because faith had not prevailed to put it
down, Christ would take discipline in his own band, and
use it for the purposes of grace and mercy to the spirits of
his people. That it was in grace and mercy these sick-
nesses and weaknesses and deaths were sent over the Co-
rinthian church, is manifest from what follows: "For if
we judged (discerned) ourselves, we would not be judged
(excerned, or singled out for judgment). When judged,
however, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not
be condemned with the world." And then he proceeds
to tell them how to go about the Lord's Supper, in a be-
coming and inoffensive manner. Now nothing can be more
clearly demonstrative of this, that judgments in the flesh are.
VI.] Christ Universal Bishop-Pergamos: Threatening. 579
inflicted by Christ, as discipline to prevent the soul from
perishing under the load of carnality. That they are not.
necessary to a Christian's prosperity, but resorted to by
the good Lord in extremity, that his people may not
perish; and doubtless we are to believe that by such
weaknesses, sicknesses, and deaths, the souls of his people
are saved. The exercise proveth profitable, the flesh is
weakened, the spirit is strengthened, the victory is won-
won, perhaps, in death, to be enjoyed through eternity.
This whole declaration casteth a clear light to me upon
the passage of the epistle to the church of Pergamos, “I
will come and fight against thee with the sword of my
mouth:" as much as to say, If you, the angel of the
church, will not see after these offences and offenders, I
will be fain to come myself, and fight against them with my
sword, sending amongst them diseases and weaknesses
and death, to the end of curing them of their sensualities,
and saving their souls alive, that they may not be con-
demned with the wicked.
Being thus explained, the threatening teaches us some
most important lessons; the first of which is, the advantage
of ecclesiastical discipline, as the great means of prevent-
ing adversities of various kinds, infirmities, diseases, and
premature deaths, losses, crosses, and calamities of every
kind, which are Christ's method of supplying the want of it.
He will not let his church, or any member of his church
perish for lack of discipline; and if the angels of the
churches shrink from their duty herein, he will not. He
will take his sword, and apply it wisely, though severely,
to the eradication out of the flesh of those remaining roots
by which it continues to hold on in life, and nourish evil
fruits. I do not say that a Christian ought invariably
thus to judge of his trials in his flesh, or in his family, or
in his estate; but he would do well on all such occasions
to consider, whether by that thing which he is denied the
use and enjoyment of, he hath not been sowing to the
flesh, and choking the good seed of the Spirit. Certainly
a church which is neglectful of discipline may surely ex-
pect great reverses and trials of this kind, so long as there
is any life of God in it. The second lesson is Christ's re-
demption of all disease, affliction, and bereavement, so as
to make them instruments of good to the spirits of his
3 D 2
580
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
people. So that a believer may say always of such trials,
They are sent to me for my spiritual advancement and
growth in grace. Christ is in them, and the devil is out
of them. In which sense all things are ours, whether life
or death. It is very beautiful to witness how these stings
and forerunners of death, which the flesh is liable to by
reason of Adam's sin, Christ hath caught hold of, in order
to weaken and destroy that flesh, that the spiritual man
may be more and more strengthened day by day. The
third lesson is, that if we would escape sufferings in our
persons, and in our family, and in our estate, we should
guard against all the fruits of the flesh of whatever kind;
for fruits can only spring from roots, and roots cannot be
extracted without suffering and pain. Baptism puts the
flesh to death. It should never again lift its head; if it
do, it doth so only through defect of our faith in Christ
Jesus, with whom we are united as living members by the
unity of the Spirit. And being so united, he who in his
own flesh made sin to cease, can make it to cease also in
us, yet not without the exercise of faith, or the use of the
Holy Ghost. Those, indeed, who say he did not put
fleshly temptations to a spiritual death, but had them put
to a physical death already to his hand, cannot conclude
or believe that he will do so in them; and must flounder
on between good and evil, and remain in the slough of
despondency all their life. Not so with the believer of
Christ's work in the flesh. He hath assurance of his flesh
already deadened in Christ; he believes upon this as a thing
already done for all flesh; and thus believing, he feels
that verily it has been done, by proving liberty in his own.
person from its bondage. Let him then be careful to
perfect his faith, or, rather, to keep in perfect faith, for it
is as natural for faith to be perfect in the first, as in the
after stages of it; and he shall be in the way of escaping
many sore amputations and eradications, outward bereave-
ments and adversities, which otherwise he must needs under-
go. For Christ will not leave his people in the indulgence
of any fleshly sins, he will both discover and dig out the
roots of bitterness; and, cost what it may, he will deliver
his people from them. And the last lesson is to bless him
for being at such pains with us, as to act the part of the
chirurgeon and physician, as well as of the Pastor; that he
VI.] Christ Universal Bishop — The Spirit's Promise. 581
will fulfil every duty which is proper to the Saviour; that he
will not lose any of the people whom the Father hath num-
bered into him, but will by all means perfect them.
THE SPIRIT'S PROMISE.
We come now to the third part of the epistle, which is
spoken by the Spirit unto all the churches, and to every one
who hath an ear to hear; setting before us a glorious
promise, which shall become the property of every one
who overcometh. This is the truly catholic part of each
epistle, written not according to the circumstances of any
particular church, or to foreshew the condition of any
period of the catholic church, but in the language of all
times and places and conditions, being the language of
the Holy Ghost to every one who is born again of water and
the Spirit, and to those who are not regenerate, setting out
the sevenfold form of blessedness into which they may enter
through the avenue of faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Their being addressed to all the churches, shews them to
be of no partial interpretation; their soliciting the ear of
every creature under heaven, shews the Spirit to be the
preacher of Christ unto all the world, while the investiture
of the blessing in those only who overcome, declares that
not every man whom God loves and invites, nor yet every
one whom he admits into his church, but those only who
accept the invitation, and persevere in the fierce and fiery
conflict, shall inherit the blessing. As it is written, "Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that
day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name
done many wonderful works? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that
work iniquity." From this threefold address of the seven
promissory words of the Holy Ghost,
to all men,
to all the churches, and to all who overcome,-we may
well expect to find them containing at once the most free,
full, and encouraging forms of Divine truth; being, as it
were, the body of future blessedness, the substance of
all hope expressed in seven promises. We ought by these
considerations to be moved to examine them carefully as
3D 3
582
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
the seven spiritual chambers in which the whole treasury
of God is contained. That spoken to the church of Per-
gamos is in these words :-
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches: To him that overcometh will
I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a
white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which
no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it" (Rev. ii. 17).
Though, as hath been said above, these promises be of
the largest and freest character, not restricted by time,
place, or circumstances, but essentially spiritual, each hath
nevertheless a relation to that form of Christ's office as the
universal Shepherd, to that form of the church's tempta-
tion, and of the church's condition with which it is con-
nected so that there is a propriety in the promise, as
connected with its own epistle. For though spiritual
truths consist not of parts, so as to be treated by the
rules of number, they have various aspects in which they
may be represented according to the various conditions
of those whom you would work upon. And the Spirit
of Christ being minded to present the one reward of
eternal blessedness to those seven conditions of the
church to which Christ addresseth himself under seven
different stiles, doth present it to each under that aspect,
and in that form of words, which is best fitted to produce
the desired effect of encouraging them to combat stoutly
against the powerful and wily enemies of the Lord. Now,
of the church of Pergamos behold what were the peculiar
conditions. First, they were tempted by these Balaamite
and Nicolaitane teachers, who presented seductions to
the sense, and misled the brethren to eat things sacri-
ficed to idols, and to be guilty of spiritual, and perhaps
also of carnal, fornication. Therefore the Spirit wordeth
his exhortation so as to present the true object which the
sense should desire, "I will give to eat of the hidden
manna," which, as we shall shew, contains the promise
of our being made partakers of Christ's glorified flesh,
and being joined to him in one body for ever. And be-
cause that church had become confused with base and
counterfeit intermixtures of these disciples of evil doc-
trines, whereby the glory of the true members of Christ
was stolen away from him; the wheat being hidden in the
VI.] Christ Universal Bishop-The Hidden Manna. 583
midst of the chaff, the Holy Spirit promiseth to give "a
white stone," the custom among the ancients for acquit-
ting a person put upon his trial, whereas those who were
condemned had a black stone given to them: so that if
an indiscriminate company were brought up to trial, in
which some innocent ones are grieving over false and
wrongous accusations, the giving of a white stone to such
would prove the deliverance of their souls from the sorest
trial to an innocent man, the disgrace of being confounded
with the guilty. Moreover, because Christ presents himself
to this church as he who hath the sharp sword with two
edges, a severe and somewhat fearful aspect, the Spirit
comforteth the faithful, that in that stone should be written
a new name, which no one should be able to counterfeit ;
or, in other words, that Christ would deliver them from
all such vile intermixtures and base companions, and set
their souls free from the grievance of false brethren, by
giving them their portion where no wicked one could en-
ter, by putting upon them a character and clothing which
no one could counterfeit. This is the end of his dis-
cipline; not to root out any, but to deliver his people
from the neighbourhood and contamination of false and
wicked professors, as it is written, " And now also the axe
is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree
which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and
cast into the fire.......Whose fan is in his hand, and he
will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into
the garner but he will burn up the chaff with unquench-
able fire" (Matt. iii. 10, 12).
THE HIDDEN MANNA.
The first part of this large and abundant promise of the
Holy Ghost to the valiant and the victorious, is in these
words, "I will give him to eat of the hidden manna.” Of
which, to understand the consolation and the blessedness,
it will be necessary first to enter into the consideration of
the manna on which the church lived in the wilderness;
and, secondly, of that portion of it which was commanded
to be taken and put in a golden pot, and laid up before
the Lord, within the ark of the covenant, in the most
holy place (Exod. xvi. 33, 34; Heb. ix. 4). For to this,
I think, the word "hidden" directeth us,
that was concealed or hidden." Now, as to the first point,
"the manna
1
10
584
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
our Lord gives us the most ample satisfaction in the vith
chapter of the Gospel by John; from which, by an easy
inference, we shall attain to the knowledge of the second
point. He there teacheth us, that the manna on which
the children of Israel fed, from the time of their entering
into the wilderness until the time of their entering into
Canaan, the land of promise, is the type of his flesh, the
true bread of life, with which his people are fed during
their pilgrimage, until they reach the land of their rest
(John vi. 30-36). The bread which we partake of in the
communion, is the symbol of that same flesh of Christ's
body, without which we have no life in us (John vi.
51-59). And the mystery, both of the manna and of
the Lord's supper, is one and the same; namely, that the
life which the believer receiveth in regeneration hath
need of a continual aliment, is not self subsistent, as it
is not self-generated, but deriveth its sustenance from the
body of Christ, whence also it had its origin. This we
receive by the appropriating act of faith, which, as it makes
another, that is Christ, to become ours, and brings two
things that were separate to be one, is properly represent-
ed, and could only be represented by the act of eating;
which is the only bodily act that hath this uniting, appro
priating, and assimilating character. The manna that fell
around the camp did therefore signify Christ sent down
from heaven for us; becoming flesh, made of a woman
for us and their being nourished by this, without any
thing besides, doth signify that the whole church of the
first-born hath nothing whatever to live upon, besides the
body of Christ, which is all-sufficient to sustain them.
Being taken out of symbolical and figurative language,
and expressed in simple and spiritual language, the same
great truth standeth thus: That when the Father giveth
faith to his chosen ones, and they are regenerated into a
new life by the second Adam, the quickening Spirit, their
faith, continually supported by the Father, doth con-
tinually direct itself to the risen Christ, and receive from
him that work of the Spirit which is necessary to the
sanctification of mortal flesh, and not only to its sancti-
fication, but to empower it to do greater works than
he did, even to shew forth that fulness of power which he
hath received from the Father. The thing communicated
in the Lord's Supper, is called his body, for this very
VI.] Christ Universal Bishop-The Hidden Manna. 585
reason, that the Holy Ghost doth put into the believer,
not this grace and that grace, but the whole power and
presence of Christ's body risen and glorified at the right
hand of God. Not flesh, as the Papists say; for we have
that already, and had it before he took part of it with us;
but power in flesh to do the will of God, and put forth
the power of the risen Christ. We do not receive of the
substance of his body risen, but power from it in the
Spirit to manifest his redemption and sovereignty over all
fallen creatures, and over our own flesh the head of them
all. This power we now have, but something more is
promised to us if we overcome, even the participation not
of the common, but of the hidden manna.
19
This expression, the hidden manna, refers, as I said,
to that pot full of the heavenly food which was laid up in
the most secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High:
"Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and
lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations
(Exod. xvi. 33). And being there deposited in a pot of
gold, it continued incorrupt; whereas that which fell
around the camp corrupted in a day, save on the Sabbath,
when it might be kept for two days. Now, if the manna
on which the people fed, do signify, as our Lord teacheth,
the substance of his flesh, given for the life of the world,
then that manna incorruptible, which was laid up be-
fore the Lord, must surely signify the same substance,
Christ's flesh, in that condition of immortality and incor-
ruption wherein it now subsists at the right hand of God.
And the promise in our text made to the valiant and vic-
torious soldiers of Christ, that they shall eat the hidden
manna, doth convey this glorious truth, that in the age
to come, which is the time of our reward, we shall be
fashioned after the likeness of his glorious body, and par-
take of that spiritual substance which from the tomb he
made to come forth of corruptible flesh. The intention
of God in secreting a portion of the manna within the
veil, and conferring upon it the properties of incorruption,
was to teach the church, that of her heavenly food there
are two forms, in one substance; the one the form of
the corruptible, the other the form of the incorruptible;
whereof the former is proper to nourish into holiness and
strength this mortal body, the latter to fill with honour
and with glory that body immortal in which the saints of
1
{
586
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
God shall arise. There is a measure of Christ's meat and
drink which this mortal tabernacle can endure; there is
a greater measure of the same which the immortal only
can endure. And to this food of eternal and immortal
strength, the hope of the church of Pergamos is carried
forward against that day when God shall reward the faith-
ful followers of the Lamb. These Baalamite doctors
taught them to partake of the idol feast which the heavenly
teacher forbade: and now, says the Spirit, if ye will re-
frain, behold there is laid up for you before the Lord, the
incorruptible food of an incorruptible life. "I will give
you to eat of the hidden manna;" which being expressed.
in the language of the pure reason, apart from the sym-
bols of sense, doth amount to this, that in the kingdom
of heaven about to be revealed the faithful shall receive
from Christ the full communion of his Spirit, which in
its fulness they shall likewise be able to receive, whereas
now they have but a first-fruits thereof. That measure of
knowledge, and of prophecy, and of gift which we now
enjoy, is in part only; that which we shall hereafter enjoy,
is in perfection. Here we have so much of the Spirit as
is necessary for the revelation of Christ, to the sight and
capacity of a fallen world; there so much as is necessary
for the government of a world redeemed: here we have
so much of the Spirit of Christ as may enable us to share
the sufferings of Christ, and like him through suffering to
be perfected; there, being perfected, we shall receive so
much of the Spirit as may fit us for sharing the counsels
and bearing the glory of our Husband and King.
While this promise carries in its bosom so much content-
ment and blessing, it doth, in the manner of its expression,
bring another testimony to the wonderful wisdom in the
structure of this book, and likewise to the truth of our
method of unfolding the same. The "hidden manna,'
as hath been said, was laid up in the ark of the testimony
within the veil, and therefore could not be obtained. for
nourishment until the secret things should be revealed.
Now, this opening of the heavenly temple hath not place
till the blast of the seventh trumpet; whereupon the time
being come" to give reward unto his servants," it is said,
Rev. xi. 19, "And the temple of God was opened in
heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his
testament." So also in Rev. xv. 5, at the time of the
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The White Stone. 587
pouring out of the seven vials, it is said, "the temple of
the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:"
but observe (ver. 8), "no man was able to enter into
the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were
fulfilled;" from which we certainly gather, that not until
the pouring out of the last vials of wrath, and the blast
of the seventh trumpet, shall the victorious saints receive
these promises of the Holy Ghost. Till then the church
is a wayfaring pilgrim, an unwearied soldier waging war-
fare for the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and when she
hath overcome the devil, the world, and the flesh, she
hath yet another victory to achieve; which is, the victory
over death and the grave. And she coucheth low to win
that palm into the tomb, into corruption, into dust, the
church willingly descendeth, tracking the footsteps of the
destroyer through his wasteful region; and having gone
into his inmost recesses of destruction, she comes forth
thence an unsoiled, eternal, and glorious conqueror of
death and the grave, singing, "O death, where is thy
sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" And now she
hath the immortal food of an immortal life, the hidden
manna, which is incorruptible: the body of Christ which
is immortal, and by him ever sustained, shall with him
ever possess and ever govern the "inheritance incorrup-
tible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God,
through faith unto salvation, and which is about to be
revealed in the last time."
THE WHITE STONE.
"I will give him a white stone, and in it a new name
written, which no man knoweth saving he which receiveth
it."-As the former part of the promise hath reference to
the temptation of idol meats, with which the church of
Pergamos was tried, and carries with it the assurance of
a trial which the world knoweth not of, so this latter part
hath reference to the indiscriminate and confused commu-
nion and mixture of good and evil persons which the easy-
minded angel of that church permitted to subsist. In
remedy of which, Christ doth not advise the purer mem-
bers to separate and secede from the church, but holdeth
out to them the promise of a time when the tares should
1
588
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
be separated from the wheat, and the goats from the
sheep, and the righteous should enjoy pure and holy
communion with one another in the kingdom of his Father.
For from the custom of the ancients to acquit by a white
stone I interpret the language of the text. When the
judges gave their votes as to the innocence or guilt of any
person, those who judged him innocent cast in a white
stone; those who judged him guilty cast in a black one;
and even unto this day the same custom is observed in
admitting or rejecting candidates for the privilege of
being enrolled members of honourable societies. So
common was this amongst the ancients, that the expression,
"I gave my vote or voice," being rendered into Greek, is
"I threw in my stone." And the word translated by us
to vote is literally to stone; as in our language, to reject a
candidate is denominated black-balling, from the custom of
casting in white and black balls. Of this there occurs one
instance in Scripture, " And when they were put to death
I gave my voice against them;" literally, " I brought my
stone." (Acts xxvi. 16.)
Now the promise of a white stone I regard as equivalent
to acquittal in the day of judgment. Christ speaketh in
his character of Judge, having the law, whose symbol is a
sharp two-edged sword, proceeding out of his mouth; and
he saith unto the church of Pergamos, Fear not, though
I thus appear to you; for in the day of judgment I will
give to every one the white stone of acquittal. It is only
the wicked who shall not stand in the judgment, nor come
into the congregation of the righteous. With the pure I
will shew myself pure, and with the froward I will shew
myself froward.' So far the interpretation is simple and
direct. But now there occurs an expression harder to
be understood: "And in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." The
connexion of this with the preceding part of the promise,
and the necessity of it to the completeness thereof, and
its appropriateness to the condition of the church of Per-
gamos, I well discern. It adds to the acquittal of the
Judge a sure token which no one can counterfeit, and
promises to the saint separation from all hypocrites and
dissemblers, from every thing which defileth and maketh
a lie.
This, to a church defiled and vexed with the inter-
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The White Stone. 589
mixture of the wicked, as was the church of Pergamos, is
a great consolation; for nothing so grieveth a righteous.
and loving spirit as to be prevented by captious and op-
posing people from making mention of the goodness of
the Lord. If you utter what you feel, it is either to stir
up contradiction or wrath; and so, for the sake of quietness,
and to prevent the stumbling of a brother, you are fain to
hold your peace. This
This is so great a trial to a loving and
thankful heart, that our Lord speaks of it several times as
one of his sore trials: "But I, as a deaf man, heard not;
and I was as a dumb man, that openeth not his mouth.
Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth
are no reproofs." (Ps. xxxviii. 13, 14.) How painful it is
to be thus continually surrounded with the wicked, and
hindered from that communion of the body of Christ
which is its life and joy! Edification so blessed will it be
to dwell together in that holy society of the New Jeru-
salem, into which "shall in no wise enter any thing that
defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh
a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's book of
life !" (Rev. xxi. 27.) Into that city and tabernacle of
God every one who receiveth this white stone shall surely
enter; while those who receive it not shall dwell in the
outer darkness. And to this answer the two concluding
verses of this revelation: "Blessed are they that do his
commandments, that they may have right to the tree of
life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and
murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh
a lie" (Rev. xxii. 14, 15).
While thus we interpret the general scope and bearing
of the last part of the promise, we feel that this is not
enough, and must be confirmed and enlarged by a minute
examination of the very words themselves. The name in
Scripture signifies and declares the powers and properties
of that to which it is appropriated. To be called by the
name of the Lord, or to have the name of the Lord called
upon us, is a dignity and honour ofttimes referred to in the
Old Testament, and promised, in the next chapter of this
book, to the church of Philadelphia, after a manner or in
a fulness yet unexampled in the history of the church.
"I will write upon him my new name." This I consider
}
3 E
590
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
as equivalent to the promise that they should share the
dignity and honour of Christ in the day of his appearing.
There is likewise mention made in chap. vii. of a company
who were sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads;
which seems to carry a reference to the high priest, who
wore upon his forehead a golden plate or coronet, whereon
was inscribed "Holiness to the Lord." But in the passage
before us there is, I think, a shade of difference from both
these, inasmuch as the new name is not written upon the
person, but upon the white stone which is given to the
person. This peculiarity some derive from the manner of
the ancients in casting lots with stones on which were
written the names of the persons among whom the lot
lay. But to this I object, that the whole tenor of the
passage hath no reference whatever to the casting of
lots. Others incline to interpret it by the custom among
the ancients of appointing persons to offices of trust by
the same method of inscribing their names upon a stone
or tile. To this also I object, that the name written is
not the name of the person, but a new name, descriptive
in some way or other of that dignity to which he was to
be promoted. Upon the whole, instead of looking for the
interpretation of this from ancient customs, I prefer seek-
ing for it in the Scriptures themselves, where this form of
speech not unfrequently occurs. For example; in this
very book it is said of the New Jerusalem, that it hath
"twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve
Apostles of the Lamb." Now these twelve foundations
were twelve stones, and were the same with the twelve
stones in the breast-plate of judgment, upon which were
engraven the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. What
now of mystic virtue was added to these stones by being
thus engraven with a name? In the former instance it is
signified, that the twelve Apostles are the twelve founda-
tions of the New Jerusalem, the city of God in the
latter case, that the twelve Patriarchs or Tribes, or the
complete house of Israel, are the Urim and Thummim, the
lights and perfections, the breast-plate of judgment to our
great High Priest, by whom he shall make his counsels
known, and his judgment felt upon the earth in the world
to come. Taking the light of these instances of the like
kind, where a name is engraven on a stone, to which we
VI.] Christ the Universal Bishop-The White Stone. 591
might have added others, and particularly the foundation-
stone of Zachariah, we come to interpret the expression
before us. The white stone, we have said, is the stone of
acquittal, the test of innocency.-This is its virtue. Now
the new name written upon it must be that which gives
and preserves to it such a virtue. Whose then is it to
acquit and justify in such a manner as no one shall ever
gainsay? It is Christ, the Judge, who openeth and no
man shutteth, who shutteth and no man openeth; who
justifieth and no man condemneth, who condemneth and
no man justifieth. The name I should therefore judge to
be the name of Christ's hidden ones; that name which no
man can counterfeit, because no one knoweth it but He
himself, and those to whom he giveth the knowledge of it.
If I err not, we have the first fruits of it in that cleanness
of the conscience which we receive from Christ by the
Holy Ghost; that washing of regeneration, and purifying
of the Holy Ghost, which is shed on us abundantly
through our Lord Jesus Christ; that baptism which saveth
us, not the washing away of the filth of the flesh, but the
answer of a good conscience towards God; that renewal
in knowledge after the image of Him that created us.
The faithful in Christ Jesus have now no conscience of
sin, have now a conscience void of offence towards God
and towards man. This is bestowed on us, as Peter de-
clares (1 Pet. iii. 21), in our baptism, when we receive our
Christian name. But in this life it extendeth only to the
spirit and the time is yet to come, the blessing is yet
future, when the flesh also shall receive this purification;
and in that day a new name, answering to this new con-
dition, shall be put upon us.
We have now the name of
Christ in the spirit; we are the mystical Christ: then we
shall have the name of Christ also in the flesh; we shall
be the manifest Christ, shining forth for ever with his
glory, and for ever exercising his power, and making his
goodness to be known and felt.
The point, however, of most importance in this part
of the Spirit's promise is, that no one knoweth that name
but those who receive it; by which I understand that it is
a state of being whereof those only are conscious who are
exalted thereto just as in the xixth chapter, where Christ
re-appears on the stage of this world's affairs, it is said,
3 E 2
592
[LECT. VI.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
"that he had a name written, that no man knew but He
himself," to signify his peerless dignity of place, and un-
divided excellency of being; so here, his faithful people
are promised a dignity of place and being in the world to
come which no one is conscious of save themselves.
Christ being God, no less than Spirit-filled man, is above
all creatures, and hath a name known to himself alone:
we, as sharing with him spiritual union, are the heads of
all creatures, and have a name which none of them can
know. As ǹo creature intermeddleth with his Divine
subsistence, so, I think, no creature intermeddleth with
our subsistence as His children by regeneration, who,
through great tribulation, have come unto the inheritance
of his creature glory. The word of the text is positive,
that no one knoweth that name but he that receiveth it ;
and the promise is made only to those who overcome
in this day of fierce trial. These are New-Testament
promises to the church under sore tribulations, set for
the testimony of Jesus unto the death. The Old Testa-
ment promises are, if I err not, of another kind; holding
forth natural perfection in flesh, immortal and eternal
honour and glory on the earth; but to us, to whom the
mystery hidden from ages is revealed, the mystery that
we should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body with
Christ, the promises are all of a character peculiar and
appropriate to the children of Christ, who are born unto
him by regeneration of the Holy Ghost. The church,
whose right these promises are, is completed, I believe, at
the coming of the Lord; and, as Christ's bride, we have
a nearness of place to him, and a coequality of creature-
dignity which belongeth only to the New Jerusalem, and
belongeth not to the kings of the earth, or to any creatures
of God besides. We have given to us a white stone, and
in it a new name written, which no one knoweth, saving
he that receiveth it.
593
LECTURE VII.
THE EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH IN THYATIRA.
REV. ii. 18-29.
And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira, write, These
things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like
unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I
know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith,
and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be
more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have a few
things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman
Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and
to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat
things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to
repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold,
I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery
with her into great tribulation; except they repent of
their deeds. And I will kill her children with death ;
and all the churches shall know that I am he which search-
eth the reins and hearts; and I will give unto every one
of you, according to your works. But unto
But unto you, I say,
and unto the rest in Thyatira, As many as have not this
doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan,
as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden,
but that which ye have already; hold fast till I come.
And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the
end, to him will I give power over the nations: (and he
shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a pot-
ter shall they be broken to shivers:) even as I received of
my Father.
And I will give him the morning star.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches.
Ir the first epistle might be entitled of Pastoral Love, and
the second of Martyrdom, and the third of Discipline, this
3 E3
591
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
fourth epistle, addressed to the church in Thyatira, might
be entitled of Works. Twice over, in acknowledging the
services of its angel, doth the chief Shepherd commend
his works: "I know thy works...and thy works, and the
last to be more than the first" (ver. 19). And in the re-
proof which he administers to him for permitting that wo-
man Jezebel to seduce certain of the church, he calleth
them his servants, and commandeth them to repent of
their works; by which judgment he says that he will teach
the churches this lesson, that he will render unto every
one according to his works. And again, he exhorteth
the faithful, by the consideration that he will not put upon
them any other load or burden, language proper to a work-
man, servant, or slave; and, finally, the promise is made,
not in the common phrase," he that overcometh," but with
the addition, "and keepeth my works unto the end;” and the
promise itself is the promise of work; the work of a con-
queror, to rule the nations with a rod of iron, and to break
them in pieces like a potter's vessel. This epistle is ma-
nifestly written in the language of a master to his work-
men, and is, I think, intended to exhibit that side of truth
which looks towards obedience and good works. If the
epistle to the church at Ephesus set forth the excellency
of love, and that to Smyrna the excellency of faith, and
that to Pergamos the excellency of holiness, this epistle
to the working church of Thyatira sets forth the excel-
lency of good works.
Thyatira was a place of no great celebrity in the region.
of Asia Minor, called Lydia: more anciently its name
was Pelopia and Eubippa, and now by the Turks, Ak-
hizar or Akhissar. It was a colony of Macedonian Greeks,
situated between Pergamos and Sardis, about forty-eight
miles south-east of the former. At this day it consists of
about one thousand houses, with two hundred or three
hundred huts, and possesses only one Greek church,
with nine Turkish mosques. The church, and indeed the
whole place, is wretchedly poor; and the last visitants found
the priest so ignorant of, and indifferent to, the truth, that
he would not accept the gift of a New Testament, not
thinking it worth the having. The ruins of its ancient
churches are all under ground, as it were sunk into the
earth; and the present church stands beneath the level of
VII.] Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
595
the church yard around. Every thing betokens poverty.
and wretchedness. Of this city was Lydia, a seller of
purple, whom the Apostle brought to the knowledge of
the truth at Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia; for,
as we have said, Thyatira was a Macedonian colony. It
stood upon a branch of the river Caicus, upon an exten-
sive plain, and seems, from the extent of its ruins to have
been a place formerly of much greater consideration and
extent than it is at present. The church here planted,
once acknowledged the superiority of Sardis; but now its
priest looks up to the bishop of Ephesus as his archpriest.
Such was, and such is, the place in which was planted
that church to which this epistle is addressed, consisting,
as usual, of three parts,-the style of the writer, the mes-
sage to the angel, and the promise to the church.
THE STYLE OF THE CHIEF SHEPHERD-SON OF GOD.
"These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes
like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass."
-This consisteth of two parts, first, the name "Son of
God," which, for the first time, and indeed the only time
in this book here occurreth; the second, the symbolical.
description, "who hath his eyes like a flame of fire, and
his feet are like fine brass." With respect to the name,
I think there are good grounds for believing that here it is
taken from the iid Psalm, where it is given to him with
great solemnity as the decree of God: "I will declare the
decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son,
this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give
thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break
them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel." (Psalm ii. 7-9.) My reason for
thinking that this part of Scripture is referred to by the
Lord in the name under consideration is, that those very
words of the Psalm are quoted in the body of the epistle,
of which the title, Son of God, is the superscription :
"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto
the end, to him will I give power over the nations: (and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a
potter shall they be broken to shivers :) even as I received
of my Father." (Rev. ii. 26, 27.) Believing therefore that
596
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
our Lord is here revealing himself, and speaking to his
church in that dignity of Son of God to which by God's
decree he was advanced, I would now, by his grace, en-
deavour to unfold the import of this name Son of God,
by a diligent study of the Scriptures, especially of the
id Psalm. The first tidings which came to this world,
that a son of earth should be entitled the Son of God, was
brought to king David, by Nathan the prophet, when he
was meditating in his heart to build a house for the Most
High; and it is recorded in these words: "I will set up
thy Seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels,
and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house
for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his king-
dom for ever. I will be his Father, and he shall be my
Son." (2 Samuel vii. 12-14.) Now, the Apostle Paul
(Heb. i. 5) expressly applies these words, "I will be his
Father, and he shall be my Son," to Christ. And indeed
to no one else but an eternal King, of an eternal kingdom,
could they be applied. Solomon indeed, the son of David,
did build a house, and sit upon the throne of David his
father, and otherwise prefigure the true Son of David and
Prince of peace, who shall build the temple of the Lord;
but to him it is impossible to apply any of the promises
of this blessing in their full import; and least of all that
which we are now considering, "I will be his Father, and
he shall be my Son ;" a promise which was so sacredly
devoted by the Jews to Messiah, that it was accounted
the highest treason for any one to call himself Son of
God. And because Jesus witnessed this good confession
before the high priest, he was arraigned of blasphemy,
and cut off out of the land of the living. Now observe,
that this promise of the Son of David's Divine generation.
is given in the bosom of an oracle concerning kingly
power upon the earth for ever; and wherever this glorious
seed of hope appeareth in the Psalms, bearing the fruit of
praise and thanksgiving, it is always in the like connexion.
with an eternal and universal kingdom. For example, in
the lxxxix th Psalm, which is no more than a Divine com-
mentary upon Nathan's word's, the promise occurs in this
connexion: "I will set his hand also in the sea, and his
right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me, Thou art
my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. Also
VII.]
597
Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of
the earth." And in the cxxxiid Psalm, where the same
oath of God to David is built upon, the connexion is not
so much with the power as with the holiness of the pro-
mised Seed of Heaven. That Psalm hath to do not so
much with the throne which he is to establish, as with the
temple which he is to build for ever; not so much with
the Royalty, as with the Priesthood of our Melchizedec.
Indeed, these two attributes of the great King are never
separated from one another, for a sceptre of righteousness
is the sceptre of his kingdom. Behold the connexion in
which the word of God by Nathan is introduced in the
cxxxiid Psalm: "The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David,
he will not turn from it, Of the fruit of thy body will I set
upon thy throne. If thy children will keep my covenant,
and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children
also shall sit upon thy throne for evermore." (ver. 11, 12.)
But perhaps of all others the lxxiid Psalm is that in
which the glory of the estate of the King's Son is most
fully enlarged upon, of which we cannot quote a part, but
must refer to the whole portraiture therein contained.
of the glorious kingdom which the Son of God is yet to
establish amongst men. The cx th Psalm springs, I think,
from the same root of Nathan's oracle unto David; for
there David addresseth his own Son as his Lord, and
maketh mention of his Melchizedec priesthood, the priest-
hood of the oath or the decree, and represents him as
going forth to root out and to destroy all his enemies, all
the enemies of righteousness, from the face of the earth.
All these Psalms do most beautifully embody the office
and function of Him who should arise and call God his
Father, while they sweetly interweave the power and holi-
ness of his reign; whereof the former in our text is, I think,
represented under the name Son of God, and the latter
under the symbolic imagery, "his eyes were like a flame
of fire, and his feet unto fine brass." But after all, it is in
the iid Psalm that the peculiar glory of this name Son of
God is revealed.
revealed. This Psalm presents to us in the first
three verses the description of a very turbulent, ungodly,
and blaspheming condition of the earth, wherein the Gen-
tiles and the peoples-that is, the heathen and the
nations who know God-are meditating a vain thing.
598
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
What this proud and vain imagination is we are not told,
until the heads of this confederacy have likewise been
mentioned, which are the kings of the earth and the rulers,
between whom, judging by the Apostle's commentary in
the iv th chapter of Acts, we understand this difference
to be intended, that the former signify the civil and the
latter the ecclesiastical authorities, the heads of the na-
tions and the rulers of the synagogues, who, combining
under them, both the heathen and the professedly Christian
nations, do confederate together against the Lord and
against his Christ, to compass the vain and blasphemous
imagination of breaking their bands asunder, and casting
their cords away from them. This is a state of the
world, both of the heathen and of Christendom, unto which
this Psalm, containing the proclamation of Him whom the
nations despised, and would cast out, is earnestly yet
severely spoken. It is a Psalm for reclaiming them from
their mad career and their horrible purpose, by proclaim-
ing the decree of God, that this Jesus, whom they crucified
and would cast out, is the Son of God, and cannot by any
combination of men be resisted or withstood. This state
of things presupposes that Christ hath been preached as
Lord over the nations, as the co-equal with God in the
government of the earth. It implies that God hath made
common cause with Christ in the work of governing man-
kind; for otherwise how should they confederate against
both God and his Christ, for otherwise how could they
aim to break THEIR bands and cast THEIR cords away
from them. It is not the Jewish state of the world before
Christ appeared, nor yet the state of the world during
the ministry of Jesus, ere yet he had been declared the
Son of God, the Christ, the Lord, by the resurrection from
the dead; but it is the state of the world after his resur-
rection, and the promulgation thereof by the preaching of
the Gospel, that is especially and properly the subject
matter of this Psalm: wherefore also the Apostles, when,
after the day of Pentecost, they preached Jesus of Naza-
reth both Christ and Lord, and saw the kings of the
earth and the rulers confederate against him, were directed
by the Holy Ghost to apply this Psalm to the state of
things which then came into being, and which hath been
ever since. Wherever the nations of the earth, under
VII.] Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
599
their kings and priests, have confederated to reject the
authority of God and his Christ, preached unto them by
the Church, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,
-whether these priests be Pagans, or Papists, or Pro-
testants, this state of things mentioned in the iid Psalm
hath been there exhibited. And, let me say it, except in
a few places, and these but spots on the face of the earth;
except in a few times, and these long and far between;
this hath been the conduct of the nations and kings of the
earth, of professing Christendom and its rulers. But while
there hath been this constant and continuous fulfilment of
the Antichristian spirit, from the day of Pentecost until now,
there is a crisis and a consummation which is near at hand,
when that wicked one shall be revealed, whom Christ
will consume with the breath of his mouth, and destroy
with the brightness of his coming. To this crisis and con-
summation, the hope of the faithful in the church of Thy-
atira, and all other churches, is directed in these words:
"He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the
end, to him will I give power over the nations; and he
shall rule them with a rod of iron: as the vessels of a
potter shall they be broken to shivers; even as I have re-
ceived of my father, and I will give him the morning star."
The mention here made of the morning star fixes the time
of this great catastrophe of nations to be on the eve of the
morning of the first resurrection, when, as the Star of
Jacob, He shall come, who shall smite the corners of Moab,
and destroy all the children of Sheth. The night is far
spent, the day is at hand, and the day star is ready to rise
on our hearts. So near, also, is the consummation of con-
federacies against God and against his Christ. The first
out-bursting of this God-denying and Christ-rejecting
spirit, was exhibited at the French Revolution, to the
terror of the whole world. Since that ebulition of hell
was stopped by the mercy of God, and the instrumentality
of this Protestant kingdom, in order to try the nations a
little longer, and give them space for repentance, there
has been a season of underground workings and collections
of materials in all parts of the world, especially in Chris-
tendom, which only wait for the permission of God, for his
withdrawal of his hand, to burst forth in direful desolation
of every thing established under the sanction of the Fa-
600
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ther and the Son. The loosed winds raging to rush forth
and destroy the earth, and to attack the throne of God itself,
are still held back, by the four mighty angels, until the ser-
vants of God shall have been sealed; and then shall they
go forth to subvert the fear and worship of God, and to con-
federate the world in one great enterprize against the
Lord and his Anointed, to break their bands asunder, and
cast away their cords from them. This is described as
the last act of the antichristian spirit in the xvii th chapter,
where the beast with the kings of the earth having destroyed
the corrupted and corrupting church, combine to make
war with the Lamb and with his faithful ones; and the
issue of this vain imagination is described in the xixth
chapter, where the beast and the false prophet are
cast alive into the lake of fire, and the kings of the earth
are slain with the sword. That this, the last event of the
time state of things, whereupon follows instantly the mil-
lennial age of the church, is the event referred to in the
ii d Psalm, is put beyond a doubt by the Holy Ghost him-
self, who hath expressly identified that action with this
prophecy, in the very heart of the action itself (v. 15):
"Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he
may smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod
of iron, and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness
of the wrath of Almighty God." These words, "he shall
rule the nations with a rod of iron," are taken from this
Psalm, and put it beyond a doubt, that the action of the
Psalm is the last action of God and his Christ against
apostate Christendom and the confederate heathen where-
in Christ acts in the character of the Son of God, which
the preachers of the Gospel have been claiming for
him since his resurrection and ascension up on high.-
Having thus ascertained beyond question the futurity of
this confederation, as an historical event, notwithstanding
its continual presence as a condition of things since the day
of Pentecost, we now go on to unfold the power of the name,
Son of God, in the Psalm which, having opened the revelry
of wickedness and blasphemy that filled the earth, doth thus
proceed: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the
Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak
unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his hot dis-
pleasure." These words express the madness of the un-
VII.]
601
Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
dertaking, its vanity greater than its villany; seeing it
excites the contempt, ere it enkindles the wrath of God.
But will men indeed be so mad as to lift their hand
against the throne of the Eternal, where Christ is seated?
or with what arms will they invade the realms of the in-
visible God and of his Christ? The question may well be
asked for the thought is perplexing in the extreme, and
the answer is not at hand save to those who know the
constitution of the church, I mean the body of Christ
upon the earth. But to one who understandeth and well
believeth that there is a people, and ever hath been, and
ever will be, upon whom God's name is named, in whom
God dwelleth, and to whom Christ is united by ties
indissoluble, one with them as he is one with the Father;
he, I say, who thus comprehendeth the constitution of the
church on earth as God inhabited, as one with God
through union in the Spirit with the risen Christ, finds
himself at no loss to conceive the manner of this horrible
action, in which the powers of darkness shall league them-
selves with the sons of men. It will consist in a sys-
tematic undertaking on the part of kings and priests to
bring to an end the race of the godly, and utterly sup-
press the witnesses of God in the flesh; which to under-
take is to undertake the casting out of God and Christ
from this world and its affairs. It is to attempt to nullify
God's thousand promises, his everlasting covenant, his
unchangeable word. But it will be undertaken, as sure
as God hath written this Psalm to warn men from under-
taking it; and how near it is God only knows. May I be
disappointed when I give my conjecture that it will be
within our generation, and that our eyes shall look upon
it. I believe this fell work will proceed under the fair
shew of serving the well-being of the earth; and that it will
find its chief promoters amongst the benevolent, the en-
lightened, and the moral, and, as they are called, the re-
ligious classes of mankind. Those holding the faith of the
risen Christ, of his very flesh and his very lordship, and
his very coming and kingdom; those who stand up to the
very letter for the gifts and powers and privileges of the
church, will be looked upon as they now are, as mad enthu-
siasts, blasphemous, impious, and fanatical, whom to destroy
is to do God service. This is not a speculation; even now
3 F
602
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
it is a reality. No sobriety of mind, no force of argument,
no accomplishment of learning nor mastery of eloquence,
nor honesty of heart, nor piety of life, can even now screen
such as hold these doctrines, and stand stifly for them,
from being derided, abused, libelled, and persecuted, by
all those classes of the community who claim to themselves
he honour of knowledge, morality, good sense, and reli-
gion. If only God proceeds with his work of enlightening
The eyes, confirming the hearts, and strengthening the
hands of those faithful ones, who know, and are standing
for, his truth, it must needs come to pass that the hosti-
lity of the world, religious and irreligious, will increase
more and more, to the truth, and to those who hold the
truth, until at length nothing will satisfy them but excom-
munication from the church, expatriation from their
country, and extinction from the earth. Then shall be
consummated that which is written in the iid Psalm.
Then shall God's wrath come up into his face : then shall
he arise as a strong man out of his place: then shall he
begin to shake terribly the earth. So very awful now
shall his controversy with men become, so unprecedented
in the annals of his long-suffering and merciful govern-
ment, that this period is emphatically denominated in
Scripture the day of his wrath; and as such in the Apo-
calypse it is described in the act of the seven vials; and in
our Psalm it is thus described, as by words issuing forth
from the offended majesty of God :
"Yet have I set my
King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the
decree the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son;
this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give
thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession." Part of this is
spoken in the person of Jehovah, the Omnipotent Father,
who declareth that notwithstanding these confederacies of
the children of men, he hath accomplished his purpose of
establishing his Son, as the ruler of the earth, upon Mount
Zion, the throne of his glory. In the former part of the
Psalm, Messiah hath the name of Christ; but now he hath
the name of King, God's King. This is the act spoken of
in the Prophet Daniel, when the Son of Man coming in
the clouds of heaven receives from the Ancient of Days an
everlasting kingdom over all the nations which are under
VII.]
603
Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
66
the face of the whole heaven. It is the same event to
which our Lord refers, when he says, "Then shall ye see
the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, with power and
great glory." Upon Mount Zion, his rest is to be,
within the sanctuary of his holy temple; for the Lord hath
chosen Zion, he hath desired it for his habitation. This is
my rest for ever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it."
Symbolically the same thing is set forth in the xiv th
chapter of the Apocalypse, where the Lamb is represented
as standing on Mount Zion, and with him an hundred-and-
forty-four thousand, having his Father's name written in
their foreheads; and it is the substance of all the Prophets
that "he shall reign in Mount Zion before his ancients glo-
riously." Here it is that the throne shall be established,
here it is that the thrones of the house of David shall
abide for ever. "For the law shall go forth from Zion, and
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." This is the action
of God, described in these words: "Sit thou on my right
hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool ;" and there
Christ sitteth, expecting that blessed consummation: which
is the Father's way of demonstrating Jesus of Nazareth to
be the Son of God. The Son is known by inheriting his
Father's name and the Father's possession. The former
of these, Christ inherited in virtue of his generation of the
Holy Ghost, but only in the Spirit; for in the flesh he was
the Son of David, the Seed of Abraham. At his resurrec-
tion, when the substance of his flesh was changed into the
glorious brightness of the Father, he was declared to be
the Son of God with power. And now, as God's Son and
heir, he sitteth in the throne of God. But though thus,
in virtue of his spiritual generation, and of his resurrection,
as the first begotten from the dead, he be determined and
defined from amongst all creatures, as he of whom it
was prophesied that he should call God Father, and God
should call him Son, still it remaineth to the complete de-
monstration of his sonship, that he should be brought into
his Father's inheritance: and this is accomplished when he
is put in possession of Mount Zion, the temple, and the
palace, and the citadel of the Most High; which inherit-
ing, he inheriteth the earth; which inheriting, he inheriteth
creation. With all this he was invested by the Father,
when he was seated in his own throne, in the heavens, and
1
3 F 2
604
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth. Nay,
more early still, with all this he was invested even in the
days of his flesh, when he said, "All things are delivered
unto me of my Father;" and again, "All things that the
Father bath are mine." But though rightfully his, as their
Creator, from the generation of his creature-being, they
are not his in possession, until the time set forth in this Psalm,
when as King he is "set upon the holy hill of Zion." Then
hath he the name and the inheritance, and also the worship
of the Son of God. For" when he bringeth the first-begotten
into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God wor-
ship him." This act, therefore, of destroying the confederacy
of the kings and nations against Christ, is likewise the act of
dispossessing them, and putting him in sole possession as
man, of all which as God he created. And thus is Jesus of
Nazareth declared to be not man only, but likewise the
Son of God, and heir of all. Christ being thus instated
in his Father's kingdom, doth thus utter his voice: "I will
declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art
my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and
I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou
shalt rule them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them
in pieces like a potter's vessel." This declaration or pro-
mulgation of the decree takes place, as I understand, from
the holy bill of Zion, after he hath been placed thereon
as King over all the earth, answering to the proclamation.
which lately was made of our present gracious king
throughout all his dominions. It is called the decree, to
signify that he holds of God, that he reigns under God,
is clothed with the authority of God, and that his scep-
tre hath in it the strength, duration, and unchangeable-
ness of God, being the same with that in the cx th Psalm,
of which the Apostle makes such great account :
"Jeho-
vah hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for
ever, after the order of Melchizedec." Now though the
promulgation of this decree upon the earth be not until
the time he comes unto the earth, and receives the sceptre
thereof and the inheritance thereof from his Father's hand,
we are not therefore to suppose that the decree itself dates
from that day; but on the contrary, that it properly dates
from the day of the resurrection, which the Apostle Paul
VII.]
605
Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
teacheth, in the xiii th chapter of the Acts. Then when
he was taken from amongst all creatures, and placed in
the throne of the Father, God did make manifest to all
the invisible creation, that this was his Son. That day
he was begotten out of perishable flesh into spiritual glory.
Then became he first-begotten, in being the first begotten
from the dead; and forasmuch as no one hath yet entered
into that glory, he is also the only-begotten. And thus
the mystery of his eternal generation is manifested by his
resurrection and installation in the throne of God. His
generation, begun in the virgin's womb, was perfected in
the grave; just as our's, begun in our regeneration, is
perfected in our resurrection. But none of us shall ever
sit where he now sitteth in the Father's throne. This is
his eternal supremacy amongst creatures, that he hath,
since his resurrection, sat down in the majesty on high;
where also he shall for ever sit in right of that co-essen-
tial and consubstantial Godhead which his manhood
marreth not nor meddleth with at all. In the Father's
throne, in the light of the Father's countenance, in the
bosom of the Father's counsel, shall he be as God; while
as man upon the throne of David he shall sit, and we
along with him, ruling the world in righteousness and
the people with equity. I hold therefore, being taught
by the Apostle Paul (Acts xiii. 33), that Christ received
the decree on the day of his ascension into glory, and
hath ever since had the homage of all the invisible
creation, being worshipped as the Son of God. But he
waiteth for the Father's time to be put in possession also
of the visible creation. He is still in the condition of
an expectant and of a suppliant; wherefore these words,
"Ask of me," are introduced into the Psalm. This
supplication Christ presenteth through his church, both
living and dead. For the martyrs beneath the altar con-
tinually cry aloud for this consummation of his power;
and the church on earth should ever say, Come, even so
come, Lord Jesus. And when the happy time arriveth,
all heaven pealeth with the acclamation, "The king-
doms of this world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and
for ever." When the church on earth ceaseth from
asking of the Father this completeness of power and
3 F 3
606
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
6
kingdom for his Son, she doth so far forth deny her Lord,
and refuse her vocation. If the church's prayers could
be compressed into one word, that word should be,
Father, crown him with the diadems of the earth.' But
though we may be silent, though we may by error and
delusion dislike to hear of his coming, much more to
pray for it; there is one who is not silent, but maketh
intercession continually for his appearing, and that is
the Spirit, who ever saith, Come. Nor can the bride
be silent, though the harlot may; for she doth like.
wise ever say, Come. And so let us also say, Even
so, come, Lord Jesus. At length the Father shall bring
the Only Begotten into the world, and give him "the
heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of
the earth for his possession." When the law shall go forth
from Mount Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jeru-
salem, it shall go forth first in the way of judgment, and
afterwards in the way of blessedness: judgment upon the
ungodly, who shall dare to make war against the Lamb
and his chosen ones, whom he shall "rule with a rod of
iron, and break in pieces as a potter's vessel." "The
Lord," that is, Christ the Lord, "at thy right hand shall
strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall
judge among the heathen; he shall fill the places with the
dead bodies; he shall wound the head over many coun-
tries." And thus shall he approve himself the Son of his
righteous Father, by putting down the ungodly from the
earth, and destroying all those who destroy the earth.
And then he shall give the reward to every faithful servant
of his Father. There shall not a promise of God fail to
any person who relied thereon. Every jot and every tittle
of his word will the Son make good; and thus is the
Father glorified by the Son, his truth vindicated, his righ-
teousness exalted on high, his goodness, his mercy, and
his truth. And thus shall the Son of Man be shewn out
to be the very Son of God; all God in him, the fulness
of Godhead embodied in, the weight of Godhead trust
sustained by, him. This day of judgment being accom-
plished, the Son, having cast out of the kingdoms all that
offend and do iniquity, having cast them into the perdition
of the second death, into the outwardness of the lake that
burneth, shall for ever shew forth the benignity and the
VII.]
607
Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
goodness of God in the midst of his goodly creation.
And by the sustentation of all power, and the communi-
cation of all blessedness, and the conservation of all being,
which every one shall feel and acknowledge to be of Him
and for Him, he shall be honoured of all as the Son of
God, and for ever mediate between God and creation,
laying his hand upon them both. Such is the outward
history and eternal demonstration of that dignity which
is contained in the name Son of God. Thus doth that
Divine relationship between the Father and the Son, in-
comprehensible in the Godhead, become visible and com-
prehensible to the creatures. By looking at the progressive
opening and eternal perfection of this work of the Father to
make the Son known, and of this work of the Son to make
the Father known, we obtain the only adequate-yea, I
think, the only possible-idea of the relationship eternally
subsisting between these two Persons of the blessed Trinity.
It appears therefore, from an examination of those por-
tions of Scripture, where the name Son of God is espe-
cially treated of, that it expresses dignity and dominion,
and heirship over every creature that God hath made. In
his generation by the Holy Ghost, we have the principle
and as it were ground of the name: "therefore shall he
be called the Son of God." In his baptism, we have
the proclamation of the name ; "Thou art my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased:" in the transfiguration,
which is the resurrection anticipated and foreshewn, we
have the outward manifestation of the name: in the session
at the right hand of God, we have the spiritual realization
of the name; and in the second coming and kingdom, we
have its complete realization over all things, visible and
invisible. And in like manner we become sons of God
by regeneration of the Holy Ghost, and are proclaimed
such in our baptism; and in the first resurrection are
openly avowed as such, receiving the adoption of sons.
But there is this immense difference between us and
Christ, that in his case these are but outward and visible
demonstrations of a glory which he had with the Father
before the world was; in our case, they are the origination
of a new dignity and a new name, not inherited by right,
but received by the adoption of the grace of God. In
Christ the title of Son, or if not the title itself, that to
ཝཱ
608
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
which the title correspondeth, is a thing in the essence of
the incomprehensible Godhead commonly called by di-
vines the eternal generation of the Son. Of this rela-
tion the essence is, that between the Father and the Son
there is such an union as that the Father is ever pouring
forth upon the Son, and the Son ever desiring to have
poured forth upon him, the fulness of the Father's love;
which office of intercommunion is sustained by the Holy
Ghost, while again the Son ever returneth back unto the
Father the offering of his joy and enjoyment in the pleni-
tude of his counsel and his love. To make this outward,
to shew it to the world as the great source of creation,
and the great end of it, and its only blessedness, this is
the end of the incarnation of the Son; who continually
receives upon himself, through the Holy Ghost, the Fa-
ther's counsel and love, and returns unto the Father, by
the same Holy Ghost, his acquiescence and delight. And
we who are taken into the same spiritual relation, through
union with the Son, do manifest the same mystery of
Godhead. Now, forasmuch as creation is one of God's
works, it must be seen as the offspring of the Father's will
communicated to the Son, and by the Son performed and
established according to that will, for ever and ever. And
here we see not only the reason why the title Son of
God should always be connected with the headship of
creation, but likewise why this title should be prefixed to
an epistle concerning the works of the church; for the
Son of God is the workman of creation, to whom the
Father communicates it as a purpose, which He completes
as a work, and then presents it completed unto the Father.
The first part of his work was, to bring all things out of
nothing according to the Father's mind: the second was, to
redeem all things from the power of sin and dissolution,
and fix them for ever in the estate of infallible blessed-
And because certain of the creatures, into whose
hands power and trust had been committed by the Son,
had risen in rebellion against the Father, it becomes the
labour of the Son to put them down, and wrest out of
their hands those weapons of knowledge and power which
they had turned against Him who made them. His work
is, to break them with a rod of iron, and to dash them in
pieces like a potter's vessel. These are his labours, to
ness.
vii.]
609
Thyatira-His Style: Eyes of Fire.
}
drive the wicked forth, from the creation of God, into the
lake that burneth, because as creation now standeth it
doth not exhibit the perfect and complete purpose of the
Father. The Son hath not yet finished the edifice of
which he received the plan from the Father. The time
is not yet come to deliver it up unto the Father. It doth
not yet throughout all its chambers speak the praise of the
invisible God; and this is the reason why the title Son of
God is, I think, prefixed to this epistle of works, both to
declare that all power is in him, and that all work for God
is done by him; and therefore it is also that the epistle
concludes with promise of power over the nations to those
who overcome, and with privilege to rule them with a rod
of iron and to break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
2. Now with respect to the symbolical features given to
him in these words, "Who hath his eyes like unto a flame
of fire and his feet of fine brass," I have little to add to
what was set forth in our Third Lecture. His eyes are
likened to flames of fire, because he is sent upon the
errand of burning up wickedness round about; and his feet
are likened unto fine brass, because he is coming to tread
down wickedness like the mire of the streets. The only
other two instances in Scripture of the like symbols are in
the xixth chapter of this book, where he comes to destroy
the wicked powers of the world, and to cast Antichrist and
the apostate church into the lake of fire; and in the xth
chapter of Daniel, where he comes in the same guise to
make revelation of the same grand catastrophe of the
time of the end. When God added the law to the pro-
mise, and gave Moses the vocation of lawgiver, he ap-
peared in a flame of fire at the bush, and on the top of
Sinai he shewed himself in consuming fire; and with
fire he consumed those that offered strange incense, and
the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up into her
fiery pit Korah and his rebellious company. Fire, as we
have observed, under the Law, was the great element for
purification: water was but the substitute to be used upon
things which would not stand the fire. Into fire shall the
material world be cast, and out of fire shall come like
silver out of the furnace seven times refined. These
eyes of fire therefore are the symbols of devouring wrath.
against the wicked; as it is written (Jer. iv. 4), "lest my
610
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
fury come forth like fire and burn that none can quench
it. And again (Lam. ii. 3)," He burned against Jacob
like a flaming fire which devoureth round about: he hath
bent his bow like an enemy...... he poured out his fury
like fire." This symbol therefore gives a definiteness to
the particular action which, as Son of God, the Father's
potentate, the Father's servant, he is coming to perform.
It is the work of searching out wickedness to destroy it.
It is the work of inspecting the sacrifice and purifying
it with fire. It was the office of the priest to look into
the inwards of the victims, to look upon the plague spot
of leprosy, and to see that there was no uncleanness in
the camp of Israel. So cometh our High Priest here to
look into the doings of the church of Thyatira, to search
their inward parts; and in order to shew that all things
are naked and open unto him, he takes eyes of fire, which
penetrates and pervades all matter, and which consumes
all wood and hay and stubble, and all dross, and every
thing but the most precious and pure, to signify that his
glances are like the lightning, which in an instant bursts
forth from the dark cloud and enlightens the world, and in
the next instant smites the earth and rends its adamantine
rocks. So at the brightness that shall be before him his
thick clouds shall pass, hail-stones and coals of fire. He
'shall send out his arrows and scatter them; he shall shoot
out his lightnings and discomfit them. If he but look at
the earth, it trembles; if he but touch the hills, they
smoke; when he shall lift up the veil of dark clouds that
encompass him, his enemies shall reel and stagger and fall,
and cry unto the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and
hide us from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of
his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" It
shall be like that glance of the eye, that look of terror
which he sent forth upon the Egyptians, when they pur-
sued Israel by the Red Sea: as it is written (Ex. xiv. 24),
"And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the
Lord looked upon the host of the Egyptians, through the
pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of
the Egyptians." Such a look is there in the merciful eye
of Jesus, to scatter hateful terror over marshalled hosts in
the pride of their triumphant career. He hateth them not
now: gentle and meek, patient and long-suffering, are his
VII.] Thyatira-His Style: Feet of fine Brass.
611
}
ways and his dealings with the sons of men. But the
time cometh when he shall put on the garments of ven-
geance for clothing, and repay fury to his enemies. How
terrible shall his coming be! what a moment of trouble
and dismay! what a world of desolation and death! O ye
sons of men, how long will ye love folly, turn at length
and fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his
judgment is come.
These eyes of fire are coupled with feet of fine brass
that i, brass untarnished, and which will not take on the
soil of that which it treadeth down. This carryeth an
allusion to his act of treading the wine-press of the wrath
of God, which is his act of judging the church for her
apostasy; as it is written (Matt. v. 13), " Ye are the salt of
the earth but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith
shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but
to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men:' and
(John xv. 6), "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth
as a branch, and is withered: and men gather them, and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned." These
threatenings of the Saviour have their accomplishment
continually in his church, where all unprofitable members,
who have in them no savour of life or godliness, are con-
tinually enduring this casting forth from the presence of
the Lord. It goes on silently and unscen, but not the
less surely. I believe there is not a church, or hardly any
church, in which there are not branches lopped off for
their fruitlessness, and left without to perish and decay;
but, like every other spiritual truth, it shall have an his-
torical fulfilment in that day when the vine of the earth
shall be ripe for judgment (Rev. xiv. 18). Then when
Christendom shall have cast off, or be in the act of casting
off, the bands and cords of God and his Christ, and church
and state shall be setting themselves up in the name and
place of the Lord and his Anointed, it shall come to pass
that the Son of God shall come forth, as a Refiner among
the sons of Levi, as a refiner's furnace and fuller's soap,
to purify those that will stand the fire, and to give them
raiment white as the light; and those that cannot, to con-
sume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the
brightness of his coming. He shall come with his fan in
his hand, and thoroughly purge his floor; the wheat to
612
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
gather into his garner, the chaff to consume with fire un-
quenchable. He shall come with his axe in his hand, to
cut down every tree that beareth not fruit, and cast it into
the fire. He shall come to tread the winepress of the
fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, and all they
who have trodden under foot the Son of God, shall be
trodden under his feet, as straw is trodden down for the
dunghill. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim,
shall be trodden under foot. To this act of the Lord's
judgment, so oft and so variously set forth in Scripture
by the figure of treading down, have these feet of brass a
manifest allusion. Brass is chosen, as at once the symbol
of purity and durability. It was a sacred metal, used in
the temple for all large and massive utensils. Before the
invention of iron it was used for all weapons of war: it was
put upon the feet of the oxen which were employed to
tread out the corn, to separate the wheat from the chaff
and the straw, whereto allusion is made by the Prophet
Micah (iv. 13), in a passage which is exactly parallel with
this before us. In the passage before us, Christ hath feet
of brass, as being about to promise unto his people power
over the nations to tread them down, and break them in
pieces; so, in the corresponding passage of Micah, it is
promised unto the Jews in these words, which are in the
letter what this epistle to Thyatira is in the spirit. "Now
also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let
her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.
Zion. But they
know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand
they his counsel; for he shall gather them as the sheaves
into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion;
for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs
brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I
will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their sub-
stance unto the Lord of the whole earth." Strength of
materials to do the work of treading down, seems to be
the thing conveyed by the symbol "feet of brass." Job,
in his sore agony, questioneth thus, "Is my strength the
strength of stones? or is my flesh the flesh of brass?"
Here, in the passage before us, the flesh of Christ's feet is
the flesh of brass; and so shall the flesh of his church be,
in that the day of her triumphant labours. Again; Job,
describing leviathan, that king over all the children of
VII.]
613
Thyatira-His Style: Son of God.
pride, says, "his bones are as strong pieces of brass…..he
esteemeth iron as straw, and iron as rotten wood." And
shall not Christ and his church, whose work it is to punish
that leviathan, and to slay him, and to tread him down,
have feet as strong and hardy as the brass?
Thus then, to conclude this first part of our epistle, the
style adopted by the universal Bishop to the church of
Thyatira, we observe upon the whole, that it seems intended
to convey the idea of supreme power, putting itself forth
in the work of judging and executing judgment, to the
intent of inviting and exhorting his people to the same
holy severity and powerful destruction of iniquity within
them, and before them, and around them; to the intent
also of dismay to the workers of iniquity upon the earth,
and especially the promoters of iniquity in his church. In
the church of Thyatira, things had come to a worse pass
than they were in the church of Pergamos; for here the
woman Jezebel, a name dreadful to God's church, had
obtained authority, and carried on her seductions of a
long time.
She had received both warning to repent and
space for repentance, but had not repented; whereas the
seducers in Pergamos were only in the stage of being call-
ed upon to repent. To this prior stage of apostasy, the
sword of discipline, the pruning hook, is appropriate; to
that latter stage the eyes of flaming fire to consume, the
feet of irresistible brass to tread down.
For the reason
therefore of indicating by his appearance what was in his
mind towards that church far gone into apostasy, the great
Shepherd clothes himself in this terrific array, and an-
nounceth himself with this omnipotent name. And be-
cause in every church there may be, and commonly are,
individuals come to this same pass of backsliding from the
way of righteousness, it is most necessary that the Head
of the church be oftimes, yca continually, presented to
them in this attire. Nay, more, because I believe that
the flesh is the parent of all seduction and apostasy; which
flesh we carry about with us, ready to revive in proportion
as our faith decays; I hold it to be most necessary for every
Christian to have these flesh-consuming attributes of Christ,
the eyes of fire, and the feet of brass, ever present to his
mind, as an essential, constituent part of his idea of the
great Shepherd and Bishop of his soul. And finally, be-
3 G
614
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
cause our great ensample and forerunner, when minded
to come forth as the great servant and workman of the
Father, in the putting down of iniquity doth present him-
self in the high character of God's Son, with eyes flaming
forth against evil doers, and feet omnipotent to tread them
down to hell, we who all the day are called to labour in
the same vocation, we who are called for no other end
but to serve God, in making sin to cease and righteous-
ness to prevail, ought ever to bear in mind and announce
ourselves by our high and heavenly name of “
God," and in that character go forth to search out iniquity
both in ourselves and others, with a strong hand to war
against it, and with a heavy foot to oppress it to the earth.
PART II.-THE MESSAGE TO THE ANGEL.
sons of
In our last Lecture we opened an opinion more recently,
and indeed during the progress of writing out these Lec-
tures, come to, That the seven epistles, besides containing
a universal and catholic code of instruction and promise
from the chief Shepherd to every congregation, and to
every member of his church, in all times, and places, and
conditions, until he come again, do also contain a pro-
phetic anticipation of the seven successive states into
which his church should be brought for the purpose of
contending against the sevenfold forms of temptation with
which she should be assailed of the devil. The first or
Ephesian state is that of pastoral love and watchfulness,
triumphing over decline of zeal, decay of love, and the
natural temptation to cool in every spiritual work through
the manifold allurements of the devil, the world, and
the flesh. This had its period from the constitution of
the church by the Holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost,
until the time when a second trial arose to rouse the church
from her lethargy. This was the temptation of outward
violence and persecution to the death, conquered and pre-
vailed over by faith in Christ the resurrection and the life,
and by the hope of deliverance from the second death.
When this had exhausted itself by two centuries of perse-
cution, there arose a third form of temptation from com-
promising teachers who sought to accommodate the se-
parateness of the Christian church to the laxity and lati-
tude of Pagan worship; of which evil the miserable fruits
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: The Message.
615
to this day subsist in those relics of Pagan and Jewish
worship which form the main stay and chief characteristic
of Papal superstition. It is the season during which the
prophets, or ministers of the word, intrigue with the kings
of the earth, in order to bring the church into base thral-
dom to their evil influence, through forgetfulness of her
heavenly King. Next comes the season in which she sits
as their base concubine, the pandress to their ambition and
tyranny, their adultress spouse; having forsaken Christ to
whom she was betrothed, from whom she had received
the pledge of the Holy Ghost, in earnest of that kingdom
in which she is to be glorified, his queen for ever against
the day of his appearing. The chaste and beautiful spouse
of Christ bringing forth the first fruits of their mutual love,
is exhibited to us in the xiith chapter of this book; at the
conclusion of which she takes her flight into the wilder-
ness, to escape the persecution of the beast; where she
abides during forty-and two months, nourished of God.
During this time her seduction has been accomplished; for
at the end of that period she comes forth in the xviith
chapter riding upon the beast which had fed upon the
blood of her children. And she herself also is drunk with
the blood of saints; with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
This transfiguration of the church from the beautiful
woman of chapter xii. into the mother of harlots of chapter
xvii., which takes place during the 1260 days' abode in the
wilderness, is, according to my notion of the historical
succession of the seven churches, the same as the transition
from the state of the church of Smyrna to the state of the
church of Thyatira. The intervening church of Pergamos
presents the wretched accommodations and evil intermix-
tures through which this sad transaction was accomplished.
The one is, the prophet, or minister of the word, pandering
to the state, Balaani to Balak, in order to bring the church
into fornication and harlotry; the other is, the church thus
brought into the state of a harlot, and exercising her evil
practices, like Jezebel, to destroy all the true prophets of
God, and to promote the prophets of Baal. And both
together teach this sad but true lesson, that if the mi-
nisters of the word, through facility and courtesy, will in-
dulge themselves, and make their suit to the powers that
be, it will at length be returned upon their own head; for
3 G 2
616
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
in process of time the church, taking into her bosom
worthless and worldly persons, will come to be intolerant
of any prophet who, like Elijah, dares to speak the truth,
and will enact the part of Jezebel against him. Pergamos
is the state of the church seduced by her ministers into
the embrace of the world; Thyatira is the state of the
church devoted to the kings of the earth, and using their
power to slay and to extirpate all faithful ministers, who
would remind her of her affiance unto Christ, and them
of their subjection to him. They mutually confederate
against the Lord and his Anointed, to break asunder their
bands, and cast away their cords from them.
While, therefore, the xiiith chapter presents, as we
shewed in our last Lecture, the parallel of the church of
Pergamos, the xvii th presents the parallel of the church
of Thyatira: here they are represented in spiritual forms,
there in ecclesiastical and political forms: here it is their
relation to Christ the invisible Head of the Church, which
is in question; there it is the relation of church and state
to one another and to Christ the Head of kingdoms, which
is in question. But still though in their structure diverse
from one another, there are such points of resemblance
and hints of parallelism as cannot escape an observant
mind, and struck my own long before I had adopted the
idea of an historical succession as well as a catholic in-
struction to be present in the vision of the seven churches.
We have already shewn the points of correspondency be-
tween the church of Pergamos and the vision of the xiiith
chapter, and we shall now do the same in respect to the
church of Thyatira and the vision of the xviith chapter.
The woman Jezebel, whose action in the bosom of the
church of Thyatira forms the chief part of the epistle,
carries, as we have already treated, an allusion to that
daughter of the Sidonian king who was married to Ahab
king of Israel, and brought with her the idolatries of her
father's house, and particularly the worship of Astarte or
Astaroth, or the moon; whose licentiousness was so
great as to have induced the fathers of the church, when
treating of it, to be silent rather than to speak fully out.
Solomon, seduced by his Sidonian queen, was the first to
introduce it amongst the people of the Lord; but Jezebel
established it, as well as the worship of Baal, and con-
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 617
ceived the evil and vain thought of utterly rooting out the
worship of the true God from among the Ten Tribes of
Israel. And to such an extent did she succeed, as that
Elijah thought that he was the only one left witnessing
for God in the whole land. Nevertheless, God had seven
thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. During
those days it was, that Elijah stood up, and prophesied
that there should be neither dew nor rain in all the land
for three years and a half; which being accomplished,
and being about to prophesy of floods of water unto the
thirsty land, he must first make a sacrifice, and offer up a
hecatomb of the priests of Baal unto Jehovah. This was
done at the foot of Carmel in the sight of all Israel:
whereupon the prophet, after seven sendings of Gehazi his
servant, received from God, first a cloud as a man's hand,
then a very deluge of rain upon the thirsty ground. To this
event, or rather series of events, there be many allusions.
in the Apocalypse. The three years and a half is the
time of the prophecy of the two witnesses, who have
power (xi. 6) to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days
of their prophecy. Likewise of the mother of harlots
it is said, that she was drunk with the blood of the
saints. And of Jezebel it is written (1 Kings xviii. 4),
that she slew the prophets of the Lord. But perhaps the
most striking point of identification between the mother of
harlots and Jezebel, is the notice of her end (Rev. xvii.
16): "And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the
beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her de-
solate, and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her
with fire." The remarkable circumstance of "eating her
flesh," is derived from the history of Jezebel, of whom it
was prophesied by Elijah, "dogs shall eat Jezebel by the
wall of Jezreel" (1 Kings xxi. 23). Even as it was ful-
filled by the hand of Jehu. (2 Kings ix.) And, in general,
of Ahab's terrible idolatry, to which he was tempted of
Jezebel, it is written, that "there was none like unto
Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the
sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." Take
all these things together, and I think there can be no
doubt that in the three years and a half of Elijah's pro-
phecy against the wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel, and
in the manner and plan of them, and there is a typical
3 G 3
618
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
foreshewing of the great apostasy into which the ten king-
doms of the Western Roman Empire should fall under the
beast and the false prophet. Indeed it is to my own
mind beyond a doubt that the latter is represented under
the figure of the mother of harlots, for this reason, among
others, of pointing our attention to the great historical
type of Ahab and Jezebel, and Elijah the prophet.
Having said this in general upon the temptation to
which the church of Thyatira was exposed, and of the
condition in which it was found, we now proceed to
interpret the message delivered to the angel, as it lies in
the order of the text.
THE COMMENDATION.
Ver. 19: "I know thy works, and charity, and service,
and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last
to be more than the first."-Here is a large and plentiful
commendation; of which one of the most remarkable cir-
cumstances is, that the works are mentioned twice over,
and that with a particular note drawing our attention to it,
"and the last (works) more than the first." By which I
understand that, having been called in the providence of
God for a fresh putting forth of zeal and energy, this
faithful servant had not been slack to put to his hand,
but had shewn himself abundant in labours, and yet not-
withstanding this readiness to good works, he had per-
mitted his church to fall into sad disorder, through want
of discipline; teaching us, that a laborious life is not the
whole of a minister's function. And besides works, and
over again works, he hath charity and service, or deacon-
ship, or ministry for the good of the whole, and faith also,
and likewise patience: and yet, with all these ornaments
and gifts, because he wanted holiness to separate between
the evil and the good, and dignity to prevent his office
from being trampled under foot, his church hath come
into a condition almost ripe for destruction. He had suf-
fered a woman to divide his authority with him, and by
her immodest carriage, and unholy doctrines, to bring
many into sore calamities, into the very region of the
shadow of death. Concerning the works and patience of
a minister, we have already discoursed in the epistle to the
church of Ephesus, and shall not add any thing more
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 619
than is necessary for the complete representation of the
angel of Thyatira. The Apostle, in writing to Timothy,
entreateth him to prove himself a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. A
working minister is one who is ever in his work; who is
always turning himself to one duty or another, and never
idle; full of business, never out of occupation. It is the
quality very much cried up in these times, when every
man is loud in his call for a working clergy. I suppose
the angel of Thyatira to have been a man guided with a
strong sense of duty to all professional tasks, and, so that
he saw others busy, not very nice what they were busied
about. Otherwise he would have taken a nearer observa-
tion and a narrower survey of that woman who vexed his
church. But perceiving her also to be full of business,
he was content to let her go on, without any strict scru-
tiny as to what she was about. How like this is to the
condition of many who are called the evangelical clergy
of those days, who being come to a parish straightway
are all in bustle to set on foot this work and that work,
this society and that society, to appoint committees, and
secretaries, and treasurers, and Sabbath schools and
clothing societies, and other works and labours of love;
without any very nice inquiry into the faith or opinions, or
even characters, of those whom they engage in the work
of well-doing. And the whole parish is like a religious
workshop. To speak of opening afresh some of the wells
of doctrine, or actually to do it, is idle and unprofitable
speculation; to speak of reconstituting discipline is worse
than troublesome. If it can be done by a society, it is all
well: any thing which can take the form of an outward
work is excellent; what cannot, is at best suspicious.
These are the works which I suppose the Lord to commend
in the angel of the church of Thyatira; such as are now
the boast of the religious world, commendable in their
place and good in their way, yet capable of co-existing
in great and growing plenty along with a state of the
church so corrupt as to be ripe for destruction.
After his works he is commended for his charity, or love,
the greatest of the Christian graces; as it is written, "Now
abideth faith, hope, charity; these three; but the greatest of
them is charity;" and without which no gift is of any account
www
620
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
in the sight of God; wherefore it is called a more excellent
way than the gifts of the Holy Ghost: "Covet earnestly
the best gifts; and yet shew I unto you a more excellent
way." (1 Cor. xiii.) Charity, in its largest sense of love,
is there signified in contradistinction from those "gifts of
the Holy Ghost, and powers of the world to come," which
might be possessed without departure from iniquity: for
many whom Christ never knew shall declare in the day
of judgment that they prophesied in his name, and in his
name cast out devils, and in his name did many wonderful
works. These various gifts of "the word of wisdom, the
word of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, diversities of
tongues, and interpretation of tongues," come upon the
members of the church to give them their several places
of membership in the body of Christ: but charity, or
love, is union with Christ, union with all the members,
and union with God himself; as it is written, "He that
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." In
this largest sense, love is called the fulfilling of the law,
without which no work is good, with which every work is
good: it is made the root of all graces of the Christian
life in that account which Paul gives of it in the xiii th
chapter of 1 Cor.: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind;
charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not
her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; re-
joiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things. Charity never faileth" (1 Cor. xiii. 4-8).
In this delineation of charity, the form and fashion of the
mind and Spirit of Christ, as it beareth upon others is set
forth by these characteristics: First, long-suffering, the op-
posite of hastiness and headiness, a disposition of mind the
most needful in a judge or ruler, in a teacher or pastor, and
in every Christian who is set for the witness of truth against
abounding error, and through much tribulation must enter
the kingdom. Secondly, kindness, accompanying the
long-suffering, and employing itself all the while to pre-
vent the evil from arising to a greater head, and to undo
what is past by converting the evil-doer from the error of
his ways. And these two qualities of love not only heal
breaches, but prevent discords and confer enjoyment,
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 621
}
and are the atmosphere which a loving heart exhales on
all around. Thirdly, it envieth not, or, more accurately, is
no zealot, but preserveth the golden mean; is temperate
in all things, and makes its moderation to be apparent in
the sight of all men. This is parallel with a feature of the
wisdom from above (James iii 17), "without hypocrisy
and without partiality;" for zealotry always arises from
some mental reservation or partial dealing with the cause
of truth; exaggeration of one part, to the neglect of an-
other;
which even-handed and honest-hearted charity
preventeth. Fourthly, it vaunteth not itself, or is not
rash. The root of zealotry is mingling ourselves or
our party up with the cause of truth; and the conse-
quence of it is boastfulness and lordliness and insolence
and hard-heartedness towards others, which again engen-
ders tumults, both in the mind itself and in the church
without. Unbridled zeal is partizanship in the mind,
and produceth partizanship in the conduct, which leads
on to tumultuousness. Against this it is the good pro-
perty of charity to defend us: for charity, or love, is full
of condescensions, and never thinketh of itself more
highly than it ought to think, but thinketh soberly. And
thus also doth it prevent a man from being puffed up,
which is the fifth quality of this excellent grace. The sixth,
"doth not behave itself unseemly," refers to a modest
carriage, chaste manners, and purity both of mind and
of word; true love being of all things most opposed to
sensual lust, which is continually covering itself with the
pure raiment and calling itself by the holy name of love.
But of all the excellent attributes of love, the next is,
perhaps, the most radical and comprehensive: "it seeketh
not her own," but hath the good of others in her eye;
and attains her own ends by the means of well-doing, being
content to become the office-bearer of the commonweal.
Then she is not sharp to see faults, or, upon the sight of
them, prone to fall into a paroxysm of wrath, but beareth
all things or covereth and hideth all things, as God cover-
eth our sins by his grace, nor imputeth the transgression:
which is also one of the features of love, that she thinketh
no evil; or rather, imputeth not the evil, though well she
observes it; for nothing is so holy as love, in which he
that dwelleth dwelleth in the most holy God. And yet,
622
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
though thus she is ready to forgive all evil, it is not that
she hath any joy or enjoyment in evil; for all her joy is in
the truth, and in that only; but that being filled with
grace, she is open to forgive, not seven times only, but
seventy times seven. Then, as to faith and hope and en-
durance, love is the only soil in which they are capable of
coming to full maturity and complete perfection; where-
fore it is said, "Love believeth all things, hopeth all things,
and endureth all things." And finally, that it is not of the
nature of knowledge and prophecy, and the like gifts,
which have their form and condition according to the pre-
sent circumstances of the church, and will assume new
forms in the world to come; but is of an unchanging and
perpetual character, never failing, but constituting, both in
God and godly men, the essence of their being, and not
a mere attribute of it. Love puts itself forth in these many
forms, in the midst of this present evil world; but in the
holy and heavenly world to come, these forms of long-suffer-
ing and forgiveness shall not be called into action, and so
have they all a certain transitoriness compared with love.
I have chosen to take this grand description and noble
panegyric of love from the Apostle Paul, rather than to
attempt any of my own; and when I look at it in its large-
ness, I cannot sufficiently admire the perfection and
beauty of it, nor enough covet it as the most necessary
endowment of a Christian minister, who is exposed at all
hands to temptation, both from within the church and
from without. It is the subjugation of the turbulent pas-
sions of the flesh; it is the submission of the proud
imaginations of the mind; it is the repression of all the
divisive and selfish humours of the natural man, and
the practice of that meekness and gentleness, poverty of
spirit and peace-making, which are the standing features
of the true Christian character. It is no mean com-
mendation, therefore, of the angel of the church of Thy-
atira, that the Chief Shepherd, when looking with his
eyes of fire, should say, "I know thy love." Would that
there were some drops of it scattered from above over this
arid soil of the courts in which the clergy of our churches
assemble. Oh that each brought with him this gentle
and forbearing spirit! How soon would their rage and
schism vanish, their errors and heresies come to an
VI.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 623
}
end!
Lying open to light and truth, they would soon
grow into the knowledge of the secret of the Lord;
the withered stump would by the scent of waters revive,
and put forth boughs like a plant. Ah me! what a fear-
ful thing it is to reflect upon the absence of love in the
assemblies of the elders, where it should have its chosen
habitation! What can the Christian people think, when
they see the Christian ministers stirred up with such pa-
roxysms, and discharging against each other such en-
venomed words, like sharp arrows and two-edged swords?
The next ground of commendation is his service: "I
know thy service." When the word occurs in Scripture
in this absolute form, it almost always signifies what we
understand by the word ministry: for example, "Make
full proof of thy ministry" (2 Tim. iv. 5): "He counted
me faithful, putting me into the ministry" (1 Tım. i. 12):
For the work of the ministry" (Eph. iv. 12).
Now if we
would find out what particular part of the pastor's or
bishop's or angel's function was signified by the word
ministry, we must betake ourselves to the examination of
one or two passages of Scripture. That it is a spiritual
function, connected with the preaching of the word, is
evident from that saying of Paul's," But none of these
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself,
so that I might finish my course with joy, and the minis-
try which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the
Gospel of the grace of God" (Acts xx. 24): where the
ministry and testifying the Gospel of the grace of God
are one and the same thing. In Acts vi. 4, it is called
"the ministry of the word;" in 2 Cor. ii. 8, "the minis-
try of the Spirit ;" and in the next verse, "the ministry of
righteousness;" and in ch. v. ver. 18, "the ministry of
reconciliation." In all these cases, and others of the like
kind, it seems to me that the word or truth of the Gospel
is the thing ministered, and that the ministry of it is the
serving of it out to others, as the stewards of the household
serve out the bread to the family. In the Church of Scot-
land, as it is constituted in its Books of Discipline, there
ought to be a minister and a doctor or teacher; the former
for applying and dealing out the truth to the people in its
profitable and practical forms, the latter for teaching its
elements, whose office is to open up the mind of the
624
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Spirit of God in the Scriptures simply, without such ap-
plications as the ministers use. The doctor's is the
word of knowledge; the pastor's is the word of wisdom.
In the primitive church there were a greater variety of
ministries, diversities of ministries (1 Cor. xii. 5), cor-
responding to the diversities of gifts (ver. 4), which, taken
together, constituted the "manifestation of the Spirit "
(ver. 7), and were the proof of an inworking God (ver. 6).
Of these ministries and gifts, there are only two which
concern the word; namely, "To one is given by the Spirit
the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge
by the same Spirit" (ver. 8). But when the Apostle, in
the same chapter comes to enumerate the diversities of
appointments which the Spirit gave in the church, by
giving divers gifts, to be ministered by divers persons
for the common weal, he enumerates them thus: " And
God hath set some in the church, first apostles, second-
arily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then
gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of
tongues" (1 Cor. xii. 28). And in the corresponding
passage in the xiith chapter of the Romans, we find
the diversities of gifts in the one body of Christ thus
expressed: "Having then gifts, differing according to the
grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us pro-
phesy according to the proportion of faith: or ministry,
let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on
teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation; he that
giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with
diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness
(ver. 6-8). Here the ministry is separated from prophecy
on the one hand, and teaching on the other, from exhor-
tation also, and from rule or government. And so also
in the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv.11) we have the gift
of the Holy Ghost, sent down from Christ after he as-
cended up on high, constituting some apostles, others pro-
phets, others evangelists, others pastors, and others teachers;
whom he distributed, saith he, "for the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ." I confess myself totally unable to
discover any reason for which certain of these gifts and
ministries are now spoken of as extraordinary, intended
only for an emergence, and for ever ceased. I do not
1?
■
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 625
believe this, and long ago I publicly expressed my con-
viction that it was erroneous: if they be restored, I will
greatly rejoice; that they are not with us, I greatly grieve
and lament. Well am I assured, that they are every
baptized person's privilege, as much as the forgiveness of
sins. For when Peter first preached Christian baptism, it
was "for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost." And what he means by the
gift of the Holy Ghost, he distinctly declares to be that
promise of Joel, which Christ had received (Acts ii. 33), and
which they now saw and heard in them (ver. 16); adding
these words: "For the promise is to you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, and to as many as
the Lord our God shall call." This is the promise of Joel,
in his very words. "You and your children," is the sub-
stance of Joel ii. 28: "as many as the Lord our God shall
call," is the substance of verse 32; which in the Septua-
gint, commonly quoted by our Lord, is "the evangelized
whom the Lord shall call." The word "afar off," added
by the Apostle, if we may judge by the corresponding
language of Paul (Eph. ii. 17), denotes the Gentiles, upon
whom, in the case of Cornelius and his company, without the
intervention of any person, the gifts were poured out, with
what freedom they were upon the disciples at Pentecost.
Now, if the promise of the Holy Ghost, as foreshewn by
Joel, and shewn on Pentecost, were not as much con-
nected with baptism as the remission of sins itself, why
would the Apostle have held it out to all to whom he
preached? why would the Lord have given it to Cornelius,
in connexion with baptism? And if so be the baptized
are as responsible for their possession and use, as for the
possession and use of the remission of sins, what have we
to answer unto God for the want of them? I fear it will
be but a sorry apology to say, They taught us in the
schools of the church, that these Pentecostal gifts were
only for a season, and that it were blasphemy in us to
expect them. Who taught you? Doctors, very learned
doctors, And what are they? God, or man? They are
Then are you taught not by the word of God,
but by the precepts of men. You make void my word by
your traditions. And this indignity do you offer as your
apology? But to return
but men.
3 H
626
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
The gift which the angel of the church possessed, he
had faithfully ministered. The Lord knew his ministry,
and had no fault to find with him on this head. He had
not neglected the gift which was in him; but according as
he had received it, he had ministered it as a good steward
of the manifold grace of God. These various gifts were
given to every one for the common behoof, and not for
partial enjoyment, or personal distinction, or vain glory.
The Corinthian church, instead of thus using them as a
trust of God for the well-being of the whole body, had
turned them to the service of their own selfish vanity, and
used them in the church as the subject of boasting, the
one over the other. Not so the minister of the church of
Thyatira, who had well occupied his talent, and made
merchandise of souls with it; using it for the perfecting
of the saints, and the edification of the body of Christ.
Here also, in looking upon the present state of the
church, I see many and grievous things to lament. The
ministers are content to use their gifts one day only in
seven, and then as little as possible: the week-day ser-
vices of the churches in our parishes, and in most of our
towns, are almost all gone down. I have heard of the
ministers of a town conspiring to do away with them. The
ministrations with which the meetings of Presbyteries were
wont to be begun, are almost or altogether suspended.
Domestic ministrations, from house to house, are for the
most part discountenanced. The good old custom of
requiring a minister, as he passed through your parish, to
give a word of instruction to the people is entirely lost.
Like every thing else, the work of the ministry is fallen
into a mere shred. And if any one steps forth to the
multitude, and, Culdee-like, begins to break unto them
the bread of life in markets, villages, and on market-days,
straightway your sober-minded ministers rail at him as
bringing the ministry into disgrace, and your zealous and
religious magistrate counts it very dutiful to interdict him
from prosecuting such a suspicious calling within the
bounds of his jurisdiction. Ah, me! poor souls of the
people, wander on and be lost! It is no more a Christian
minister's duty to lift up his voice, and call aloud to you
in the gates and corners of the streets. Ah, me! Christ's
ministers think the people well off if they get a service once
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 627
in the week; and when the tithe of the population which
comes to receive it have been served, the rest, all the rest,
may with a clear conscience be left to perish, unpitied,
unsought, uncared for. Is this the meaning of being ap-
pointed by the church, and by the state, the minister of
such and such a bounds? Surely no. ` Is this the reason
why every other minister is prevented opening his mouth.
therein without your consent; that you only may have the
privilege of starving them; that no one may interfere be-
tween you and their destruction? Oh God, I intercede
for my order in the church. Lay it not to our charge.
Remember it not against us. Grant us repentance unto
the acknowledgment, and faithfulness unto the decla-
ration, of thy truth; over which thou hast constituted us
the stewards.
I know thy faith."--The faith which leadeth unto Christ
is a work of the Father, without whom no one can know
the Son, or ever come unto him. To the Father, as the
fountain-head of power and of knowledge, the Son himself,
as Son of Man, continually referred back in the days of
his flesh; and to him still referreth all whom he calleth to
the imitation of his faith, and the following of his foot-
steps. The Gospel of Christ is the preaching of the
Father, as having sent his Son to seek and to save that
which was lost. The very name Father, with which our
Christian prayers commence, implies that God hath been
gracious to mankind, in receiving the representative of
them all into the condition of the Son; in which, though
in the Divine essence he was from everlasting, he was in
the Spirit only from his generation, and in the flesh
also only from the resurrection. The Gospel therefore,
in teaching us to call God Father, teacheth us that for
man the highest and most honourable place of being sons
of God is fully purchased, and is freely proclaimed through-
out this world to every creature under heaven. Preach-
ing, therefore, directeth faith to the Father-God, whom
Christ preacheth away from every other god; and there-
fore whatever fruits of faith appear must unequivocally be
given to that Father from whom Christ in the days of his
flesh received all strength and sustenance. The Father of
Jesus Christ being received as our God and Father, doth
straightway direct us to his only-begotten and first-begot.
3 H 2
628
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ten from the dead, as the source of life and light in this
dark and mortal estate, as our deliverer from sin, and the
author of an everlasting righteousness, and complete sal-
vation to all who believe. This work the Father perform
eth by the Holy Ghost, who taketh the things of Christ,
and sheweth them to our souls. But still it is only out-
ward teaching of the Spirit, such as all the fathers under the
law possessed; the very same in kind, though different in
degree: God taught them by the words of the Prophets,
foreshewing, and by the services of the Law, prefiguring, Him
who was to come for our salvation: God teacheth us by
the words of Christ and his Apostles, and the services of
the church, referring back to the work which Christ hath
done for our salvation. Still, however, it is but an outward
act, done by presenting to our minds the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ; the doer of it is the Holy Ghost; and the
originator of it is the Father; and the means by which it
is done is the work of Christ. This now is the first kind
of faith which was common to a Jew and a Christian,
and which requireth no work of regeneration, no transla-
tion out of the state of the natural into the state of the
spiritual man; and moreover, it is the only work of faith
which is dreamt of in our modern theology; which I am
bold enough to pronounce a mere rag of the garment from
which it has been torn away.
The second work of God is the work of regeneration ;
and to this the former is only preparatory. The whole Jewish
dispensation is only preparatory to the Christian; the
natural to the spiritual; and hath still its place in the pro-
gress of a sinner's salvation. All that precedes regene-
ration is as old as Abraham, and since his day hath under-
gone no change in the method or principle of it, but only
an enlargment and clearing up of the subject. But rege-
neration is the passing out of the natural into the spiritual.
We do in the laver of baptism drown and bury the natural
man, and receive a new spiritual subsistence, holding
directly of the risen church, the quickening Spirit. And
now we become one substance with Christ in Spirit; as at
the resurrection we shall become one substance with him
in body also. In this present life, the Spirit of Christ.
which is the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, is in us of a
very truth, as truly as he was in Christ during the days of
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 629
his flesh who was not more truly Son of God by the
Spirit, than we are now sons of God by the same Spirit.
God, thus dwelling in us in the person of the Holy Ghost,
doth work oneness, perfect oneness with Christ in the
Spirit; and this is the feeding faith, the appropriating
faith, the faith which participates of his substance, which
eats his flesh and drinks his blood. The worker of this
uniting faith is also the Holy Ghost, who is ever that
person of the Trinity who toucheth the creature, and bath
to do with him in the way of giving life of regeneration,
and resurrection into life. But for this effect he proceedeth
from Christ; into whose hands the Holy Ghost hath been
given for the procreation of this spiritual seed; and from
whom when we believe we receive power to become the
sons of God; and are sealed with the Holy Ghost, which
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of
the purchased possession. Historically, therefore, the
Holy Ghost is exhibited as proceeding from the Father,
until the resurrection of Christ, upon his creatures, to take
Christ and shew him as their hope, and bring them into
his faith since the resurrection he is exhibited as pro-
ceeding from Christ to work a new creature, or the regene-
ration of the natural man, into a new subsistence; and
thus the great doctrine of the Creed, "that the Holy
Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son,
receiveth a manifestation in both its parts. But the his-
torical view of any truth is always a broken and incom-
plete one, and only the means of arriving at the spiritual.
view which is altogether independent of place and time.
The spiritual form of the truth is, that every believer is
continually delivered by the Father unto Jesus, and, being
received from the Father by Jesus, is fitted of him for the
prerogative of the Son of God, and for the office of one
of the Father's kings and priests. And the Holy Ghost
which worketh this preparation cometh from the Father
and the Son; from the Father to incline our hearts to
Jesus, from the Son to prepare and provide us for the
service of the Father. The Head of the natural man, of
man as he was created, is not manifest, is therefore God
the Father, the Head of the spiritual man, of man as he is
regenerated, is manifest, is Christ, God manifest in the
flesh. One who is brought into the spiritual state by re-
??
3 H 3
630
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
generation, hath a double subsistence; the one the natural,
the other the spiritual: with the former of which the
Father hath ever to do; with the latter of which Christ
hath ever to do, as their several heads. The work of the
Father, with his natural creature, is to put him to death
for Adam's sin: the work of the Son, with his spiritual
creature, is to quicken him to life for Christ's righteous-
ness. But these are not two creatures, but one creature,
having one will, on which as being the spiritual part of a man
the Holy Ghost operates. His operation, therefore, is felt
double; one from the Father, to mortify the natural man, by
making him willing to sacrifice his wisdom and his prudence,
in order to lay hold on the regeneration and nursing of
Christ; the other, from Christ, to give him that quickening
and milk of life which the Father hath made him willing
to desire, and so the Holy Ghost dwelling in us becomes
the indwelling of the Father and the Son, the witness
of the Father and the Son, the fellowship of the Father
and the Son.
Enough, and more than enough, hath been said for a topic
of a very large and complex Lecture; and yet far less than
enough hath been said for the unfolding of the subject:
but it must stand as it is, with the risk of being by some
considered as tedious, by others as mystical: but no one
can deny that it is most important to clear that great
point of the orthodox creed, that the Holy Ghost proceed.
eth from the Father and the Son in his working of faith in
the soul of man. For that faith the angel of the church
of Thyatira is commended: his faith was true and un-
feigned; he had root in Christ, and was in a condition to
bear fruit. He was built upon the foundation, a living
stone of the spiritual temple. He was feeding on the
body and blood of Jesus. He was continually willing to
put down, and keep down, the natural endowments of his
mind, out of an entire conviction of their unprofitableness
in themselves; and being better taught by the Father,
every faculty came near to Jesus of its own will, and
couching low at his feet, yea, crucifying itself on his cross,
receiveth from hin a new life, which grows up from baby-
hood, after the image of the risen Christ, in righteousness
and true holiness, in power and joy and glory. So much
is included in general, under the acknowledgment of a
vii.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 631
man's having faith; but if I err not, there is something
more specific than this signified.
Amongst the divers gifts of the Holy Ghost mentioned
by the Apostle, one is entitled faith: "to another faith by
the same Spirit" (1 Cor. xii. 9). And in the commenda-
tion of charity, the existence of faith to a very great extent
is supposed without charity: "and though I have all faith
so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I
am nothing" (1 Cor. xiii. 2). This carries us almost by a
direct reference to the famous rebuke which our Lord ad-
ministered to his disciples, upon his descent from the mount
of transfiguration: "Verily, I say unto you, If ye have faith
as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain,
Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and
nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Matt. xvii. 20).
Nor was this word confined to those persons who heard
him, or to the Apostolical times, or to any age of the
church; for thus it is pronounced by our Lord in the largest
language possible, "Verily, verily I say unto you, He
that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also,
and greater works than these shall he do; because I go
unto my Father” (John xiv. 12). And when he went to
his Father he poured down the gifts of the Holy Ghost with
which they did greater works than he had ever done; such
as speaking with tongues, and other things proper to their
larger commission as ministers of the world: whereas He
was only a minister of the circumcision, or sent unto the
lost sheep of Judah. Now the faith which is bere spoken
of and commended in the angel of the church of Thyatira,
is, I take it, not only that saving faith which is the gift
of God, and without which there cannot be any union to
Christ or participation of his benefits; but also that special
gift which fitted a minister for the faithful discharge of his
ministry, a continual dependence upon God for the regular
supply of that which he was to serve out unto the flock, a
continual trust in God to defend him from all the enemies
of the truth round about, a continual looking unto Jesus
the Head for the nourishment of all the members of the
body;-faith for the gift of wisdom and of knowledge which
he was called upon to minister, faith for the words in which
he should utter it, faith for strength in the midst of trials,
faith for the whole flock, that each might receive the supply
632
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of the Spirit for ministering to the body that office to which
he was called; for herein Christ doth constitute the angel
representative of the whole church, in that with the strength
or decline of his graces, the graces of the church do all
strengthen or decline. Without such a mutual sympathy
and dependence, the relationship would be merely nominal
and not real, for serving an expediency, not for manifest-
ing a verity. And because the church liveth by her faith,
and is delivered out of all extremities by no present or
visible help, but by the faith of an invisible Lord, it be-
comes a very important part of a minister's qualification
that he should be filled with faith; to set the example, and
give courage to his church; to go before the flock and
boldly face all the wolves and robbers who would scatter
and destroy them. Faith, therefore, as a fruit of the Spirit,
as well as that faith which is unto the knowledge of Christ
and of the Spirit, I conceive to be here signified in our
Lord's commendation, "I know thy faith."
"I know thy patience."Of this grace we have already
discoursed, in the Lecture upon the Ephesian church, and
have the less need to enlarge upon it in this place. In a
very remarkable manner is patience connected in the
Scriptures with perfection; as by the Apostle James in
these words: My brethren, count it all joy when ye
fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have
her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, want-
ing nothing." And this which is asserted of others is
likewise asserted of the Lord in these words: "It became
him....to make the Captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings" (Heb. ii. 10). And again; " Though
he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things
which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became
the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey
him" (ch. v. ver. 9). The Apostle Paul, in like manner,
connects his desire of participation in Christ's sufferings
and conformity to his death with perfection (Phil. iii),
And it is also worthy of observation, that our Apostle calls
the present kingdom of Christ in the Spirit, "the kingdom
and patience of Jesus Christ." And the Chief Shepherd
not only notices this virtue three times over in these
epistles; but gives by far the greatest promise to the
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 633
*
angel of the church of Philadelphia, " because thou hast
kept the word of my patience." What then is there so
precious and profitable in the grace of patience? It puts
all the other graces to the proof, gives them time to ripen
into maturity, and affords us the means of ascertaining
in what points they are defective. Like the storm which
falls upon the new-built ship, it shews the strength and
weakness of the several parts, and enables the ship-builder
to bring his work to perfection. The perfection of a
Christian, like the perfection of Christ is, in all things, in
the agony and on the cross, to do not his own will but
the will of God. All trials are so many temptations of
evil, to raise discontent and murmuring, or to make us
swerve from the law of our God; and the patient en-
durance of them is the proof of our stedfastness and im-
moveableness, and never fails to bring from God a rich
supply of his own holiness. How beautiful is that saying
of Paul's!" God chastiseth us for our profit, that we
might be partakers of his holiness." Oh that I could
teach to my fellow-sufferers and companions in tribu-
lation, what I continually seek to learn; that, ever
after God has named his name upon us, he hath his
honour at stake, that we should not fall before Satan. His
name, so precious to himself, is in us; and surely he will
not fail to support the honour of his own name. Of this
truth let our faith take hold, and conquer all assaults of
the enemy whatsoever, by the mighty power of God which
is in us.
If we fail, he hath not denied himself, but we
have doubted and disbelieved him. Every victory is a
victory to him. How beautiful is that saying of Peter's!
"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,
might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the
appearing of Jesus Christ." The baptized man is the
arena or field on which Christ offereth battle to the devil,
the world, and the flesh. The time of sore trial is the
stress of battle, and to win through it is to glorify God,
and bear hardship like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It
is a most precious point of character, whether in a man or
a Christian, to be able to look upon what is unplea-
sant, and face what is painful! There is no perfection
nor stability without it. A man who habitually shuns
634
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
what is disagreeable, becomes timorous as a child; whereas
on the other hand, he who endures patiently the evil, be-
comes stout and hardy, and fit for any service on which
the Captain of his salvation may employ him. Now that
which enables the soul to bear its courage up under the
sore fight of afflictions which it hath to encounter is
first, the assurance of victory, through the indwelling
mighty power of God; and, secondly, the assurance of
speedy relief by the coming of the Lord. This is James's
consolation and encouragement to the brethren: "Be
patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord:"
Be ye also patient, stablish your heart, for the coming
of the Lord draweth nigh." And with him cometh the
reward, which is the third encouragement to patience;
and that reward shall be according to our patience: "To
them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for
honour and glory and immortality, eternal life." There is
much need that ministers of the Gospel begin to prepare
themselves with patience for the conflict, for the time of
their trial is at hand. The day of mockery and derision,
of cold neglect and cruel scorn, of violation of all bro-
therly affections and Christian bonds is already dawned.
The spirit is revealed in the church, which will make
mockery of every thing real and substantial in Divine
truth, and set at nought the preachers of it, as deceived,
and deceivers of the people. Ignorance is about to have
a triumph, hypocrisy a reign, in the church. The sub-
stitution of mere names for realities, of theological fictions
for Divine truths, of man's precepts for the teaching of
God, is now at a height, and will trample under foot every
bold man who will face it in its career and call it by its
proper name of hypocrisy,-hypocrisy working by a law,
hypocrisy sanctifying itself into a religion. I believe the
Pharisees of our Lord's day to be the only counterpart to
the religionists, especially the guardians of religion, the
religious world of this day. He that hath an ear to hear,
let him hear and understand what I say, that every man
who now hath conscience to discern and faithfulness to
preach the truth, must suffer persecution from the minis-
ters of religion, especially from those called evangelical
and spiritual. So let them not be astonished; for surely
come it will, yea, come it is at this moment when I write.
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: Commendation. 635
>
There is not a man who has stiffly stood for the second
advent and kingdom of our Lord; for the love of God to
all men, in giving his Son to die; for the reality and
consubstantiality of Christ's flesh with ours, who has
not drawn down upon him, at least in our church, the
persecutions of the Evangelical clergy; who are at this
moment the chief impediment to the dissemination of the
truth in this land. God give them repentance to the ac-
knowledgment of the truth; and God give us whom he
hath set for the testimony of his truth patience, that we
may not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach;
counting it all joy, that in behalf of Christ it is given to
us, not only to believe or hear, but also to suffer for his
sake.
"And thy works; and the last to be more than the
first." The preceding good qualities, for which the angel
of this church hath been commended, bespeaks a season
of hardship through which he had passed, and by which
his graces of faith and patience had been exercised. Per-
haps some persecution of the Jews or Gentiles, some tumults
of the townsmen, or some other outward violence of Satan,
to cut off the church in its infancy. These trials had
been met by the angel of the church with new diligence
in his vocation, with fresh labours in the ministry of the
word, and the consolation of the flock, with a more plen-
tiful supply of good works than at the beginning of his
ministry. This Christ acknowledgeth; he forgetteth not.
any thing which can be commended: he compareth the
latter with the former, and marketh the improvement.
This is very sweet and gracious. Oh, that we could
remember what a Master he is whom we serve!
We
always act in the evil spirit of that servant who said,
"I knew that thou art a hard master, reaping where
thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not
strewed." But how wide this is of the truth! How beau-
tifully doth the kindness and love of our chief Shepherd
appear in these seven epistles. His words are the words
of a gracious and good, of a considerate and indulgent,
Master. We have indeed a Bishop to deal with who is
the Father and Friend of his clergy. Ah, my fellow-
labourers in the vineyard of the Lord, if we should expe-
rience faithlessness and foolishness, persecution and ridi-
cule, from our brethren in the ministry, let us look up to
636
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
him whose eye is upon the righteous, and whose ear is
open to their cry. We have a bosom on which we can
rest our sore-pained head; we have an ear into which we
can pour our sorrowful hearts; we have a High Priest
who can be touched with the fellow feeling of our in-
firmities, having been in all points tempted as we are.
Therefore go forth and be valiant and do exploits, for he
beholdeth and succoureth you. Think not of yourselves
at all, but be filled with his glory and power. Exalt his
name, and stand for his truth. Lift up your voice, and cry
aloud. Be instant in season and out of season. And
when they say all manner of evil against you falsely for
his name's sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad; and when
ye shall be brought before the rulers of the synagogue or
the kings of the earth for his sake, take no thought how or
what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour
what ye shall speak: for it is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
THE REBUKE TO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF
THYATIRA.
One would think that after such an ample commendation
for laborious and renewed works, for love and ministry and
faith and patience, there was little room for rebuke or re-
proof of this excellent servant of the Lord. But he who is
holy and true, whose eyes are like a flame of fire and his
feet are like fine brass, sees otherwise than man seeth. His
love is great, but his holiness is co-extensive with his love;
and his faithfulness unto his Father ruleth over all. He
doth not strike a compromise between the good and the
evil, or allow so much of the one to be a compensation
for so much of the other. He loves holiness for its own sake:
yea holiness is the form of his love in this world, where sin
is present; because without it no man can see the Lord.
Nothing will satisfy him but that we should be holy as
our Father in heaven is holy, and holy because he is holy.
It is a fatal error with many to excuse their imperfections
and infirmities, yea and their wickednesses, by saying that
every thing which man doth must necessarily partake of his
inherent sinfulness: which is, in other words, to believe
that Christ is not able to redeem the soul of man from the
devil, the world, and the flesh; and that the Holy Ghost
is not so powerful to sanctify as they are to defile: which
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke.
637
I consider to be little less than blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost; and certainly it is very far from the ortho-
dox creed, which maintains that he is irresistible. This
way of speaking finds an apology and justification for itself,
by another like unto it, which is, that those works of our's
which are called good and holy and acceptable are not so
in very deed and truth, but only reckoned so of God's
complacency, for the sake of Jesus Christ. What a mis-
chief, what a deadly poison is folded up in this innocent
and devout form of words, "God accepts our unholy
works as holy for Christ's sake." First, it makes God see
a thing to be unholy, and yet accept it as holy; that is,
admit into his favour and speak in good terms of what
is essentially unholy; which is very much like putting a
lie into God's mouth. Secondly, it makes Christ the
storehouse and treasury of good works, from which a
man may eke out the imperfections and cover the ble-
mishes of his own, according to his own disposition and
judgment which is just the doctrine of indulgences
in another form. Thirdly, it makes Christ no Re-
deemer of the creaturc, the Holy Ghost no Sanctifier
of the creature, who continues as obstinately bent and
necessarily prone to sin as ever. And lastly, it makes
Christ and the Holy Ghost to have brought God to com-
promise his holiness, instead of shewing his holiness as
unimpeachable and most glorious. But, blessed be the
Lord, this doctrine of the schools hath no foundation in
Scripture, which teacheth, that the whole man, "body,
soul, and spirit," may and ought to be "presented a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God," may and ought
to prove what is that holy and acceptable and perfect will
of God, which asserteth that "he that is born of God
cannot sin," and "that be that hath suffered in the flesh
hath ceased from sin:" which glorious work of bringing
holiness forth from the fallen mortal creature, is the power
of the indwelling Godhead of the Spirit, through union
with Christ our Head. It is Christ in us, renewing us
after the image of God, in righteousness and true holi-
ness. It is Christ glorifying God in his own creature,
despite the devil's murderous work, and making the crea-
ture under the conditions of the Fall to bring forth good-
ness unto God. This capacity of goodness, of perfect and
3 I
638
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
unceasing goodness we are all baptized into: for baptism
is the burial of the natural man, that it may trouble us
no more, the quickening of the spiritual man, that it may
serve God for ever. And after baptism we are in the
condition of the Apostle, who thanks God that he had re-
ceived the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ; and that
the law of the Spirit of life had made him free from the law
of sin and death. Every sin after baptism committed is
without any apology from the fallen and sinful condition
of man, out of which we are delivered into the standing
of grace and righteousness in Christ Jesus. Such sin is to be
traced to unbelief: we believe not in the sufficiency of
Christ to do the will of God in our mortal flesh; and out of
this unbelief comes the power of the flesh over us. Christ,
knowing and being assured of the power and will of God
to sustain his own creature, made no hesitation to take
up the mortal and corruptible flesh of man, and shewed
himself able to make it obedient in all points: and he is
able to continue the work, and he is presented as the
continuer of the work of making mortal flesh to do the
Father's will. But if, as our so-called evangelical mini-
sters cry aloud, it be heresy to believe that Christ took,
and bore, and for ever sanctified this flesh of ours, then
indeed there is no ground for believing that it can be
sanctified, but every ground for believing the contrary:
and we are left to make of it the best we can; a poor
compromise at the best, a botch, a failure so far as this
life is concerned; God defeated on this earth, in this crea-
ture flesh. Oh, what awful issues are dependent upon
this question, which hardly musters a dozen ministers that
think it important enough to write or speak of it; hardly
half a dozen who will bide the brunt of fierce and fiery con-
flict. But fear not, little flock; it is the good pleasure
of the Father to give you the kingdom."
Not so the great Bishop and Overseer of our souls, who,
knowing the power given to his saints of being holy, as he
is holy, to his church of being entirely purged from the
leaven of malice and unrighteousness, an unleavened lump,
doth after this full commendation of his servants' works,
charity, ministry, faith and patience, proceed to point
out a few things which he had against him, whereof the
sum is expressed in these words: "Because thou sufferest
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke.
that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to
teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornica-
tion, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols” (ii. 20).
There is only one point of difference between this office in
the church of Thyatira, and that in the church of Perga-
mos; that here it is a woman calling herself a prophetess,
there it was men who held and taught the doctrine,—the
one the office of Jezebel, the other the office of Balaam.
The Apostle had forbidden women to speak in the church,
but to be silent and learn from their husbands with all
obedience (I Cor xiv. 34, 35; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12). But in
the same Epistle to the Corinthians he makes it manifest
by the way in which he teaches prophetesses to carry
themselves, when they prophesied (1 Cor. xi. 5); that the
spirit of prophecy was given to the women even as to the
men, according to the Prophecy of Joel; and that, when
so given, it was their custom to exercise the gift in the
church, even as the men: and he teacheth them how they
ought to do it, without extravagance or imitation of the
heathen Pythonesses. Moreover, that the Spirit is free,
and was wont to endow women with the gift of prophecy,
is manifest from many parts of Scripture besides this: Acts
ii. 17, "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy ;"
Acts xxi. 9, Philip the Evangelist had four daughters
virgins, which did prophesy." And surely if we men who
minister the word claim our right and ability to do so
from the Holy Spirit, we may not limit him so as to say
he may not as heretofore give that gift to a woman, or
that a woman receiving it may not use it. In the two
passages referred to above, the Apostle merely forbids
women who had no gift from speaking in the church and
troubling the congregation with questions which were
better answered by their husbands at home. For while
(1 Tim. ii. 8) the office of prayer in all places is ap-
pointed to the men, he commands the women to keep
silence (ver. 11). The truth seems to be therefore, that
silence in the church was imposed upon a woman in
every case save where the Holy Spirit opened her mouth ;
and in all such cases, while she was at liberty, yea and
under the obligation of using her gift, she ought to use it
with the modesty which becometh a woman, and with a
deference to the authority of the angels of the church.
"
3 1 2
640
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
The passage to which I allude is in 1 Cor. xi. 10:
"For this cause ought the woman to have power over
her head, because of the angels:" by which I under-
stand, that when a woman prophesied, she should not
do so with dishevelled hair and frantic gestures, but with
her head covered, and in a modest manner, in deference
to the angels of the church. She ought, were it only for
their sake, to observe the rules the Apostle there pre-
scribes, both for the prophesyings and the prayers of such
women as were gifted of the Holy Ghost for, and called
by him to, these ministries. This also shews us, by infe-
rence, that it was the power and dignity of the angels
to take oversight of all persons; even of those in whom
the Spirit dwelt in a manner, and with a power, in which
he dwelt not in them. He stood there representing Christ,
the Head of all the ministries; and to him all the mini-
sters of all the gifts must pay their reverence, and defer
as their overruler. Now, the angel of the church of
Thyatira had been remiss in this part of his sacred
function, and had permitted one who called herself a pro-
phetess, to teach and to practise grievous errors in the
midst of the church. She was not a prophetess, but she
claimed to be one; and haply she had the gift, though
certainly she had not the grace of it: "for many shall
come in the day of judgment, saying unto Christ, Have
we not prophesied in thy name? unto whom he shall say,
I never knew you; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.
Doubtless this woman must have had some gifts, to deceive
so good and faithful a man, to mislead so many of his
flock. It might be that she had the power of miracles
and prophecy, being possessed by an unclean spirit, such
as that which spoke forth the name and Divinity of Christ,
"I know thee who thou art, the Christ, the Son of the living
God." For certainly the evil spirits have great power, as
we see by the magicians of Egypt, and the soothsayers
mentioned in the Acts, and those prophesied of in this
very book, when speaking of the mystical Jezebel (Rev.
xxiv. 14). Now, all such false spirits were to be tried by
their doctrines, whether they agree with the truth of God,
as written in his word, and approved by the conscience of
an honest-hearted man. "Believe not every spirit, but
try the spirits whether they be of God." The angel of
"
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke.
641
the church of Thyatira had been negligent of this part of
his duty; and, instead of trying this woman's pretensions
by her doctrine, had permitted her to sow the seeds of
error in his flock. As a prophetess he permitted her to teach
and seduce the servants of Christ away from their duties
to their Lord and Husband, to join themselves to the ido-
latries round about, and to partake in their idol feasts. It
is remarkable how the offence reproved by the Head of
the church, in these epistles to Ephesus, to Pergamos,
and to Thyatira, should be constantly the intermingling
of his holy service with the unholy services of the heathen;
pointing out to us the way in which the apostasy was
working, and should work unto the end; by the amalga-
mation of things contrary and contradictory, the service
of God and the service of demons. The church of Christ
is placed by regeneration of the Holy Ghost in a dignity
of its own, spiritual and divine, above sin and death,
above the flesh and the world; from which to descend and
mix with the abominations of the heathen, or even with
the fleshly ordinances of the law, is like the angels leaving
their habitation and intermarrying with the daughters of
men; to which confusion the deluge is ascribed (Gen. vi.)
by the example of which the church also is warned from
apostasy (2 Pet. ii. and Jude 6). It is remarkable, moreover,
that in none of the three following churches is there any
allusion to this unnatural sin of the spiritual seed mingling
with the carnal; as if the first four epistles had historical
reference to a state of the church distinct from that re-
ferred to in the three last. In the midst of each division,
there is one church which standeth faithful; among the
former, that of Smyrna; among the latter, that of Phila-
delphia: which distinction will come to be more fully ex-
amined hereafter. For the present, we observe, that the
common sin of these three churches, Ephesus, Pergamos,
and Thyatira, is exactly the same with that set forth in
the history of the woman and the beast (Rev. xii. xiii.
xvii.); when the two most violently opposed systems of
Christ, and of Paganism, at length meet together and har-
monize into one, which ends in the destruction of both.
If death be the consequence of Adam's transgression, the
wages of sin; then the deluge, and the destruction of
Sodom, and the conflagration of the earth by fire, are the
313
642
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
consequence of attempting to mingle and confuse righte-
ousness and unrighteousness, holiness and sin, the seed of
God, and the seed of Satan. The church are the children
of God; the world are the children of the evil one.
While
these two continue separate, God's end of testifying against
iniquity is served when they intermingle, his end is lost,
and the world must be destroyed. This is a great truth,
into which I cannot at present enter more particularly.
:
But, even to this woman, whether considered personally
as the troubler of the church of Thyatira, or typically as
the mother of harlots who was to trouble the church of
Christ, God gave space to repent. And so also he did to
the Antediluvians, when he appointed them a time of 120
years, during which the ark was a preparing, to warn them
of their coming judgment, that they might repent of their
wickedness. And Noah, being God's faithful witness, and
obedient servant in preparing the ark, did thereby condemn
the world which then was. So also Lot, by living in the
midst of Sodom, and keeping himself from their pollu-
tions, did condemn that and the neighbour cities of the
plain; who also had a warning by the hand of Cheder-
Jaomer, and a deliverance at the hand of Abraham, the
father of the faithful And when for their unnatural
wickedness (Rom. i.) God raised up Christ to be the Judge
of all men, he gave them space for repentance, and sent
his Gospel to be a witness unto all nations, amongst which
his church, like Noah, continue to build the spiritual ark
of salvation, with its open door and plentiful rooms for
all men to enter in and be saved. But the time shall
wear out, the witnesses of God shall cease, their prophecy
against the wickedness and profanation of the Gentiles,
and the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men
shall at length arrive. To shew forth the liberty of re-
pentance unto all, this poor deluded woman, who lived to
delude the servants of God, had space for repentance,
even as also had Simon Magus.
I gave her space to re-
pent of her fornication, but she repented not.' So also
do we find that the servants of the whore, who had the
mark of the beast, and the number of his name, have
after the sixth trumpet space to repent, but they repent
not (Revix. 21). Also after the fifth vial (xvi. 9), which,
if we interpret aright, the time of peace, which has
" I
&
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 643
now continued for fifteen years, but they will not repent,
and therefore when the sixth vial upon the Mohammedan
powers is exhausted, then judgment, the final judgment
of the quick, falls heavy upon them in the time of the
seventh vial. Oh how admirable is the long-suffering of
God, and how obdurate the impenitency of men ! That
woman Jezebel repented not in the church of Thyatira;
nor will her antitype, the mother of harlots, which sits
upon seven hills, repent. She is now as full of her mur-
ders, and sorceries, and fornications, and thefts as ever
she was; and so will she continue until destruction come
upon her like a whirlwind. The door of admission into
the bride-chamber shall be shut, and no one shall be able
to enter in. They shall stand and cry aloud, but they
shall not be heard. They shall be carried away in their
desperation to conceive terrible thoughts of evil upon the
earth, against the Lord and his anointed, and they shall
perish in the midst of their deceivings, and blasphemies,
and horrid undertakings. Of all which, the manner, as
well as the certainty, is shewn forth in God's dealings
with this woman Jezebel.
Vers. 22, 23: "Behold I will cast her into a bed, and
them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation ;
except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her
children with death; and all the churches shall know that
I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will
give unto every one of you, according to your works."
There is some difficulty in coming at the exact meaning
of the threatening, "I will cast her into a bed." Some
think it means a sick-bed, disabling her from the further
prosecution of her mischievous practices; but this is not
equal to her offence, nor yet commensurate with the pu-
nishment of her paramours, who are cast into great
tribulation," nor of her children, who are "killed with
death." The best interpretation seems to me to be, that
as the bed had been the place of her fornication, so should
it be of her judgment; which judgment is common to her
with her fornicators. That they and she, caught in the
act of their fornication, should, as were the prince of
Israel and the Moabitish woman, by the hand of Phinehas,
have judgment executed upon them. She had had time
to repent, but would not; and therefore she should have
66
641
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
66
no notification of the judgment, but at once, in one hour,
while she enjoyed her wickedness, and in the midst of it,
should the wrath of the great tribulation alight upon her
and her paramour. The expression, "I will cast her into
a bed," to my mind therefore presents the evil case and
condition in which she should be apprehended, and it
gives introduction and force to the following expression,
"those who commit adultery with her;" while the punish-
ment of both follows in these words,
great tribulation."
Yet is this tribulation such as permits to them still a space
for repentance; but none to her any more. However it
be, whether the punishment of both be contained in the
same words, or whether there be contained under the ex-
pression, "I will cast her into a bed," some severe judg-
ment which I do not at present perceive; this is clear, that
while she receives her final sentence, they have a further
space for repentance. Now, it is very remarkable to find
how this is confirmed in God's dealings with the mystical
Jezebel," Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, with
whom the kings of the earth committed fornication." She
comes to her end before them; and they are represented
as bewailing her, and lamenting for her, when they shall
see "the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the
fear of her torments" (Rev. xviii. 9, 10). And so also do
all the classes of the earth, who knew her in the pride of
her glory and boasting, when she said in her heart, "I
sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and
mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned
with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."
There is then a space left for the kings of the earth during
which they confederate together, and make war with the
Lamb, and perish utterly in their undertaking. This co-
incidence between God's dealings with that woman Jezebel
and the whore of Babylon, which corrupted the whole
earth, is made the more remarkable from the expression,
"great tribulation," which is once more spoken of in this
book, as that out of which the white-robed and palm-
bearing company came. "These are they that come
out of great tribulation" (Rev. vii. 14). And when we
refer to the seventh vial, which is the great tribulation,
the great earthquake, when all the winds get loose to rend
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 645
the earth, we find immediately before it (Rev. xvi. 15)
mention made of a company who are warned to keep their
garments; being the last portion of that glorious company
of martyrs who have washed their robes, and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. This time of the coming
of the Lord is so remarkable for the distress of nations
which shall then be felt on earth, that it is often referred
to in the Gospels, and by the very name of the time of
the great tribulation: "For then shall be great tribula-
tion, such as was not since the beginning of the world to
this time, no nor ever shall be" (Matt. xxiv. 21).
"Im-
mediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the
sun be darkened...and then shall appear the sign of the
Son of Man in the heavens" (vers. 29, 30. See also Mark
xiii. 19, 24). These coincidences I cannot look upon as
accidental, connected as they all are with the coming of
the Lord; and being taken in conjunction with the obser-
vations made at the outset of this second part of our Lec-
ture, they are to be looked upon as strong confirmations
of the view which we have taken of this epistle as having
a reference to the mother of harlots, as well as to the
woman in the church of Thyatira, and so discovering to
the primitive churches the varieties of those temptations
with which Christ's catholic church was to be assailed.
The meditation of these things has several times sug-
gested to my mind the idea that by the bed here spoken of
is signified the lake of fire into which the woman and her
paramour, or, in other words, the beast and the false pro-
phet, are cast at the conclusion of the judgment: but
wanting Scripture authority for thus speaking of hell as a
bed, I have shrunk from giving it the form of an inter-
pretation, and mention it merely as a conjecture. It is said
in one of the Psalms, "Though I make my bed in hell."
And if casting him into a bed, signify the bed of mortal
agony, and death itself, then is hell the bed of the second
death. This interpretation, if it could be brought out
clearly as such, would also give great force to the diver-
sity of treatment between her and her children, of whom it
is said that they are killed with death: " And I will kill her
children with death." For in the last judgment, when the
beast and the false prophet who consummated the adul-
tery were cast into the lake of fire together, the kings of
646
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the earth, and their captains, and their mighty men, are
slain with the sword of Him who sat upon the horse. The
one is a continued torment, the other is an instant death.
This would give still a higher significancy to "the great
tribulation," as that state of torment during the Millennium
which even the devil is spared from enduring, and which
is described in these words of chap. xiv.: "If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in
his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without
mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the
holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the
smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever:
and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the
beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of
his name."
However this may be, whether it is to be looked upon
as just interpretation, or mere analogy, one thing is certain
from the comparison of this judgment with that of the church
of Pergamos; namely, that the highest aggravation of wic-
kedness is when the church herself becomes the seducer,
when she, who should have remained the model of chastity
and virtue, becomes the pander to all wickedness, the se-
ducer of the magistrates, and the kings, and the peoples of
the earth into all idolatry. This is the exact difference
between the Papal and the Protestant Churches. The
Papal is the seducer, the Protestant is the seduced. The
former is artfully deceiving the nations, and leading them
away from Christ; the latter are tempted by the powers
that be, to love and kiss them instead of Christ. The
former is the unnatural, the latter is the natural state of
wickedness. That we should be tempted, is our calling;
that we should yield to the temptation, is our sin; but that
we should become the tempter, is a sin of a far deeper die.
No one can deny that the churches of this land have sore
and grievously gone astray after the desire of carnal orna-
ments and endowments from the state; and that at this
moment they are sore enthralled to the powers that be,
and make a most shameful compromise of duty between
Christ and the powers of this present evil world. But
there is another stage in wickedness, when they shall be-
VII.] Thyatira- Universal Bishop: His Rebuke.
647
come the creatures of the State, to the prevention of the
truth, or to the hindrance and destruction of those who
hold it. If ever this should come to pass, and God only
knows how near or how distant it is, then verily destruction
shall come upon us to the very uttermost. It is not yet
clear to me in what way we are to be induced, or by what
means we are to be prevented; but this I clearly perceive,
that it is a time of great peril, from which I continually
pray that the Lord may deliver us.
"And all the churches shall know that I am he which
searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give unto every
one of you according to your works."-The language of
this passage is taken almost verbally from the prophecies
of Jeremiahı, xvii. 10: "I the Lord search the heart, I
try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways,
and according to the fruit of his doings." The expression,
"I search the heart and the reins," is a common form in
Scripture for the deep knowledge and thorough scrutiny of
God (Psalm vii. 9; xxvi. 2); because the reins were look-
ed upon amongst the Hebrews, and still are in the Eastern
parts of the world, as the seat of the deepest and inmost
affections, even more inward than the heart itself. Where-
fore in the xvith Psalm Christ saith of himself, "My
reins also instruct me in the night season," to signify that
the workings of his soul within, under the power of the
Holy Ghost, his holy reflexions upon the deep counsels of
God, were a continual instruction to him. And in Psalm
Ixiii. 21 the Psalmist (whoever he be) representeth him-
selt, when under agonizing doubts concerning an over-
ruling Providence, as being "grieved in his heart, and
pricked in his reins," expressing that sensation to which
every man of deep feeling must often have been conscious
of a thrilling, and more than thrilling, a prickling sensa-
tion, in that part of the body where the reins or kidneys
are seated. Like the " moving of the bowels," under
yearning affection; and "the breaking of the heart,"
through long continued and sore grief; the "pricking of
the reins," is used to express very deep and inward emo-
tion. To search the heart and the reins, is therefore to
go into the inward parts of a man, and inspect him through
and through. No man knoweth the things of a man, but
the spirit of a man which is in him; this, which no creature
648
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
knoweth, God knoweth, and thereby is his knowledge
distinguished from that of every creature. Of His Word,
that is, the personal Word, with whom "we have to do," it
is written, Heb. iv. 12, 13, "For the Word of God is quick,
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things
are naked, and opened unto the eyes of him with whom
we have to do." While this expression,
While this expression, "I am he which
searcheth the reins and the heart," is in constant use to
express the all-searching eye of God, I do not find that
it is any where in Scripture, save in the passage of Jere-
miah above referred to, connected with the retribution
and recompence, "giving unto every one according to his
works;" and it may therefore be regarded, if not as a
quotation, certainly as a distinct reference to that place
of the prophet where the discourse is concerning the judg-
ment of the Lord upon Judah; and curses are denounced
upon
the man who makes flesh his arm, blessings upon the
man that trusteth in the Lord. Then, to put away all by-
pocrisy and prevarication, he saith, "The heart is deceit-
ful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can
know it? I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even
to give every man according to his ways." And then
he instructs the prophet to go and summon the kings of
Judah to repent, even then at the eleventh hour, and the
Lord would remove his threatenings every one, and esta-
blish their thrones for ever. And so in the passage be-
fore us, Christ presenting himself to the church of Thya-
tira, with these eyes like flames of fire, doth describe,
first the faithful angel who stood as his representative,
then the impure woman who led his servants astray; and
then declares that he is conversant with the utmost work-
ing of every heart, and will come to recompence every
one according to his works: Wherefore, saith he, re-
pent ye, followers of that wicked woman; and ye who
have stood true, hold fast that which ye have till I come.
There is no doubt that this woman had proceeded with
great hypocrisy, in order to be able to escape the de-
tection of so vigilant and faithful a bishop of the church.
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 649
She and her followers said, that they knew the very
depths of Satan; and they were wont to make their boast
of their familiarity with his wiles, of their power to deliver
themselves out of all his snares: and the deceitful ser-
pent suffered them to sport with his name, and play
themselves with the beauty of his crest, and the many
foldings of his tail, until he had them grasped firmly in
his hold, and thoroughly imbued with his poison. To
great power of seduction, she had added great craftiness,
and brought the people into great depths of Satan, where
their minds were utterly lost and astray. No doubt there
was a good seeming, and a fair shew in the flesh; words
which savoured of the truth, plausible interpretations of
deep mysteries, and outward form of godliness: she claimed
inspection of the Spirit; and she gave forth her doc-
trines as true prophecies. Perhaps she was self-deceived
and used by the devil to deceive others: certainly it was
a system of deep and dark delusion; whose darkness to
penetrate Christ presenteth himself with the eyes of fire,
whose wickedness to destroy he presenteth himself with
the feet of fine brass; and to give them warning to repent
he chooseth this attribute of the omniscient Jehovah, and
claims it as his own: "I am he that searcheth the heart
and the reins, and I will give unto every one of you ac-
cording to your works;" not according to your words, but
according to your works; not according to your fair pre-
tensions, but according to your real performances. About
every system of falsehood there is a system of disguise
and deception. Satan cannot do good, he can only do
evil; and so far forth as we are under his dominion, we
can only do evil. The overtures and beginnings of things
by him overruled always put on the appearance of good ;
but in the progress they turn about, and end in fierce un-
adulterated wickedness. He will not lend his aid to keep
on a good cause; if he get his hand into it, it is only to
destroy and subvert it. Therefore Christ saith, “I will
give unto every one of you according to your works."
There is a certainty in that test of the true prophets from
false ones given by the Lord, By their fruits ye shall
know them" a preacher of lies can no more bring forth
the fruits of holiness and love than a briar can bring
forth grapes, Hence all the beresies in the primitive
3 K
650
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
church ended in, and indeed were accompanied by, the
most gross and fearful depravity. It is indeed from the flesh
that heresies spring (Gal. v. 20): some lust in the heart de-
sireth liberty in the mind, and setteth on the faculty of
wresting truth, nor suffereth it to rest until it hath got the
word of God brought over to speak a lie, and to consent to
its sensuality, whereupon it begins and enacts wickedness
by a law under the sanction of the name of God. There
is a heresy, and that a great one, upon two points at pre-
sent in the church; either they are heretical who say that
God loved and Christ died for only a part of men, or we
who say that God loveth and his Son died for all either
they are heretical, who say that Christ came in flesh
different conditioned in itself from ours, or we who say
that he came in flesh of our flesh, conditioned in all re-
spects as ours is, and owing its sanctification to the power
of the Holy Ghost in it. Now let those who are unlearned,
or unstable, look to see the fruits in the lives and in the
flocks of those who hold the one and the other of those
doctrines. For it cannot be, as I said, that a heresy can
originate any where but in the carnal man, or promote
any thing but carnality of mind, and produce any thing
but fruits of flesh; such as "hatred, emulation, wrath,
strife, envyings, and such like." Look well to it, all ye
people who are confused with the subtleties of ingenious
and speculative men. Your Lord hath given you a test
which will never fail you. If a man hold the truth, he is
bound to give proofs of it in a holy walk and conversa-
tion; because this is appointed by the Lord as one of the
means by which others shall judge of it.
The truth may
be held without these fruits: but in such a case it is but
an opinion, it is not a principle; a speculation of the
intellect, not a reality of our being. It is not the truth in
the love of it, unless it yield the peaceable fruits of righ-
teousness.
By this judgment which the great Head and Purifier of
the church threatens against the woman Jezebel and her
followers, it is said that all the churches should know that
He searcheth the heart and the reins. This indicates a
universality in the manifestation of the judgment, which ill
comports with the notion that these epistles were only for
a time and season of the churches; but agrees well with
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 651
the notion we have been working with, that they are in-
tended for all times, and all conditions of the Christian
churches. Moreover
Moreover it sanctions the notion which we
have been unfolding in the last two Lectures, that while
the circumstances of those several churches had a real
and an exact application to the local church of which
they are recorded, they have besides a typical and pro-
phetical application to certain conditions under which the
church should in successive periods be placed. For this
judgment of the woman Jezebel, who troubled the church
of Thyatira hath not reached the knowledge of all the
churches; seeing there is no record left of it, nor of her
on whom it fell, and hardly of the church in which it
occurred. To interpret, therefore, the circumstances
connected with this woman, literally of her, and obsti-
nately to refuse any typical or historical use of them, is
not only to make void but, I think, to falsify the
solemn declaration, that thereby "all the churches should
know" Christ's discernment through all veils of hypo-
crisy, and his punishment of all unrighteousness. But
understanding it figuratively of that mother of harlots,
that adultress wife of the beast, the head of the ten
kings; as Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, the head of the
Ten Tribes; it containeth a very grand truth, which in the
fulness of times shall be manifested. For the beast and
his spouse the false prophetess, and their children, being
cast into the lake of fire, and tormented with fire and
brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and of the
Lamb, shall indeed be an example and a terror to all the
churches which shall exist during the millennial period of
the church; as well as a manifestation to all saints in the
new Jerusalem, or out of it, of the knowledge and righ-
teousness which is in the Judge of all the earth. That
judgment of the false prophetess, and her adherents, shall
be the wonder and the admiration of all heaven and of
all the earth. As witness the astonishment of the tribes
of the earth set forth in the xviiith chapter, and the
hallelujahs of the hosts of heaven which follow after.
in the judgments contained in the Old Testament, the end
of them all is ever said to be, for to declare the righteous-
ness of Jehovah; so, under the New Testament, the judg-
ment of the beast and the false prophet is to declare the
As
3 K 2
652
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
righteousness of the Son of Man during the millennial pe-
riod of the earth, that we may be as much deterred from
evil by this awful spectacle, as they are encouraged to good
by the glorious reward of his saints in the New Jerusalem.
And to this refer also these last words of Isaiah the pro-
phet: "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon
to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh
come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they
shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that
have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die,
neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an
abhorring unto all flesh" (Isai. lxvi. 23, 24). In one word,
I think, and almost believe, that during the millennial pe-
riod of the earth, there will be a manifested hell in the lake
of fire, where the beast and the false prophet are, as well
as a manifested heaven in the city of the new Jerusalem,
which is the abode of the saints and the tabernacle of God
and of the Lamb. These two conditions, of the faithful
who overcame, and the faithless who yielded to the temptress;
of those who gave ear to the voice of wisdom, and of those
who listened to the wiles of the wanton woman (Prov. vii.
7, and every where,) shall be the two decided and decisive
cases to which the attention of the world shall be turned;
the two great proofs of that future dispensation, which is a
dispensation of works and judgment according to works,
as this is a dispensation of justification by faith, or con-
demnation on account of unbelief. I may deceive myself,
but it seems to me that all this, and much more, is taught
in the denunciation passed upon the Jezebel of the church
of Thyatira. She and her adherents are the persons on
whom the subjects of the last great down-trampling and
breaking into pieces are denounced of, just as the victo
rious of that church are the persons in whom those who
shall tread down and rule with an iron rod are spoken of.
No one hesitates to believe that the saints of Thyatira are
not the only persons who shall rule the world with the rod
of iron, and break it in pieces like a potter's vessel; and
why should any one think that Jezebel, her paramours, and
her children, are the only ones who shall be cast into that
fiery bed, broken in that direful tribulation, and slain with
that overflowing death? They also represent a class, those
who are seduced by the false prophetess and mother of
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 653
harlots; and in them is depicted the manner of the retri-
bution which shall come upon one form of iniquity, that of
being a member of the seducing church. And, in one
word, it is a great principle of interpretation, which more
and more clearly appeareth, that wherever, in these epistles,
two parties are set against each other, they are not only
real actors in those churches, but made representatives
of a set of actors which shall be in all times; and in their
several treatment of Christ, teacheth the several judgments
which, to the end and in the end, shall come upon these
classes in his church. And thus universal truth is taught
upon particular instances, as, in the Old Testament, with
Pharoah and the Assyrian, and Babylon and Tyre, &c. ;
and the method of prophecy from first to last appeareth to
be one.
There remaineth but one topic more to exhaust this se-
cond part of our subject, and conclude the message to the
angel-which is, the instructions of Christ to the faithful in
the church, couched in these words: “But unto
"But unto you, I say,
and unto the rest in Thyatira, As many as have not this
doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan,
as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden,
but that which ye have already hold fast till I come"
(vers. 24, 25). Upon the authority of the best manuscripts,
Guerbail makes no hesitation in throwing out the word
and in the clause, "unto you and the rest in Thyatira ;"
which makes it, being literally translated, "but unto you,
those that are left in Thyatira." This removes out of the
way the difficulty of discovering who are meant by the rest.
The angel is addressed always in the singular number,
thou, thy; when you is used in the place under considera-
tion, we understand him and his people; and who “the
rest" could be, was a question which we had no means of
resolving, till we found that the better reading was,
you who are left," that is, from this seducer who had her
paramour, and her children, in the church; " to those that
shall remain true to my word and service;" as we would
say,
"to the remnant. This bears as if she had been but too
successful in her arts of deception and delusion; that she
had carried away the greater number; that the church was
leavened with her abominations, and only some left in their
stedfastness. This also agrees well with the historical appli-
(4 to
3K 3
654
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
cation of the passage to Babylon, the mother of harlots, who
succeeded in carrying away the whole church, save those
144,000 who had the seal of the Father on their forehead,
and followed the Lamb whithersoever he went. The ori-
ginal Jezebel had corrupted all the prophets, or driven
them out of sight, save only Elijah-" and I am left alone;"
but the Lord had still reserved unto him seven thousand
knees who had not bowed to Baal. The mystical Jezebel
caused all men, both small and great, both bond and free,
to receive a mark upon their foreheads and their hands;
but the Lord reserved to himself one hundred and forty
and four thousand who obtained the victory over her mark
and the number of her name. And here, when the mys-
tical Jezebel and her doings are set forth in the actual
condition of a church, the great multitude are stolen away,
and the faithful are spoken of as "those that are left."
They are further described as "those who have not this
doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan,
as they speak." The doctrine I understand to be, that of
accommodating the church's discipline to the heathen
customs, and permitting, under the disguise of charity and
good fellowship, spiritual fornication, which always paves
the way to the natural or carnal crime. For in proportion
as you have a pure church, you have chaste women; and
when the church is apostate, and a pander to power and
wealth, you will find women and wives seducers of
young men. The state of morals in France and Italy,
compared with Britain; the state of morals in England,
compared with Scotland, fifty years ago, will testify to
this. It
It is almost unknown in this country for a woman
who has not herself been seduced to seduce a man; it is
not so in Papal countries, where the church is an abomi-
nable harlot. This wretched condition of the church
began in that Nicolaitane practice of homologating with
the Pagan worship, as far as could be; first in the pride
of knowledge and in the pleasure of worldly friendship,
then in the fear of persecution, then in the desire of gain
like Balaam, and now behold it is perfected into the most
gorgeous system of deception. But still through it all
there is a faithful remnant whom the Lord comforts with
words of strong assurance (xiii. 9, 10), whom in the
end he delivers with an high hand and an outstretched
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 655
arm, and straightway brings along with him to trample
the abominable wickedness under foot. Those in Thy-
atira who refused this doctrine of the false prophetess
are further characterized by these words, "which have
not known the depths of Satan, as they speak." This I
suppose refers to some cant saying amongst her disciples,
expressive of their self-confidence, and in contempt of the
more humble and heedful brethren who rather chose to
avoid the snares of Satan than to trust themselves amongst
them. The Apostle Paul, in his own actings, was very
careful "lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for
we are not ignorant of his devices" (2 Cor. ii.); and like-
wise was he jealous over them "lest by any means, as the
serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds
should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."
And he speaks of "false apostles, deceitful workers, trans-
forming themselves into the apostles of Christ: and no
marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of
light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also
be transformed into the ministers of righteousness, whose
end shall be according to their works" (2 Cor. xi.) The
depths of Satan, into which these infatuated persons were
plunged, I conceive to be the intricacies and subtleties of
delusion, the depths of error, the mazes of wandering, the
endless questions and strifes of words, which were so rife
in that age of the church, and always are when the truth.
as it is in Jesus is preached in simplicity. But when, as
in these our times, it is locked up in the concealments of
an intricate theology, when the catechisms of system have
supplanted the words of Christ, which are spirit and life,
Satan is little careful to perplex what is already perplexed
enough; the web is already woven, the net is already laid
to his hand his game is to wile people into it, to confine
them with its niceties and subtleties, and leave them
there; to give the words a nominal and conventional sig-
nification, and take from them the spiritual force of truth,
and so leave them to ring with their pleasant lullaby souls
asleep in carnal and orthodox security. But once let men
arise to let day-light into this roost of darkness; once let
men arise to give a basis of reality to these superstruc-
tures of the abstract intellect, and straightway he will
raise such a gabble about words, such subtle refinements,
656
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
such sophisms, as will bring back the endless questions of
the Apostles' times. This state of things I perceive to be
fast arising in the church. I see hundreds of armed
dialecticians sallying forth in the panoply of theological
armour, against single champions of the simplicity of the
truth as it is in Jesus Christ. And what then is the man
of God to do? Avoid their foolish questions and wire-
drawn arguments; leave them to themselves, and those
whom they befool: but stand thou for the truth, and be
instant to preach it in season and out of season. Resist
their false doctrines, condemn them, warn the church
against them; and when you meet them personally with-
stand them, as Paul did Peter; but trouble yourself not
at all with their logical refinements, their rhetorical flou-
rishes, their cruel mockings, their contemptuous flings,
against the truth: let these die out of mind as fast as
possible; and bring thou before the people the great
things and the true things of God, the simple and the
plain things of Jesus Christ, that he loved us, and took
flesh to sanctify and quicken it, is working in us the same
blessed effects, and coming with all his saints to reign
upon the earth. Reiterate the truth in all places, and
leave them if they can to beat it down, but they cannot.
Peradventure God may give them repentance to the ac-
knowledgment of the truth. "The depths of Satan" here
spoken of I conceive, however, to be something very
different from those gambols which the natural intellect
is now playing off in the sanctuary of the truth. Pro-
testantism is not the place for the manifestation of Satan's
deep plots and machinations against the truth. He ap-
pears amongst us either as a heady high-minded scoffer,
or as a swaggering bravo, contemning all mysteries, and
with the sword of the intellect shewing how he can
strip them naked and bare. In his hatred of the truth
he is the same, but in his practices different. It was his
contempt, as a Protestant liberal, of his own depths as
a Papal deceiver, which carried his great measure against
the civil state of Britain. He said in the mouths of many
of our divines, Oh! let us meet them on equal terms,
and we shall soon vanquish them.' Thus to gain his
ends will he not only bear to be scoffed at, but even stir
up the scoffer. How constantly doth he permit his
•
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 657
servants to name his name with a laugh! being content.
to have them on any terms; and to quiet their fears of
him by permitting them to make merriment at the men-
tion of his name. He knows that a day of recompence
is coming, in which he shall be able to exercise all his
inclinations upon them. Ah! he is dangerous game.
Thus he permitted himself to be entreated by these
followers of Jezebel. They talked familiarly of them,
knowing the depths of Satan; they were lifted up with
pride, and fell into his snare. The Lord preserve us
from all such vain confidence! I do not stop to point out
how this also coincides with the Papacy, to which Satan
gave his seat and his power and great authority.
To those in Thyatira who were left faithful in the midst
of these seductions of Satan and his minion, the Lord
says that he will put upon them none other burden; to
signify that his yoke, which is easy, and his burden, which
is light, was not to be added to on any account whatever ;
that the work of faith, the patience of hope, and the
labour of love, were to continue as the burden of his
church; and her only yoke to turn unto God from idols,
and to wait for his Son from heaven. Forms and cere-
monies, rites and ordinances, restrictions and severities of
every kind, as a part of his religion, the Lord and Master
of the church here doth discountenance and set aside,
unless expedient for the ends of godliness, and profitable to
the good order of the church. Times and days may be set
apart, and stated seasons of worship and service appointed,
and, under the same rule of expediency, dresses and other
symbols of office may likewise be permitted; but they are
not, and never can, without offence to this ordinance of
Christ, pass into the obligation of law, or be made terms
of Christian communion: they must remain in the lower
place of human inventions to serve good ends, and can
never be permitted to occupy the place of Divine ordi-
nances to convey the benefits of salvation. This word of
Christ's, "I will put upon you none other burden," is suffi-
cient justification to any one who shall say, These ordinances
of the church I cannot receive nor obey, if they be imposed
upon me as conditions to my salvation, or preliminaries to
the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, or
conditions to my abiding in the communion of the church;
658
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
:
because the church bath no such power bequeathed to her
by her Head; yea, and is expressly forbidden to make any
such additions to the necessary and indispensable obli-
gations of a Christian and if any church should excom-
municate any of her members on this account, she would
be guilty of lording it over the heritage of God, and they
would be innocent of any schism or breach in the body
of Christ. This is a great question, which for two centuries
agitated the Protestant church, and almost brought the
Church of Scotland to her grave. Those ceremonies
which the Church of England hath retained she would
have imposed upon us : this we resisted; and for this, as a
church, we stand excommunicated by her unto this day:
our ordination not recognised. Nevertheless, the Lord
hath justified our faithfulness, and rewarded our patience,
and blessed us, as the mother of the people, beyond any
church in Christendom. Whence, indeed, hath sprung
pride; and, along with pride, vanity, and cruelty, and self-
sufficiency: but God is not without his witness in the bosom
of that church; yea, and that a witness which is now speak-
ing to all Christendom.
On the other hand, while I thus stand up for Christian
liberty, I am far from encouraging insubordination of the
ruled to their rulers, of the Christian people to the Chris-
tian ministry. The power of the rulers in the church,
being derived from Christ, is to be guided and limited by
his instructions, to which we must not add, from which we
must not take away. But to carry these ordinances of
the Universal Bishop into effect, we must take order ac-
cording to some method and form, which may seem to our
wisdom and to the Holy Ghost most expedient thereto :
and the church must give heed to her overseers, and obe-
dience to their decisions; and this they do in honour of
that office which the Head of the Church hath conferred
upon certain of his members. But if these office-bearers
should require obedience to their precepts, however wise,
upon the pain and peril of excommunication, it ought to
be resisted, as an imposition upon the liberty which we
have in Christ Jesus; for it is requiring of us to observe
what Christ hath not required to be observed, in order to
eternal life. The end of the matter is, that the Holy
Scripture is the test to which every decision and deliver-
1
VII.] Thyatira- Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 659
ance of the church must be brought; and if any private
Christian see in his conscience that it is not consistent
therewith, or contradictory thereto, he is bound, by the
ordinance of his God, to disobey the ordinance of the
church, in so far forth as he sees the inconsistency, but no
further; and if for so doing he suffer the last penalty
of excommunication, he suffers it not as a schismatic, but
as a Christian, and the Spirit of glory and of his God
resteth on him; on their part he is evil spoken of, but on
God's part he is glorified. Well is it said, therefore, “I
will put upon you none other burden ;" and full well is it
added, "Hold fast that which ye have till I come."
:
I cannot suppose that these words refer to any thing
save those commandments and ordinances which Christ
left in his church, and of which we have the particulars in
the Apostolical Epistles. Sometimes I have been inclined
to suppose that the burden here spoken of is the same
with that which was imposed by the Council of Jerusalem
upon the churches, in these words: "For it seemed good
to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater
burden than these necessary things: that ye abstain from
meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things
strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep
yourselves, ye shall do well." (Acts xv. 28, 29). And
what seems to confirm this notion is, that the woman
Jezebel taught her followers to set at nought two out
of the four injunctions contained in this decree she
seduced the servants of the Lord to commit fornication,
and to eat things sacrificed to idols. But if this interpre-
tation of the burden mentioned in the text be admitted,
then doth it bring along with it the obligation of abstaining.
from blood, and from things strangled, as still enforced upon
the church; for Christ commandeth to hold fast that burden
which we have until he come. If, however, the interpre-
tation were otherwise made sure, it would be our duty to
adopt it, whatever might be the consequence. But, for two
reasons, I cannot bring myself to receive it: First, because
the scope of the epistle is, as we have said, of works in
general; and therefore it were going against the largeness
of the purpose of Christ in inditing it, to restrict its appli-
cation to those four prohibitions of the Council of Jeru-
salem Secondly, because the decree of that council, in
:
660
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
some part of it at least, can only be interpreted as tempo-
rary, seeing the reason assigned for it is temporary and
local: "for Moses of old time hath in every city them
that preach him, being read in the synagogue every Sab-
bath day" (Acts xv. 21). This shews that some part, at
least, of the decision was an expedient for the sake of
peace; a compromise and surrender of Christian liberty,
for the sake of the weakness and prejudice of others. And
the question is, Which part of the ordinance is for this
temporary end? Fornication is not so, neither is absti-
nence from idol feasts; both of these are points of mo-
rality and religion, which depend not upon time and place,
but are of a constant obligation. It remains, therefore,
that abstinence from blood, and from things strangled, are
the temporary restrictions put upon the church; whereof the
former contravened the covenant made with Noah, and the
latter the Levitical ordinance of uncleanness. And accord-
ingly, when the occasion ceased for observing these expedient
abridgments of Christian liberty, the observation likewise.
ceased, and the church resumed her freedom; but not so
with the other two ordinances, which are of continual
force. On these accounts, though startled at first with
the apparent coincidence of matter, and even of word,
between the Apostolic precept and the injunction before.
us, I have seen it good to look upon this coincidence as
only accidental, and to adopt the broad interpretation
given above.
The burden, therefore, which the church is commanded to
hold fast till Christ come, is, in the first place, and above all,
that reasonable service of presenting body, soul, and spirit,
a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. It is not
bodily service (which profiteth little); it is not ordinances.
and ceremonies, whether of Jewish or of Pagan origin; it
is not imposition of lordly and arbitrary ministers, which
is signified in that burden of Christ; but it is holiness
unto the Lord; it is love to God and love to men; it is
pure and heavenly morality; it is the resistance of the devil,
the world, and the flesh; it is the experience of that good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God. It is not Sab-
bath-keeping, or holy-day-keeping, but it is the keeping
of a continual Sabbath, and an unceasing holy-day. One
day in seven is well appointed by the church, and hath
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: His Rebuke. 661
been from the beginning kept, for the high ends of worship
and rest and rejoicing; and so fasts, in their proper season,
are well and wisely appointed: but let no one judge me
in these respects; or yet judge himself, as if, in well and
faithfully observing them, he had fulfilled the obligation of
the Christian Sabbath; which is not one day in seven, but
every day in the seven; for every day is the Lord's, and
all time is alike holiness unto the Lord. And so also a
Christian keepeth a continual fast; afflicting his soul for
sin, and deprecating the holy indignation of God from the
sinner; keeping his body under that he may not labour in
vain, and ever submitting himself to the fiery trial with
which it pleaseth the Lord to try him. This burden, I
say-which standeth not in time and place, that it should
be limited by them, but is the continual presentation of
every member in holiness unto the Lord, through the opera-
tion in us of the Spirit of the risen Christ-this burden of
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them-this imitation of Christ in all his ways and
in all his works-is the chief part of the burden referred
to in the text, which he commandeth us to hold fast until
he come.
This expression, "till I come," marks a constancy and
continuance and unchangeableness in the constitution of
the church, till the Lord shall come again in his glory and
in his majesty; and puts to silence all claims of men to
innovate, or alter in any essential matter the worship,
doctrine, discipline, or government of the Christian church.
Come in what name they may, till Christ appear they
come unsent of God, and can only be regarded as invaders
of the rights of the church, and intruders upon the prero-
gative of the Head of the church. Ours it is to hold fast
the church as she was constituted on the day of Pentecost,
and not to suffer her to be changed by the presumption of
any man whatsoever. If any man, filled with the hope of
the Lord's coming, shall therefore presume to set aside
the ordinances of the church as antiquated, and insist for
something new, let him be anathema. Till Christ come,
things must abide as they have been from the beginning,
without any addition or alteration from the mind of man,
or angel, or devil: and every form and ceremony, as hath
been said, is only a mean for carrying the mind of Christ
1
1
3 L
662
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
into effect; an expedient for the better execution of that
which is old, not an addition of something new. And
while we thus keep the integrity of the church against all
innovators, we must also guard it against all destroyers of
its original beauty. And this leads us to ask, whether
the church be indeed held at present in that completeness
in which we find her set forth at the day of Pentecost? for
from that we may not deviate, either by addition or sub-
traction. This now is a grave inquiry, to which I am led,
and indeed obliged, by the commandment of the Lord
now under consideration, "Hold fast that which thou hast
till I come."
Digression, to discover what the Church is charged to hold
fast till Christ come.
My idea of the church is derived from its name, “The
body of Christ ;" and of its endowment from the words
following, "The fulness of Him that filleth all in all
(Eph. i. 23). It is one as much as the Spirit is one :
"There is one body, and one Spirit " (Eph. iv. 4); and as
the body without the spirit is not the complete work of
God, so neither is the spirit without the body. When
Christ went unto the Father, he entered into the promise
of the Holy Ghost, and, being seated on the Father's
throne, began to act the Father's part, of governing the
world. Since that time he hath been known as the spirit,
and not as the visible Christ. But a spirit is not that which
God appointed this world to be governed by. He made
man to be his image and his king, and man is an embodied
spirit. And when man became enslaved to Satan, God,
keeping in his own hand the sovereignty, which had reverted
to himself through the disobedience of his vicegerent, did
hold it, not in his character of a pure spirit, but did assume
to himself, in the Word, the parts, affections, properties,
and attributes of a man, because as a man he was to redeem
all, and to govern all. And, now that as a man he hath
redeemed all, and is governing all, it were inconsistent
with the great idea of the man- and not the spirit-
governor, that Christ should now rule from his invisible
throne in the spirit without a body. This body is the
church, of which he, Christ, is not only the Spirit, but
likewise the Head. And the church is united to him, not
}
VII.]
663
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
only by having him inspiring her, but likewise by being
united with Him who is on the throne of God, being his
instruments, his members, for demonstrating before the
world as much of that power and authority which he hath
attained to, as is proper for this present state and condition.
of the world. This body, the church, the Father giveth to
him. It is the Father's gift of an inheritance in the saints
unto his Son, Christ. It is the Father's bringing a spiritual
seed out of him. It is the Father's forming a wife out of
him. It is the Father's producing from him a race of sons
of God, in room of those who heretofore mixed themselves
with the daughters of men, and forfeited their high estate.
It is the Father's deriving from Christ the royal family of
kings and priests by whom he is to govern the worlds.
And the church, thus constituted to be the body of Christ
for ever, through whom unto eternity he may put forth the
fulness of Godhead which is in him, hath at present upon
the earth the very same function to discharge; being unto
Christ for a body wherein to abide, and whereby to act out
before the world that office of a gracious Lord and holy
Christ to which he hath been exalted by his resurrection
from the dead. I say, the self-same office doth the church
now, and upon this earth, discharge, which she shall for
ever and over all creation discharge; being the members
of one Christ, united by one Spirit, and constituting one
household, and following one invariable rule and principle
of government, though consisting of many persons, divers
memberships; and perhaps also to occupy, as they now
do, various places in the one creation of God. Just as,
to compare great things with small, our king, by his
members, the ambassadors, governors, judges, lord-lieu-
tenants, &c., doth exercise one government, with one law
and principle, with one will and one mind, over the vast
extent of his dominion; so our invisible King, the Lord
Jesus Christ, doth at present put forth, by means of his
church, that power and authority upon this earth which
is proper now to be put forth. This is our idea of the
church; and we give it without hesitation as the true one
set forth in the Scriptures.
The next question which ariseth is, into what power hath
Christ entered; and how much of that power is it his good
pleasure to put forth upon this earth during this dispensa-
3 L 2
661
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
tion of his absence? With respect to the first part of the
question, I answer in his own word, "All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth." Seated in God the
Father's throne, he holdeth God the Father's sceptre, and
exerciseth God the Father's dominion. He is now creation's
God, as he was heretofore creation's Surety and Bondsman:
he is now creation's sceptre-bearer, as he was heretofore
creation's burden-bearer. Formerly he shewed himself
the suffering, mortal man: now he shews himself the ruling,
life-quickening God. It is this accession of honour and
of power, to which as Christ he passed, upon his leaving
this world and going to the Father, that forms the ground
of his consolation to his church under the present dispen-
sation of his absence. Therefore said he, it was expedient
for them that he should go away, for otherwise the Comforter
could not come: therefore said he, they should do greater
works than he had done, because he went unto the Father.
And, in short, the key to the whole of that consolatory
discourse contained in the xiv th, xvth, xvith, xvii th
chapters of John, is this, that by being absent from the
church in the world, and present with the Father, he should
enter into the glory and the power which must ever abide
with, and ever proceed from, the secret of the Father's
dwelling-place; which to possess and to occupy, he must
enter there, where creature never before did enter, and
never shall enter again, and where he entered because he
was Creator as well as creature. And this high reward of
his faithfulness, and demonstration of his Divinity, and
re-possession of the glory which he had with the Father
before the world was, having received unto himself, he
would, to the extent this present world can bear, make
manifest by means of those whom the Father had given
him out of the world to be one with him, as he is one
with the Father. With this comfort he comforteth his
church over his absence, and assureth them that he would
send unto them the promise of the Father, even power
from the Holy Ghost, when the Holy Ghost should have
come upon them (Luke xxiv. 49; Acts i. 4, 8). That the
church was to be made sharers in some way of that ac-
cession of power and glory into which he was exalted, is
the consolation with which he comforteth them, and for
the which he desireth them to wait in Jerusalem until they
VII.] Digression-Endowment of the Church.
665
should receive power from on high. And as to the other
part of this inquiry, to wit, How much of this his new
dignity and power it is proper for him to render, through
the church, visible unto the world, we are willing to be
guided by the fact that it was communicated on the day
of Pentecost, and by the testimonies as to what this was
contained in the Holy Scriptures. That gift of the Holy
Ghost, which was then given, is the same unto which we
are all baptized (Acts ii. 38, 39), and with the hope of
which he comforteth his church over his absence; which,
therefore, is our comfort, and ought to be our possession.
The question is, then, What was the gift of the Holy
Ghost at that time communicated to the church? for this
is what we are commanded to hold fast till he come.
Was it the gift of perfect holiness in flesh? I answer,
No: this we have in consequence of his life, and death,
and resurrection; or, rather his life and death; for as to
this, his resurrection did but seal what his life and death
had purchased. That which was by his life and death
accomplished is, the putting away of sin and death from
mortal and corruptible flesh. "Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world."
"He put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself." So far, therefore, as per-
fect holiness is concerned, we have it in virtue of a work
completed at the resurrection, not in virtue of the "pro-
mise of the Father," which he received after his resurrec-
tion. In order to become members of his body, we must
believe upon his work of putting away sin from all flesh
by his life and death: by which faith we enter into a holy
subsistence in the holy flesh of Christ offered for us on
the cross; and are no more in the flesh, but in the Spirit;
and live no more after the flesh, but after the Spirit. This
regeneration, this renewal after the image of God in righ-
teousness and true holiness, this dismissal (or, as our ver-
sion lamely translates it, remission) of sins, we are baptized
into, and every baptized person is answerable for the same.
But this is distinct from the gift of the Holy Ghost, into
the promise of which we are also baptized; and not to be
confused therewith, without confusing the work which
Christ by the Spirit did in flesh with that promise of the
Holy Ghost into which he entered when he went out of
the world unto the Father. There is a work which Christ
3 L 3
666
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
did in the world; and there is, distinct from this, a glory
and a power and a work, which it was put upon him to
enjoy and to execute when he went out of the world. We
obtain the former by eating his flesh and blood, through
faith, and thereby become members of his holy flesh, to
do in flesh the work of holiness which he also did. The
other we are thereby qualified to become sharers in, by
being made members of his body; and in it we share by
receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, shed down upon the
church on the day of Pentecost, to enable the church to
put forth of that fulness which is in her Head, so far forth
as it is convenient and proper that the same should be
put forth in this mortal state, before this sinful world.
Perfect holiness is the inward law and condition of the
church, by which her union with her perfectly holy Head
is preserved. Power in the Holy Ghost is her outward
action, as the body of Christ, in the sight of the world;
unto the manifestation of Christ's name by the church, as
he had manifested the Father's name; unto the proclama-
tion of Christ's power, grace, and goodness unto the world,
as he had proclaimed the Father's. Christ, by his union.
with the Father, did, in the days of his flesh, proclaim the
Father's glorious name and superabounding grace; with
which the Father being satisfied, doth, for the time thence
following, identify the name of Christ with his own, and
constitute a church in the world, which, by her union with
Christ, shall be able to testify to the name and glory of
Christ, who testifieth to the name and glory of the Father.
Christ having been, and being, the Father's true and faithful
witness, doth become the person witnessed of, and the
church are his witnesses; whom to witness, is to witness.
unto him who witnesseth unto the Father. But in our
witness we are able to go further than Christ went, for
this reason that in the days of his flesh the mortality of
flesh, and sin in flesh, and the principalities and powers
of darkness, therein holding their throne and revelry, were
not yet conquered, condemned, and openly made a shew
of; the prison-house of the grave was not yet opened, nor
its captivity was not yet led captive. The Captain of our
salvation entered into a field wherein the legion of our
enemies lay encamped in battle order; we enter into a
field all strewn with the wrecks and spoils of their defeat.
VII.]
667
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
We are baptized into flesh redeemed, into a world disem-
powered, whose prince is judged and cast out. We come
not to fight a battle, which is already fought, but to ride
over the necks of a prostrate foe. They idly speak who
say that he had not so many enemies as we, that he
had not flesh to contend with. Oh, what an error ! It
is there we have the advantage of him, and enter into the
fruits of his victory. He wrestled with sin in the flesh,
and condemned it utterly, dispossessed it, and cast it out:
we enter into the fruits of his warfare, of his toil and sweat
and blood. O ye thoughtless and ignorant men (for igno-
rance is your only apology), why will you go about to take
away from Christ the glory and the greatness of his work!
I am ashamed of you: I grieve that such things should be
spoken in the bosom of my mother's family. They cannot
long be spoken without calling down judgment upon the
house. Either the truth must be confessed, and the house
saved, or it must be cast out, and the house destroyed.
But, to return.
What portion of the power now possessed by Christ is
proper to be put forth upon the earth during this season of
Satan's presence therein, is still in question before us;
though I hope, from what hath been said, it is no longer
in question how that measure and portion of it shall be
put forth. The body is the organ by which the spirit
within a man doth manifest itself to the world; and the ·
body of Christ, which is the church, is the organ by which
He, acting from the invisible seat of the Father by the
invisible Spirit, must manifest himself unto the world.
There is no other medium of communication between
Christ abiding with the Father, and the world, but the
church in the flesh and herein the church in the body
hath a manifest importance, and I would say pre-eminence
of usefulness, over the church disembodied, in that she is
the organ of communication between the invisible Christ
and the visible world. This being fixed and settled, we
now come to the nice inquiry,-How much of that power,
which Christ hath received, is it befitting to him and the
Father to put forth by the church in this the day of his
absence? And, first, it may be asked, Why not the whole?
The answer is, That if the whole were put forth, the devil
would be cast out, and all wicked men with him, and sin,
:
668
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
and death, and all obstruction, and contradiction, and
darkness, and dishonour, into the lake that burneth, there
to consume for ever and ever; and there would be nothing
to be done at his coming again. There is an economy in
the putting forth of that power which resideth in the
Father's throne; an economy which answereth to the times
and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own
power. Therefore it is, that in the writings of the Apostles
the gift of the Holy Ghost is spoken of only as a first-fruits
of that which is yet to be received; and the full harvest is
made to consist in the redemption of the body as it is
written, Rom. viii. 23: "And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we our-
selves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to
wit, the redemption of our body." This passage instructeth
me, that the gift of the Spirit by the church, now possessed,
is the first-fruits of that complete power of the Spirit which
she shall possess when the body shall be redeemed from
the corruption of the grave; and the context further in-
structeth me, that the whole creation is groaning, and
travailing, and crying unto God, for a redemption which
she shall receive at the same time from the bondage of
corruption : "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth
in pain together until now; and not only they," &c.
"The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God." The Apostle Paul
evidently saw the redemption of the bodies of the saints,
and their manifestation as the sons of God, and with them
the redemption of the whole creation from its present bon-
dage, to be that complete harvest of the Spirit whereof
the church doth now possess only the first-fruits - that
is, the first ripe grains which could be formed into a
sheaf, and presented in the temple as a wave-offering unto
the Lord. Most strikingly confirmatory of this is what he
declareth concerning the same gift of the Spirit, in his
Epistle to the Ephesians, i. 13, 14: "In whom also, after
that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of
promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of
his glory." And likewise in chap. iv. of the same Epistle
he saith, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye
are sealed unto the day of redemption." And the self-same
VII.]
669
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
language holdeth he twice over in his Second Epistle to the
Corinthians: (i. 22) "Who hath also sealed us, and given
the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts :" (v. 5) " Now he
that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who
also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit." In all
these passages the gift of the Spirit which the church had
received, and was possessed of, is set forth as an earnest or
pledge of what she is to receive and possess against that
day, called The day of redemption, and, The redemption.
of the inheritance. The inheritance is the earth and the
inferior creation; not yet redeemed from the bondage of
corruption, but to be redeemed, according to St. Paul, in
the day of the manifestation of the sons of God; in the day
of the redemption of the body; in the day of the resurrec-
tion of the saints; in the day of the casting out of the
devil and his works; in the day of the destruction of
death, and the victory over the grave. The earnest "
(by which it is also named) is, like the first-fruits, only a
part of that which is yet to be earned; and also, like them,
of the same kind, but not in the same measure; a partial,
not a complete thing-yea, but a small part of the whole,
and yet sufficient surety that the whole shall, in the ful-
ness of the times, be likewise ours. Wherefore, also, it is
called the seal, being that mark which God affixeth upon
his people, and by which he determineth that they are his.
Now if any one has been accustomed to interpret these
passages of the regenerating and sanctifying work of the
Holy Ghost, he must, with all speed, disabuse himself of
that error, which compromises a great point of personal
holiness. For if the thing spoken of in these passages be
regeneration and sanctification, then is that work of the
Spirit only a partial and incomplete work, and we cannot
look for any thing beyond a first-fruits of holiness, an ear-
nest of holiness; which is to sanctify the imperfections and
short-comings of a believer, and to fix him in very partial
holiness, and to take away from him both the hope and the
desire of being holy as God is holy, and perfect as our
Father in heaven is perfect. No: we are baptized into
perfect holiness, into the positive and absolute dismissal of
all sin, into the burial of the flesh with its corruptions and
lusts, the quickening of the spirit into all holiness. "The
law of the Spirit of life doth make us free from the law of
670
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
death" and every short-coming from this perfect righte-
ousness is a stain upon our white raiment, which must be
instantly confessed and grieved over, and washed white in
the blood of the Lamb: it cannot be tolerated, it cannot
be indulged, it cannot be sanctioned from Scripture; it
ought not to exist within the church; it is an offence to
God, a disgrace to the body of Christ, and cannot be jus-
tified by any means. Those passages of Scripture, there-
fore, which speak of a gift of the Spirit which is only
first-fruits of something greater and better, cannot, must
not, be referred to regeneration and sanctification, but to
that power of government and authority entered into by
Christ when he passed out of the world unto the Father;
whereof it is expedient and economical that a part only
should be possessed and exhibited by the church during
this our mortal estate. It is, moreover, manifest that these
passages have nothing to do with the cleansing of the con-
science from dead works, which proceeds from the blood
of Christ (Heb. xiii.); and the answer of a good con-
science, which proceeds from baptism (1 Peter): not only
because these are complete works, and not first-fruits and
earnests, but also because the work spoken of is con-
nected with the redemption of the inheritance, with the
deliverance of the creation, with which the work in the
conscience hath nothing to do. The work of soul-cleans-
ing, which regeneration is, is wholly spiritual, and not part
or parcel of the work of redeeming the body and the in-
heritance, which is wholly natural or physical. The crea-
tion natural or physical was finished when the body of
man was created out of the dust of the earth: the creation
spiritual began when God breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and he became a living soul. In the re-
demption, or regeneration, the thing is reversed. First the
soul within is cleansed, whereby Christ proveth himself to
have been the Creator of the invisible spirit, Him who
breathed it into man; and the spirit of man, thus re-
deemed and regenerated by its Creator, is left alone in
the midst of an unredeemed and unregenerated world, to
shew its separateness therefrom, and superiority thereto,
by triumphing over all creation's evil propensities, and
enforcing all creation, with the body which commands it,
to do homage unto Christ its King and Lord. And to
VII.]
671
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
make it the more manifest that this period between the
regeneration and the redemption of the body is the period
for testifying the supremacy of spirit over nature, of soul
over body and bodily dependencies, not only is the body,
and the world its servant, left under the law of corruption
and death, and yet made obedient unto the law of holiness
and life; but also the person of Christ, by whose power
alone this supremacy of the regenerate soul is maintained,
is taken out of the world, and the communication between
him and our souls is carried on, not through sense, but
through faith, not by vision, but by the invisible Spirit.
So that, ever since the departure of Christ out of the world
unto the Father, it hath been a season and a time for
making apparent, and putting beyond doubt, the truth,
that Christ was the Father of the living soul; that he is
the Redeemer of it; and that, through faith and union with
him, living souls can and will govern the corporeal world.
In one word, during the absence of Christ there have been
regenerate souls and an unregenerate world, and these re-
generate souls have performed the will of God in despite
of unregenerate bodies and an unregenerate world. This,
now, is the mystery of the regeneration of the soul, which,
as we have said, is not part and parcel of the body and
world to be regenerate, but is the opposite thereof; and
therefore I conclude, with a certainty which they only
who understand doctrine can feel, that those passages, in
which the gift of the Holy Ghost is set forth as an earnest
of the redemption of the world, cannot have any reference
whatever to the regeneration of the soul, or cleansing of the
conscience, or renewal of the spirit, which we are baptized
into.
These thoughts may be judged more deep than per-
tinent to the subject in hand. They are indeed very deep,
and I devoutly praise God for having been able to express
what I have long brooded in my mind; but they are like-
wise very pertinent, and yield a complete solution of the
question in hand. For, seeing that the thing which is now
proceeding, according to the economy of the Divine pur-
pose, is the manifestation of a renewed spirit's power to
do God's will, despite of a rebel flesh and world; and to
testify the
power which Christ, by means of the reasonable
soul, shall yet exercise over the world, to quicken the dust
672
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of corrupted bodies, to renew the decayed face of the
earth, and to cast forth of the world's verge the recreant
spirits of darkness, with their retinue of wicked men; and
seeing that, while we have the completeness of the former,
we have only the first-fruits of the latter; we ought now to
find in the renewed spirits of men a power and faculty to
exhibit in the body and upon the body, in the world and
upon the world, such actings of Christ as shall not only
foreshew, but really be, a first-fruits and earnest of that
perfect and complete acting in which he is to go forth.
when he comes to redeem the body and to redeem the
inheritance.—If, now, you ask me to come to closer quar-
ters, and tell you distinctly what these actings be, I accept
the challenge most willingly, and proceed to shew you
them, first, in promise from the mouth of the Lord; and,
secondly, in existence in the church.
I. This power is contained in promise in many parts of
Scripture as in Isaiah viii. 18, where Christ declareth of
himself, and his children by regeneration, that they are
for signs and for wonders; and in the prophecy of Joel,
which hath reference to that fulness of which we have
received, and do enjoy, only the first-fiuits; and twice
by the Lord-in these words, "If your faith were as a
grain of mustard-seed, ye would say unto this mountain,
Remove, and be cast into the depths of the sea, and it
would be done unto you ;" and again in that strong asse-
veration, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater
works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Fa-
ther" (John xiv. 12). But it is most fully developed in
the last verses of the Gospel by Mark, from which I
prefer to set forth the endowment in promise. The last
six verses of that chapter contain the substance of the
church's commission, given to her in the persons of the
eleven Apostles, commanding them to go and preach the
Gospel of the kingdom to every creature under heaven,
with the assurance that "whosoever believed it, and was
baptized, should be saved; whosoever believed it not,
should be damned." Then addeth he these words, " And
these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name
shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new
tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink
VII.]
Digression-Endowment of the Church. 673
""
any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay
hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark xvi.
17, 18.) These words being spoken, it is said that "he
was received up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of
God; and that they went forth and preached every where,
the Lord confirming the word with signs following." Now,
then, it is to these signs that I would direct your attention,
as containing the particulars of that gift of power which
was superadded to the work of complete regeneration
sealed up to the believer in baptism. They consist of five
particulars-First, the casting out of devils. This is a
first-fruits of that casting out of Satan and his angels into
the bottomless pit, to be reserved in chains of darkness
unto the judgment of the great day, which shall be ac-
complished at the redemption of the body and the inhe-
ritance. And because Satan
And because Satan is the author and continuer
of the bondage from which Christ came to redeem, whose
works Christ was manifested to destroy, the church, in
order to possess and shew forth unto the world what Christ
will yet do by that devil whose thrall the world is, hath
given to her power in the Spirit to cast out devils from the
bodies of men; and thus doth she rebuke the world of
judgment, because the prince of this world is judged ; and
she shews that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto
men, when their children are able to cast the devils out.
Christ's supremacy in the spiritual world, the completeness
of his redemption, is continually declared by this power in
the church to cast out devils; and a testimony is conti-
nually kept up for the truth, against the continual lie of
Satan and the world, that he is its prince, and that all its
kingdoms are his. No, says the church; Christ is the King,
and in his name I cast Satan and his tribes out of the
bodies of men.
The second of those particulars embodied in the gift of
the Holy Ghost is, that they should " speak with new
tongues;" which had been prophesied of by Isaiah, xxviii.
11, and was given on the day of Pentecost. Now this is
the demonstration that Christ is the Lord of human spirits,
as the former is the demonstration of his being Lord over
evil spirits. For to use my tongue is the prerogative of
my soul; no other human person but myself can use it
if, therefore, it be used in such a manner as I cannot-for
;
3 M
674
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
example, to speak a tongue which I do not understand,
and in that tongue to utter reasonable speech-then is it
true that another holdeth the mastery over me. Who that
other is, must be determined by the thing which is spoken:
for devils, we know, did use the tongues of men to utter
things which they themselves knew not, and could not
know; confessing Jesus to be the Christ, and the Holy
One of God. And, therefore, in order to determine and
try the spirit which spoke, certain tests were given, of
which these two are the chief-to wit, whether their words
bore testimony of the true flesh and to the real lordship
of Christ. This being ascertained, then the spirit which
possessed the man, and used his tongue, is known to be
the Spirit of God; which is distributed through the body
by Christ, the Head of the body; who therefore is proved
to be Lord of human reason, Inhabiter of the souls of men,
not by a figure, but in very truth, when forth from the
souls of men he speaketh the glorious things of God in
words which they understand not, and of which they must
receive the interpretation at another time, or from another
person, certainly by another act of the Spirit of Christ.
The presence of Christ in the souls of his people; his
power to actuate their will, and to use their tongue, and by
it to express the forms of reasonable truth, while they
themselves are all passive in his hands, as the trumpet in
the hand of the priest ; doth clearly demonstrate him to be
the Lord of the souls of men, and able to use their tongues,
as hereafter he will do, in giving forth his word unto all the
regions of creation. It is a first-fruits of that power which
shall be hereafter, inasmuch as, though it be uttered to all
the nations of the earth, it is not by them obeyed; whereas,
in the time to come, in the eternal age, through them,
even through the members of his church, he shall speak
to all regions of the world, and it shall be done
former proveth him to be the Lord of evil spirits, to cast
them out of men; this proveth him to be the Lord of
human spirits, to fill them with the wisdom and the power
of God; and these two together do leave mankind without
excuse; for what doth man want, but a Redeemer who is
able to cast the devil out and to bring God into him
again? There are many other things connected with the
gift of tongues, into which we cannot enter in this place;
The
VII.]
675
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
but that which we have stated is, we believe, the substance
of it considered as a sign.
Now the third particular brings us at once out of the
spiritual into the material world: "They shall take up
serpents." It was said of the serpent, "I will put enmity
between thee and the woman ;" and between serpents and
mankind there is a deadly enmity, insomuch that the poison
of serpents will not only almost instantaneously destroy
life, but reduce the body to corruption: and therefore in
this place it is put forth as the representative of that en-
mity which is come between man and the lower creatures,
which were made to reverence, to serve, and not to destroy
him. Now to this curse of rebelliousness the creatures
were made subject not willingly: it is not their nature by
creation, but it is the cruel sign of their stern bondage to
the enemy of man. By receiving power from the Holy
Ghost, therefore, to take up serpents, it is signified that
Christ hath redeemed the lower creatures also from their
bondage; and restored man to that supremacy over the
animals, and the animals to that innocent obedience of
man, with, and for which, man and they were created.
The church, therefore, by possessing this power to take
up serpents, gives a manifest sign unto the world that a
time is surely to come when "the wolf shall dwell with the
lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the
calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a
little child shall lead them: and the cow and the bear
shall fced; their young ones shall lie down together: and
the lion shall eat straw like the ox and the sucking child
shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child
shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den." (Isai. xi. 6—8),
The church, by possessing this power, bath in her hand the
earnest and first-fruits of that power "over the sheep and
oxen and beasts, over the fowl of the air, and fish of the
sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea,"
which Christ hath purchased for himself, and possesseth
in full right as Lord of all; which, however, it suiteth not
the economy of the Father's times that he should take
upon him at present, but of which he giveth to the church
an earnest, and by her giveth to the world a sign, that he
will in the fulness of the time take unto himself.
But beside the animal creation, which was originally
3 M 2
676
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
subject unto man, and is now subject unto him again in
the person of Christ Jesus, there is the inanimate or ele-
mental creation also, which hath escaped from its subser-
viency, and become enslaved unto evil. The poisons
which the earth produceth, the noxious vapours exhaled
from the waters, and the deadly infections which the air
scattereth abroad, the storms and tempests which devas-
tate the face of the world-these, and all other violences,
are the signs of that bondage into which sin hath brought
all things, and out of which Christ by his righteousness
hath redeemed all things. And when the fulness of the
time is come for him to appear again, he shall come as the
Liberator of all nature from her thraldom. If, now, Christ
have in hand power to redeem all nature out of the bonds
of evil, and the church have in the Holy Ghost a first-fruits
thereof, she must possess the power of miracles, to arrest
the evil course of things, and to turn them into that righ-
teous course which they shall observe for ever; power
she ought to possess over the laws of the world, such as
was possessed by our Lord when he stilled the raging
winds and calmed the tempestuous deep. And foras-
much as poisons are the most pregnant evidences of the
evil condition of nature, Christ, by giving to him that
believeth power over the same to suspend their evil effects,
doth thereby give unto his church the best first-fruits of
that power which he now possesseth, and she shall here-
after possess, the power to press out from every plant,
and from every element of nature, the various principles
of death and destructiveness. For which reason it is, that
in the Scriptures all nature is represented as rejoicing in
the prospect of the Lord's coming; as for example: "Let
the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea
roar, and the fulness thereof; let the field be joyful, and
all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood re-
joice before the Lord: for he cometh to judge the earth :
he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people
with his truth." Psal. xcvi.
By the last two particulars are established the supre-
macy of man's body over all nature, and the ministry of
all nature to its health and well-being, as parts of the re-
demption which Christ hath wrought out for those that
believe; and by the two former, the supremacy of man's
VII.]
677
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
soul over the devils, and its subjection to God through
the Holy Spirit, are likewise shewn to be of that redemp-
tion purchased by Christ; but there still remaineth one
part of creation-to wit, man's body-over which, by these
signs, the redemption of Christ should be shewn to extend ;
and this we have as the last particular: They shall lay
hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Sickness is sin
apparent in the body, the presentiment of death, the fore-
runner of corruption. Disease of every kind is mortality
begun. Now, as Christ came to destroy death, and will
yet redeem the body from the bondage of corruption, if
the church is to have a first-fruits or earnest of this power,
it must be by receiving power over diseases, which are the
first-fruits and earnest of death; and this being given to
her, completes the circle of her power. For in creation
there is no more than these five parts: the pure spirit, the
embodied soul of man, the body of man, the animal crea-
tion, and the inanimate world: of all which sin hath taken
possession, and over all which Christ hath obtained supe-
riority, to re-constitute them in that way which shall for
ever demonstrate the being and attributes of God. This
superiority, this ownership, he now inheriteth in sole right
and possession; but, evermore willing to shew forth his
dutifulness to his Father, not less on heaven's throne than
in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, he doth
wait upon the Father's will to determine the time when
the day of complete redemption shall at length arrive; and
the Father, in order to gratify the Son, and make known
his surpassing goodness and the riches of his glory, doth
beget unto him, out of sinful flesh, a body, the church,
unto whom he may communicate his fulness, and by
whom he may express it unto all creation; ruling and
governing, by these his kings and priests, those innume-
rable worlds which he hath purchased with his blood (for
the heavenly things, as well as the earthly things, were
purified by his blood): and meanwhile, until the day of
the refreshing, until the restitution of all things cometh,
he doth, by means of this church, which the Father hath
given to him for a body, and which he hath informed with
his own Spirit, communicate a first-fruits and earnest of
that power which he is hereafter by their means to express
in its fulness, and to hold for ever, And this he doth to
3 M 3
679
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the end that devils, and devil-possessed men, may know
the certainty of that doom which abideth them, and that
the latter may cast in their lot with the righteous and be
saved; while to the bodies of men, and to all inferior
creation, he doth make sure that redemption from the
grave and from the curse which they shall surely obtain.
This first-fruits of power, to cast the devils into hell, to
raise the bodies of the dead, and to hold the superiority
of all inferior creation, being possessed by the believing
church, doth continually demonstrate and signify unto the
world who, and of what kind, their Redeemer is; who, and
of what kind, is that man, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God
hath constituted both Christ and Lord. This first-fruits
and earnest of the inheritance of power and prerogative,
which under him we are yet to hold, is likewise the
church's argument to men of their certain destruction, if
they come not forth from the world; of their superlative
dignity and honour, if they do come forth from it into the
bosom of the church. It is a sign of that which we preach
Christ to be,-Lord of all. It is a sign of that which we
preach him as about to do,-to cast out devils, to raise
the dead, and to liberate the creature. It is a sign of what
we, the church, are, in real uninterrupted union with him,
holding a real power under him,—the arm of his strength,
the temple of his presence, the tongue of his Spirit, the
manifoldness of his wisdom, the kings and the priests of
Christ for God.
This, now, is an exhibition of the length and breadth of
that gift of the Holy Ghost which the church hath, in
earnest of that fulness of Him that filleth all in all; which
is her prerogative; for which in the fulness of time she
waits; holding it now in faith, then to have it in possession.
Our evidence-writers have never comprehended the depths
of this subject: their books are mere rag-rolls, fragments,
and tatters of the substantial doctrine: no Christian
writings, but metaphysical or antiquarian researches. These
miracles they make to stand merely in their power: and
so, say they, they demonstrate God to be with the worker
of them; and if so, then are they signs that he is sent by
God, and ought with prostration of mind to be listened to.
Now, be this granted, and what to do hath it with Christ?
It were an argument for an heathen as good as for a
VII.]
679
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
Christian. It is merely an argument that the God of na-
ture is with this man; there is no recognition of Christ as
the doer of the work; there is no recognition of the work
itself being part and parcel of Christ's redemption. Indeed,
the substance or nature of the work is never once con-
sidered by these evidence-writers. But, besides the lean-
ness and emptiness of their speculation, I deny both the
premises and the conclusion. First, the premises, that a
mere miracle demonstrates God to be the worker. Miracles
have been done by the power of Satan and Beelzebub ;
and more are promised to be done; and no man can tell
what power beyond man's science the spirits of darkness
possess. It is not the powerfulness, but the moral cha-
racter of the miracle, that proves it to be Divine. Is it
in the way of evil or of good? in the way of redemption
or of bondage? is it in furtherance or hindrance of Satan's
kingdom? The miracle appeals to the moral part of man;
to the conscience, and not to his power.-Next, I deny
their conclusion. Men may do miracles in the name of
Christ, and yet be wicked men as our Lord himself de-
clares, that many shall say in that day, Have we not in
thy name cast out devils, and done many wonderful works?
of whom he shall profess that he never knew them. A man
may possess the powers of the world to come, and yet fall
away into evil courses (Heb. vi.) Wherefore I
say, that
the circumstance of a man's doing miracles, or having done
miracles, doth not seal up every word he speaketh as truth,
even though these miracles be done in the name of Christ,
and by the power of God. The word he speaks appealeth
to the conscience of man; and God did never intend that
man in hearing his word should be less than man, a being
responsible, and conscious of moral truth.-But my present
occupation is not to reprove the modern evidence-writers;
whom I would not have noticed in this place, had it not
been to shew the true origin of that most erroneous opinion
of these latter times, and of this Protestant section of the
church, that these gifts of the Holy Ghost were intended
only for a season, until the canon of Scripture was com-
pleted, and the Book had found a place and an authority
amongst men. The whole of this idea is a tissue of error
and contradiction, which it is not my present business to
expose. Yet from this account, meagre and false as it is,
680
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of the "signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts
of the Holy Ghost," hath sprung the diabolical hatred with
which the Christian sçavans — for I cannot call them divines
-are filled upon the very mention of the existence of
these gifts in the church. They are like men demented,
given over, and toppling to their downfall. The way in
which the idea has been scouted and hooted at, by what
are called divines (but if they would retain the name much
longer, they must make it good by other means than
scandalous abuse and mocking raillery), is to me the fear-
fullest sign of the Protestant church, and especially of the
Evangelical sect in the bosom of it. But, to return from
this digression.
II. Having set out the largeness and the particularity of
the gift or power which the church hath given to her, in
earnest of her full inheritance, and that she may serve for
a witness of that which she preacheth concerning the
present lordship and future action of Christ; we now come
to take a view of the same thing, not as it lies in promise,
but as it is in real existence and was in active exertion in
the church. And to the intent that we may here, as
always, have under our feet the firm continent of the word
of God, and not sail widely in the waste of fanciful specu-
lations or scholastic inventions, we betake ourselves to the
xiith chap. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, to see
there the form and function of the Christian church, in
that state in which Jesus did constitute it, and in which
he requireth us to hold it fast till he come. The Apostle,
speaking of the state of the church at Corinth, and taking
in hand to order it aright, and so to leave upon the record
of Scripture the scheme of a rightly constituted church;
and having already discoursed of the true foundation of
Christ and him crucified, and of holy discipline, and of
separateness from idolatry and fornication, and of the right
administration of the Lord's Supper; doth in this chapter
take up the subject of spiritual gifts, or gifts of the Spirit,
in contradistinction from charity, which is the more ex-
cellent way, and the bond of perfectness, that spirit of
complete holiness into which we are baptized. And con-
cerning these he first asserteth three things in general, to
point out the several parts which the several persons in
the Godhead had therein. And, first, he asserteth that
VII.]
681
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
the diversities of gifts which were dispersed throughout
the members of the church, like the diversity of members
in the body, did not prove that there were many spirits,
but that there was one Spirit, the one life of the whole,
and dividing unto every one according as he will; that no
one member possessed the whole power of the Spirit, but
only a part thereof, and craved as much the help and
ministry of every other part as they in their turn did crave
of it; Christ alone having the seven eyes, which are the
seven spirits of God. And therefore it is observed by the
Apostle, secondly, that there are diversities of ministries,
but the same Lord; that is to say, in other words, various
persons into whose hands the administration of these gifts
was committed, and who were responsible for the use of
them in behalf of the whole body and of the world without;
according as it is written in the xiith chapter of the Ro-
mans: "Having then gifts differing according to the grace
that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy
according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us
wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;
or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let
him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence;
he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness."-The third
observation in general is, that as the substance of all the
gifts is the one Spirit, and the administrator of them all the
one Lord; so the in-worker of the gifts in all the persons
is the one and the same God, whose Godhead the Son is
filled with in his human nature to serve out to men, while
the Holy Ghost carrieth on and supplieth the service. So
that verily these gifts, ministries, and operations are God.
working by means of men what his good pleasure is; even
as the Apostle declareth in the First Epistle to the Corin-
thians, ch. xiv. vers. 24, 25: “But if all prophesy, and
there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he
is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the
secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on
his face he will worship God, and report that God is in
you of a truth."-These three observations the Apostle
makes, to prevent the diversity of the gifts and the mi-
nistries and the operations from leading to schism, instead
of preserving unity, as their intention is; his object being
the same as is expressed more fully in the iv th chapter of
682
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the Ephesians, from the 3d to the 17th verse, where the
unity standeth in these particulars, "one body, one Spirit,
one hope of your calling, one hope, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through
all, and in you all,”—a sevenfold and perfect unity. These
three observations are of great price, as teaching us that
the church, under Christ its head, and with the Spirit for
its inspiration, is the one great instrument of God in which
and by which to carry on all his operations; a temple for
the Eternal God to dwell in; a sufficient body for express-
ing all his mind, and doing all his will. This is a very
great, and almost an inexpressible idea; but it is the only
adequate idea of the church, considered, not in relation to
Christ, but considered in relation to the incomprehensible
God. In relation to Christ, it is as the body to the Head;
but in relation to God, it is as the whole body under its
Head to the Will. And herein lies the necessity that the
Head of this body should himself be adequate to the com-
prehension of God, filling his bosom; otherwise there were
no understanding how a finite thing could keep up com-
munication and sympathy, proportion and measure, with
what is infinite. The whole mystery of redemption is
God's obtaining for himself such a complete organ of ex-
pression and of action, in the finiteness of which the attri-
butes of his own infinite being might be truly and fully
expressed. To procure for Godhead such a fit organ, the
Son and the Holy Ghost do, without departing or separating
from the Godhead, which is impossible, take connexion
with the creature, and from a portion thereof do constitute
that most seemly and adequate Shechinah of the Eternal
God. This portion of the creation is the election; and
the Shechinah, or glorious habitation thus constructed, is
the church; and the Head of it, or holder of it up, is Christ;
and the Life of it, or the holder of it together, is the Holy
Ghost. And the materials thus headed up and holden to-
gether for a dwelling-place, and, so to speak, embodiment
of God, are all of the fallen creation; of the creation after
it hath proved that in itself is neither strength nor aptitude;
of the creation dissolved and dead; to prove that it needed
both a Super-creation Head and Life, Holder-up and
Holder-together. Ah me! what a contemplation it is!-
But we must again betake ourselves to the details.
VII.]
683
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
This being the true idea of the church, God-ward con-
sidered, it must needs be that from the beginning of its
being it should put forth the germ of its own perfection;
like all the inferior works of God, that this, his chief work,
should reveal its constant law, and begin to be in growth.
Now the church began to be from the time that Christ
was glorified and became the quickening Spirit. As the
human race began to be from the time Adam was endowed
with the power of generation and received cominand to
multiply; so the church began to be from the time that the
Second Adam was perfected, and, by receiving from the
Father the Holy Ghost, had power by regeneration to beget
sons of God-that is, from the day of Pentecost-and
therefore from this time it should begin to shew forth the
information and inworking of God within it. How it did
so, let us now shew out, by pursuing this xiith chapter of
the First Epistle to the Corinthians; and so discover what
that is which we are commanded to hold fast till he come.
The gifts which the Apostle now proceeds to enumerate
as possessed by the church, are in general called “the
manifestation of the Spirit "-that is, the way which the
Spirit takes to manifest or shew himself; to make himself
evident to others, to any one who may chance to enter the
assembly, and hear and see the things which are said and
done. This answers to our first idea, that the church is
to Christ, while he acteth in the Spirit, what the body is
to the soul-an instrument by which it reveals both its
presence and its manifold dispositions and energies:
"That by the church may be made known to the powers
in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God." And
these manifestations of the Spirit, saith he, "are given to
every one to profit withal," or for profitable use; not to be
hid in a napkin, or buried in the earth, but to be turned to
account and used for the common behoof: as it is written
by Peter concerning the same subject; "As every man
hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to
another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if
any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which
God giveth that God in all things may be glorified,
through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for
ever and ever. Amen." (1 Pet. iv. 10, 11). Now to ex-
684
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ecute and fulfil this purpose the constant presence of
charity is necessary; otherwise the precious talent rusts
and corrodes its own possessor. In order that these gifts
may be graces, the work of the regeneration is absolutely
necessary-holiness and charity-to bring us into the same
devotedness to God and man in which Christ was, and to
keep us ever so. For want of this it is that many possessing
these gifts fall into schism, and some into total apostasy.
They are not the best thing, but they are something, and
that no mean thing, if to exhibit God and Christ and the
Spirit to the world, and to edify the church, be no mean
thing.
Then comes the enumeration of these gifts waited upon
by divers ministers; whereof the first two stand in word;
the one the "word of wisdom," the other the "word of
knowledge;" whereof the former refers to mysteries of
doctrine which needed exposition; the latter to events,
whether past, present, or to come. I gather from the 2d
verse of the xiiith chapter, "Though I have the gift of
prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,"
that the word of wisdom hath regard to mysteries; and
from the 8th verse, that the word of knowledge hath re-
spect to events of this imperfect state and temporary dis-
pensation, which shall be done away. The two occur in
combination Rom. xi. 33, where the Apostle, carrying his
thoughts to the consummation of God's purpose, bursts
out into ecstasy over the wisdom of the method and the
knowledge of the end: "Oh the depths both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God!" The word of knowledge is,
when applied to the past, learning; when applied to the
present, knowledge; when applied to the future, fore-
knowledge: and it lays out the particulars of which wisdom
discovers the divine unity, the wonderful arrangement, the
relations of part to part, and their application to the well-
being of the soul, and to the moral duties of life. The one
tells the tale, the other adds the moral. The Church of
Scotland hath made both these standing ordinances to this
day; she hath held these fast; requiring that in every flock
there be one at least with the word of wisdom, endowed
of the Spirit, whose name is the bishop, or pastor, or mi-
nister, and his office to apply the truth wisely to the con-
science of the people and the exigencies of life; another
VII.]
685
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
with the word of knowledge, whose name is the doctor, or
teacher, and his business to lay out the history and grounds
of truth and error, and to handle them doctrinally, but not
to apply them. Of these the latter is considered as the
lower degree. I think this distinction is substantially
correct, and that the division of office and of gift is a fine
relict of the primitive churches: would that the rest had
been as carefully preserved! I have often admired the
steadiness with which the Scottish people have ever in-
sisted that these gifts of the preacher and the teacher
should stand in "word," as they are given in the passage
before us, and not in written and studied compositions;
insisting that it is of the essence of the minister's office
that he should receive both the matter and the word from
the Holy Ghost. Therefore the Apostle says, that he taught
wisdom not "in the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." For, according to
the text, there is in the church a gift "to speak wisdom,"
and another gift "to speak knowledge ;" and of the nine
gifts, only these two have the character of "word:" and
we may therefore well believe that this is of their essence;
that "the word" is a part of the gift, and that those who
hold for a verbal inspiration of the matter of Scripture are
correct. These two gifts are, however, not the only ones
which stood in utterance by the mouth, which belongeth
also to "" prophecy." But there is this difference, as I
judge; that the prophet had not the word given to him,
but only the matter, with the high gift of embodying it
in the form known by the name prophecy, which we shall
hereafter consider; whereas the other two had the matter
brought to them in the form of word, and were only the
mouth to give it utterance. By these Christ shewed forth
his wisdom to unlock all mysteries, and his knowledge of
all events; and his capacity of embodying them by the
word of others, from whom lie was separated personally by
being altogether out of the world: shewing to us the power
of the Spirit to bring THE WORD from the Father, and
utter it in the world by means of men; and teaching how,
in the age to come, he will use men for the conveyancers
of his word-or, rather, the Spirit for the conveyancer, and
men for the utterers of it, in whatever region of the world
their appointed station may be. No doubt it was this gift
3 N
686
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
which furnished and fitted the Evangelists and the Apostles.
for their work of inditing the Scriptures; the former having
the word of knowledge, to recall and narrate events; the
latter the word of wisdom, to decide questions which had
arisen in the church, and give full counsels for all cases
that should arise.
Next to these is faith: "To another faith, by the same
Spirit." This is not saving faith, or the "one faith," without
which a man cannot be saved; which is not a particular
gift conferred upon one and not upon another member of
the body, but the common possession of them all; and is
of that complete, and not partial, gift into which we are
baptized, and by which we eat the flesh and drink the blood
of the Lord in the Eucharist. Of what kind this faith is,
we have described to us in the xiiith chapter, by direct
contrast with that charity which is not partial, but com-
mon; which is not accidental, but essential to a Christian.
When I say accidental, I would not have it to be understood
as if I regarded the possession of these spiritual gifts as
matter of indifference to the church whether she have them
or not; for I believe them to be her talents to trade upon,
her setting-up and outfit in the present world, for probation
of her faithfulness and adjudication of her future reward.
The parable of the Talents has these gifts, as I judge, in
view. It is not natural gifts, but spiritual gifts of the
kingdom, which are there treated of. When therefore it
so happens, as at this time amongst us Protestants, that
the church not only doth not desire to possess, but doth
utterly abjure their being responsible for, these gifts, she
doth worse than the man with the one talent, and shall
receive her reward, if she repent not, and give not heed to
the witness which is now raised in her ears concerning
her endowments. The faith here spoken of, and which I
call accidental and peculiar, not spiritual and catholic,
because one Christian may have it, and another may not
have it, is the same spoken of in'chap. xiii. 2: “And
though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains."
And this, again, carries us, as by a direct quotation, to
our Lord's declaration to his disciples, twice repeated-
once upon the occasion of his healing the devil-possessed
child (Matt. xvii. 20), the other of his cursing the barren
ng-tree (Matt. xxi. 21)—" If ye have faith like a grain of
VII.]
687
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove
hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and nothing
shall be impossible unto you." This is what divines call
the faith of miracles, as distinguished from saving faith.
And yet it is not the gift of miracles, which may be divided
from it, and is divided from it in the text, and given to
another. What then is it? I think it is that which hath
the same relation to the actions of the Spirit, that word
hath to his thoughts: it is the strong confidence in Christ's
power, in the presence of which power it is done, and
without which it cannot be done. But, while this gift of
faith is the substratum upon which the various actings of
power that follow do rest, it hath doubtless something in
itself distinctive enough to form a gift, without any ad-
dition of healing, or miracles, or tongues; which appears
to be, the power of relying upon the word which hath
been spoken out of the gift of wisdom and of knowledge.
To utter a word is not to believe: when a man hath been
the tongue of the Spirit, he hath done his part; it is the
part of another to fasten hold upon it, and to keep it laid
up in his faith, and to be established upon it, and to be
the stay of the church in adversities. As the man with
the word of wisdom rises up in perplexities, and gives forth
the resolution of God; so the man with faith 'rises up in
adversities, and recalls the memory and re-awakens the
faith of things uttered by God. These men of faith are
the forlorn hope of the army, who never lose heart, but
believe all things possible to God. Such men I know,
who cannot utter a syllable without a stammering lip, but
have tenfold the faith of others, who can speak like the
oracles of God. This gift of faith I look upon as being
in the church what indomitable resolution and never-failing
confidence is in the natural character of some men: it
sticks at nothing which God hath said, but believes its
very jots and tittles; it fears nothing which God in his
providence sends, but ever says to the children of Israel,
Go forward. By having such an organ of the Spirit in the
body, Christ shews that his church hath capacity of be-
lieving all that he can say, and therefore is a fit instrument
for executing all that he can desire. The order of God's
providence is, first, word; then, faith in him who hears it;
then, execution by the means of them who have believed.
3 N 2
688
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
And while it stands lingering in the stage of faith, the
Lord bringeth the most faith-trying occurrences, so that
it should seem to some utterly impossible to accomplish
the thing; and he ever saith, "Except ye believe, ye can-
not be established:" faith bears the fiery proof, and in
due time receives the reward of accomplishment. To this
intrepidity of faith, God calleth some with a special.
calling.
:
The next is "the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit."
Of this we have already spoken, when viewing this sub-
ject under the aspect of promise. It is the fifth of the
signs of the Redeemer and the complete redemption:
"Ye shall lay your hands on the sick, and they shall
recover." And certain persons in the church were en-
trusted with the dispensation thereof unto the whole body,
and unto those that were without for these gifts were
not to be hoarded up within the church, but to be traded
with; they were for the confirmation of that word to every
creature under heaven, to whom the word was preached,
not by an appeal to a miracle-which is, in respect of
truth, no more discernment than the appeal to arms is in
respect of justice-but by a demonstration in the act of
that thing which they preached in word. The word
preached is, that Christ hath redeemed men from the power
of death; and in sign thereof we do in his name heal all
manner of diseases, and upon occasion raise the dead (as
is recorded both of Peter and Paul): and the conclusion
is, that the name of Christ is indeed able to effect those
things preached. The sign is part and parcel of the thing
preached, and by being so confirms it. It is not an appeal
to blind power, but it is an appeal to Jesus to confirm
the truth preached, by giving a sign of his possessing
this power which we assign to him, and a first-fruits of
that action which we preach him about to perform. It
is not by the transmission of this through eighteen cen-
turies of tradition, that the unlearned world are to be con-
vinced a process by which, I will venture to say, that
none but a few antiquaries were ever convinced; —but it
is by the abiding of them in, and the putting of them forth
by, the church, wherever and so long as she is established,
until Christ come, that the world is to be taught that Jesus
of Nazareth is the world's gracious Healer, and wise
VII.]
689
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
Teacher, and merciful Redeemer, and righteous Governor.
It is not by putting a Book into every man's hand, of the
genuineness and authenticity of which it takes no mean
store of learning to be convinced, but it is by a continuous
church holding forth the word of the Gospel of life to the
nations, and attesting the truth of what they declare con-
cerning Jesus, by calling his name over all distressed na-
ture, and giving it redemption and joy. This is what the
church was intended to be, God's witnesses of Christ to
every nation and every generation, until he should send
Him to accomplish all which had been preached for a
witness. But now, lo! the Bible Society is our church,
and the Bible is our God!-These gifts of healing bespeak
Christ's mercy unto and his power over all flesh. How oft
is it said in the Gospels, " And he healed them all!" And
Peter and Paul had a still more indiscriminate ministry;
for to them were brought handkerchiefs from the sick, that
they might touch them; and the infirm were laid by the
way that the shadow of the Apostle might overshadow
some of them. That dispensation of a redeeming provi-
dence which Judea had for three years and a half in the
person of the Lord, the whole world was intended to have
in the church; and would have had, but for our unfaith-
fulness to our Master, our self-sufficiency in ourselves, and
our unmercifulness to the world. Forgetting for what end
we were elected, even to shew forth the power of Him
who hath called us, we grew vain of our election, and
rioted in the pride of it, and became hardhearted; and
did such things and held such opinions, under the covert
of that name Election, as many are now doing who deny
the universal love of God, and the real work of Christ to
condemn sin in the flesh. We are acting over again the
shameful history of the children of Israel, and are pre-
paring for a more terrible tragedy than theirs.
Next comes "the working of miracles." The passage
in Hebrews (ii. 4.) which gives a brief enumeration of
these works, divides them thus: " Signs, and wonders,
and divers miracles, and gifts (distributions) of the Holy
Ghost." Of these four, the third is that now under con-
sideration. The first, "signs," we have treated of in the
foregoing exposition of the last verses of Mark, "These´
signs shall follow them that believe." A sign is properly
3 N 3
690
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
a token in which the thing signified can be recognised;
and in those four particulars we shewed is to be recog-
nised the whole salvation of soul, body, and inheritance,
which we preach. The "wonders" are almost constantly
coupled with the signs, and in one place distinguished
from them: (Acts ii. 19) "And I will shew wonders in
heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath." And
sometimes "miracles," or powers, are added to both; as
in recounting the proof of Christ's mission in the same
chapter, and Paul's justifying his own mission, 2 Cor. xii.
12. It is hard to distinguish these things, and I know not
whether it can be done. Our translators have not done
it, and perhaps they are right. If, however, I were to
venture a distinction, it would be, that the wonder is
something extraordinary exhibited to the sight-as the
turning of the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood;
the rending of the veil of the temple, and of the rocks,
and the bringing on of darkness;-and the miracle, or
power, is the doing of something mighty beyond all com-
parison; as he calming of the storm, or the laying of the
deep, or the multiplying of loaves, or the changing of water
into wine: although both of these are called signs in the
original, as is also the healing of the lame man by Peter
and John; but throughout all that discourse in the xith
chapter of Matthew, for reproof of the cities where his
mighty works had been chiefly done, the word used is
"powers, or miracles." Wonders I take to be remarkable
occurrences which yet contradict no law of nature, as
Elisha's bringing fire from heaven; but miracles are a
strong resistance, suspension, and turning back of nature's
fixed powers. Yet all of these, both the wonders and
miracles, being interpreted aright, are signs of that king-
dom of heaven which we preach as about to be revealed
under the government of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Besides these three, there is a fourth classifica-
tion in this passage of the Hebrews, which is entitled "gifts
(or distributions) of the Holy Ghost." And the like addi-
tion do we find the Apostle Paul making, when enume-
rating the works of God in and by him. The passage is
in Rom. xv. 19, and somewhat obscured in our translation:
literally it is," In power of signs and wonders, in power
of the Spirit of God;" another form of power. Accordingly
VII.]
Digression-Endowment of the Church. 691
we find that those same Apostles who were required to
wait for the day of Pentecost, in order to receive " power
from on high," had at that time, and during their ministry
possessed, power to heal the sick, to cast out devils, and
to trample upon all the power of the enemy: "Heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils."
This they possessed, and yet did they not possess that
power or gift of the Holy Ghost which they received on
Pentecost. They then did such works as He did, but
they were after Pentecost to do greater works than these,
through the gift of the Holy Ghost, which he was to re-
ceive by going to the Father and to shed down upon them.
To this new power, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Apo-
stle's fourth distribution in the iid of the Hebrews, and
second in the xvth of the Romans, hath reference. Our
inquiry at present, however, is into the gift of miracles,
which was a manifestation of the Spirit given to a certain
order in the church. This order was instituted in the body
on purpose to set forth Christ's mighty power to withstand,
to turn again, and to direct for the ends of grace and
goodness, those potent springs of nature, those powers of
the heavens and the earth, which Satan hath succeeded in
distorting from their true and right intention to an evil
use: where famine is, to make plenty; where blindness is,
to give sight; and lameness strength, and death life that
men might know that cause and effect is only an appoint-
ment or permission of God while it pleases him; and that
the laws of the material world are not necessary, but under
the controul and in the hands of our merciful Redeemer.
If the church had been still possessed of this memorial
and foreshewing of that great revolution in nature which
is to be effected at the coming of the Lord, there would
not have been this universal feeling and outcry, "All things
have continued as they were since the beginning:" this
bondage of the will of man to the fatality of cause and
effect, and all those speculations, which have so strength-
ened scepticism, concerning the possibility or impossibility
of attesting a miracle, would have been prevented; and
the present entire unbelief of a miracle being ever again,
would, as ashamed, hide its face, instead of exposing itself
in all public places. This power of miracles must either
be speedily revived in the church, or there will be a uni-
692
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
versal dominion of the mechanical philosophy; and faith
will be fairly expelled, to give place to the law of cause
and effect acting and ruling in the world of mind, as it
doth in the world of sense. What now is preaching be-
come, but the skill of a man to apply causes which may
produce a certain known effect upon a congregation ?-so
much of argument, so much of eloquence, so much of
pathos, so much of doctrine, so much of morality; and all
to bring the audience into a certain frame of mind, and
so dismiss them well wrought upon by the preacher and
well pleased with themselves. The effectual check to all
this would be, to dispute with the enemy in his fortress,
to try conclusions with the law of cause and effect in
astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, or any branch
of natural science, where it holds itself supreme: to stop
the sun, like Joshua; to make him travel back, like Isaiah;
to walk upon the water, like our Lord; or to handle the
viper, like the Apostle Paul. The very existence of a will
the cause of itself, is begun not only to be doubted, but
to be denied. It also is looked upon as a substance, under
the common bondage of cause and effect; and God himself
is looked upon merely as a Great First Cause. I know
nothing able to dethrone this monster from the throne of
God, which it hath usurped, but the re-awakening of the
church to her long-forgotten privilege of working miracles.
The miracle workers in the church are Christ's hand, to
shew the strength that is in him: the healers of diseases
are his almoners, to shew what pity and compassion are
in him; the faith-administrators are his lion-heart, to shew
how mighty and fearless he is; and the utterers of wisdom
and knowledge are his mind, to shew how rich and capa-
cious it is. They do all contain, and exhibit and minister
to the world, some portion of that fulness which is in him,
and which he alone is capable of holding in one subsist-
ence; which, when it enters into others, must prove the
occupation and the honour and the ornament of many
persons.
We now pass into another region, distinguished both
from the more excellent way of charity and from spiritual
gifts, in these words of the xiv th chapter, "Follow after
charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may
prophesy." And throughout the whole of that chapter he
VII.]
693
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
>
dwells upon this gift of prophecy, which is now before us,
with a special delight, as the edification of the church:
"But he that prophesieth, speaketh unto men to edifica-
tion, and exhortation, and comfort" (ver. 3); and nothing
seems he to have had so much at heart as that all should
prophesy: "I would that ye all spake with tongues, but
rather that ye prophesied ;" and again, "But if all pro-
phesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one
unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and
thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so,
falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report
that God is in you of a truth" (vers. 24, 25). What is this
gift, of which the Apostle maketh such high account? It
is evidently very different from what is commonly under-
stood by prophesying, as the mere foretelling of future
events, because it is "unto men for edification and exhorta-
tion and comfort." But if that vulgar idea of prognosti-
cation be meant to represent the true character of a pro-
phet of the Old Testament, nothing is so insufficient. Is
the office of Moses or Elias, of Isaiah or Jeremiah, de-
scribed by saying that they foretold future events? I trow
not. Their office standeth in this, that they were God's
mouth to men, fitted and furnished for uttering his own
mind in adequate expressions, and for standing in the
breach between the church and the world, between the
world and its destruction. Ah me! what a mischief hath
been done by these wild schismatics, who, in their secta-
rian zeal to repress the free inquiries of the church into the
Prophets, have dared to propagate it among their weak
adherents, that these books of the prophets are only for
the curious speculators into the future! Night unto you,
O ye misleaders of the people! If ye return not at the
watchman's voice, the night and thick darkness abide you:
any little twilight you now grope in, will soon pass into
the deepest, darkest midnight. O my misguided brethren!
I tell you, the Prophets are the utterers of the word of
God for the weal of man. None of their writings is of any
private interpretation, to single men, or generations of men,
or particular ages; but to the church catholic and univer-
sal; for they spake not after the will of men, but as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost. They are very profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction
694
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
in righteousness. They are most profitable for holiness,
both personal, ecclesiastical, and national. They reveal
God in all his fulness and variety of being. They speak
in human ears the strains of heaven. Oh! how very sublime,
how very pathetic, how very moral, how very Divine they
are!
It is the richest tissue of discourse that was ever
woven. The poet, the orator, the merchant. the statesman,
the divine, every form of spiritual workman, will find the
instruments, and the measures, and the rules, and the chief
performances of his art, therein. How many-sided are
the Prophets! How they stretch athwart the middle
space between heaven and earth, lying all abroad in the
most varied beauty! I am grieved, sore pained at my
heart, that the affections of men should have departed
away from such a feast of fat things, I cannot understand
it. It did not use to be so. In my boyish days, when
the fire-sides of the Scottish peasantry were my favourite
haunts, and converse with the grey-headed elders of the
church my delight, their prayers were almost exclusively
drawn from the Psalms and the Prophets. Have I not
heard them use those blessed passages with a savour and
unction which indicated both intelligence and full feeling!
Is the mind of man departed into the sear and yellow
leaf? Is there to be no second spring? Are we ever to
feed on the garbage of the magazines and the religious
newspapers? God forbid! That rich and copious vein of
rendering God's messages in forms of thought and lan-
guage worthy of him, and powerful over the hearts and
souls of men, which prophecy is in the hands of the Old-
Testament prophets, the Apostle wisheth all the church
to study to possess; and being attained, he counts it of an
unspeakable price in the ecclesiastical economy; insomuch,
he saith, that if they were all thus to speak as from the
heart of God to the heart of man, and there come into the
assembly one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he says
he cannot fail to be convinced and judged of them all.
What a heart-searching, truth-telling thing must this pro-
phecy, then, have been? Such a thing must prophesying
have been-clear, true, warm, and tender; fresh from the
heart; redolent with the affections of God to sinful men;
piercing and penetrating, yet not appalling, but cleansing
and comforting, to the conscience. And this is what our
VII.]
695
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
preaching is intended to stand for? Wretched substitute!
It seems to me that this gift of prophesying, which the
church are by the Apostle called upon to covet above all
other gifts of the Spirit, is the same gift which was minis-
tered by the Old-Testament prophets,-the faculty of
shewing to all men their true estate in the sight of God,
and their nearness to his judgments, and the way
of escape;
the faculty of doing for persons what they did for kingdoms
and cities; foretelling being a part, but only a part of it;
yet that to give warning of which the spirit of the prophet
is stirred up to put forth all the powers and energies of
the persuasive Spirit of God, that the evil may be avoided
and the good attained. Such prophecies had gone before
upon Timothy, and by them he is exhorted by the Apostle
to war a good warfare; and the gift is said to be given
unto him by prophecy, as well as by the laying on of the
hands of the presbytery (1 Tim. i. 18; iv. 14). Joining
this with the declaration quoted above, that prophecy was
fitted to convince and judge any stranger who by accident
might come in, and to lay open the secrets of his heart, so
that he should be forced to fall down and worship, as per-
ceiving that God's eye was in them, and that things were
known to them which no one but God and his own con-
science could know, what can I say of this gift of the Spirit
less than that it was God telling, by his chosen servant,
his own knowledge of the secrets of a man's heart, that he
might confess his sin and find forgiveness of it? One
trembles to think that such a power should be given to
men of looking into men: but if this power be with God,
and he have given it to Christ, who possesseth those seven
eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all
the earth; and if the church be Christ's functionary,
through which to express a manifestation of every attribute
which he possess eth; then is it to be expected that there
should also be found in the church an order of men to use
Christ's eyes with Christ's heart, and speak forth to the
discovered and detected sinner such strains as these: "Oh
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen ga-
thereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"
(Matt. xxiii. 37); "O that my head were waters, and mine
696
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter of my people!" (Jer. ix. 1);
"As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked, but rather that he should turn and live:
Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel!"
This, I think, is the true idea of the gift of prophecy,-
that it was Christ speaking forth his love and his earnest-
ness and his knowledge, to deliver each man from the roots
of bitterness that are within him, and to warn him of the
certain consequences which will ensue upon the evil course
he is now following. The word of wisdom hath reference
to truth, and the word of knowledge to faith, but prophecy
hath reference to persons. It is for building up and com-
forting the church, for converting sinners from the error of
their ways, and warning the world of the evil to come.
And that such a power is in the Spirit, is as sure as that it
is in Christ; and that he hath promised it to his church
not only proved from its place in this enumeration, but is
also clear from the express promise that the Spirit will
shew us things to come; from the example of the pro-
phecies which went before on Timothy, and of the prophet
who bound himself with Paul's girdle, and prophesied that
the like would they do at Jerusalem to him who owned it.
Our Lord shewed many examples of the like personal pro-
phesyings, over Peter, and Judas, and the two sons of
Zebedee; and I have no doubt the primitive church was
all-rife with this gift of foreshewing to persons the future
destinies which hung over them, and grounding thereon
the same variety of all-inclusive discourse which the old
prophets used towards cities and nations.
"To another, discerning of spirits." What this gift, or
talent, committed to the keeping of the church, is, we learn
from the First Epistle of John, where he directeth the
church how to put it to use: "Beloved, believe not every
spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: be-
cause many false prophets are gone out into the world
(1 John iv. 1.) From this we learn that the spirits which
were to be tried or proved spake by the mouths of false
prophets, and prompted them to utter things untrue and
unholy. An example of this kind we have in the xxiid
chapter of the First Book of Kings, where, all the prophets
of Ahab having prophesied that he should go up to Ra-
VII.]
697
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
moth-gilead, Micaiah, the prophet of the Lord, explaineth
the manner in which they had been deceived and had de-
ceived him, in a passage which openeth much insight into
the spiritual world; teaching how God useth the ministry
of evil spirits in order to pervert from the way of truth
those who have loved darkness rather than light; "sending
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie;" and
how these spirits take possession of wicked prophets who
have not served the Spirit of Truth faithfully, and possess
them with a word of falsehood; and how many of these
prophets of lies may at once be under the influence of one
of those unclean spirits. When the Lord, in the viith
and xxiv th chapters of Matthew, and Peter, in the id
chapter of his Second Epistle, warn the church of false
prophets that should arise, they do not mean merely erro-
neous and deceiving men, but men possessed with a lying
spirit. Indeed, I believe that in all cases the word
Prophet, in the Scriptures, signifies a man under evil
agency speaking in the power of another spirit than his
own. A true prophet speaketh in the power of the Holy
Spirit, and a lying prophet speaketh in the power of an
unclean spirit. That this is the true meaning of the name
Prophet in the New Testament, as in the Old, is further
manifest from the language of the Apostle: "The spirits
of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Cor. xiv.
32). Now in the passage of John's First Epistle, under
consideration, the church is required to try those spirits.
with which the prophets spake, whether they were of God
or not and there must, therefore, have been a gift given
to the church for this end, and persons to whom it was
given to exercise it. The prophets tried men, but these
men tried the prophets. The word “discernment” derives
some illustration from the xivth chapter, where it is
written, in the 29th verse, "Let two or three prophets
speak, and let the others discern: and if to another sitting
by there be a revelation, let the first be silent: for ye can
all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be
comforted; and the spirits of the prophets are in subjec-
tion to the prophets; for not of tumult is he the God, but
of peace, as in all the churches of the saints" This pas-
sage shews us that the discerning of spirits was a faculty
widely diffused in the church, and required to be in con-
30
698
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
tinual exercise; and that the prophets, in the things which
they uttered, were carefully and affectionately watched by
the church, and guarded from falling under the suggestions
of the wicked spirits: and if, while one of them was
speaking, there should have been any revelation to this
effect, he was commanded to stop till he heard it, lest by
any means he might mislead the brethren into error.
is
It
very beautiful to observe, how no gift had a completeness
in itself, but wanted the neighbourhood and help of ano-
ther. The prophet needed the guardianship of the dis-
cerner of spirits, and the discerner of spirits the instruction
of the prophet: the one brought the precious metal from
the heavenly treasury, the other assayed it, lest it should
have contracted any defilement or intermixture in the
transmission. The Apostle John further giveth, in the
same passage, as a test of spirits, whether they confessed
that "Jesus Christ is come in flesh" or not; and he re-
peats the same in his Second Epistle: Paul also, in the
very chapter we are examining, gives us another_test,
whether they would say that " Jesus is the Lord." These
two doctrines, of his flesh and of his lordship, are the two
keys of prophecy, and the two tests of Divine truth, which
no evil spirit will bear. It is very ominous, that these are
the two very points for which we are now persecuted by
many, who deny Christ to have had flesh with the law of
flesh; and deny that his lordship is of this earth--alleging,
that, when Satan shall have served himself of it, it is to
be destroyed. I have no doubt whatever that these are
doctrines of devils, and that they bespeak a revival of
Antichrist in the bosom of the church. This capacity of
discerning the spirits which speak in the prophets seems
to have been very widely, and in a degree universally,
spread abroad in the church. For the same John, when
writing concerning these antichrists, speaketh thus to the
whole church: "But ye have an unction from the Holy
One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto
you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know
it, and that no lie is of the truth. These things have I
written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But
the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in
you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the
same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth,
VII.]
699
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall
abide in him" (1 John ii. 20, 21, 26, 27). And our Lord,
speaking upon the same subject of "false prophets," giveth
their "fruits as a test by which all men should be able
to prove them (Matt. vii.) But while all do, no doubt,
possess such a measure of discernment as to reject the
falsehood and feed upon the truth, those to whom this
gift was specially granted had the higher faculty of being
able to expose the sophistry, and the hypocrisy, and sub-
tlety of the devil, with which it comes arrayed: and to
these persons the church would always be beholden in a
time of trial; and, having reliance upon them, they would
minister that caution, consideration, and admonition against
the evil, which would be effectual to the preservation of
the church from heresies and offences which must needs
arise. Moreover, I have little doubt that this gift of de-
tecting false spirits in the speech of men was also accom-
panied with the power of casting them out, in all such
cases as were consistent with the moral responsibility of
the man possessed. The prophet, I believe, might be
taken at unawares, and, himself deceived, become a de-
ceiver of others: in this case, being undeceived by the
faithful discerner of spirits, he would make entreaty to be
delivered, and, having faith in the presence and power of
Christ in that man, he would be delivered without further
delay. But in such a case as that referred to by John-
of which those of Simon Magus, and Hymeneus, and
Philetus, and Hermogenes are examples-where the wick-
edness of their own minds, their unfaithfulness to the
Spirit of God, their time-serving, worldly, and ambitious
dispositions of mind, were the occasions of their being de-
livered up to such possessions, it is clear, that, until they
repented and confessed their sin, and sought the unity of
the church again, they could and would receive no such
deliverance from the hand of the discerner of spirits.
This, surely, was a very precious gift to the church and
if, as all Scripture concurreth to predict, "the last times,"
which immediately precede the coming of the Lord, shall
be full of "false Christs and false prophets, who shall shew
great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible,
they shall deceive the very elect," we have need to stir up
this gift which is in the church. When we were weak and
:
302
700
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
sickly, and gave him little trouble, Satan suffered us to
go on declining, and took himself up with other matters;
having administered to us the soporific of a lifeless system
of orthodox terms, he went his way about other business:
but, now that the church is shaking herself from his bonds,
and beginning to seek for her long-lost strength, and is
putting it forth in word and deed, and lifting up the banner
of truth, "Christ come in Flesh and to come in Lordship;"
behold, he will send his Philistines upon us-spirits from
the deep; and we will need the discernment of spirits to
withstand him, nor shall we be without it. The church is
still the church; her life is still in her, though sorely weak-
ened; now she is beginning to breathe a purer air, and her
faculties are returning; her weakened mind is beginning
to understand doctrine, her miserable heart is beginning
to conceive hope, and her closed lips to be opened with
strong and fervent desires after her ancient strength and
glory. Let her enemies beware; let the intruders into the
fold make ready to depart; let those who have lorded it
over her prepare themselves for a day of recompence, be-
cause it is at hand, when she shall come forth "bright as
the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with
banners." Moreover, this discernment of spirits is an
excellent gift and kind ministry of Christ unto his church,
whereby she is able to hold forth the truth before the world,
-that her Head hath judged Beelzebub, the prince of
the devils; hath judged the prince of this world, the spirit
that now ruleth in the children of disobedience: and not
only so, but that He hath given to men the dominion over
spirits, who through our wickedness have obtained domi-
nion over us and that his church shall certainly trample
Satan under foot, and judge angels, and triumph over all
the powers of the enemy. But this brings us upon the
vein which we have already opened when treating of the
same endowment, as it was laid out in the promise of the
Lord, whereof the first particular is, "Ye shall cast out
devils." Referring back to what was there said concern-
ing the importance and the bearing of this sign, we now
proceed to the eighth of these forms of the manifested.
Spirit, which is " divers kinds of tongues."
This also having handled formerly, in the sense of a sign,
and shewn the thing which it signified, we shall add here
VII.] Digression-Endowment of the Church.
701
what light is afforded us as to the manner of its use and
occupation. It was first imparted on the day of Pentecost,
"when the disciples were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
them utterance (Acts ii. 6). Many, indeed almost all,
have the notion that the Apostles became all at once.
learned in and masters of foreign languages, so as to be
able to express in the various tongues of men the know-
ledge which they possessed already. This is altogether an
erroneous notion, as will appear; and the true one is
contained in the words just quoted. They spoke according
as the Spirit gave them to utter, not according to their
own previous knowledge; and they spoke it in other
tongues than that which was native to them. It was one
acting of the Spirit to give them the matter and the word:
it came to them clothed in word: not in the form of idea
first, to be put by their volition and skill of language into
the form of word; but at once, without their knowledge of
the matter or of the word, it came to them; the Spirit gave
them to utter what they did utter: what it was, they
themselves might be ignorant of, or not, as it happened.
It was one person's gift to speak the language, it was
another's to interpret what was spoken: "To another,
divers kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of
tongues....Do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?
…………….Wherefore, let him that speaketh in an unknown
tongue pray that he may interpret....If I pray in an un-
known tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is
unfruitful...... Yet in the church I had rather speak five
words with my understanding, that by my voice I might
teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown
tongue." These passages, extracted from the xii th and
xiv th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
shew that there was no necessary connexion between
speaking with a tongue and understanding what was
spoken; but, on the contrary, that the person so speaking
in general understood not what he said; and if he did,
the interpretation was a matter of as special revelation as
was the utterance itself; both speaker and interpreter being
alike ignorant of the meaning of any word which had been
spoken, so as to be able to translate it into their mother tongue,
or to know it grammatically, or in any way whatever to
303
702
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
make use of it, until the Spirit moved again-or, rather,
until the person possessed of the Spirit in this form put it
forth into use. This idea, which is beyond a question the
true one represented in these two chapters of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, is, I think, implied in the words
quoted above from the Acts, where the use of the gift is
first described: "They spake with other tongues, just as
the Spirit gave to them to emit the voice." The word
translated "utterance" is remarkable, signifying simply to
' emit a voice,' to sound forth,' and by the ancients was
used of prophets, whom they believed to speak by another
power than their own. It is only three times used in the
New Testament: once over again in this chapter (ver. 14),
"But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice,
and uttered," or sounded forth, "to them;" and the third
time, Acts xxvi. 26, when Paul, being charged with being
mad by Festus, probably from the violence of his voice or
earnestness of his manner, replies, "I am not mad, most
noble Festus, but speak forth (give forth) words of truth and
soberness." It was the Spirit which gave the disciples to
send forth those sounds in which every nation there assem-
bled heard their native tongue, and in it the wonderful
works of God. It was Christ using his church as his organ
for declaring to all men in that assembly what God had
done for him, and for them whose substitute he was. And
no doubt this is one reason of the diversity of tongues in
the church, because there is a diversity of tongues in the
world to which the church is called to preach the Gospel.
But this is only an accidental thing; for the whole world
was once of one tongue, and might be so again: still, how-
ever, even in that case the Spirit would in the same way
bring the thought embodied in word, and force it forth in
that embodied form. In such a case, however, it would be
prophecy, as carrying its own interpretation; and accord-
ingly the Apostle puts speaking with tongues, when coupled
with interpretation, upon the same level with prophecy :
"For greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh
with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may re-
ceive edifying.' I believe the words were sometimes
brought to the prophet's mind, as much as to the mind of
him who spake with tongues; and that both did yield them-
selves in faith to the action of the Spirit, and serve him
VII.]
703
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
with their tongue. It is also manifest, with respect to him
that spake with tongues, that, though he understood not
what he said, it was not on that account without edification
to him: he tasted the sweetness and had a first-fruits of the
profitableness of that truth which the Spirit was passing
through his tongue to the understanding of another man.
This is very mysterious, but not the less true on that ac-
count. "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue, speaketh
not unto men, but unto God; for no man understandeth
him, howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he
that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and ex-
hortation, and comfort. He that speaketh in an unknown
tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth
the church" (1 Cor. xiv. 2—4). This edification, which he
derived from it to himself, joined to the wonderfulness of it,
led some who possessed it to use it rashly and indiscreetly
in the midst of the church, where it could not profit; and
to correct the selfishness from which this proceeded, and
the confusion to which it gave rise, the Apostle addresseth
himself with great zeal. It hath been a subject of great
thought with me to understand these things, which are the
occasion of so much scoffing and blasphemy to many of my
poor misguided countrymen; and I think God hath re-
warded my study, of which I will now enumerate the re-
sults under their several heads.
First. This gift of tongues in the church doth shew that
the work of Christ in the flesh is for all men, and that he
wisheth it to be published to all men; and, that his church
may not sleep over her vocation, nor be slack in the per-
formance of it, nor sink down into local residences, good
quarters, and comfortable settlements, but preserve her
missionary spirit, and be a witness to every generation of
every speech of men, she is endowed with these diversities
of tongues, and goaded on to go forth to the nations, to
seek ears for those words which are ever coming with such
sweetness over her heart. It is like an ambassador's com-
mission; it is the Spirit saying to the church, Send me this
man forth. Paul spoke more abundantly with tongues
than they all did (1 Cor. xiv. 18), and Paul was the great-
est missionary of them all. And what an assurance to a
man's heart, and confirmation to his faith, to have his mis-
sion thus ascertained to him, and sealed by the Holy
$
704
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
Ghost! Methinks it would be more effectual than a salary
of a thousand pounds by the year from the most notable
of our missionary societies. I feel assured that these
societies have so shamefully and shockingly come short of
the mark in their faith and feeling, and performance also,
that, if the world is to receive warning before the great
and terrible day of the Lord, it must be by the church
seeking again for this long-lost endowment; seeking for
her trumpet with its many notes, through which to speak
to the nations.
Secondly. This gift of tongues doth put beyond all
doubt the unity of Christ and his members, inasmuch as it
shews him in his people doing whatever their own soul
within them can do. Speech is the means by which an
embodied spirit doth manifest its existence; distinguishing
man, a living soul, from every other living thing upon the
earth. Speech is the manifestation of reason; and by our
capacity of uttering, and understanding the words uttered,
is proved the commonness, the oneness of that reason, in
which many persons have their being. Now when Christ
doth occupy the place of my reasonable spirit, and with
my tongue doth express whatever I am capable of ex-
pressing, he is proved to be in me as truly as I am in
myself. If my body is known to be the habitation of my
soul by its obeying all the desires of the soul, and express-
ing them in form of word; then, by the same method of
conviction is Christ proved to be in me, when he doth
through the organs of my body express his own mind to
those whom I can by no means reach by any expression
of my own. This same truth, of an indwelling Christ, is
proved by any other of the gifts to the experience of him
who hath them; but by the gift of tongues it is proved to
others besides ourselves, even to all who hear in their own
language the testimony of God and of Christ. It is seen
that God is in me of a truth, when that power within me
doth testify to no other person but to Christ, in his work
of humiliation and exaltation, in his flesh and in his lord-
ship. Now, if it be considered what a point of doctrine
the union of Christ with believers is, the importance of the
gift of tongues will the more appear. By the truth, that
the Spirit of a Man out of the world dwells in many men
in the world at one and the same time, and continues this
VII.]
705
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
inhabitation from age to age, what less is proved but that
this person is also God? For who but God can thus con-
nect that which is not in the world with that which is in the
world; who but God can keep up the communication and
the intercourse between the Father's throne and the world?
But, then, Christ's soul being a limited substance, with
which the Godhead continually acts, another question
ariseth, How can this limited substance, which is now out
of the world, be yet in the world, in the souls of many
men, in all ages of the world? This can only be by means
of another Being, proceeding from Christ to the bounds of
all space and time, and able to unite them into oneness.
with him. But in order that this may be, he must be of
one substance with Christ; and also he must be a person,
in order to comprehend a person, and inform many persons
with the same spirit. And thus is the Divinity and the
Personality of the Comforter made to appear through this
great truth of Christ the inhabiter of his people; which,
again, is proved by his using their organs in a way in which
they themselves are not able to do. Moreover, this power
of Christ in the Spirit to speak all the diversities of speech,
shews him to be the fountain-head of speech, the Word,
by whose endowment man is a word-speaking creature:
while by his power to enter into all the forms of reason, and
deliver God in such a way as all diversities of reason shall
apprehend, he is proved to be The one Reason, of whose
fulness we have all received, who lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. What doth this inhabitation of my
reason by another than myself, at his will, and using it in
a way which unequivocally proves that he is another than
myself; what doth this prove less than that I am but the
tenant of that other's domain, who thus masterfully can
occupy his own, and for the while suspend my vicege-
rency?
Thirdly. But there is something deeper still, than this
oneness of reason and lordship of reason resident in Christ,
proved by these gifts of tongues-namely, That a person
is something more than that community of reason which
he doth occupy as the tenant of him whose name is The
Logos, or The Reason. For it clearly appeareth, from the
xivth chapter of the First of Corinthians, that when the
man's reason is wholly without fruit, when he understand-
706
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
eth nothing that is spoken, he doth yet receive great edi-
fication in his own spirit-" he edifieth himself" (ver. 4)—
and holdeth, independent of reason, a communication with
God-" he speaketh unto God" (ver. 2.) Doth not this
prove that all forms of the reason within, which speech
expresseth outwardly, may be inactive-as if it were dead,
"fruitless" and barren-and yet the spirit itself be re-
ceiving great edification from God, through means which
are wholly independent of intelligence? Indeed, to deny
this, is to deny the possibility of direct communication be-
tween God and the soul otherwise than by speech or books
which address us through the reason; it is to set aside the
subject of spiritual gifts altogether: and methinks it takes
away that personality from a man, by means of which it is
that he informs, awakens, and occupies the gift of reason.
The gift of tongues brings all speculation upon this subject
to an end, and presents us with the fact, the experiment
which decides the matter, by shewing us the reason void,
and the spirit yet filled with edification. Nay, so clearly
were the Apostle, and those to whom he wrote, conscious
to this thing, that he takes a distinction between praying
in the spirit and praying in the understanding, praising in
the spirit and praising in the understanding; holding man
to be capable of worshipping and serving God then when
his understanding is wholly without activity. (See 1 Cor.
xiv. 14-17.) Nor could there be any mysticism or self-
deception in this; for while my spirit was emptying itself
of all its prayer and praise to God, my understanding not
comprehending a word, if any should think it were but a
farce and profanation, another person, understanding the
language, will contradict him, and let him know that it is
sound sense and pure religion which I am expressing. And
yet the words are not necessary for God's ear; and the
Apostle recommends, yea, and strongly urges it, that,
when no man able to understand the language was pre-
sent, or no one who had the gift of interpretation, it were
better to keep silence, and enjoy the communion with God
through the spirit only: "But if there be no interpreter,
let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to
himself, and to God" (ver. 28) What a deep subject of
meditation were a man thus employed in secret converse
with and enjoyment of God, although his reason be utterly
VII.]
707
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
dead! He is not able to communicate thereof to another
person for the world he is as one dead; for all that he
holds in common with men he is as one dead: he is in the
state of a separate spirit, and he is enjoying the same
inward delight with God which I suppose the separate spi-
rits to enjoy. And I might ask, Is not this the essence of
all spiritual religion,-the enjoyment and communion of
the spirit with God in that capacity which death nowise
affecteth? And is not the use of reason altogether for the
impartation of this to others, for the edification of the
church? But conclusion rises upon conclusion. It is a
great subject this of the gift of tongues. I wish some one
would retrieve it from the ignorance and folly and mockery
of those revilers who have lately so insulted this mystery
of our faith, and laughed to scorn this endowment of the
church, understanding no more by it than a short-hand
way of acquiring languages.
Upon the ninth, and last of these gifts, "the interpreta-
tion of tongues," little need be added, as it is so intimately
connected with the former. It did not consist in their
knowledge of the strange words, or the structure of the
foreign languages. It was nothing akin to translation; the
Spirit did not become a schoolmaster at all; but brought
to the man's soul with the certainty of truth, that this
which he was giving him to utter was the interpretation of
the thing which the other had just spoken. This convic-
tion might be brought to the spirit of the speaker himself,
and then he was his own interpreter; but it was more fre-
quent to bestow that gift upon another. This provision of
an order who should interpret, as well as an order who
should speak with tongues, shews that the gift of tongues
had a higher origin than from the variety of languages
amongst men. If it had been merely for preaching the
truth to people of other languages, an order of interpreters
would never have been required at all. If it had only been
given for conveying the truth to foreign nations, then why
have so many in each church, like the church of Corinth?
If it be said, this was to stir them to go forth to those
whose tongues they had received; while I allow that this
is so far forth good and true, it is by no means the whole
truth; for why, then, have an order of interpreters there
also? This shews that the gift was good for that church
708
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
in itself; that it was resident in the churches for home use,
as well as for service abroad; and that God saw such use
in it, as to provide another ministry for the purpose of
making it available to the uses for which it was given. If
the circumstance of the language being foreign would have
prompted them to go forth to the heathen, the interpreta-
tion being at hand would prompt them to remain with the
church; and both being standing orders in the church, we
conclude that this gift of speaking with another tongue, and
the other gift of interpreting what was spoken, are, being
taken together, a constant accomplishment of the church,
necessary to her completeness wherever she is, and to be
continued with her even though the whole world had been
converted to the faith and the office of the missionary were
done away with for ever. Let us consider this two-fold or-
dinance as one, and see what it yieldeth. If there should
be in our church an order of men, of whom the Spirit so
manifestly took possession as to make them utter the mys-
teries of godliness in an unknown tongue, and another order
of men to whom the Spirit divided the power of interpret-
ing the same, the first impression that would be made by
it is, that verily God was in us of a truth, as truly as he
was in the Shechinah of the holy place; and the next, that
he was speaking forth oracles for our obedience. The un-
known tongue, as it began its strange sounds, would be
equal to a voice from the glory, "Thus saith the Lord of
hosts," or "This is my Son, Hear ye him ;" and every ear
would say,
"O that I knew the voice;" and when the man
with the gift of interpretation gave it out in the vernacular
tongue, we would be filled with an awe, that it was no other
than God who had spoken it. Methinks it is altogether
equal to the speaking with the trumpet from the thick dark-
ness of the Mount, or with a voice as thunder from the
opened vault of heaven. The using of man's organs is, in-
deed, a mark of a new dispensation, foretold as to come to
pass after Christ ascended up on high, when he would re-
ceive gifts and bestow them upon men, that the Lord God
might dwell, might have an habitation, in them. Formerly
the sounds were syllabled we know not how, because God
had not yet prepared for himself a tent of flesh; which he
accomplished to do first in Jesus of Nazareth, and is now
perfecting in his church, who are his temple, in whom he
VII.]
709
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
abideth as in the holy place, and from whom he speaketh
forth his oracles in strange tongues. The strange tongue
takes away all source of ambiguity, proving that the man
himself hath nothing to do with it, and leaves the work and
the authority of the word wholly in the hand of God. And
therefore tongues are called a sign to the unbeliever, 1 Cor.
xiv. 22: "Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them
that believe, but to them that believe not." Just as the
voice given at Bethabara over the baptized Christ was
spoken as a ground of faith to the unbelieving Jew, and
the voice given before his passion was a confirmation to
the faith of the inquiring Greek, and of all who heard it:
so these voices, spoken forth from the breasts of men, by
a power not human, but divine, are intended to convince
the unbelievers that God really dwelleth in the church;
hath chosen the church for his habitation; and that, if they
would find him, they must seek him there, for no where
else is he to be found. The Prophet Isaiah, to whom it
was given to forewarn men of this particular gift of tongues,
doth so speak of it as a fresh evidence which God would
give to men for a ground of believing, and which, alas!
they would also reject. I take the quotation as the Apostle
hath sanctioned it, the Holy Spirit's version of his own
words: "With men of other tongues, and other lips, will
I speak unto this people: and yet for all that will they not
hear me, saith the Lord" (1 Cor. xiv. 21). I cannot but
look upon this gift of tongues as sealing up the sum of
God's dealings with men for their obedience of faith. It is
the very power of God, which to blaspheme is to blas-
pheme the Holy Ghost. And witness what power it had on
the day of Pentecost, when three thousand were added to
the church. This is the "greater thing" which was to be
done by him that believeth. No one could say that Jesus
was the Christ, that God was in him, but by the Spirit
leading him into the truth of what he spoke, or convincing
him of the Divine nature of the works which he did. God
did not manifest himself in Christ in this unequivocal way;
for Christ's life was not a witness to himself, but to the
Father. Christ came to do the Father's will in our condi.
tion, that we in the like case might be assured of power and
ability through him to do the same. He was the proto-
type of a perfect and holy man under the conditions of
3 P
710
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
the Fall, that we, under those conditions, might know there
was power and will in God that we should all be perfect
and holy. This being accomplished, and Christ ascended
up on high, God sets on foot another work, which is to
testify that honour to which man had become advanced in
the person of the Son of Man, and in all other persons
who by faith should be united to him. As God had shewn
how far man had fallen in Adam, by the state of the world
under sin and suffering and death; so, by the church would
he shew how far man had risen in Christ, that all men be-
lieving in him might be brought to that exceeding exalta-
tion. Therefore in the church he shews not man's identity
with the fallen Adam, but man's identity with the risen
Adam. In the incarnation, Christ's identity with the fallen
man was shewn, yet without sin in the church, Christ's
identity with God is shewn, the power and glory of God in
him are exhibited, that all men might believe in his name.
This gift of tongues is the crowning act of all. None of
the old prophets had it, Christ had it not; it belongs to
the dispensation of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the
risen Christ: it is the proclamation that man is enthroned
in heaven, that man is the dwelling-place of God, that all
creation, if they would know God, must give ear to man's
tongue, and know the compass of reason. It is not we that
speak, but Christ that speaketh. It is not in us as men
that God speaks; but in us as members of Christ, as the
church and body of Christ, that God speaks. The honour
is not to us, but to Christ; not to the Godhead of Christ,
which is ever the same, but to the manhood of Christ, which
hath been raised from the state of death to the state of being
God's temple, God's most holy place, God's shechinah,
God's oracle, for ever and ever. "And yet for all that
will they not hear me, saith the Lord." It is most true,
O God: they will not hear even this, because total igno-
rance has benighted them: nor are they capable of ap-
prehending truth; the vanity of their minds hath carried
them away: 66
they are drunken, but not with wine; they
stagger, but not with strong drink: for thou hast poured
out upon them the spirit of deep sleep, and hast closed
their eyes; their prophets and the rulers the seers hath he
covered." Then, O Lord, if thou hast given them up,
and they may not be convinced, let this strengthen thy
VII.]
711
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
children, and against the rest let it turn for a testimony-
a testimony to thy truth, a testimony to their falsehood and
hypocrisy. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes
a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for
the children of the daughter of my people!"
If
Having thus opened at large the endowment of the
church, the body of Christ, and shewn of what it is the
first-fruits and the earnest, it may be expected that I
should enter into controversy with those who say they have
been withdrawn, and are not to be restored again; that
they were only intended to abide for a season, until the
evidence of the Christian religion should have been se-
curely established, and the canon of Scripture completed.
But, before I can think this worth the while, I must first
see where they get the grounds of their bypothesis, that
they were intended only to continue for that brief season;
in the mean time I pronounce it to be of their own inven-
tion, and not at all of the word of God. I have shewn the
great purpose and end of this endowment of spiritual gifts;
that purpose and end is not temporary, but perpetual, till
Christ's coming again; when that which is perfect shall
come, and that which is in part shall be done away.
they ask for an explanation of the fact that these powers
have ceased in the church, I answer, that they have de-
cayed just as faith and holiness have decayed; but that
they have ceased is not a matter so clear. Till the time of
the Reformation, this opinion was never mooted in the
church; and to this day the Roman Catholics, and every
other portion of the church but ourselves, maintain the very
contrary. Moreover, it is only of later days that any one
hath dared to assert that the gifts of prophecy and healing
are no longer to be looked for. Read the lives of the
Reformers, of the Puritans, of the Covenanters, written
by sound and zealous Protestants; read the histories of
the church written more than fifty years ago-our Petrie,
for example-and shew me whether these writers hold it
blasphemy to say that a man may be, and hath been, gifted
with both these gifts, especially that of prophecy. Who
has not heard of the prophecies of Huss, and of Wishart?
Amongst the Protestants of the elder day, who had in
them a good measure of faith, even beyond what their
3 p 2
712
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
creed expressed, I find no such hard scepticism and
mocking scorn as bath been sounded abroad within
these months past, to the shame of those who have ut-
tered it, if they be capable of the sense of shame.
But if I am called upon to declare why Protestants
have not enjoyed the manifestation of these gifts, I not
only refer to the general tenour of their creed upon the
subject, which hath leant to the side of their being ceased;
but, which is of much more importance than a written
creed, I refer to the spirit of their doctrine and their
preaching and their practice. And I would say, that this
gift hath ceased to be visible in the church, because of
her great ignorance concerning that work of Christ at his
second coming, of which it is the continual sign; because
of her most culpable ignorance of Christ's crowned glory,
of which it is the continual demonstration; because of
her indifference to the world without, for preaching to
which the gift of the Holy Ghost is the continual furnishing
and outfit of the church. Since the Reformation, little else
has been preached besides the baptismal and eucharistical
gift, the work of Christ's death unto the justification and
sanctification of the believer. The dignity and office of
the church, as the fulness of the Lord of all, hath not been
fully preached, or firmly held, and is now almost alto-
gether lost sight of. Church government, bickerings about
the proper form of polity, and the standing of the civil
magistrate to the church and in the church, have been
almost the only things concerning the church which have
come into question among Protestants; and there hath
been no holding of her up to the heathen as the holy
place of God, but, on the contrary, the presentation of a
Book in the stead thereof. Not but the Reformation was
the beginning of a great and a good work; but that, so
far from having made progress towards completion, it has
gone a great way backward, and in our hands is a poor
shred of what it was in the hands of Luther, and Hooker,
and the like. But things are taking a turn. Let the
church know that things are taking a mighty turn. There
is a shining forth of truth in these subjects beyond former
days. The power and glory of a risen Lord, as well as the
holiness of a Lord in flesh, is beginning to be understood
and discoursed of; and the enemy would spread a curtain
VII.]
713
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
of thin sophistry between the church and the bright dawn:
he might as well hide the morning by drawing before our
eyes the spider's cobweb, or the frost-work of the night,
which the rising sun quickly dissipates-and so, I trust,
may these poor men, who write their unsober and unchari-
table revilings in their several parcels of periodical abuse,
be themselves, like the frost-work of the morning, absorbed
into the glorious light which the rising morn is shedding
around them. But be this as it may, now that the inward
work of apprehending the glory of Christ is begun, and
proceeding apace, we may surely expect that the outward
means of convincing the world that it is no cunningly con-
trived fable, will be afforded to the church; and that she
will have her full dignity restored to her of testifying not
only to a holy Lord in flesh crucified for all men, but of a
risen Lord in power and glory, crowned for his church, and
in his church putting forth unto the world a first-fruits of
that power and government over all creation which in her
he shall ever exercise over all crcation.-These gifts have
ceased, I would say, just as the verdure and leaves and
flowers and fruits, of the spring and summer and autumn,
cease in winter, because, by the chill and wintry blasts which
have blown over the church, her power to put forth her
glorious beauty hath been prevented. But because the win-
ter is without a green leaf or beautiful flower, do men thereof
argue that there shall be flowers and fruits no more?
Trusting to the word of God, who hath created every thing
to produce and bring forth its kind, man puts out his hand
in winter, and makes preparations for the coming year: so,
if the church be still in existence, and that no one denies;
and if it be the law and end of her being to embody a
first-fruits and earnest of the power which Christ is to put
forth in the redemption of all nature; then, what though
she hath been brought so low, her life is still in her, and
that life will, under a more genial day, put forth its native
powers. Will God be baffled in his own most perfect
work, in that work which he hath wrought for the honour
of his Son? I trow not. The church is in the condition
of a man faint, and sick, and apparently dead, who putteth
forth neither manly voice nor vigorous action, and is even
incapable of thought, and almost beyond feeling but let
that man revive again (and we know the church never
3 P 3
714
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
dies), and he will both hear and see and feel and act the
man. So, if the church reviveth, she must act as the
church; which is not in the way of holiness merely, but in
the way of power, for the manifestation of the complete-
ness of Christ's work in flesh, and the first-fruits of the
same work in glory. The church is like a man who has
been fed upon slows without fruits and husks without
kernels, refuse which the swine should eat; and she is
grown lean and weak and helpless; and, moreover, she has
grown degraded in her ideas-she has forgotten the no-
bility of her birth and the grandeur of her destination: but
what then? give her proper meat, give her nourishing
drink, feed her with marrow and with fatness, and she will
put forth her might again, and rejoice in her high places.
The question is, whether that be the endowment of the
church which we have laid down above? If so,
If so, then rest
assured that when she revives again she will embody the
law according to which she was made, and shew forth the
beauty and put forth the power with which she was en-
dowed in the day of her birth. If there be a revival, she
will put forth consentaneously and all together more
knowledge, more love, more power, more holiness, more
complete testimony to the power of Him whose members
she is, of that Spirit which abideth in her, of that God
which worketh all the gifts in all the members. They
called Methodism and Evangelicalism a revival: I always
have maintained, that, though better than downright Pela-
gianism, they were far behind the Reformation; which
itself was only the beginning of a glorious work, strangled
in its cradle. But now I see a revival worthy of the name
-a revival of doctrine, of discipline, of holiness. Chris-
tians are beginning to speak their native language of faith
and truth, and to endure their prerogative of being par-
takers of the Lord's sufferings. And if this revival proceed,
it cannot but shew itself in all those essential functions for
which the church was constituted; of which one is, to enjoy
and hold forth a first-fruits of that power which Christ is
to act out in the day of his appearing. I feel it of the
greatest importance that those who are seeking to deter
men from these great truths should be resisted, and that
their mouths should be stopped: I feel it of still more
importance that those who are inquiring and searching into
vii.]
715
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
*
these things should proceed with faith and prayer, under
the guidance of God's holy word.
ance.
And therefore with all patience, as one who is working
for a master the work that his master hath set him to do,
have I endeavoured to exhibit at large the church's endow-
ment of her great Head, consisting of two parts: the first,
the inheritance of his complete work wrought in the flesh;
the second, the first-fruits of the work which he is to work
when he comes again. The former consisteth in perfect
holiness, through the renewal of the soul; which is
strengthened to subdue the innate propensities of the flesh
to evil, to crucify the world, and to overcome the evil one.
This we have served out to us in the two sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper; in the one of which we
receive cleanness of conscience, and in the other partici-
pation of Christ's sanctified flesh and purchased inherit-
But none of these go further than to possess us of
what he purchased in the flesh: "This is my body, given
for you; this is my blood, shed for the remission of sins:
his body, given for the life of the world; his blood, shed
for the putting away of all sin. The church hath perfect
holiness ministered to her in these two ordinances: Christ
doth thereby dispense that gift of the Spirit which was
dispensed to him by the Father in the days of his flesh,
and by the faithful use of which he "sanctified himself."
And we, having in these most comfortable ordinances that
blessed fellowship of holiness, should sanctify ourselves,
that we may be holy as he is holy. This is the work of
the Spirit uniting us unto Christ; taking out of us our un-
holiness and grafting us into Christ. There is a power in
the Spirit to wash the Ethiopian white. It is not in man,
but it is in God, to do so; and the element with which to
do it he hath in the blood of Christ, which cleanseth away
all sins. Every man baptized into the church is answerable
for a life of spotless, stainless holiness. What though no
man hath yielded it? So much the more is the sinfulness
of our nature proved, and the divinity of Christ shewn,
who did present mortal flesh sinless: and let him be glo-
rified, and every man be a liar. But the truth of God
standeth not the less sure. "Let God be true, and every
man a liar.” Out of this claim which God hath, and this
power which we receive after baptism, for a perfect holi-
716
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ness, come our confessions in the church, which are con-
fessions not only of the natural guilt and strength of sin,
but of the deeper and deeper guilt which it hath con-
tracted in our eyes by warring against the Spirit of God,
and striking at the life of Christ in the soul of the believer.
Not only a creation-defiling, but a Redeemer-slaying thing
is sin; not only aiming at the work of God, but at the
person of God manifest in flesh. This standard of perfec-
tion is what we measure ourselves by, and not each man's
notion of what he can attain to. Man, though fallen into
a state of weakness, is still kept responsible for the law of
perfect holiness, as at the beginning: and he is brought to
depend upon God the Redeemer, the incarnate God, the
God proceeding forth into flesh to uphold it; and so be-
lieving in a God creating, a God incarnate, and a God
proceeding forth upon flesh, in order to attain unto holi-
ness, we attain thereunto, and are stable therein; and so
are brought into the great truth of God, that no holiness
can be otherwise effected save by the faith of God in
Trinity acting according to their offices. The sin which
occurreth in the church is through want of faith in the
Godhead thus manifested; and that sin continually occur-
ring, through the defect of our faith, is the occasion for a
continual High Priest over the house of God, whose work
of intercession may continually go on. Of this there is no
doubt, that every member of Christ is bound and obliged
to perfect holiness, and hath the means of fulfilling it :
and however far he comes short thereof, he must take the
guilt to himself, and not look upon it as an ordinance or
appointment of God, as a necessary imperfection in the
work of Christ, and a native impotency in the Holy Ghost.
Now this is the more excellent way of charity, or love,
which the Apostle commendeth above all spiritual gifts:
it is the knowledge of Christ, and the being known of him;
the doing the will of the Father: for the want of which he
shall not admit into the kingdom many who in that day
shall come with their spiritual gifts in their hand, saying,
"Have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name
cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works?" This we never for a moment gainsay or under-
value, while we insist that, besides this, there is yet ano-
ther thing resident in the church; another work which she
VII.]
717
Digression-Endowment of the Church.
has to do besides the work of holiness in the flesh. We
hold the highest doctrine here, both as to the importance
of this personal holiness, without which no one shall see
the Lord; and of its measure, even perfectness, whereof
love is the bond. Let no one say, then, that we under-
value the sacramental ministration of a cleansed soul and
a holy body, when we insist from the premises laid down
above, that there is another office to which the church is
called besides this, and another endowment with which she
is gifted by her Lord and Husband; the dowry, not of
holiness only, but also of power. And for this she waited
until he himself should, from the throne of God, shed it
down abundantly upon his church. Into both of these is
the church baptized, as Peter said: Repent and be
baptized for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost." The remission, or putting
away, of sin, is that into which we are baptized, as a thing
done for the world by Christ's sacrifice of himself: the
gift of the Holy Ghost is that which to faith follows
thereon-though, to convince Peter of God's equal good-
ness to the Gentiles, it was poured out upon Cornelius and
his company before their baptism. The Samaritan church
had the gift of baptism without the gift of the Holy Ghost,
which they received by the hands of the Apostles; and
thereby we perceive that the church may exist without
the gift. But whether it is right in the sight of God that
she should so exist, let any one judge, after perusing the
things written above. We have shut ourselves out by un-
belief from the enjoyment of one great part of our dowry;
whereby not only are we straitened, but the glory of our
Lord and Husband is obscured, the world is deprived of
its witness and testimony, and the gracious ends of God,
so far as we can, defeated; and guilt is upon our head,
as baptized men, for not using that which we are baptized
into, for the possession and for the use of which we are re-
sponsible. It is now three years since I drew the attention
of the church to this subject, and more than two since I
published my views of it in the second of my Homilies
upon Baptism. Circumstances have occurred since to fix
the attention of the church upon it; and, lest men may
be beguiled the one way or the other, we have felt it to be
718
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
our duty to lay down the doctrine, according as we find it
in the Holy Scriptures.
After this large exposition of the endowments with
which Christ set forth his church, and which are no longer
found in her, we might now take upon us to reprove her
unfaithfulness in not having kept these also till he come.
But this is a matter of such vast importance, that we prefer
rather to occupy ourselves with the instruction of her ig-
norance than the reproof of her faithlessness. And because
there are many who boldly maintain that these gifts of the
Holy Ghost were only imparted for a season, to serve a
temporary end; and that it were folly, and little less than
blasphemy, to expect their return; we deem it good, before
dismissing this topic, to lay out from Scripture the broad
ground upon which we maintain God's intention to have
been that these gifts should remain as permanent as faith
and holiness and charity.
First. The promise contained in the lxviii th Psalm,
18, 19, as the same is by the Holy Ghost explained
and applied in Ephesians iv. 7, 8, 11, 12. The promise
is, that Christ, having ascended up on high, and led cap-
tivity captive, should receive gifts for men; yea, for the
rebellious also; that the Lord God might dwell among
them: and the interpretation is, that these gifts, which
he received of the Father upon his ascension, he did be-
stow upon men, in the form of apostles, prophets, evan-
gelists, pastors, and teachers; "for the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ; till we all come, in the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ" (Eph. iv. 12, 13). What Christ received when
he ascended up on high we know to be the promise.
of the Holy Ghost, from Acts ii. 33, and various
other parts of Scripture. And this gift of the Holy Ghost
he gave to certain office-bearers in his church; and there-
by endowed them for edifying the body, until it shall be
complete. Is that body, then, yet complete? No; nor will
it be till he come again. How, then, should it be that the
builders of this body should not still continue, for other-
VII.]
719
Endowment of the Church.
wise how were it to be bnilded up? and if both the build-
ers and the work of building continue, then also the
power by which they are constituted builders and fitted
for their work. Here is an argument, to me irrefragable,
for the continuance of the gift of the Holy Ghost in the
church till the number of the elect be accomplished and
Christ shall come. And, instead of arguing against the
continuance, it would be well for the builders and master-
builders in the house of God to consider by what right
they hold their office, and by what means they are fitted
for it, if so be that the gift of the Holy Ghost, received
by Christ upon his ascension, have ceased from the church;
and those amongst us who know and believe better, ought
to be much exercised with shame and sorrow that we
possess so little of the seal of our vocation, earnest in
prayer and supplication, with faith, that we may speedily
be furnished with what we lack. And it is to me manifest
that this is the doctrine of the church, which requires of
every candidate for an office to declare at the outset that
he hath the call of the Holy Ghost-or, in other words,
the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the call to the office stand-
eth in the gift; and all which the presbytery doth, is to
make trial of these gifts, and ascertain whether it be
really so, or only feigned to be so.
2dly. The promise contained in the viiith chapter of
Isaiah, verse 18, as interpreted by the Holy Ghost in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. ii. ver. 13, contains an evi-
dence of the same decisive kind, that these gifts were in-
tended for a continuance, and not for a time. The promise
is part of the prophecy concerning Immanuel, who is fore-
told to become a stumbling-block and a rock of offence
to both the houses of Israel; and it is immediately added,
in contrast with them, concerning his disciples: "Bind up
the testimony, seal the law among my disciples; and'I will
wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of
Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the chil-
dren that the Lord hath given me are for signs and won-
ders in the land of Israel, from the Lord of Hosts which
dwelleth in Mount Zion." These words the Apostle Paul
hath referred to the church, begotten to Christ by regene-
ration of the Holy Ghost. Of Christ then, and of his children,
it is said, that they are for signs and for wonders: and so
720
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
it was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, in the baptism by
the Holy Ghost both of Jews and Gentiles on becoming chil-
dren of Christ by faith: they were set for signs and for won-
ders. The prophet being concerned with Israel only, and
shewing forth the causes of that misery into which they
are come, doth, after the rejection of Christ, state the re-
jection of his children also, who were set for signs and
wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts. The Apostle
takes the language and applies it in general, without re-
ference to the Jews in particular; and it is manifest from
the context that the prophecy applies to all his disciples,
amongst whom the law was bound up and the testimony seal-
ed to the whole church, which is the dwelling-place of the
word of God, the oracle at which for not inquiring the world
is destroyed. Now in respect of the time during which he and
his children were to be for signs and wonders, it is so long
as God hideth his face from the house of Jacob; so long as
Christ waiteth and looketh to God for the fulfilment of his
promise, that by him Israel should be gathered. Here,
then, in this brief description of the condition of Christ's
disciples and children, we have it asserted that they are for
signs and wonders upon the earth during the time of his
sitting in expectation at the right hand of God. It is as
much the oracle of God that his church should be for signs
and wonders, as that the law should be bound up and the
testimony sealed among us. It is not more their prero-
gative to be holy according to the law of God, and to
speak according to his testimony, than it is that they should
be for signs and wonders. Now let no one explain away
this expression, "for signs and wonders," into a mere spi-
ritual and invisible thing. In the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testament these words, " signs and wonders,"
express always, without an exception, miraculous works,
whether performed by the power of God or by the power
of the evil one; and in the case before us they are such
manifest tokens of God's presence with the disciples of
Christ as shall make it a crime worthy of destruction for
any people to blind themselves thereto. I hold, therefore,
beyond a question, that the Holy Ghost by the mouth of
Isaiah did as surely predict for us an inheritance of mira-
culous powers, as Moses did predict to the children of
Israel the inheritance of the promised land; and that as,
VII.]
721
Endowment of the Church.
when they turn unto the Lord with repentance of their
sins and observance of his holy law, they shall possess their
inheritance of Canaan, so surely shall we possess our in-
heritance of signs and wonders when we shall believe in
the power of our risen Lord, and the privilege of the church
to enjoy a first-fruits thereof.
3dly. The promise in the xxviiith chapter of Isaiah,
verse 11, as it is explained and applied by the Holy Ghost
in the xiv th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
verse 21, is a demonstration that the gift of tongues, like
signs and wonders, is a new method by which God would
convince the world, and yet by which the world will not be
convinced, whereby their guilt is exceedingly aggravated.
In connection with preaching of the rest unto the weary,
which Christ literally fulfilled, saying, "Come unto
me, all ye that are weary, and I will give you rest," is
connected this dispensation of the Holy Ghost speaking
unto men by other tongues, for not hearing of which the
Lord comes in judgment upon them. It is a part of the
endeavour of God to convert men ; it is a part of the pro-
bation which he takes of their wickedness; or, in other
words, the preaching of peace and rest and refresh-
ment to the weary is not the whole witness of Jesus
Christ in the sight of the nations, but needeth to have
added thereto the gift of tongues, which, as we have shewn,
is the greatest manifestation of God that can be made out-
wardly; and, if so, why have we it not still? Christ is
defrauded of part of his testimony, the world is defrauded
of part of her entreaty, and the church hath all the blame.
4thly. The promise in Joel ii. 28-32, as it is inter-
preted and applied by the Holy Ghost in Acts ii. 17,
is another unquestionable evidence of the perpetuity of
these gifts in the church. Though the passage in Joel,
as being introduced by the word " afterward," and form-
ing the conclusion of a chapter concerning the rejection,
penitence, and restoration of Israel, might seem to be con-
sequent thereon, we know, by Peter's application of it to
the day of Pentecost, that it is not; as, indeed, is likewise
evident from two internal marks-the one, that it takes
place before the great and terrible day of the Lord; the
other, that it is for a deliverance from that fearful de-
struction of nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat which
1
3 Q
722
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the context immediately proceedeth to describe. The
word translated " afterward" in our version, and in that
of the Seventy "after these things," hath not so much
definiteness in the Hebrew, being simply " after;" and
by the Apostle Peter it is rendered "in the latter days.
The way which I would take to understand such an ex-
pression as "after," introducing a new scene or act in
the prophets, would be to consider what was the main
subject of the preceding act, not what was the last-men-
tioned particular. Now, though the last-mentioned parti-
cular be Israel's blessedness, the main subject is Israel's
long rejection of God, and desolation at the hand of her
enemies; concluding, as usual, with an assurance of re-
storation. This, then, is the action of God from which I
should understand the outpouring of the Spirit as about to
proceed; and the more, when I find that in the parallel
passage of Isaiah it is expressly declared that the deso-
lation shall continue until the Spirit be poured out from
on high, and that this shall be the means of the refresh-
ment and restoration (Isai. xxxii. 14, 15). The Jews seem
to have been of opinion that the outpouring of the Spirit is
the beginning of a new subject, by making the iid chapter
to end and the iiid chapter to begin there. I am the more
convinced of this by the study of the book of Joel, which
evidently consisteth of two parts-the former, including
the first and second chapters, being the oppression of the
Jews under the four monarchies, and the last direful
confederacy against them, from which they are recovered
with infinite and everlasting mercies. This general view
of their sins and sufferings, of their repentance and resto-
ration, having been given, the prophet hath opened to him
the last great act more fully in the other vision; which
begins with the outpouring of the Spirit before the great
and terrible day of the Lord; then describes the judgment
of the nations in that fearful time; and concludes with the
everlasting glory of his people. Let us now consider the
substance of the prophecy: "I will pour out my Spirit
upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your
young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants
and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my
Spirit" (Joel ii. 28, 29). This is the enlargement of that
VII.]
723
Endowment of the Church.
gift, which heretofore had rested on a few prophets and
seers in Israel, to the whole body of the people indiscri-
minately, without respect of sex, age, or occupation. Now
we have the Apostle's authority for believing that this gift
of God began to be given on the day of Pentecost; and
have we any means of ascertaining how long it was in-
tended to abide? This we have, clear and determinate;
for the Apostle, in the same place, after concluding his
discourse, calleth upon the heart-stricken people to come
and be baptized: "For the promise," saith he, "is unto
you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even
as many as the Lord our God shall call." The words " as
many as the Lord our God shall call" are taken from the
last words of the promise in Joel, "the remnant whom
the Lord shall call;" and Peter's incorporation of them
called on, with "them and their children,” doth shew that
he embraced the whole of those five verses of Joel as one
promise, then begun to be accomplished. This being made
sure, we have in the two verses intervening, also quoted
by him, a certain mark as to the term of the continuance
of the prophecy: "And I will shew wonders in the heavens
and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into
blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord
come. These words are proper only to one event in this
world's history," when Christ shall come in the clouds of
heaven" (Matt. xxiv. 29): and until this time, therefore,
that promise holdeth good; until Christ come, the Spirit,
heretofore confined to the prophets and seers, is indiscri-
minately bestowed upon all whom the Lord our God shall
call by his Gospel-upon all to whom salvation and deli-
verance are preached. The church which the Lord called
in Jerusalem, and which in its experiences was the pattern
of the mother church, received the Spirit indiscriminately,
man, woman, and child; and when the type of the great
day of the Lord came, in the destruction of Jerusalem,
they also received deliverance and preservation from the
sword and from the famine and from the pestilence, being
in a wonderful manner suffered to escape from the doomed
city. When the Gentiles were first called in the house of
Cornelius, they received the outpouring of the Spirit indis-
criminately; and in the churches planted among the Gen-
3Q2
724
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
tiles, these gifts were as various and abundant as among
the Jews. And to the "remnant of the Gentiles whom the
Lord shall call," the same promise of salvation and deliver-
ance is preached; and there is no difference between Jew
and Gentile in Christ. We are brought into the inheri-
tance of all their blessings; and wherefore this promise of
Joel concerning the outpouring of the Spirit, to give the gift
of prophecy and of vision and of dreams, should be limited
to the fathers and founders of the church, when Joel him-
self assigns it as the prerogative of all flesh that are called
until Christ come, I can by no means discover.
5thly. Our next argument to prove the intention of
God in respect to the duration of these gifts, is drawn from
the words of our Lord scattered throughout the Gospels,
and especially in his instructions to those who should
preach his Gospel. When he sent out the seventy-or rather
when they returned from their first mission-he said unto
them, "
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on ser-
pents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy;
and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke x. 19);
and this, observe, not to the twelve Apostles, but to the
seventy. Again, twice over he saith unto his disciples, "If
ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto
this mountain, Remove bence to yonder place, and it shall
remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Matt.
xvii. 20: see also Matt. xxi. 21). Now this, which he
said unto the twelve and the seventy and his disciples in
general, he extendeth to every one who hath faith in him,
saying, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater
works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Fa-
ther" (John xiv. 12). In the same discourse he promiseth
to them the Comforter, of whom he asserteth that he shall
shew them things to come. This Comforter came not till
the day of Pentecost; and in what form he came, of tongues
and miracles and prophecy, is known to all. Then the
church received the Holy Ghost. Also in the same way
of miraculous powers did the Samaritan church receive
the Holy Ghost (Acts v.); and in the same way of speak-
ing with tongues did Cornelius and his company receive
the Holy Ghost (Acts x. 45): and seeing that in these
three capital instances the Holy Ghost came with his
VII.]
Endowment of the Church.
725
illumination, and his teaching, and his power of magnify-
ing God, in this form of tongues and prophecy and mira-
cles, what is the authority for severing Him from that his
chosen form, and saying that he shall not so be manifested
any more; although Christ declared that to believers he
would bring the power of doing greater works than he had
done? Let us now look more particularly to the instruc-
tions given by our Lord concerning the preaching of the
Gospel. In Matthew they are thus delivered," All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth: Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you; and, lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end
of the world" (xxviii. 18-20). Behold what reasons
the Lord assigns for their going to preach. It is his om-
nipotency in heaven and in earth; it is the power that is
given to him: power not only in heaven, the region of the
spiritual; but also in earth, the region of the visible. As
the head Commissioner, therefore, of the preachers, he
would be known as the possessor of power; and in this cha-
racter he promises to be with them until the end of the
age, and the time of his re-appearing. Now of what kind
this power is, in the demonstration of which he would have
his Gospel preached, is declared in the parallel passage,
upon which we have largely commented above: power
over devils, over serpents, over poisons, over diseases, and
power to speak with tongues. When this power was re-
ceived by the first preachers, and of what kind it was, is
again distinctly declared in the parallel passage of the
Gospel by Luke: "And ye are witnesses of these things.
And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you:
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued
with power from on high" (chap. xxiv. 48, 40). The cor-
responding passage in the Acts of the Apostles seals up
this matter, and shews that the gift of the Holy Ghost
on the day of Pentecost is that presence of the all-power-
ful Jesus in which the Gospel should be preached: "Jesus,
being assembled together with them, commanded them
that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for
the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard
of me.
For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall
3 Q3
726
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
:
""
be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence......
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times
or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is
come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts i. 4, 5, 7, 8).
Now how much of the success of their preaching stood
in this very thing, let the prayer of the brethren, when all
the powers of earth were set against them, testify. What it
was that gave them boldness to preach in that perilous
city of Jerusalem, and in that day of confederacy against
Christ, let these words of the only recorded prayer of the
church testify: "And now, Lord, behold their threaten-
ings and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness
they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand
to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the
name of thy holy Child Jesus. And when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they were assembled together;
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they
spake the word of God with boldness (Acts iv. 29-31).
Moreover, how much the Apostle Paul rests the authority of
his office as an Apostle upon the demonstration which the
Holy Ghost gave to his words, by communicating gifts of
the Spirit, let these words to the Corinthians prove, "And
my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words
of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and
of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God" (1 Cor. ii 4, 5); and
these words to the Galatians, "This only would I learn
of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or
by the hearing of faith?" And also let it be observed
how Peter justified himself to the rest of the Apostles, for
preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, by the same argu-
ment: "And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell
on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I
the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed bap-
tized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift
as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
what was I that I could withstand God?" But now how
changed is the church! Because in a certain corner of the
VII.]
727
Endowment of the Church.
vineyard of Scotland a certain minister's preaching is said
to have been attested by the gift of tongues, without in-
quiring, or caring to inquire, whether it really be so or no;
and if it be so, hailing him as the beloved and honoured of
the Lord; have we not rushed upon him with open mouth,
and raged against him with heathenish violence, and are even
now seeking to cast him out of the church? I wash my
hands of such cruelty and infidelity: I lift up my solemn,
though it should be solitary, protest against it, as a minis-
ter of the Church of Scotland, and pray and wait for
better times. If so be that this is the gift of tongues-
and why should I, with such witness, doubt it?—then
hail to thee, thou honoured minister of Christ! The
Lord gave me to declare the church's right to these
gifts years ago; but to thee and to thy words hath he
given the higher sanction of the very gifts: for these verily
are, by the Lord Jesus and his Apostles, looked upon as
the highest outward testimonies of God to the truth.
Before leaving this testimony, derived from the very lips
of Christ himself, I would put forth one or two of a less
direct kind, and yet, perhaps, on that account only the
more forcible. In the Sermon on the Mount, when re-
ferring to the day of judgment, when he shall sit to de-
termine who must enter into the kingdom of heaven, he
saith, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name
have cast out devils? and in thy name done many won-
derful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never
knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt.
vii. 22, 23). Now I would ask, if to work miracles, and
to prophesy, and to cast out devils, were only intended
to be local and partial, and not universal and continual in
the church, why should our Lord pitch upon these as insuffi-
cient testimonials of one who doth the will of his Father,
of one whom Jesus knoweth? But taking it to be intended
of God that these should remain in his church as gifts, for
the use of which their possessors were responsible; that
with them they should both edify themselves and edify the
church; it then becomes a most appropriate point of in-
struction and warning, to make us know that gifts are not
graces, but signs of the grace of God to us; intended to
beget gratitude and love to him, and to the Lord Jesus
723
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
who procured them for us by ascending up on high. Then
it becomes exactly parallel with that beautiful contrast of
spiritual gifts with love which Paul makes in the First
Epistle to the Corinthians. Another of those cross lights cast
upon this subject is to be found in that continual predic-
tion of signs and wonders to be wrought by Satan and his
false prophets on the eve of the coming of the Lord: "For
there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall
shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that (if it were
possible) they shall deceive the very elect" (Matt. xxiv.
24). Now, if it had been God's purpose that signs and
wonders were to be in the church only for a short season,
during the lives of the Apostles, or some few years after
them, and never again to be needed or expected, what
could Satan look for from a church thus dead to the desire
or expectation of signs and wonders, but to be treated as
an impostor? Either the church must change her present
opinion, and begin to think that signs and wonders may
again be looked for from God, or else Satan will bring
rejection upon himself when he shall thus offer his cre-
dentials: just as, unless an expectation of Christ shall be
again awakened in the church, false Christs will present
themselves in vain; unless a spirit of prophecy be given
to the church, false prophets will present themselves in
vain; unless signs and wonders be given to the church,
false signs and wonders will be looked for in vain. Now,
believing the words of the Lord, that false Christs, false
prophets, and false miracles, of great subtlety, shall be
presented by Satan to the church before the great day of
the Lord, I most certainly believe that beforehand there
will be given by God both the hope and the desire of
Christ's appearing, the gift of prophecy, and the power of
miracles; unto which condition of things Satan will pre-
sent all his power of delusion, and will certainly delude
many, nay, all but the elect. Therefore, while I argue
so patiently and so zealously for the truth of God's inten-
tion in this matter, I am far from any exaggeration of the
peculiar safety of such gifted persons, and of such a gifted
condition of the church; but do, on the other hand, clearly
perceive that they will straightway become the object of
Satan's spiritual temptations, as the church that now is
is the object of his worldly temptations; and all persons
VII.]
729
Endowment of the Church.
will fall before him, save those who are rooted and
grounded and built up in love. And I foresee, more-
over, that the scandal of these spiritual defections and
transgressions will be so great in the sight of the world, so
nearly allied to folly and to frenzy, that it will be with
the loss of all worldly reputation that any man will dare
to profess his faith in a Lord instantly about to appear,
or in a church possessing miraculous powers, or in a ministry
gifted with the gift of prophecy.
en-
6thly. The notices which are found in the Apostolical
Epistles concerning these gifts, affords another, and per-
haps the strongest, proof of all, that they were as much
given for continuance as those fruits of the Spirit which
are in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. In the
xiith chapter of the Romans, the gift of prophesying is men-
tioned in the same connection with the ministry, teaching,
exhortation, ruling, and so forth. In the iv th of the First
Epistle of Peter, "speaking as the oracles of God" is men-
tioned along with "ministering to the necessities of others."
In the vith chapter of the Hebrews, "being made partakers
of the Holy Ghost," is mentioned along with being
lightened, and tasting the good word of God." In the First
of Timothy, "the prophecies that went before" are referred
to as a ground of his confidence in the warfare, and an
assurance of his gift, along with the charge of the Apostle,
and the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. But
the most striking example of this is to be found in the
xiith, xiiith, and xivth chapters of the First Epistle to the
Corinthians, where spiritual gifts are made the marks of
the several members in the body of Christ. After con-
sidering the diversities of these gifts, he giveth as the
reason of this diversity, that they might make up one body
together, and would be incomplete without one another.
They are likened in the church to the offices which the
eye and the ear and the hand and the foot have to sus-
tain in the human body. Now, this is strange language to
use, if so be that these gifts were intended only for a
season. Why identify them with the memberships of the
body in that case? why connect that which is temporary,
as the sign, yea, and the cause, of that which is perpetual?
For that the body should have many memberships is a
perpetual ordinance in the church, at least until Christ
7730
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
come: and therefore I believe that these gifts, in the va-
riety of which the various memberships stand, were like-
wise so intended to continue. Moreover, the Apostle doth
set these gifts into contrast with love-which also be en-
largeth upon, describing its excellent qualities-and then,
without a hint of any difference with respect to their con-
tinuance in the church, he proceeds to treat of spiritual
gifts again. Now, methinks, when he was putting forth
the super-excellence of love over all spiritual gifts, if so
be that the spiritual gifts were intended only for a short
season in the church, he would have scized hold on this
at once. He doth, indeed, say that prophecies shall fail,
and that tongues shall cease, and that knowledge shall
vanish away; but when? let the Apostle himself say:
"When that which is perfect is come; when we shall know
even as we are known." And no one, I believe, will say
that this time is yet come, nor is to come until the com-
ing of Christ. We have argued above, that these gifts are
but a first-fruits or earnest of that perfect thing which is
to be enjoyed in the day of the redemption of the inhe-
ritance. Then, indeed, the present partial ministrations
shall give way to that complete and perfect man which we
shall be when the body is redeemed from the grave, and
we shall be like Him who is our life.
Before leaving these three chapters, which contain the
fullest account of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, we think it
good to remove one objection to their continuance in the
church, which may be grounded upon the 13th verse of
the xiiith chapter: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity
…..but the greatest of these is charity." What, it may be
said, is the intention of the Apostle in separating from all
other gifts, faith, hope, and charity, and saying that they
remain? Is it not as much as to say, that they only re-
main? To answer this question aright will require an ex-
amination of the context. The Apostle, having in the
xiith chapter given to spiritual gifts their place, as dis-
tinguishing the members of Christ from one another, and
together constituting the completeness of the body, doth
proceed in the xiiith chapter to explain that common
principle of regenerate life which unites the members into
one body with Christ their head. To this principle, which
constitutes the community of Christ, he giveth the name
VII.]
731
Endowment of the Church.
of love as it is written, "He that dwelleth in love,
dwelleth in God, for God is love." Without this root and
ground of love, he declares that every gift would be as
much abused as if the hand were to lift itself against the
heart, or the tongue to tell lies of the wants of the other
members. In the body there is the unity of one life, of
one mind, and one will. This answereth to love in the
body of Christ, which is the bond of perfectness. Be.
sides this, there are in the body various members which,
besides a common life, a common sympathy of pleasure
and of pain, have various uses and occupations; in which
diligently ministering, the whole body grows up fitly pro-
portioned, and properly adapted for the functions of a per-
fect man. This answereth to the diversities of gifts and
ministries and in-workings of God in the church. But if
the members of the body will not do their several parts-
the limbs refusing to bear, or the hands to work, or the
eyes to explore-then the child grows up weak and ill-pro-
portioned, and the man falls into disease and helplessness.
The edification of the body, the building of it up in stature
and strength, cometh, as is well known to the physiologist,
and indeed to every person less or more, from the labour of
each member in his several place at his several occupation.
This is so beautifully applied to the church in chap. iv.
of the Ephesians, that I cannot help quoting three verses
out of a passage to which I have referred already, and do
again refer all who would understand the proper constitu-
tion of the church: "That we henceforth be no more
children, tossed to fro, and carried about with every wind
of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive: but, speaking the
truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is
the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body, fitly
joined together, and compacted by that which every joint
supplieth, according to the effectual working in the mea-
sure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the
edifying of itself in love" (vers. 14-16). Now, so much
of the church's edification standing in each member ful-
filling his separate office in love to the whole, the Apostle
in the xiiith of the First of Corinthians sets forth the act-
ings of this love, amongst which faith and hope occur:
Charity believeth all things, hopeth all things." This done,
he proceeds at the 8th verse to set forth the supremacy
"
732
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of love, by another consideration altogether-to wit, that
it never faileth, which is more than can be said of the
gifts peculiar to the members; whereof he mentions three
by name, prophecies, tongues, and knowledge, as being to
last only till the perfect thing be come of which these
gifts of the Holy Ghost were the first-fruits and earnest;
whereas love, being the bond of our union with Christ and
with God, must continue evermore unabated in its
strength. Now this love includes both faith and hope,
and all other fruits of the Spirit; and itself is a fruit of the
Spirit, often enumerated as one among the rest. Now, to
express its pre-eminence here also, its pre-eminence as
it were amongst its own children, he chooses out the three
principal graces-faith, hope, and love-and asserteth that
here also love is the greatest and the best. While I be-
lieve this to be the thing substantially contained in the
13th verse, I have attended also to the peculiarity of the
language, "Now abideth faith, hope, charity;" and I have
this to observe upon it: The word, "now," cannot be used
adverbially, as signifying at that time,' but conjunctively,
as introducing the conclusion of his eulogy of charity; for
he had stated that all the gifts were in the church at that
time, and in the next verse he tells them to covet ear-
nestly those gifts. But, allowing this, what is the meaning
of this word "abideth?" The same, I think, with the
never faileth" of verse S. He would express, as the
conclusion of what he had said, that love was to remain
for ever. But along with this he would also express ano-
ther truth, that, amongst the other permanent graces of
the Spirit which compose the renewed image of God, love
stood pre-eminent he would contemplate it, not as a
mother principle of godliness, but as one amongst its own
children; and of these children he takes not patience, or
joy, or chastity, but faith and hope, which have a pre-
eminence given to them in many parts of Scripture-as
Rom. v. 1, 2; 1 Tim. i. 5; Heb. xi. 1-in order to give
love its eternal prerogative of being the first, the greatest,
and the best, the fountain-head of God's manifestations
of Himself, and which he would have to be the foun-
tain-head of all his creatures' manifestations of them-
selves. For I believe it to be a common error, that
faith and hope will cease through eternity, any more than
love. Faith is the very condition of a creature towards
(C
VII.]
733
Endowment of the Church.
the Creator. The Creator never ceases to do good to his
creature; his goodness is never all paid off; he never by
an act discontinues his future acting: and being so that
he is ever loving to be gracious, his creatures must ever
be trusting in him for the supply of that grace. The
Holy Spirit's action in the creature is what it was shewn
to be in Christ,-perfect faith upon the perfect goodness of
the invisible and incomprehensible God. Faith, there-
fore, is an essential attribute of the creature possessed by
the Holy Ghost: and so is hope, for even now that Christ
is upon the throne of the Father, he is hoping, waiting, or
expecting, until his enemies be made his footstool; and so
it must be to every creature who is constituted under the
conditions of time. The acting of the Holy Spirit's con-
fidence towards God with respect to things future, is
hope. Moreover, they are constituent parts of love; and
if love is to abide, they must abide also. This last verse,
therefore, is merely an assertion of the eternal duration of
love, and its supremacy among the other graces, which
likewise eternally endure, in contradistinction from those
gifts which are to continue only until the perfection of our
being in the redemption of the body and the restoration
of our inheritance. Indeed, throughout the whole dis-
course there is not a hint of any kind to lead us even to
suspect that the Apostle had any notion that these gifts
were to be discontinued after a few years, or at most after
one or two centuries. There is not a hint for suspecting
that he had any such notion as that commonly entertained,
that these miraculous endowments were merely to ob-
tain credence for the doctrine which the Apostles pro-
mulgated; and this done, that they were to cease.
will examine this notion more particularly hereafter: I
only speak now as to its origin; and this I maintain, that,
originate where it may, it hath no origin, ground, nor
semblance of authority in the Holy Scriptures. Through-
out these three chapters, which have no other object than
to treat of the spiritual gifts, as contradistinguished from
the fruits of the Spirit; of the outward manifestations of the
Spirit, as distinguished from his inward regeneration; there
is not-I say it again—a hint that both equally are not con-
ditions of the church, permanent as her permanency under
this present dispensation, until the perfection come. They
I
3 R
734
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
stand together in the Apostle's mind, as co-requisites
to the being and well-being of the church; the one
requisite to the community of her members, the other re-
quisite to their mutual dependence upon one another
and their common contribution to the edification of the
whole; and nothing but that same blindness which hath
made men reading the Bible never to perceive a second
coming of the Lord, could have made them never to per-
ceive that these gifts were intended to remain.
7thly. The seventh and last consideration by which
I am myself persuaded, and would persuade others, of
the truth of these things, is an awful one indeed, which
it almost overwhelms me to state, but which, after three
years' constant meditation of it, I think I may not any
longer hide. It is three years since I publicly expressed
my sober conviction that every baptized person is respon-
sible to God for the possession of some of those gifts
included generally under the appellation of spirituals in
the xiith, xiiith, and xiv th chapters of the First Epistle
to the Corinthians: and, before shewing more at large the
grounds of this conviction, which three years of free and
open discussion with my brethren hath rather confirmed
than weakened, I will extract from my published writings
the paragraph wherein it is contained. In the second
Homily on Baptism will be found this paragraph :
6
"The other part of the dispensation of the grace of
God under which the baptized are brought, is expressed
in these words, And ye shall receive the Holy Ghost.'
By which, they say, we ought to understand, not the
outward gift of power, which hath ceased, but the inward
gift of sanctification and fruitfulness, which we all believe
to be co-essential in the salvation of a sinner with the
work of Christ itself. But for my own part I am inclined
to understand both; for I cannot find by what writ of God
any part of the spiritual gift was irrevocably removed from
the church. I see, indeed, that she hath lost the power
which heretofore made her terrible as an army with ban-
ners; so also hath she lost the bright and glorious raiment
which made her fair as the moon and clear as the sun ;
but why she may not hope, yea, assuredly believe, to have
the former, when the Lord shall see it good, as well as
the latter, is what I cannot see, the one being truly as
VII.]
735
Endowment of the Church.
<
supernatural a work of God as is the other. For that the
works which the first disciples were enabled to work was
a true fruit of the Holy Spirit, is not only manifest from
their being constantly named by his name-as in Acts x.
45, Because that on the Gentiles also was poured out
the gift of the Holy Ghost: for they heard them speak
with tongues and magnify God' (this being the visible
sign of the invisible grace)-but is put beyond all doubt
by the Apostle's enumeration of the diversity of the Spirit's
operations; as it is written, 1 Cor. xii. 7-12, But the
manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal. For to one is given, by the Spirit, the word of
wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, by the same
Spirit; to another faith, by the same Spirit; to another
the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit; to another the
working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another
discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues;
to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these
worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to
every man severally as he will.' Now, it is not for man,
without some far more cogent reason than the mere fact
of their being withdrawn, to preclude and prevent you
from expecting the whole gift with which at any time it
hath pleased God to endow his church. It is not for any
man, by an arbitrary distinction, for which I can find no
warrant in Scripture, to name the one part ordinary and
the other part extraordinary; and, upon the strength of
this arbitrary division, to say the former was never in-
tended to be continued, but the latter only. The better
way of expressing the truth is to say, That in the first
ages, the faith of the church being great, her possession
of the earnest of the Spirit was great her expectation
and her prayer being great, her answer and her receipt
was great. But as she abused the day-spring which arose
upon her from on high, and employed the glory of the
morning in idle and unprofitable and wicked works; not
valuing the gift of pure and holy light, of warm and vi-
gorous life; the Lord from time to time withdrew his ta-
lents, and sentenced her to that poverty under which we
now behold her;-and of which I will say, that while I
bow with resignation to the will of God, I will never cease
to use the withdrawal of these gifts as an argument of our
3 R 2
736
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
being under the judgment and wrath of God; while I re-
gard that account of the matter with which we content
ourselves that the extraordinary have been withdrawn
from us, but the ordinary remain as a poor shift to re-
move the blame off from our shoulders, and as making an
unworthy use of the Divine purpose and intention. That
it was a part of the Divine purpose to bring the Gentile
church under this deprivation of the Holy Ghost, as he
formerly did bring the Jewish church under blindness and
deafness to the voice of their Prophets, there can be no
doubt: but, in like manner as they are continually re-
buked, and were at length cast out from being the Lord's
people, for this very cause; so do we underlie a present
rebuke; and it ought to be the continual argument of the
preachers of the truth, and to form the grounds of con-
tinual admonition and warning of judgment speedily about
to come. And therefore I present it to you, my Christian
brethren, as the ground of deepest humility in the sight
of God, and most sorrowful repentance and painful inter-
cession, like unto Daniel's, that we have been brought
into this state of impotency, which argues a like state of
unholiness. For these two, holiness in the inward parts
and power in the outward, go together in the dispensa-
tions of the Spirit unto his church. And being thus con-
vinced in my mind, and moved in my spirit, I do not hesi-
tate to affirm, that all we who have been baptized were
baptized unto the fulness of the spiritual gifts, according
as it might please God to divide unto every man, whether
the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, the
gift of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, discern-
ing of spirits, divers kinds of tongues, or the interpretation
of tongues; each one of these being the outward sign of a
particular inward operation of the Spirit upon the soul,
and qualifying the soul for profiting the church with that
inward gift which is given to it. These are the signs of
the Spirit's presence. And observe what is the fruit of his
presence: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem-
perance' (Gal. v. 22, 23). And again :. The fruit of the
Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth'
(Eph. v. 9). And again: 'There is, therefore, now no con-
demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
6
VII.]
737
Endowment of the Church.
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit: for the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the
law of sin and death' (Rom. viii. 1, 2). But ye are not in
the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead indeed because of sin; but the spirit is life
because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore,
brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the
flesh for if ye live after the flesh ye shall die: but if
ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,
ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of
God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received
the spirit of bondage, again to fear; but ye have received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we
are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs
of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer
with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I
reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be re-
vealed in us.' (ver. 9—18)."
The judgment given in this passage has been confirmed
to me by a more careful consideration of the passage in
the iid of the Acts, in connection with other passages of
Scripture. The people whom Peter addressed were in the
midst of astonishment at what they heard and saw: igno-
rant men speaking the marvellous works of God, unlearned
men speaking all the tongues of the known world. Peter
rose up to explain to them what it was; and told them
that it was the fulfilment of the promise of Joel, that the
Spirit which had resided in the Prophets was to reside in
all flesh, man, woman, and child indiscriminately; that
the office which had been fulfilled by a series of Prophets,
ending with Jesus of Nazareth, was now to be fulfilled by
a body of people, of whom Jesus of Nazareth, now both
Christ and Lord, is both the head and soul: and when
Peter perceived that his discourse had taken hold upon
the people, and they asked what they should do, he an-
3 R 3
738
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
swered them, Come and be baptized into the faith of
Christ, for the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive
this gift of the Holy Ghost which we have received: for
the promise in Joel is not to a few, but to all flesh, even
"to you, and your children, and to all that are afar
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." And
upon being baptized, he expressly declares that they
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, was
Peter deceiving the people? was he then preaching bap-
tism to them with another and a better promise an-
nexed to it than he would have done to others? Surely
no: for he says the promise was not only to them and to
their children, but likewise to all that were afar off, to
every one whom God should call with the Gospel call.
Now, what can we make of it then, but to allow that bap-
tism, as preached by the Apostles, that Christian bap-
tism, hath the fulfilment of Joel's prophecy connected with
it; and that the baptized are responsible for the possession.
and exercise of the same? But because this is a conclusion
of great moment, it ought to be confirmed with all con-
current testimony of the Scriptures. And, first, I refer to
the connection, invariably preserved in our Lord's instruc-
tions to his Apostles and disciples, between the preaching
of the Gospel and the possession of power; and particu-
larly to the xxiv th of Luke, where, in virtue of Christ's
suffering and rising from the dead, "Repentance and re-
mission of sins should be preached in his name among all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (ver. 47). But with re-
spect to the promise of the Father, and power from on
high, he tells them to tarry for it. Here, then, is a space
of time, the time between Christ's resurrection and the
day of Pentecost, during which repentance and remission
of sins might be preached; but the power from on high
and the promise of the Father might not be preached,
otherwise than as about to be: that is, John's baptism,
which is unto repentance and remission, but not Christ's
baptism, which is unto the gift of the Holy Ghost. Christ
himself received these two baptisms immediately, the one
upon the other; not so the Apostles, and others who were
baptized by John, and who baptized into the baptism of
John. They remained without the baptism of the Holy
Ghost till the day of Pentecost, and on the day of Pente-
VII.]
739
Endowment of the Church.
cost they received it. There was no remission of sins by
the law, but, on the other hand, an imputation of sins, which
could not be remitted but by the blood of Christ shed for
the remission of sins that were under the first testament.
John came to hold up Christ as the Lamb of God, by
whom not only these, but all other sins, were taken away.
And he likewise held him up in another light, as he who
should baptize with the Holy Ghost. By his death, and
resurrection, and ascension unto the Father, he both took
away sin from all flesh, and shewed it to be taken away;
for sin cannot enter into the presence of God. By sending
down the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, he shewed
himself to be the baptizer with the Holy Ghost. From
that time forth these two unspeakable gifts-the gift of
holiness, and the gift of power; remission or putting away
of sins, and endowment with the Holy Ghost-became
joined together as the privilege of Christian baptism; and
on the day of Pentecost Peter joined them together: and
what God then joined, let no man part asunder.
A cu-
rious confirmation of this truth occurs in the case of the
Samaritan church, narrated in the viiith of the Acts,
where, Philip having baptized them into the faith of Jesus,
the Apostles, hearing thereof, sent down Peter and John,
who were not satisfied until they had prayed for them,
and laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy
Ghost. This shews two things: first, that the gift of the
Holy Ghost is a distinct thing from the remission of sins
and regeneration, wrought in baptism; and that the latter
can exist without the former, which is the only comfort to
the church labouring under the absence and loss of these
gifts. But whereas the Apostles, hearing of this, imme-
diately took order to communicate that which was lack-
ing, and did communicate it by the laying on of their
hands, it is proved, secondly, that this state of destitu-
tion is not the right one before God, but ought with all
speed to be supplied with what it lacketh. And now, lest
any one from that instance might have argued that these
gifts, over and above regeneration and holiness, were not
without the laying on of the Apostles' hands to be ob
tained, the Holy Ghost hath given us another instance, in
the xth and xith chapters of the Acts, wherein the same
Apostle Peter, though honoured to declare the truth by
740
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
preaching, was set aside in this matter of the Holy Ghost,
which Christ ministered directly, without either the out-
ward sign of baptism or of the laying on of hands. And
now, as the former instance was our consolation under our
present bereavement, so this is our encouragement to ex-
pect these gifts, though we have no hand of an Apostle to
be laid upon us. When the church shall have rightly ap-
prehended and fully believed the doctrine of the Holy
Ghost, as we are now endeavouring to lay it down, she
shall not have long to wait until she receive the thing
which we declare. How very remarkable is Peter's com-
ment, or rather reflection, at the time this took place:
"Then remembered I," saith he, "the word of the Lord,
how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost;" making it to
me most manifest that baptism with the Holy Ghost is in-
deed neither less nor more than these spiritual gifts. Not
but that the work of putting away sin and regeneration
into holiness is likewise wrought by the Holy Ghost, or
rather by the Spirit of Christ, bringing forth of his holy
manhood the life of a holy manhood into us; but that
the baptism of the Holy Ghost is something distinct from
and more than this, even a gift from God to his new-born
child, a talent for his newly arled servant, upon which he
is to trade, with which he is to profit the body of the
church, and in doing so to edify himself and earn a glo-
rious reward. Now, there is one other instance in the Acts
of the Apostles, and that in some respects more remark-
able than the two preceding, recorded in the xixth chapter
of the Acts; where Paul, having found at Ephesus certain
disciples, asked them if they had received the Holy Ghost.
since they believed; and they said unto him, "we have
not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost "
(literally, but we have not even heard if the Holy Ghost
is')—that is, they had not been visited by any one of the
disciples who were baptized with the Holy Ghost on the
day of Pentecost-yet had they received the baptism of
repentance, or change of heart, or putting away of sin, or
regeneration; which regeneration Christ preached to Nico-
demus as a thing then upon the earth, which was to be
seen and heard every where. Then were these men bap-
tized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid
VII.]
741
Endowment of the Church.
his hands on them they received the Holy Ghost. Here,
then, Christian baptism is by Paul, as by Peter, connected
with, and made especially to stand in, the gift of the Holy
Ghost. Paul's own case is, perhaps, the most remarkable
of all, where, without any notice of baptism (but it may
be that he had been baptized in John's baptism), without
any hand of an Apostle, but of a common disciple, Ana-
nias, he received the gift of the Holy Ghost. These
formal instances are confirmed by many incidental and
casual mention of these things in the Apostolical Epistles,
of which I will only notice one, the vith chapter of the
Hebrews; where the foundation and first principles of
Christ are enumerated to be, repentance from dead works,
faith upon God, the doctrine of baptism, the laying on of
hands, the resurrection from the dead, and the eternal
judgment; and those who had partaken of this initiation
are described in the following verse in these words: "The
enlightened, who have tasted of the heavenly gift" (in oppo-
sition to the earthly things preached to Nicodemus), be-
come partakers of the Holy Ghost, having tasted of the
good word of God and the powers of the coming age."
Now tell me, if these miraculous powers and heavenly
gifts had been only for a season conferred, how our Apostle
would have thus used them, and them chiefly, when warn-
ing the church concerning apostasy. It is not to be sup-
posed that he would mix up the things of a day with
lessons intended to endure as long as the church endureth.
I think these observations ought to be sufficient to con-
vince every one who trembles at God's word, and trembles
not at the precepts of man, that the subject which we are
handling is one of great and grave concernment to the
church, and to every believer. Let ignorant and wicked
men scoff how they please, that it is not good for any
Christian to put away the subject from him, as one of small
moment to his soul; for if the soul's well-being standeth
in her being able to give a good account of her steward-
ship, and this gift of the Holy Ghost be indeed a steward-
ship of the regenerate soul, the case of those must be very
perilous indeed who refuse to hear any word concerning
the same. Nay, but what is the condition of us all bap-
tized persons? Are we not verily in the case of that ser-
vant who hid his talent in the earth? I think we are.
742
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Then let us take thought, and consider; let us give heed
to the word preached unto us; and being convinced that
these gifts are by Christian baptism sealed to the church,
let us seek for them, let us pray for their revival, let us stir
them up in one another, let us contend for them earnestly,
and not yield them into the hands of the mockers and
the revilers. Oh no! it is no light matter, to be lightly
dealt with.———————I have felt bound in spirit till I should find
an opportunity of setting forth these things to the church;
and having now found it, in the regular course of these
lectures, I rejoice; and shall now retire, with the impres-
sions made upon my mind, to wait upon the Lord, till he
shall awaken in the church committed to my charge these
precious things, of which we have long lost the use, and
even the knowledge.
By means of the preceding digression we have come to
distinct conclusions concerning the church, as it was con-
stituted and left by Christ to continue till he should come
again. We have ascertained, that to the constitution of
the church two things must co-exist: first, the holiness of
the regenerate man, expressing itself in one faith, one
hope, one love, one spirit; secondly, the peculiar and
proper gift of the Holy Ghost unto every member, to place
him in his proper office in the body, and to enable him,
by his diligent use thereof, to contribute his part unto the
edification of the whole. There is no doubt, that of this
charge or burden, which we received in trust from the
Lord, and were commanded to hold fast till he come, a
very poor and pitiful fragment is that which remaineth;
and the sorest affliction of all is, that there is no shame
nor contrition in the heart of the church for her miserable
neglect of the gift that is in her, for her sad dereliction of
the high and honourable office whereto she was called.
Instead of mourning in sackcloth and in ashes over the
ruins of the temple of the Holy Ghost, which she is be-
come; instead of setting herself, like Nehemiah, stoutly to
the work of repairing the wall of the city, and setting up
the gates with their locks and bars; we are more like San-
ballat and the Horonites, who resisted the work of re-
edifying Jerusalem, and by their interference delayed its
accomplishment. If we speak of perfect holiness in the
VII.]
743
Endowment of the Church.
flesh, they make an outcry for imperfection and in-dwelling
sin; as if God had not sought, or seeking had not pre-
vailed, to sanctify our nature, as it is found by us all under
the fallen condition of sin and death. If we speak of pre-
senting body, soul, and spirit an acceptable offering unto
God, and proving what is the perfect will of God, they
raise an outcry about original sin and abiding corruption;
as if God's glory stood in being defeated and overcome,
as if Christ's work stood in being holy himself but not
suffering any of his members to be likewise holy. If we
take liberty to speak of baptism as the slaying and bury-
ing of the flesh, and the quickening of the Spirit to prevail
over it, in all ways and at all times, so as that we should
ever be in the Spirit and never in the flesh; they admit
that this is what shall be at the resurrection of the just:
but that it is what should be now, and what every bap-
tized man is bound and enabled to be, they much object :
and by their much objecting keep the church in this twi-
light ignorance, in this mixture of worldliness, in this satis-
faction with unholiness, in which she is every where found.
The idea of perfection in the flesh and in the world is held
to be a false idea; the hope of it a fallacious hope; the
desire of it, deceit and disappointment to all. I lift up my
voice against this, as the sanctification of wickedness, as
the inlet of all immorality, as the denial of God's supre-
macy over man, as the rejection of the work of Christ in
flesh, and the defiance of the Holy Ghost's power to
cleanse the conscience from dead works, and give it a con-
tinual good answer towards God. Nor is it any matter to
me how much this doctrine may be, and has been, abused,
both by the Papists and the Methodists, to attribute
merit unto the creature, and puff him up with vain con-
ceit it is not liable to such abuse in the hands of those
who understand that it is not they, but Christ in them,
who maketh them to cease from sin; and that the glory
of all such righteousness as we are enabled to work is due
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in whose
name and into whose power we were baptized: and I do
call upon every baptized person, upon every member of
the church of Christ; I do most solemnly call, to "perfect
holiness in the fear of the Lord," to "be holy as he is holy,
and perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect." I call
{
744
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
""
upon every man who is born of God, to cease from sin, and
to know the meaning of such language as this: “The law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death: "Whosoever abideth in
him sinneth not :" "Whosoever is born of God doth not
commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot
sin, because he is born of God." They talk of the peculiar
gifts of the Holy Ghost as having been withdrawn from
the church; but they might as well talk of the common
gift of love and holiness having been withdrawn, for the
one seems to me almost as much gone out of sight as doth
the other. Nay; but if, as we must all allow, the peculiar
gifts of the Spirit have in a great degree ceased to be
visible, it is because the unfaithful servants did not trade
with them for the Master's interest, which is the church's
common weal; and so, from defect of that love and holi-
ness, which is the bond of the body, the common posses-
sion of all, it hath come to pass that we are so cut short
in our peculiar property; yea, therefore it is, because we
have been of a selfish and churlish spirit, that we have
hidden our talent in a napkin, or in the earth. But it is
our doing, and not his. He is not yet come to reckon with
us, and to say of the unfaithful and wicked, "Take his
talent from him." The talent is still there, thou sluggard!
go, dig it up out of the ground, where thou hast concealed
it; go, trade with it, and lay it out; that thy Lord may
receive his own with usury. Oh! I warn all, with whom
my word hath any weight, to abjure the unscriptural, the
false opinion, in the arms of which the multitude lie locked,
that God hath withdrawn any gift from his church. The
time of reckoning is not yet come, blessed be His name
the Merchantman is not yet returned from the far country:
make haste, consider the gift he bequeathed to you, ex-
amine the state of your accounts, and make ready; for
the reckoning is at hand. I rede you, brethren, beware
of false doctrine, where false doctrine must be attended
with such fatal consequence. The command of our text
is stedfast and uncompromising, "That which thou hast
hold fast till I come ;" and in the next Epistle, "Strengthen
the things that remain." I call upon you to follow after
charity, and to desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye
may prophesy. I call upon you to covet earnestly the
!
VII.]
745
Endowment of the Church.
best gifts. I would that you all spake with tongues, I
would that ye did all prophesy, I would that ye were
zealous of spiritual gifts, and that ye sought to excel to
the edifying of the church; and in thus wishing, I use the
language of the Apostle of the Gentiles, who breathed
these desires of his heart over the Corinthian church. I
earnestly beseech you to consider your baptismal obliga-
tion; I earnestly beseech you to render an account of that
gift of the Holy Ghost, into the promise of which ye were
baptized. Re-examine that tradition of men, that God
intended miracles, or gifts of the Holy Ghost, to continue
only for a time. It is as great a falsehood as that he in-
tended Adam to stand in innocency only for a time; and
Adam might as well justify his fall by turning upon God
and saying, 'Thou didst no otherwise intend but that fall I
should,' as we justify our loss of the church's primitive
glory by saying, 'God intended that it should only last for
a while, and then be lost for ever.' The Jews might as
well be proud and hard-hearted under their present dis-
pensation and degradation, and say, 'for God intended, and
had written it in the Prophets;' and Rome, that mother of
harlots, might as well justify her apostasy by saying, that
'God intended it; for is it not all written in the Apocalypse?'
as we, cold, luke-warm Protestants, having a name only to
live, may pretend to justify our present nakedness, and
blindness, and meanness, and evil hearts of unbelief, and
spiritual voidness, and pride of ignorance, and boasting
in our shame, by saying, 'God intended it; is it not written
in the account of the church of Sardis and the church of
Thyatira?' I seek strong words and mighty words. I
would bring my blow as with a forge hammer to break
the rock in pieces. I will keep no terms, I will make no
truce, with the spirit that is now reigning in the church.
If they will set themselves against the church of God, I
will set myself against them, and fight it out unto the last ;
but not with their weapons of falsehood, of ridicule, of
contempt, of railing, and of revenge, but with the weapons
of the truth, with the shield of faith, which is able to
quench their fiery darts; and with the sword of the Spirit,
which is quick and powerful; and with feet shod for strength
and keeping ground with the preparation of the Gospel of
peace.
3 s
746
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
III. THE PROMISE TO THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto
the end, to him will I give power over the nations (and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of
a potter shall they be broken to shivers), even as I re-
ceived of my Father. And I will give him the morning
star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches" (Rev. ii. 26-29). This Epistle
might, we have said, be well entitled "Of Works ; and
as such we have treated it, introducing into this lecture
whatever we had to say concerning the works of the church.
That digression into which we entered, for shewing out of
the Holy Scriptures what were the works proper to the
Christian church in the primitive time, would have been
proper in no epistle but this to the church of Thyatira. As
our matter concerning church government properly ar-
ranged itself under the first epistle, where Christ presenteth
himself as the head Bishop walking amongst the churches;
and our matter concerning suffering under persecution
arranged itself under the second epistle, unto Smyrna,
where Christ presenteth himself as the vanquisher of death;
and our matter concerning the false prophets and doc-
trines, under the epistle to Pergamos, where Christ presents
himself as the pruner of the exuberancies, and the cutter-
off of the fruitless branches of his vine; so our matter con-
cerning works, as distinguished from love, the inward prin-
ciple, doth properly arrange itself under this epistle to
Thyatira, where Christ is presented as the workman of
his church, with his feet like unto fine brass. Now, in
confirmation of this arrangement of our matter, it is re-
markable, that to the words "he that overcometh,” which
are common to all the epistles, there should be added these
words, "and keepeth my works unto the end," which are
found in none other, nor any other answering to them. It
is a peculiarity of this epistle to put in two conditions ne-
cessary to the possession of the promise: of which the first
is, that we shall overcome ;" and the second, that "
66
shall keep Christ's works unto the end." This new con-
dition, therefore, is well worthy of our attention. It con-
sisteth of two parts: the first being the subject, my works;
the second being the action, keeping them unto the end.
we
VII.]
747
Thyatira-The Promise.
Now I think there is a special emphasis to be put upon the
word my, in the subject: "my works," to distinguish them
from the works of Jezebel, the mother of lies and of the
abominations of the earth, which were leading astray many
from the right way of good works. To put the church
upon her guard against a multitude of false works—such
as penances and pilgrimages, and lying signs and wonders,
and bodily inflictions, and the various formularies of the
religious orders, and the keeping of saints' days, and the
observing of times and seasons, and that multitude of im-
positions which were invented by the sorceress- -Christ,
in writing of works, and presenting the proper and par-
ticular reward of works, doth entitle them "my works,"
to signify that those divine, moral, and spiritual workings
which he went about continually performing, should inherit
the reward. These words, "my works," stand in contrast
with the words "their works," of which in this book thev
are called upon to repent. If, now, we would know what
these works of their wickedness were, we have them enu-
merated in the ixth chapter, vers. 20 and 21: “ And the
rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues,
yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they
should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver,
and brass, and stone, and of wood, which neither can see,
nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders,
nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their
thefts." And again, when the mother of harlots, Babylon
the great-the same with the Jezebel in this epistle-comes
to receive her judgment, it is in these words, "Reward
her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double
according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled,
fill to her double" (Rev. xviii. 6). Also, when the church,
having painfully endured unto the end, is about to be re-
warded, it is in these words: "Blessed are the dead which
die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit,
that they may rest from their labours; and their works do
follow them" (Rev. xiv. 13). In the general judgment,
when the dead are raised and the books opened, the
general assize is holden upon their works: "And I saw
the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the
books were opened: and another book was opened, which
is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those
3 s 2
748
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
things which were written in the books, according to their
works" (Rev. xx. 12). Seeing, then, the church was to be
assailed with temptations of Satan in the shape of good
works, and seeing that the judgment would be decided by
works, it was both a wise and a gracious thing on the
part of our Lord to set forth in this conspicuous way the
necessity of discriminating well between his works and the
works of the adulteress. What his works are, we have set
forth at large in the digression; and now it behoves us to
set forth in contrast with them what her works are. They
are enumerated, in the verses above cited from the ixth
chapter. First, the worship of devils or demons; which
had likewise been foretold in the First Epistle to Timothy,
chap. iv. ver. 1. These demons, whom they worshipped,
are the spirits of departed men exalted into the degree of
gods. As in the ancient idolatry, referred to by the Apostle
1 Cor. x. 20, 21, the objects of their worship were the spirits
of departed men, as Jupiter, Bacchus, Hercules, &c. ; so in
the Papal church, the objects of their worship are demons,
or the spirits of departed men, as St. Augustine, St. Paul,
St. Peter, and the rest of their saints. Now Christ's work
was to worship and glorify the Father: "I have glorified
thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou
gavest me to do:" but the work of these Romanists is
to glorify the name of St. Francis, St. Benedict, St. Au-
gustine, and the heads of their several orders. Their
works they do, their canons they keep, their appointed
service they perform. It is not Christ, but St. Dominic;
it is not the commandments of Christ, but the traditions
of St. Dominic. And as it is with the monks, that the eter-
nal laws of divine morality should give way and be en-
tirely forgotten before the discipline of their human master;
so with the people, who addict themselves to their tutelary
saints, and bestow upon them the worship which is due
unto God only. It is as complete a system of demon
worship, this Papacy, as ever was the paganism of Greece
and Rome, as is the polytheism of China or Hindostan.-
Secondly, Their works consist in the worship of "idols of
gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which
neither can see, nor hear, nor walk." And how true this is
of that sorceress in the church, pass over and behold. Go
into their churches, whose doors are ever open for such
VII.]
7749
Thyatira-The Promise.
market-making; nay, stand at the corners of their streets,
beside some image of the Virgin or the saints; or be in
attendance at the village festival given in honour of their
tutelary god; and you will see what worship there is of
idols of every material. They say it is not the wooden
thing, of the stock and stone: I say it is, in almost every
case, even with the priests themselves, unless they be in-
fidels at heart; or else what is the meaning of crying up
this image, and that relic, by recounting the false miracles
which they have wrought? or what is the meaning of per-
suading the people, as you find it in all Roman Catholic
countries, that this image of the Virgin is good for the
cure of this disease, and that image for another? It is as
complete a system of stock and stone worship as ever was
established at Babylon. But is not the word of God
against an idol, use it and understand it how ye may?
Against this the Second Commandment is directed; and
let a man use an idol in worship as he pleases, he breaks
the commandment of God.-The third of their works is
their "murders," that is, their martyrdoms of the saints of
God: "In her was found the blood of prophets and of
saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." These
murders now proceed in secret, in the prisons of the Inqui-
sition, in the dungeons of the priest-ridden tyrants; but
that they are at this hour proceeding, and will proceed.
until her judgment is consummated, 1 well believe.-The
fourth is their "sorceries." Those works which they have
power to do through the help of the devil and his angels;
those cunning devices which, taught of the devil, they
are skilful to palm upon the people as works of Christ in
his church; those curses and maledictions which are prac-
tised daily upon the over-credulous people; their dealings
with purgatory, their masses for the dead, their damnable
traffic with the spiritual world, whereby they make mer-
chandise of the souls of men--these, all these, constitute
their sorceries.-And then comes their "fornication," which
is their giving themselves up to the kings of the earth, and
bringing the church into bondage of the elements of the
world. Instead of keeping her spiritual separateness for
Christ, her only husband, she gives herself to the kings of
the earth, who serve themselves of her, and are by her
brought into bondage. Her pandering to tyranny, her
3 s 3
750
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
making common cause with oppression, her building of
her house with blood of widows and of orphans, pillaged
by ruthless kings: this is her fornication: "And all na-
tions have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornica-
tions, and the kings of the earth have committed fornica-
tion with her."—And lastly, there is her "thefts;" her de-
ception, her cunning inventions to pillage men of their sub-
stance. Wretched strumpet! her purple and her scarlet
raiment are all stolen and filched from the terrors of the
people; her gold, and her precious stones, and her pearls
are the plunder of a deluded world. Abandoned church!
thy cathedral, thy shrine, thy splendours, are thy disgrace,
the hires of thy lewdness, which thou carriest and exposest
before thee, thou vile and wretched woman! But thou
shalt be stripped bare and naked: they shall “hate thee,
and make thee desolate and naked, and eat thy flesh, and
burn thee with fire." Thou shalt be brought to depend
upon day's wages. In the kingdom of thy first-born son
thou art already so dishonoured. They pay thee; thou hast
nothing of thine own; thou art a hanger-on of these depu-
ties of the people. They pay thee: thou wilt soon become
a beggar, and have to ask alms; and they will beat thee
from door to door, until thou expire in the streets, like an
abandoned shameless strumpet as thou art. I hail the day;
it is near for to come.-The evil character of these works
consisteth in this, that they should be done in the name
of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ; that they should
assume the character of religion, and be undertaken for
the kingdom of heaven's sake. That wickedness should
reign in the world, the law teacheth us to expect; but
that it should clothe itself with the raiment of Christian
faith, hope, and charity, and so bring the holy and the
unholy into confusion, is what vexeth and grieveth the
Lord at his heart. This brought on the deluge, the ad-
mixture of the sons of God with the daughters of men ;
it brought on the downfall of Jerusalem; and it is fast
breaking up a Christian church. The Lord, foreseeing
what a system of sanctified wickedness was to be propa-
gated in his name, is at pains in this epistle to limit the
church to the observance of his own commandments, to
the keeping of his own works, in opposition to all innova-
tions and inventions of men.
VII.]
751
Thyatira-The Promise.
There is a chapter in Isaiah so intimately connected with
all that is said of Jezebel and her works, and of Babylon
the mother of harlots, and of the bed into which she and
her paramour shall be cast, that I cannot pass on without
noticing it, however briefly. It is the lviith of that Pro-
phet, beginning with a lamentation over the perishing of
the righteous man, and removal of the merciful man from
the evil to come: of whom it is said, that he entereth into
peace, "and they rest in their beds, walking in his upright-
ness.' This description of Christ and of his disciples, of
their experience of evil on the earth, and their transition
from greater evil into the peace and joy of their Lord,
being given, the prophet addresseth another company,
whom he denominates "Sons of the sorceress, seed of the
adulterer and the whore;" whose doings are enumerated;
their swelling words of vanity and blasphemy, their false
accusations of the righteous; for which they are entitled
"children of transgression, seed of falsehood." Then
comes a reproof of their idolatry, Druidical, "among the
oaks ;" and of bloody Moloch, and other superstitions;
mocking God and vexing him, as if He could receive com-
fort in these things. Then cometh her fornication, written
in language parallel with that used of Jezebel and her
children; wherein the bed, which we found it hard to in-
terpret, is more than once mentioned, and connected with
hell in a way which confirms the conjecture which we
threw out above. "And thou wentest to the king with
ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send
thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto
hell." (Isa. lvii. 9) I am confirmed the more in my opi-
nion that the bed to which Jezebel is doomed signifies hell,
not only by the parallelism with this passage, but also by
the contrast with the first two verses, where the reward of
the righteous in heaven is called "resting in their beds."
Observe, finally, in order to be satisfied that our Lord in
inditing this epistle had respect to the passage in Isaiah,
how the threatening and the promise in both correspond
with one another: "I will declare thy righteousness, and
thy works; for they shall not profit thee. When thou
criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall
carry them all away; vanity shall take them but he that
putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall
:
752
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
inherit my holy mountain." The sorceress and her children
have a righteousness and works, but they profit her not.
She hath companies, but they deliver her not. She is car-
ried away by the wind, like the dust of the summer thresh-
ing floor; but the righteous possess the land, and inherit
the temple of God: even as in the promise to the church
of Thyatira, they trample the nations under foot, and re-
ceive the inheritance which Christ received from his Fa-
ther, as it is written in the second Psalm. And they likewise
receive the morning star; which, as we shall see, is the
returning cloud of the glorious God, the shechinah coming
up from the east to glorify the temple of Mount Zion.
(Ezekiel xliii. 2.) So that I feel an assurance that there is
a designed and well-continued parallelism between this part
of our epistle and the lviith chapter of Isaiah.
So much for the works of the sorceress, as distinguished
from the works of Christ. And now let us proceed to the se-
cond part of this condition of the promise, which is, that we
"keep Christ's works unto the end."-The works of Christ
were two-fold,-works of holiness, and works of power; or, if
we would include them under one class, works of goodness.
To do the like, and even greater, he promised as the endow-
ment of every one who believeth upon him. I find Christ's
works, in the language of the New Testament, to include
his works miraculous as well as his works moral; nor can I
understand by what authority we exclude them. If I err
not, when Christ appealed to his works in such expressions
as these, "the works which I do," he commonly means his
works of healing, casting out of devils, and the like, which
are promised to follow him that believeth. These also
were moral works-they were good works; and by this,
their moral character, rather than by their power, were
they a test and proof of his heavenly mission: "The
works which my Father hath given me to finish, the same
works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath
sent me." I nothing doubt that these works of the Spirit,
which Christ wrought in the sight of men, we were com-
manded to keep; and for not having kept are much to be
blamed. Hear how the abstract of his life and doings
is given by Peter to Cornelius and his company:
"God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and
with power: who went about doing good, and healing all
VII.]
753
Thyatira-The Promise.
that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
And we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in
the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem." (Acts x. 38, 39.)
While this I maintain, I know that the weightier matters
of the Law, judgment, mercy, and faith, are not to be left
undone; that the doing of the commandments of Christ is
the only true test of loving him; that the end of the com-
mandment is love out of a pure heart, and of a good con-
science, and of faith unfeigned; that the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance: all which I most willingly
include amongst the works of Christ, which we were com-
manded to keep unto the end. But the former are not to
be neglected; and because they have been neglected, I am
the more instant in seeking to reclaim and recover them.
The more also in this place do I insist upon them, because
they stand in opposition to the works of the sorceress,
which by no means excludes this department, but hath
made them chief in building up her Babel of iniquity.
Whereon rest the claims of her saints, but upon the mi-
racles which they and their relics have done? Whereon
rest the pretensions of their idols, but upon the cures which
they have wrought? Whereon resteth the authority of
those doctrines of devils which they teach, but on the
signs and wonders which they assert do follow the preach-
ers of them? And forasmuch as upon this, as its founda-
tion, Jezebel and her false prophets rest their house of
wickedness, our Lord Jesus Christ did wish and intend,
and in this passage I think doth command, that his true
body should put to shame all these lying wonders; as
Moses and Aaron did Jannes and Jambres, as Peter did
Simon Magus, and Paul did Elymas the sorcerer. But,
instead of this, we have given up the weapon of the Lord,
wherewith to uproot that foundation; have forgotten and
denied this manner of testimony altogether; and left the
field open for their deceptions, and exposed ourselves to
the invasion of infidelity. But the appeal will soon, even
amongst ourselves, have to be made to God again. There
is a pitch of hypocrisy and dishonesty and subtlety to
which the minds of men may at length arrive, when a book
like the Bible, which addresses itself to honest, downright,
plain, simple men, hath no effect whatever. I have no
754
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
doubt that the Protestant church, especially what is called
the Religious World, are come into this condition. Oft have
I declared it, and I now with sorrow publish the declara-
tion, that those they call Evangelical, and Protestants in
general, are no longer able to be convinced out of the
Scriptures. Creeds, and confessions, and catechisms, have
still some hold of them; the magazines and religious news-
papers still more; the writings and sayings of their favourite
ministers still more; but as to the Bible, save for furnishing
a few offensive and defensive texts, it might as well be
closed and sealed up. And I for one feel, that, of all
things, the most difficult is to make any way in convincing
men out of the Scriptures; which are so honest-hearted
and out-spoken, that a man with partialities and hypocri-
sies cannot gather their meaning upon any subject: and so
I feel assured that God will, as in the days of Elias, dis-
pute with the false prophets by appeals unto the senses of
this perverse and crooked generation. I believe, that
against the Romanists, who have Satan's works; and against
the disciples of that Jezebel of our time, Joanna Southcote,
who also have Satan's works; and against the worldly and
intellectual of all denominations, who scorn to hear of mi-
raculous works at all; God will contend for his faithful
church, for the true disciples of his Son, by enabling them
first to receive the faith, and secondly to regain the power,
of working the works which Christ also wrought, and greater
works than these and in keeping these works to the end
will consist no mean part of the trial and of the victory
of his people. If infidelity be the ruling passion of the
times, then the belief in the supernatural, and the claim to
the supernatural, must be the ruling scandal of the times.
It is, in truth, casting down the gauntlet against their inge-
nious argumentations and disquisitions, both for and against
the Christian religion. It is shifting away into the back-
ground all their learning and scholarship and pride of
controversy, for a poor artisan, and a silly maid, to come
forward and do the works which Christ did, and greater
works than these. Ah me! how the young and the old,
the honoured champions of the faith and the stripling sol-
dier just entering into the fight, and all the infidels against
whom they contend-how both will join in contempt and
in persecution of the little flock unto whom it shall please
*
VII.]
755
Thyatira-The Promise.
the Lord to reveal himself, as heretofore he was wont in
the church of Corinth! I see, while I write these things,
the storm of war gathering around them: I see their hope
all but gone; I see them like to be swallowed up of their
enemy: and then I see them escaped, like a bird out of the
fowler's snare; caught away from the evil to come; resting
in their beds; and coming with a two-edged sword to ex-
ecute vengeance on the heathen; "to execute vengeance
upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to
bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters
of iron; to execute upon thern the judgment written: this
honour have all his saints." (Psalm cxlix. 7, 8, 9.)
We now come to the promise itself, which consisteth of
two parts: First, power over the nations; Secondly, the
morning star. With respect to the former, of what kind,
and for what ends, is declared in the 27th verse,
"And ye
shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of a pot-
ter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of
my Father." It is power to judge, and to make war, and
to cast down, and to destroy for ever; in what manner is
described in the last half of the xixth chapter, where the
saints come out of heaven along with Christ, to "smite the
nations, and to rule them with a rod of iron.”—The words,
CC
even as I received of my Father," refer us to the Second
Psalm, where the Son cometh in the plenitude of his power
to execute the judgment written against the nations of the
earth; wherein he promiseth that every faithful and true
disciple shall take with him a part. The power, therefore,
promised in the text, is, I think, not to be regarded as the
power of peaceful government, which during the thousand
years these same faithful servants of the Lord shall exer-
cise, but the power of destroying from the earth those who
have so long destroyed its peace, and are now confederate
against the Lord and his Anointed. Power it is to exe-
cute the judgment which is written ; power it is to vindicate
the cause of God and of godliness; power it is to wrest
the earth, and the dwellers there, out of the hand of the
usurper, into the hands of its Redeemer and Lord, Christ
Jesus. Power of battle, power of victory, power of treading
under foot, power of casting out, power of binding, power
of destroying every wicked thing from the face of the earth.
That the nations and kingdoms of this earth are to grow
756
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
worse and worse, as did the antediluvians, until the Lord
shall be weary of forbearing, when he shall bring upon
them swift judgment, as he brought in the days of Noah
and of Lot, all Scripture consenteth, and in every form and
by every means doth direct the eye of the church unto
that great and terrible day of the Lord, when her enemies
shall be destroyed from the face of the earth. This day
is called in Scripture by various names, as "the day of the
Lord," "the day of perdition of ungodly men," "the day of
wrath," "the day of judgment." In the Old Testament the
Jews have a great hand in this destruction of nations, "as
a fire amongst wood, as a lion amongst the flock," is Jacob
described in that day amongst the nations: "That thy
foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the
tongue of thy dogs be red through the same." And "Jeru-
salem is a troublous stone, upon which the nations fall and
are broken." And in all parts of the Old Testament it is
written that God will use the tribes of Israel in that day
as his battle-axe and weapons of war. Not so the mystery
of the saints under the New Testament, who are baptized
into the spiritual out of the carnal. Theirs indeed, also,
is the promise of power to judge and to make war, as in
the text before us; but not with an arm of flesh, nor with
a carnal weapon. How then? To answer this question
it is necessary first to have explained the second part of
the promise: "I will give him the morning star." This
being interpreted, will explain to us the manner in which
Christ and his saints are to "rule the nations with a rod of
iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel." But,
lest any one should suppose that the gift of the morning
star, from being mentioned after the destruction of the
nations, should be understood of something posterior
thereto, we observe that the 27th verse is to be taken in
a parenthesis, explanatory of the nature of the power
which the saints are to exercise, and as a note of refe-
rence to the Second Psalm for further information. The
promise is simply in these words, "I will give him power
over the nations, and I will give him the morning star."
The rest is but, as it were, a note of explanation.
Let us, then, examine what is meant by giving the morn-
ing star; and thus we shall be able to explain what part
the saints gathered and to be gathered into glory shall take
VII.]
757
Thyatira-The Promise.
in the destruction of the nations. What this morning
star is, Christ himself declareth in this book (xxii. 16):
"I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright
and Morning Star." Every reference to David bespeaks
Christ the King, Christ the Man of War, Christ the Sub-
duer of all his enemies round about; but not Christ the
Builder of the temple, or the Prince of peace, which to
typify was reserved for Solomon, as we have set forth in
the beginning of this lecture. When Christ comes to
claim the earth, and to wrench open the clasps of the
book of the inheritance, his recognizances are these; "the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David" (ver. 5):
and when he offereth himself to the church in Philadelphia,
it is in the character of him who hath the key of David,
who openeth and no man shutteth, who shutteth and no
man openeth: might and strength-masterful might, in-
domitable strength-are therefore what is manifestly in-
tended when Christ chooseth to take to himself the symbols
of David. Now in the text referred to, he calleth him-
self "the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and
Morning Star." These two names are not in the original
connected with the copulative conjunction "and," but
stand in opposition the one to the other, and therefore,
in strictness of interpretation, ought to be taken as ex-
planatory the one of the other. If then the symbols of
David are proper to him as the Avenger of Israel's wrongs
upon her enemies, as the Captor of Jerusalem and Mount
Zion, as the Ransomer with the sword of the promised in-
heritance; then the Morning Star should signify something
of the same kind, should represent Christ as a subverter
of the wicked, and an establisher of the righteous upon
the earth for ever and ever. But the text before us will
guide us no further; and, if we would come to more close
definition, we must rest upon some other text of Scripture.
Balaam's famous prophecy in the xxiv th of Numbers is
the key to the whole subject, when he undertaketh, be-
fore departing unto Balak, to advertise him "what this
people shall do to thy people in the latter days." It is as
follows: "He hath said, which heard the words of God,
and knew the knowledge of the Most High; which saw
the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but hav-
ing his eyes open: I shall see him, but not now; I shall
3 T
758
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
behold him, but not nigh" (vers. 16, 17). Here the vision
is declared to be of the Almighty, whom Balaam should
see, but not now-in the latter day, when Job, another
kind of man, declared that he should see him on the earth.
Then Balaam proceeds to describe his glorious coming:
"There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre
shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of
Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom
shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for
his enemies, and Israel shall do valiantly" (vers. 17, 18).
The ancient Jewish interpreters, as well as the Christian
Fathers, saw Messiah rather than David in this prophecy,
though doubtless David gave it partial accomplishment in
the type, as Christ will give it complete accomplishment
in the antitype. And by the words, "destroying all the
children of Sheth," they understand ruling over all the
children of men. But I rather incline to understand by
it the same mystery which is expressed in our text by
smiting the nations with a rod of iron, and breaking them
in pieces like a potter's vessel; and this work of destruc-
tion accomplished, then comes in the prophecy of Balaam,
the blessed dominion: "Out of Jacob shall come He that
shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth
of the city" (ver. 19).—Much more is contained in Ba-
laam's prophecy; but it is sufficient for our present pur-
pose to have clearly ascertained that the star symbolizes
power putting itself forth in destruction. If any thing were
wanting to convince us of this, it is given to us in Balaam's
own exclamation, "Alas! who shall live when God doeth
this?"-By this prophecy, therefore, we are confirmed in
our conclusion, that the symbol of the star, like the sym-
bol of David, implies destruction and desolation unto the
earth and its people. So much were the Jews built up in
the faith of this prophecy, that the impostor who arose in
the time of Adrian, and drew the whole remnant of the
Jewish people into miserable revolt, had nothing else to
build upon than the name and title which he assumed to
himself, but Barcochebas, or the son of a star, in allusion
to this prophecy. It is, however, a symbol of but rare
occurrence in the Prophets; once, indeed, it is used by
the Prophet Isaiah (xiv. 12) of the personal Antichrist-
the antitype of the Assyrian, who fell with such miserable.
*
VII.]
759
Thyatira-The Promise.
ruin from his high estate by the destruction of his veteran
army, under the walls of Jerusalem: "How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer (day-star), son of the morn-
ing! how art thou cast down to the ground, which didst
weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I
will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the con-
gregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of
the pit" (Isai. xiv. 12—15). This most remarkable pas-
sage bespeaks one yet to arise in the latter days, "who
shall exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of
God, shewing himself that he is God." When this wicked
one shall be revealed he shall claim to himself the high
honours which belong to Christ,-the day star, the true
Lucifer or son of the morning,-whose actions, therefore,
in this character, may be gathered from the pretensions of
the false Lucifer, day star, or son of the morning. These
are first to weaken the nations with his perpetual stroke,
and to make the world a wilderness; which accordingly
Christ effecteth when he becomes the refuge of Jacob, as
it is written in the xlv th Psalm: "Come, behold the work
of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth."
The second assumption of the personal antichrist, the As-
syrian of the latter days, is, ascension into heaven, and
exaltation of his throne above the stars of God; that is,
the fixed dynasties of heaven. This Christ hath received
when he was taken up on high-principalities, and powers,
and dominions being made subject to him. The third as-
sumption upon the divine prerogative of Christ which the
last antichrist maketh, is, "to sit upon the mount of the
congregation, in the sides of the north;" that is, to possess
mount "Zion, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole
earth, on the sides of the north of the city of the great
King," which also Christ received in the day of his resur-
rection, as it is written in the Second Psalm, “Yet have
I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion." And the last
of the blasphemous claims of the god-like deceiver is, that
he would be like the Most High who reigneth in heaven,
above the clouds; which dignity belongeth only to Christ,
3 T 2
760
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
who is seated at the right hand of God. These glorious
attributes, therefore, belong to Christ in his character of
the Bright and Morning Star, to smite the nations, to rule
over the principalities of heaven, to dwell in Mount Zion,
thence giving law to the world, and to be the very likeness
of God. The most ambitious and glorious of mankind,
who, through the instigation of Satan, is to crown himself
with these the honours of Messiah's kingdom, we are told
shall be consumed by the breath of Messiah's mouth, and
destroyed by the brightness of his coming. He shall think
that he hath obtained the dominion, and already holdeth
the world in hand, when "tidings out of the east and out
of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth
with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.
And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between
the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come
to his end, and none shall help him" (Dan. xi. 44, 45).
Then shall stand up against him the true Messiah, "Mi-
chael, the great Prince, which standeth for the children of
thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as
never was since there was a nation, even to that same time:
and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one
that shall be found written in the book. And many of
them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con-
tempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the bright-
ness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteous-
ness, as the stars for ever and ever." But above all these
stars he shall shine most conspicuous who is the Bright
and the Morning Star. At the time that the last head
of Edom shall arise and think himself the first-born of
men, our Jacob, the supplanter, shall come, with the gene-
ration of those that seek his face, and cast him out from
the mount of the congregation, and call upon the gates of
the temple to be lifted up, the doors to be unbarred, that
the King of glory and the Lord of the hosts of the righteous
may enter into them, as it is written in the xxiv th Psalm.
Besides these notices concerning the meaning of the
Morning Star, which are to be extracted from the Old
Testament, there are two in the New Testament, to which
we would now attend. The first is the appearance of the
star at the time of his birth, which brought the wise men
VII.]
761
Thyatira-The Promise.
from the East to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He that is
born King of the Jews; for we have seen his star in the
East, and are come to worship him?" Who or what
these wise men were, is left to conjecture; and certainly
the best conjecture appears to me, that they were of the
tribes of Israel scattered abroad. For what other people
so interested in Messiah, or to whom else, had the Lord
promised to manifest himself? The distance from which
they came, supposing the star to have appeared on his
birth, being a journey of two years or thereabouts, argues
that they must have come from beyond the bounds of the
then civilized world, out of which the Ten Tribes of Israel
were cast. Whosoever they were, they must either have
known from the prophecy of Balaam that the star did be-
token the King of the Jews, or it must have been revealed
to them by the Lord. Herod's perplexity upon hearing
their mission I attribute very much to the language in
which Balaam prophesied of Him, who was at once the
"Star out of Jacob, and the Sceptre of Israel; "a King
of the Jews, symbolized by a star. He knew that for him
and for the kings of the earth there was no hope when this
Star and Sceptre should appear; and therefore he both
dissembled with the wise men, and took measures to de-
stroy the Infant's life. Thus did God, at the birth of
Christ, concern himself to prove him not only offspring of
David, in being born in Beth-lehem, David's city, but also
Star of Jacob, by bringing up the star out of the East, till
it rested over where the young child was. And these re-
presentatives of the Ten Tribes, if I am right, paid homage
to him, and presented him such tribute as should be of-
fered to a king, as king Solomon was wont to receive.
Also in the consternation of king Herod and his court
God gave a sign of that consternation which shall yet blaze
forth upon kings against the appearance of the Star of
Jacob; and withal, Christ being thus crowned and pro-
claimed King of the Jews by a star in heaven, a bright
messenger of God, and dying with that good confession
upon his lips before Pontius Pilate, and that superscrip-
tion written over his cross, doth evince that the symbol of
the star hath relation to him not only as a King in general,
but as the King of the Jews in particular; and that the
mighty acts which he is to do as the Star of Jacob shall
762
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
be done in revenge of his people's wrongs, in vindication
of his people's rights.
The other passage in the New Testament to which I
refer for the exposition of this symbol is in 2 Pet. i., where
the Apostle, as we have explained already in these Lec-
tures, produces the transfiguration upon Mount Tabor as
a proof that all the Prophets had spoken, concerning the
coming glory of Christ, would certainly be accomplished.
The voice which came from the excellent glory of the Father
upon the glorified Son of Man the Apostle regardeth as a
new confirmation of all the Prophets; and therefore he
the more earnestly entreats them to give heed to the Pro-
phets, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until
the day dawn and the day-star arise on their hearts. Here
again the day-star is mentioned in connexion with the
dawning of a future day, until which, the only light the
church possesseth is the light of all the Prophets concern-
ing Christ's appearing, confirmed as it was by the fore-
shewing of that appearance on the holy mount. The
thing, therefore, which was shewn on the holy mount
is beyond a question that to which he directs the hope of
the church as the consummation of all the Prophets, as
the dawning of the day, and the rising of the day-star on
the heart. The only subject of discourse before the
Apostles is the coming again of Jesus in power and ma-
jesty, v. 16. This, he says, they had a real manifestation
of on the mount: therefore the Prophets are more to be
believed, and we Christians ought to give the more heed to
them, till that glorious hope and appearing of the Lord Jesus
be manifested to the heart-felt glory of his people. The
world till then is represented as in darkness, the Prophets
as our lamp in the night, the coming of the Lord as the
rising of the day-star in the dawn of the morning, and the
hearts of his people, down-cast till then, transported with
joy and filled with gladness when that blessed dawn doth
appear; and thus have we all the matter which I know of
in the Scriptures for the interpretation of the promise in
the text, "I will give him the Morning Star." Let us
now endeavour to gather the interpretation.
The promise must contain in it these things: a share in
the glorious advent of Christ, and a share in the action of
smiting the nations and planting his people, which he is
VII.]
763
Thyatira-The Promise.
then to perform; a share of his royal name, the Star of
Jacob, the Sceptre of Israel, the King of the Jews; a
share of the honour and majesty which was put upon him
when the Father welcomed him as his Son into the cloud
of his excellent glory, into which he took not Christ only,
but likewise those two, Moses and Elias, partakers of his
brightness, but likewise his Apostles Peter, James, and
John, who felt it good to be there.-But now the question
ariseth, How is it possible that we, who are laid in the
grave, can be partakers of that manifestation of glory and
action of mighty power? The answer is, By the first re-
surrection, and not otherwise, which shall change our vile
bodies, and fashion them like unto his glorious body. But
what connexion hath the first resurrection with the Morn-
ing Star? This connexion it holdeth not so much with
the star, which indicates dignity and power, but with the
morning, with which the resurrection of the saints is in all
Scripture contemporaneous. If we shall be able to shew
that in the Scriptures the action of the morning is the re-
surrection of the saints, then the interpretation will be
complete; and the promise will amount to this,—To him
that overcometh I will give power over the nations, by
raising him from the grave into the dignity of my name,
the Star of Jacob, and to perform with me the action of
delivering Israel out of the hand of his enemies, which,
like the dawn, shall bring in the glorious day of the world's
redemption. Let us then bring our proofs from Scripture
that the action of the morning is the resurrection of the
saints to power and glory. Amongst the many testimo-
nies to this effect, we must select a few of the most dis-
tinct. The first is Psa. xlix., where, after introducing
the subject with wonderful language bespeaking its high
importance, the Psalmist setteth forth the folly of worldly
men in living here as if there were no hereafter, and keep-
ing to themselves wealth as if it could redeem their life,
and setting their affections upon their houses and lands as
if they should inherit them for ever; then he thus express-
eth their eternal disappointment and disgrace (v. 14, 15):
"Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed
on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them
in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the
764
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
"
grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul
from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me."
Here" the morning" is fixed upon as the time when up-
right men shall have the dominion over the wicked, by
being redeemed from the hand of hell, and received unto
Him who hath the dominion to bestow, that is, unto
Christ, who hath received it from his Father. There can
be no doubt, therefore, that the day of the resurrection of
the righteous, when they have dominion and inherit the
earth, is denominated the morning, whose light it is said,
v. 19, the wicked shall never see. The cxth Psalm is
another whose testimony is to the same effect, where the
powerful act of Christ to subdue his enemies is described
as being helped by his people; of whom it is said, ver. 3,
that they shall be willing in the day of thy power, in
the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning:
thou hast the dew of thy youth." Here the day of his
power, and the womb of the morning, and the willingness
of his people, and the beauties of their holiness, and the
destruction of the enemies of the King, are all at one and
the same time. The xlvith Psalm, which setteth forth the
distress and the deliverance of the church, doth declare
that her help shall come in the morning, for then the na-
tions shall be removed. "God is in the midst of her;
she shall not be moved: God shall help her when the
morning appeareth (marg.) The heathen raged, the
kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth
melted." For illustrations of the same truth, I refer to
the xxxth Psalm, ver. 5., and to the lixth Psalm, ver. 14,
16; and I may observe that the most learned critic of the
last age gives it as his judgment, that in the Psalms the
morning always referreth to the first resurrection. It is the
time when God awaketh, when Christ ariseth out of his
place, when the church awaketh, and beholdeth his face
in righteousness, and is satisfied with his likeness. It
was also in the morning watch that the Lord looked upon
the host of the Egyptians and fought against them; and
it was early in the morning that the angel of the Lord
smote the camp of the Assyrians; and it was very early
in the morning that Jesus arose, the first-fruits of them that
slept.
VII.]
765
Thyatira-The Promise.
There is another mark by which the first resurrection is
connected with the morning, namely, the dew; as in the
cxth Psalm, and in the xxvith chapter of Isaiah, ver. 19,
Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body
shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust:
for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast
out the dead." The dew is deposited in greatest plenty
about the breaking of the dawn, and refresheth with its
numerous drops the leaves, and plants, and blades of grass
on which it resteth; so shall the saints of God, coming
forth from their invisible abodes out of the womb of the
morning, refresh the world with their benignant influence;
and therefore are they likened to the dew, for all nature
is so constituted of God as to bear witness of that day of
regeneration which then shall dawn. And as the morning
star looking forth from its lonely house in the heavens,
when all the rest are faded and gone, and ere yet the
streak of dawn hath appeared, may fitly be regarded as
the ruler of that hour when the dew refresheth the earth;
so Christ, who shall come like a thief and steal upon
the world, locked in the arms of sleep, and gather his own
from the four winds of heaven, with whose hosts he shall
put to flight the rulers of the darkness of this world, and
bring in the times of refreshing, is aptly compared to the
morning star, which scattereth the darkness of night, and
ushereth in the dawn of the morning.
There is still another point which we would endeavour
to make good, and so complete this interpretation;-
that as the New Jerusalem, when it shall come down
from heaven, is the sun of this world, in the light of which
the nations walk, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and
the Lamb is the light thereof; so the re-appearance of the
glorious cloud wherein God hath ever dwelt, in light inac-
cessible and full of glory, is the star of the morning, and
the sign of the Son of Man's appearing. When it is said,
in the prophet Daniel, that the Son of Man shall come
with the clouds of heaven, and repeated by himself in the
xxiv th of Matthew, and other parts of Scripture, I do not
understand those watery clouds which gather in the lower
parts of the air to be signified, but that cloud of darkness
and of brightness-pillar of cloud by day and of fire by
night-wherein Jehovah, in times past, appeared for the
3 U
766
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
deliverance of his people, and guided them through the
wilderness, riding upon the heavens; which afterwards
dwelt in the innermost recesses of the tabernacle; which
filled the temple on the day of its dedication, nor forsook
it until God had taken testimony, by the mouth of Eze-
kiel, to all the idolatries with which they had polluted his
house, and given assurance, by the mouth of the same
prophet, that it should not always be separated from men,
but should come again and fill the temple with its glory
(Ezek. xliii. 2; Haggai ii. 7, 9). That cloud, the ancient
dwelling-place of power and glory, and not these watery
vapours, is the fit chariot of the Lord, which, on the mount
of transfiguration, is called the excellent glory surpassing
the brightness of the sun, whence the Father spoke unto
the Son of Man; in which also the Son of Man, clothed
in the Father's glory, appeared unto Saul of Tarsus as he
journeyed to Damascus, wherein, also, he appeared, as I
believe, to the martyr Stephen. That was no ordinary
cloud which received him out of the disciples' sight, when
he ascended from the Mount of Olives. It was the old
symbol of Jehovah's habitation, receiving into its bosom
the Word made flesh, where the Word had ever dwelt
before: “And now, Father, glorify thou me with that
glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
in the like manner in which he had been taken into heaven
did the two shining ones say that he should descend from
heaven again, or, as he himself saith it, with the Father's
glory as well as with his own. He was in his own glory
when he stood transfigured on the mount; but he was in
the Father's glory also when the glorious cloud had en-
wrapped him. When, therefore, in the Gospels it is said,
that he shall come in a cloud with power and great glory
(Luke xxi. 27); and when it is said in the Revelation that
he comes sitting on a cloud, that cloud, and no other,
is, I believe, signified in which he dwelt of old, when he
was the Angel of the Covenant: and he is the Angel of
the Covenant still, for the covenant is not yet accom-
plished. The Jews are all scattered, and Zion sitteth like
a widow forlorn. When, therefore, he shall come to perfect
his work with the tribes of Israel, he shall come riding
on the cloud as in the days of old, even thus as it is written
in the xviiith and lxviiith Psalms. But this is only his sign:
And
VII.] Thyatira- Universal Bishop-The Promise.
767
yet it is a sign at the sight of which the nations well may
mourn; for it is the dwelling-place of power, as well as of
glory, and as heretofore upon the nations of Canaan it
shed baleful beams, fiery lightning, hailstones, and coals
of fire, so hereafter shall it empty itself of the wrath of
God upon these nations, and that wicked ruler of them,
who are gathered to dispute their entrance into the pro-
mised inheritance. Peter, in the passage already referred
to, calls that the most excellent glory which the three
Evangelists denote merely by the name of a cloud; and
in all those passages where Christ is said to come with a
cloud, or with the clouds, it is always added "with power
and glory." Now these watery vapours of the sky, though
the sun may paint them in glorious hues, have in them-
selves neither power nor glory, neither are they capable
of sustaining that glory of God in which Christ is to
come invested; and into which he is to gather his glorified.
saints, both dead and living, both raised and changed, who
together ascend into the air to meet him in those clouds of
glory, and to be ever with the Lord in the presence of his
God. The present glory of Christ standeth in this, that
he is admitted into that glorious presence of God where
creature never dwelt before. Since sin entered into flesh,
God hath shrowded himself up in a cloud upon the skirts
of which Moses might look, but not upon his face as yet;
for into that presence flesh and blood shall not enter. God
was present with his people under the former dispensation ;
but all the while he dwelt in a cloud, which took up its
secret abode within the veil of the most holy place. The
High Priest might once a year go into that presence-
chamber and look upon that cloudy pavilion; but within
the foldings of that cloud man never entered till the Son
of Man, our High Priest, passed into its heavenly places.
All which Moses and the elders, and Israel, and Daniel,
and Ezekiel saw, was the glory of the Son of Man; and
though the skirts of it were cast around Moses, and around
the company on the glorious holy mount, who felt it good
to be there, still to them, as to Moses, it was not permitted
to see God's face and live, but only as it were the train
which attended upon him from behind. But in that light
hath our High Priest, the Son of Man, dwelt since his
ascension into glory, and therein shall we be ushered
3 U 2
768
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
when we shall be fashioned after the likeness of his glo-
rious body; and thence shall we render him all those acts
of power, and bring those executions of judgment which
are written in all the Scriptures, and no where more dis-
tinctly than in the passage before us. But this veil of the
cloud only remaineth upon the glory while the world is in
a sinful state, and shall be wholly taken away when the
world is purified. And being taken away, what comes
forth disclosed? The new Jerusalem, the city of God,
the abode of the Lamb and his saints, the head and me-
tropolis of creation, which hath the glory of God, because
it hath the Lamb and his bride. As the cloud, I think
it is the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens; as the
new Jerusalem, it is his presence on the earth.
The identity of the Shechinah, or glorious cloud wherein
Jehovah dwelt in the Jewish Church, with the sign of the
Son of Man is, I think, clearly stated in that discourse of
our Lord, constructed on very purpose to answer this
question among others, "What is the sign of thy coming?”
"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in
heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn,
and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory" (Matt. xxiv. 30). The
two parts of this statement I regard as identical with, and
intended to explain, each other; the former describing
the thing seen by the name of "the sign of his coming,"
after which the disciples were inquiring, the latter iden-
tifying it with the vision of Daniel (ch. vii), where the
Son of Man is represented as coming with the clouds of
heaven; and both together attributing the distress and
mourning and tribulation of the families of the earth to
that powerful and glorious appearance. That the thing
described in this verse is something prior to Christ's open
manifestation in the glory of the new Jerusalem, is clear
from the following verse, which describes the gathering of
the saints, of whom the new Jerusalem is altogether com-
posed. "And he shall send his angels with a great sound
of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from
the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
The former verse is the appearance of the morning star;
this is the giving of the morning star to all those who have
And not till after every one of the elect hath
overcome.
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop-The Promise. 769
been thus brought into the presence of his glory, doth he
begin to act those direful judgments upon the wicked
nations, and upon the polluted elements of nature, which
will make the earth to be a fit habitation for him and his
people. This is the ruling of the nations with a rod of
iron, and the breaking of them to pieces as a potter's
vessel, of which act of power and holiness we are promised
the share; and, this done, the new Jerusalem, the city and
tent of God, comes down from heaven and rests upon the
earth for ever. There is a common source of error in
thinking that the 30th verse quoted above contains two
things, both the sign of Christ's coming and his coming
itself. Inasmuch as he is in the sign; he himself is come
when the sign is come; and the sight of the sign is the
sight of his coming: and therefore it is said, that “ all the
tribes of the earth shall mourn when they shall see the Son
of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory."
It is not his very personal presentation of himself upon the
earth, the standing of his feet upon the Mount of Olives,
the shewing of his wounded body to those who pierced
it; but it is his appearance in the clouds, which strikes
terror and brings mourning upon the judged and afflicted.
nations, because from the fiery cloud will he and his
people execute the judgments written against the na-
tions. The question which the disciples put was, "What
is the sign of thy coming?" and this question Jesus
addresseth himself to resolve: and these verses are the
resolution of this question, and not of another, "What is
thy coming? which, he tells in the next two verses,
is a thing then very close at hand, but not yet verily pre-
sent. "Now learn a parable of the fig-tree; When his
branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know
that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all
these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." The
action which intervenes between the appearance of the
sign in the heavens, and the resting of Christ and his
saints, and the new Jerusalem, the Father's house upon
the earth, is no other than the action of judging the church
and the nations which is described in the xxv th chapter.
This is done from the cloud in which he comes, and into
which his people have been taken; and is the act of power
over the nations promised to him that overcometh in the
text before us.
3 U 3
770
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ
Taking the guidance of this passage, let us refer to the
viith chapter of Daniel, and see what light it casts upon
this subject. There, after the period of the fourth beast is
consummated, the Ancient of Days plants his throne and
proceeds to judge it; and after a season and a time to
judge the remnants also of the three which preceded it.
And the world being thus cleared and cleansed from bes-
tial tyranny, and without any ruler of any kind, behold
who comes to take the government upon his shoulders:
"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son
of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the
Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him.
And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a king-
dom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve
him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall
not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed." Here are two acts; the one, the judgment of
the nations, by the Ancient of Days,-the other, the inves-
titure of the Son of Man in their dominion for ever. Now
our Lord teacheth (John vi. 22), that "the Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son;
that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour
the Father" and in the xxv th chapter of Matthew he
presenteth himself as sitting upon the throne of his glory,
and gathering "all the nations" before him for judgment.
That office, therefore, which Daniel saw performed by the
Ancient of Days, we are taught elsewhere is to be performed
by his representative and delegate,-the Son, without whom
he doeth nothing. Still, however, it is the Father's office put
upon the Son of Man, because as the Son of Man he had
fulfilled all righteousness, kept the law, and made it ho-
nourable, and therefore may well be entrusted with its
execution. Clothed in the Father's glory as well as in his
own glory is he to come (Luke ix. 26), and in the glory of
the holy angels. That office, therefore, which the old
prophets saw as the propriety of the Father, must be put
upon him in order that he may come in his Father's glory.
He comes in his Father's glory by doing the action which
is proper to God; of which one of the most important is
judgment. This he expressly declares, in the id Psalm,
that he had received from the Father; and in the passage
before us, that he will share with all those who overcome.
Returning, now, to the prophecy of Daniel, we know that
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop-The Promise.
771
the first action of judging the four beasts, and all the earth
which they overruled unto wickedness, pertains to the Son
of Man, as well as the second action of being installed in
the dominion and government of them for ever and ever.
But it may be asked, Are you sure that this judgment of
the nations may not be over before the Son of Man ap-
pears in the clouds of heaven? I answer, that though to
a cursory reader it might so appear both from the narrative
of Daniel and Matthew, a more careful study and deep
consideration of the matter clearly shews it to be other-
wise. For the judgment of the nations is expressly de-
clared (Matt. xxv. 31) to be at his coming in his glory;
also the consternation and mourning of all the families of
the earth (xxiv. 30) is declared to be the effect of their
seeing him come; and in that judgment his saints are to
take a part, having been co-partners of his sufferings, they
are also to be co-partners of his glory: but his saints
are not gathered to him until he come in the clouds with
power and great glory; they are caught up to him into the
clouds to meet him in the air, and to be ever with the
Lord. The Ancient of Days planting his throne of judg-
ment against the fourth beast, and consuming them unto
the end, is the symbolical representation of the King of
kings, with his heavenly hosts, coming against the beast
and the false prophet, and the kings of the earth, as the
same is set forth in the xix th chapter of the Apocalypse,
and his receiving the kingdom, and holding it for ever is
the same with the following event described in the xx th
chapter; while the other event, occurring at the end of
and during the thousand years, is without prejudice to the
kingdom of the saints, which is for ever and ever (Rev.
xi. 15, xxii. 5). Seeing, then, that Christ doth in mani-
fest glory accomplish the judgment of the fourth beast
with his predecessors in the throne of iniquity, and that
his appearance to this effect is to be in the cloud of glory,
(for at the sign of the cloud it is that the nations are to
shake with consternation, and wail with sorrow,) it seems
to be put beyond a question that the morning star for
which the same act of righteous vengeance is reserved must
be the same with the cloud of glory, and with the sign.
of the Son of Man. In Daniel it is set forth under the
symbol of a fiery throne; now the cherubim, where the
772
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
cloud of glory ever rested, are, both in Ezekiel and in the
Apocalypse, set forth as the throne of God. Also in the
Psalms he is described as coming riding upon the cheru-
bim (Psa. xviii). The cloud was also a pillar of fire, and
from it came forth the fire of vengeance which consumed
the transgressors in the days of old; and I believe that
from it, even from the presence of the Lord, from these
seven lamps of fire, which are his seven Spirits, will come
forth that fire of purification which, while it refines the
gold and silver and precious stones, shall consume the
chaff and wood and stubble, and bear them afar upon the
bosom of its liquid stream into the lake that burneth for
ever and ever. The Son of Man, clothed with the Father's
holiness and faithfulness, covered with that glorious pano-
ply in which Jehovah dwelt from of old, shall perform that
action of the Ancient of Days, and having finished it shall
receive the dominion for ever and ever. This explanation
of the two-foldness of Daniel's act of judgment and domi-
nion applies equally to all other delineations of the same
mystery contained in the Old Testament. For example,
in the cx th Psalm the Father saith unto David's Lord,
"Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool;" but straightway we find David's Lord
himself" striking through kings in the day of his wrath;"
serving the Father in the great act of subjecting his ene-
mies. God retains his right of judging his enemies, with
all his other rights in creation; and by giving them to the
Son of Man he proves that in him are vested the rights of
God as well as of man. Christ redeems the earth, and wins
it for a possession to himself and the chosen ones of God,
in his character of Man: in his character of God, he comes
to judge the sons of wickedness and the spirits of darkness,
who are responsible not to man but to God; and we also,
in our character not of sons of man, but of sons of God,
have this Divine office bestowed upon us by him.
B
For man to judge man is not permitted, save as the delegate
of God; wherefore judges are called gods: and we, being
in very truth the sons of God, have this honour bestowed
upon us by Christ, unto whom all judgment belongs as
God, and unto whom it is given as man; because by be-
coming man he brought unto mankind forgiveness, for the
rejection of which he will judge them, "because they have
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop-The Promise. 773
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God;"
because as man he shewed God's love to them, whereby
his judgment is proved to be not in the absence but in
the presence of love for the ends of holiness,-not for want
of grace in God to forgive, but for want of faith in man to
receive God's grace and rest upon his goodness; because
as man he hath become acquainted with man's infirm con-
ditions, and, putting strength into them all, hath kept the
law, and shewn how it may be fulfilled by infirm morta-
lity, through faith in God, which enabled the Son of Man
to overcome. A judgment of fallen men, because they attain
not to the law of holiness, is equitable only in the pre-
sumption that fallen manhood can keep that law; which
was proved to be a true presumption by Christ in our fallen
manhood, keeping it without spot and blameless, through
faith upon God. This demonstration of the capacity of
our mortal and corruptible nature, brings us all in guilty
of the judgment to come; and the Gospel is the message
of God's grace to the guilty ;-the guilty, not according
to the measure or similitude of Adam's transgression, but
according to the measure of them who have rejected re-
demption. The Gospel of redemption through the blood
of Christ was preached in the world from the instant of
the Fall, as the means unto perfect holiness through faith ;
and in the condition of having rejected this redemption,
not merely in the condition of having sinned with Adam,
doth the electing love of the Father apprehend every one
who hath been, or is to be saved. Election is another
mystery of love than redemption; another, and a higher,
love to those who have rejected the other; which when it
comes doth enable us to believe in and rest upon the Re-
deemer, and is therefore redemption applied and made
constant, but not until we had first proved our entire
worthlessness of and deadness to the blessing. Christ,
therefore, judgeth all as the Redeemer of all; declared to
be such by his resurrection from death, the captivity of all.
"Because God hath appointed a day, in the which he will
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he
hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men,
in that he hath raised him from the dead." The human nature
is necessary, that men may be tried by their peers; the
Divine nature is necessary, that the judges may not usurp the
1
774
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
prerogative of God: the one, that we may be in full sym-
pathy with the criminal at the bar; the other, that we may
be in full sympathy with the God of Grace, to whom he
is responsible for grace rejected: and these two concur in
Christ and his members, who are partakers with him of the
Divine nature, though not of Godhead. The Divine nature
in him and in us is that which is born of the Spirit, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God. This is the seed of God in us and in him,
which is altogether holy and cannot sin, because it is born
of God. This judgeth all things in the natural man, but
is itself judged of no one. By this we are competent to
be judges for God of all iniquity; and therefore it is
written that the saints shall judge the world, and that they
shall also judge angels; and in the text, that they shall
receive the morning star of the resurrection, and act with
Christ the tragical but righteous act of ruling the nations
with a rod of iron, and breaking them in pieces like a
potter's vessel. It is from this same presence in us of
the Divine nature of the sons of God, first in flesh
made manifest by the generation of Jesus Christ, a holy
thing in flesh, that we receive the resurrection from the
dead unto that light and glory which is inaccessible to the
wicked, who shall never see light: as it is written, "But if
the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in
you" (Rom. viii. 11). Resurrection is regeneration mani-
fested to the sense; regeneration is resurrection manifested
unto faith, yet still liable to all the trials and tribulations
of faith, which holding fast patiently, we shall at length
attain unto the resurrection from among the dead, and
apprehend that for which we are apprehended of Christ
Jesus. And the space, between regeneration and resur-
rection in the believer is a continual act of self-judgment
and condemnation, that we may not be judged with the
wicked; a crucifixion and continual mortification of our-
selves, that we may be shewn worthy to sit in judgment
upon others. It was Roman justice in Brutus first to
condemn and execute his own son: it is Christian
justice first to condemn ourselves, and do execution upon
ourselves. This shews that there is no partiality, that
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop-The Promise. 775
it is not for want of love; for what man ever yet hated
himself? but altogether out of an irreversible law and
pure desire of holiness. The Christian, moreover, who
hath borne reproach from the world that he is to judge
and been by it mistreated in all ways, and persecuted and
put to death, and hath borne all "as the lamb which is led
to the slaughter, and as the sheep which is dumb before the
shearer," may well be acquitted of all malice or revenge,
when he hath given the proof of a life's suffering, and a
martyr's death, that he was moved not by malice but by love,
and ensued blessing, not revenge. But if, as those mis-
guided advocates of a partial redemption affirm, it be so, that
Christ loved and died for none but the elect, and that his
life's labours and death's pains were only for them yielded
up, there is no proof of any kind whatever that the judg-
ment is of love, and not of malice; of holiness, and not of
revenge; and if, as the same zealous deniers of the truth
maintain, his flesh was without the law of flesh, and was
accessible only to physical infirmities, and not to tempta-
tions to sin, then is he utterly incompetent, from want of
fellow-feeling, to sit in judgment upon those who are in
this way tempted. Ah me! what a nerveless, jointless,
helpless thing is this reformation theology becoming in
the hands of our doctors; how profitless to poor souls;
how inglorious to God and to Christ! Though once, like
the brazen scrpent, it healed the church, it has become in
the hands of an idolatrous generation like Nehushtan, a
parcel of sounds, and must speedily be broken to pieces
and ground to powder, like the golden calf, the god of the
Egyptians. The calf the god of the lustful flesh, and the
serpent the god of the cunning mind; the one the idol of
the Papists, the other the idol of the Protestants; will, I
think, come to the same end and much about the same time,
and the word of the Lord alone be exalted in that day.
But let us have done with all such gainsayers of the truth,
and contemplate the truth itself.
The glorious truth is, that when the time shall come for
Christ to arise out of his place and shake terribly the earth;
to issue from within the veil where he hath been so long hid-
den in the secret place of the Father, and take to him his great
power and reign, he shall not do an act or strike a blow, till
he have gathered to him all his saints from the one quarter
776
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
under heaven to the other. He will not take upon him
one glorious prerogative conferred upon him by the Fa-
ther until he have called to his side from the caverns of
the grave his own people, who have not loved their lives
unto the death for his sake. He shall feel that it is not
good for him to be alone; and his Father and his God shall
bring to him that wife whom, during his long sleep, he hath
been building up for him. He himself acting for the Fa-
ther, as the Son of God, shall quicken the bodies of his
many members, who shall ascend into the presence of his
glory and stand before the Son of Man. Coming as the
angel of destruction, he can do nothing until the righteous
witnesses have been removed out of Sodom, and he shall
say unto them, "Come, my people, enter into your cham-
bers of salvation." And high aloft into the air, borne in
chariots of fire, as heretofore Elijah was, shall we enter
that Shechinah glory, that cloud of the most excellent
majesty of God where Christ abideth; and he shall present
us unto himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle
or any such thing. Thus having entered into the bride-
chamber, we shall be re-united to the bride in a marriage
union never to be broken; we shall receive the benedic-
tion of the Father, and be instated together in that king-
dom and dominion which hath no end. And now shall
the mighty action of subduing the earth proceed apace ;
now shall the judgment written begin to be executed by
Christ and his saints. What Enoch foretold, and every
prophet since Enoch's time, shall begin to be accom-
plished; nor shall blow cease after blow till the whole
fabric of the nations shall be shivered to pieces. Every
island shall flee away, and the mountains shall not be
found. The kings, and the captains, and the mighty men
shall be consumed for ever from the presence of the Lord;
nor shall it cease until every thing that offendeth shall be
cast out into the lake that burneth, and the earth made
meet for the habitation of God and the Lamb, and their
tabernacle, which is all the saints, into the new Jerusalem
confederate. The order is, Christ the first-fruits; then they
that are Christ's at his coming; then the pulling down of all
rule and authority and power, and then the giving up of the
kingdom to the Father. Christ himself first ascendeth into
the glorious light of God: thence he sendeth the Spirit to
777
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop Conclusion.
quicken all whom the Father hath destined to the same
honour and glory, those sighing and longing for the sight
of their Father and the habitation of their native city, he
summoneth up to the holy presence of God at his coming;
and these Christ and the church, the whole mystical church,
dwell wrapt up in the skirts of the cloud of the Father's
glory. To them, and them alone, as yet will it unfold its
most holy womb. But the purpose is to fill the whole
earth with its glory. The cloud shall yet expand itself
from within the veil over the temple, and the court of
Israel, and the court also of the Gentiles. It is now in
the most holy place, embracing our High Priest within the
veil: at his coming it shall spread over the holy place and
enwrap the priests of God who minister there. And now
it shall begin to shoot forth its fires and consume all the
evil doers about the door of the congregation, and all
those who offer strange incense upon the altar, and Core
and his company, and every other wicked thing. This
putting down of all rule, and authority, and power ad-
verse to Christ, shall be done as manifestly from the dwell-
ing-place of Christ and his church, as heretofore the acts
of judgment were done from the cloud of the presence of
God. And this being done, the whole earth shall be filled
with the glory of God, and his tabernacle shall come down
among them and abide with them for ever. Then the
skirts of the cloud shall raise themselves, and in the sight
of the wondering nations the glorious city shall be revealed
descending from heaven, having the glory of God and the
Lamb, and in it shall God abide with men for ever.
CONCLUSION.
Many reflections have suggested themselves to my mind
during this lecture, of which I shall only notice this one,
That it seems to be put beyond a question that the first
resurrection of the dead and the change of the living, and
their assumption in one body unto Christ in the air, takes
place before any stroke of exterminating judgment falls.
upon the nations. The idea of his coming, which has
been again and again pressed upon us during this lecture,
is that, when the times of the Father are accomplished, he
shall send forth from heaven Jesus of Nazareth enwrapped
in that same cloud of glory in which Jehovah hath ever
abidden since the day that sin entered into the heart, and
3 x
778
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
flesh, and habitation of men. In this cloud, or clouds,-for
it is alike capable of covering all the summits of Sinai, or of
contracting itself to the dimensions of the Holy of Holies,
-shall Christ come forth from the invisible heavens into the
world, the region of the senses, and straightway shall he call
his saints, living and dead, into the same most holy pre-
sence chamber of God. The number of the elect being
thus accomplished and glorified with their glorious Head,
they are constituted the reigning and ruling family of God,
his kings and priests for ever; and straightway their ac-
tion shall begin by clearing the world of all wickedness.
Then is the Christian church the spiritual seed, the royal
priesthood of God completed; never, I think, to be
added to.—I have sometimes thought that the spiritual
glory, into which the Christian church is now baptized,
and shall then be introduced, is to be the destination of
those also who, during and at the end of the Millennium,
shall have been found faithful; and that from thenceforth
there shall be but one condition of mankind, the spiritual
glory of the new Jerusalem: whereas, during the Millen-
nium, there hath been besides this the natural glory of re-
deemed men in flesh and blood subsisting; a condi-
tion which, according to this common notion, shall have an
end when the thousand years are accomplished. I begin
to doubt this; and incline to believe, that as man was
created a living soul at first, an image of God and Lord of
his creatures, though in flesh and blood, so shall man con-
tinue for ever redeeemed from the power of death, and
upheld in holiness by the work of Christ in the flesh;
while we who are born again of the Spirit into the
likeness of Christ's glorious body, shall exhibit the glory
of the election, they the blessedness of the redemption of
God in Christ. We neither marrying nor giving in mar-
riage, they multiplying and replenishing the creation of
God, according to the constitution of mankind ere yet
they fell. And thus in a two-fold glory shall the purpose
of God unfold itself; the governors and the governed, the
sons of God and the sons of men, the celestial bodies and
the bodies terrestrial, of which both are glorious, though
the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the ter-
restrial is another. This is a very deep and a very im-
portant subject, which properly comes to be handled under
VII.] Thyatira-Universal Bishop: The Conclusion. 779
the Millennium, and of which I have now given my convic-
tions, in order that I may be understood, when I say, that
the Christian church is completed at the coming of Christ,
and taken up into the cloud of his glory, ere ever one blow
of the iron rod is struck, ere ever any one of the nations
is broken to shivers, ere ever the action of putting down
all rule and authority and power is once entered upon. If
this be true, it gives an awful importance to the act of the
coming of Christ, which in that case becomes decisive of
those who are to reign with him, and conclusive of that
blessed society. Then the door of the bridal chamber is
shut, and there is an end both of invitation and of ad-
mission into the honourable marriage of the Lamb. Those
who are taken, are taken to be ever with the Lord in the
holy presence of God; those who are left, are left upon
the earth to take their portion in the miserable judgments
which are to shake it to its centre, and consume the fabric
of its iniquity. That out of these judgments a remnant shall
escape, both of Jews and Gentiles, by acknowledging the
name and dignity of the Lamb and his bride, there is no
doubt; and that they shall people the earth, and possess it
in much blessedness for a thousand years, and then decline
away from their allegiance and be consumed, while the
holy city, and the camp of the saints, the twofold con-
tainers of the twofold glory, the glory of the spiritual and
the glory of the natural, shall be preserved the everlasting
monuments,—of the creation redeemed by the work of
Christ in flesh, of the election glorified by the work of
Christ in the Spirit. Until Christ comes, therefore, the
Gospel of the kingdom is preached, and men are called
with a heavenly calling, to the inheritance of the resur-
rection and adoption of the sons of God in the new Jeru-
salem; after the coming of Christ there shall be no call to
this high and glorious dignity. The work of God, which
at Christ's former coming made a pause in the earthly
things in order that it might proceed with the spiritual
things, shall at his second coming, having completed the
heavenly things, return to take up the earthly things, and
fulfil all which was spoken concerning the earth by the pro-
phets; to judge the four beasts, to slay the four horns
which scattered Israel and Judah, to restore the taber-
nacle of David, to rebuild the city and temple of Jeru-
3 x 2
780
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
salem, and to reconstitute all things by the hand of Elias,
which is to come; and with the Jewish people to make all
the Gentiles to rejoice, in Abraham and his seed, to make
all the families of the earth to be blessed.
But, oh!
through what storms and tempests, through what violence
and bloodshed, will this blessed tranquillity be brought to
pass! What a night, what a fearful night of horrid
havock, before that morning of peace shall dawn!
To escape all which calamities that are about to come
upon the earth, though it be a most worthy cause of
watchfulness and prayer, and by our Lord held out as
such (Luke xxi. 36); a much higher object of ambition it
is to desire that glory of the Son of Man, which shall then
open the gates for the righteous nation to enter in, and
anon shall shut them again.-There lurks and lingers
about the hearts of men a hope that Christ will so an-
nounce his coming as that we shall have time enough to
get ready. Alas! shall Christ's words not be able to
rouse us out of this shameful security, this dishonourable
indifference to the coming of our Saviour, who taught his
church that it should come as a snare upon all them that
dwell on the earth, as the deluge came on the former
world, as fire from heaven fell down upon Sodom and
Gomorrah. Will his parable of the virgins, to this very
end addressed, not be able to teach the church, that when
his coming is announced, only those who are ready shall
be able to enter in to the honour and to the love and to
the joy of the marriage chamber. If the church would
take Christ's own views of this subject, and give it the im-
portance which he gives to it; if she would but hear the
Spirit making his continual invocation to Christ to come;
if she would but walk in holiness, and hasten the persecu-
tion of this present evil world; if she would but know the
love of Christ in her redemption, and give scope to her
own love of him, and desire of his appearance; if she would
but know this dignity of her election of God, and give way
to the glorious desire of possessing it, there would be no
unwillingness to treat of the subject of his second coming,
but a strong desire to be informed of it, and to know the
signs of it, and to catch eager hold of every sign that it is
near at hand: there would be no desire to part from the
belief of it, to keep reservations in our heart, to remain in
VII.] Thyatira-The Universal Bishop: Conclusion. 781
doubt, nourishing the vain notion of some sensible warn-
ing, or the very equivocal hope that we may be safe with-
out coming to any conviction at all upon the subject. The
greater part of the church, yea, almost all, are lying in the
arms of a most dangerous and fatal security, that without
taking any interest whatever in the subject of Christ's
coming, all will be safe with them, provided they be rest-
ing upon the merits of his atonement. I believe that no
one is a true Christian who does not desire the appearing
of his Lord; and being entreated with discourse con-
cerning it doth nauseate and reject it. Rest when he please,
his is not the true rest who can hear of the coming of our
Lord and not be interested in it. He may be a moralist,
philanthropist, theologian, or what not, but he is no Chris-
tian, who does not desire to hear of the coming of the Lord.
His fear condemns him of want of faith in Christ as his
Saviour and his Husband; his fear condemns him of pre-
sent worldliness and fatal error. And if he will not be at
pains to get rid of this fear, he will be condemned with the
fearful; and if he avoid that very subject which calls upon
him to deal with his fears, he gives place to his fear and
prefers it to faith: he would rather continue in separation
than be brought into union with Christ; he would rather
doubt than be assured, and worse signs of a Christian than
these are no where to be found. Now to shake the vain
security of these men, I present to them the whole New-
Testament Scriptures, which exhibit the church in the
attitude of waiting and looking for Christ; the instruc
tions of our Lord and his Apostles, who ever urge upon
the church the duty of watchfulness and preparedness.
And if in the face of their instructions and invitations they
will still persevere in their indifference to the whole subject,
through the vain hope that they will receive notable warn-
ing time enough for making ready, I present to them the
continual declaration that he cometh as a thief in the
night, and with such sharp decision that the wife cannot
help the husband, from whose arms she is taken, nor the
friend the friend, with whom he is walking by the way,
nor the servant her fellow-servant, with whom she is grind-
ing at the mill. And if, still, they hope that though they
may not be among them who are changed and taken at the
Lord's appearing, they may yet be among those who shall
3 x 3
782
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
be purified by the judgments, I ask upon what authority it
resteth, that there will be two assumptions of the saints. I
find that they who are Christ's are taken at his coming; and
consequently those who are not Christ's are left. To be left
seems to me equal to not being Christ's. No doubt there
will be a method of salvation still, but it is not the Chris-
tian method: the vocation to be with Christ is ended.
The vocation to be subject to Christ and his saints is
begun; but the vocation to reign with him is ended.
The dignity of sons of God is co-extensive with the
privilege of the first resurrection, and therefore these
two names, sons of God and sons of the resurrection,
are interchangeable terms. "Neither can they die any
more for they are equal unto the angels; and are the chil-
dren of God, being the children of the resurrection." So
that to those who are not counted worthy of that age, and
the resurrection from the dead, there should still be a means
of repairing the loss, and reaching the Divine dignity of
sons of God, is, if these our premises be right, a hope as
vain and nugatory as is that of universal salvation, or of
purgatory. The gifts and callings of God are without
repentance. When the day of grace is ended, it is ended;
when the day of judgment is begun, it is begun.
If, then, so much resteth upon the act of Christ's coming
in the clouds of heaven, to raise the dead, and change the
living saints, and if, during the whole course of the judg
ments which follow thereon, destructive of this present order
of things, there be no door of admission open into the royal
priesthood of God,—that is, the Christian church,-this sub-
ject of the second advent is one of sterling importance to
the church in all times, and especially in these times we
live in, when the voice "Behold the Bridegroom cometh,"
"Behold I come as a thief," hath gone forth in all direc-
tions with such impetuous urgency; in times like these, when
the framework of society seems everywhere breaking up
around us. If, as we have learned from this lecture, the
judgments upon the nations are not to proceed until the
saints be all gathered into glory, and Christ with their full
number appear in the clouds of heaven, and we see those
judgments threatening to commence with fierce and fiery
controversy, we may well call one to another, To thy
watch-tower, brother, and look out for his coming.'
The
VII.] Thyatira-The Universal Bishop: Conclusion. 783
thing now to be apprehended is, lest those who are ex-
pecting the Lord should be seized with premature asto-
nishment, and paralyzed in their minds, and laid open to
the temptations of false Christs and false prophets; who
shall make a stir, saying, “Lo here, lo there," as if Christ
were to be found in the secret chamber or in the desert
who will be calling upon you to do this and to do that:
but do it not, abide every one at his post, holding forth
the word of God, and standing for the testimony of Jesus
Christ, well assured that in the day of the Lord we shall
be sought out as carefully as Lot was, and borne into
a place of safety more secure than Zoar. To calm such
apprehensions and excitements and tumults, must be one
of the constant works of the minister of Christ and pastor
of the flock. Though the earth were removing, though
the nations were rushing against each other like the whirl-
winds, what have we to fear, whose city is secure, and
whose rest is provided? Rather should we hold up our
heads because our redemption draweth nigh. Nevertheless,
I count it not good to close this lecture concerning the
judgment of the nations, without observing that the thing
which we see now proceeding, is only the violence with
which Christendom is passing from the Papal to the Infidel
form, and not the judgments with which it is to be con-
sumed. It is the breaking up of the Papal firmament and
foundations, for the Infidel, whose action is yet to come,
and then cometh its judgment. Its action is under one
head to make war against the Lamb, and those that are
with him, and then proceeds the judgment. Against that
man of sin who heads and leads the last confederacy against
the Lord and his anointed, shall the saints of God be called
on high, and armed with weapons of heavenly temper, with
"swords bathed in heaven." Against the beast and the
false prophet, and his army, it is that the Lord and his
hosts come forth in triumphant array, riding on white horses.
And then it is that the destruction of the nations proceeds
with battles of shaking. What we have seen in France is
one of the ten horns giving its power to infidelity, that
third form of the beast, whose body is all inscribed over
with blasphemy. The Papal beast had blasphemy in-
scribed only on the seven heads, because in Rome only
was the blasphemous assumption of that supremacy over
784
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT. VII.
This is
kings, which is the single prerogative of Christ, whose
name is King of kings and Lord of lords. But now the
people claim to be the sovereign of the sovereigns, from
them the power originates, and to them it is responsible;
their king reigns not by the grace of God, but by the au-
thority of the people. He is not God's king, but the
citizen-king. The people, all the members of the beast
claim now the blasphemous supremacy of the rulers of the
earth, which heretofore was claimed by Rome; blasphemy
is therefore written upon the heads no longer, but over the
whole body. What we see is the dispute between these
two claimants of Christ's prerogatives; the people are
striking down the pope's kings and setting up citizen-
kings; the kingdoms are hating the whore, and giving their
power unto the beast, utterly to destroy her.
what we behold taking place around us: it is only a new
storm and tempest over the deep, it is not the judgment of
it as yet. The beast is casting his old withered wrinkled
skin, and will come forth with deepest acts against the
Lord and his church, when he shall have clothed himself
in the brightness of Lucifer the sun of the morning. Then
when he shall have begun to clothe himself in the glorious
immunities of Christ, when he shall stand revealed in
all his power and splendour, and shall be putting down all
that opposeth him, and reigning as God in the temple of
God, then it is that the Lord shall be manifested in the
cloud with all his saints, to consume him with the breath
of his mouth, and to destroy him with the brightness of
his coming.
785
LECTURE VIII.
THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST AS THE UNI-
VERSAL BISHOP.-HIS EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH
OF SARDIS.
REV. iii. 1-7.
And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These
things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God,
and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast
a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and
strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to
die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard,
and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not
watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not
know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a
few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their
garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for
they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be
clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his
name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name
before my Father, and before his angels. He that hath
an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches.
To any one comparing the four former with the three
latter of these seven epistles of our great Bishop to his
churches, there will be manifest, in the midst of a constant
unity of matter and of style, this circumstantial difference,
that whereas the temptation in the former arose from he-
resies, false apostles, and a false prophetess, in the latter
they arise from none of these causes, but from hypocrisy,
indifference, and self-aggrandizement; the former an out-
ward visible enemy, the latter an inward weakness and
decay. In all the third chapter there is neither mention of
786
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
Nicolaitanes nor of Balaamites, of feigned apostles, of false
prophets, of the sorceress, nor of any thing holding of the
flesh and the visible world, as in the second; but on the
other hand, there is mention of a name to live while there
is deadness at heart, of lukewarmness and self-sufficiency,
and other forms of trial which come from within ourselves.
In each case we except one church, that of Smyrna and of
Philadelphia, which stand amongst the others as examples
of what the Chief Shepherd would have them to be. This
remarkable difference between the forms of temptation,
whereto the former and the latter divisions of the seven
churches are exposed, induce inquiry as to the cause.
That it was really and truly so that the churches of Sardis
and Laodicea were under the temptation of inward decay,
and not of outward evil, there can be no doubt; but see-
ing that by these instances the Lord was speaking to
all the churches, through all the time of his absence, we
want a reason why he should choose part of them under
the temptation of outward and part of inward evils. The
answer is, that thereby he would the more completely em-
brace the round of all temptations whatsoever, and present
to all churches, and to every church the proper counsel and
conduct in their various manifold perplexities. There are
these two open quarters of temptation, our own unfaithfulness
from within, and the assaults of our enemies from without,
from which every church and every Christian is assaulted;
and therefore it was most considerate of our good and
wise Bishop to set before us the faith and hope, the strength
and consolation, in which these various assaults are to be
withstood and overcome. While this is a good and suffi-
cient answer to the question upon the first great principle of
interpreting these epistles in such a way as to be fruitful
of edification to the universal church, and to the individual
churches, and to the private persons who compose them,
it obtaineth another very beautiful resolution upon the
principle of a historical application into which we have
been led as we proceeded. In a historical point of view,
the catholic church hath existed in two conditions, the
one before the other, since the Reformation. Before the
Council of Trent, the true church of God was in the bosom
of that ecclesiastical and political system, into which
Christendom had wrought itself under the pope and the
VIII.] Sardis-Univ. Bishop: General Observations. 787
emperor but that most wicked council having sanctified
all the abuses, and affirmed all the errors, and canonized
all the corruptions which had crept in, having adopted the
feigned apostles, and the Balaamite doctors, and the false
prophetess, and every thing else, however abominable,
which the lapse of ages had introduced, did seal up the
Roman church into the condition of an apostasy, where a
few witnesses may be maintained, and no doubt are main-
tained unto the end; but where the visible church is no
longer in existence, but the visible apostasy. And from this
time forth we must look for the visible church out of her,
in those who came forth from her protesting against all her
evils, and seeking to reform them; not constituting any
schism or sect, but seeking to preserve the church visible
in contradistinction from the visible apostasy. The second
state of the catholic church, therefore, we have existing
in the various Reformed churches of Europe, apart from
the Papacy, which hath now, in the Council of Trent, for-
mally and finally apostatized from the faith, nor can be
any more looked upon as a visible church. And so,
chap. iii, we hear no more of Balaam, or Jezebel, or fleshly
lusts, but of hypocrisy, false brotherhood, aud lukewarm-
ness. Looking, therefore, to the Protestant church for the
historical antitype of Sardis and Philadelphia and Lao-
dicea, it doth but remain that we should discriminate the
three states of it therein set forth.
in
The first is the glory of a name which the Reformed
churches, one and all, acquired by the power of argu-
ment, with which they resisted and overcame their
antagonists, and by the excellent forms of doctrine and
discipline which they instituted among themselves. Upon
that name they are subsisting still, when almost all that
entitled them to it is departed; unsound in almost every
point of doctrine, utterly relaxed and broken down in dis-
cipline, indifferent to, or ignorant of, the great questions
between the church and the apostasy, yea, and of the
authority and dignity of the church, become the idolaters
of a book, and of those persons who can make the most
plausible and powerful arguments upon some of its words,
behold the Protestant church as vain and proud of her
name, as if she still had amongst her the Luthers and the
Calvins, the Hookers and the Latimers, the Knoxes and
788
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT•
the Melvilles, through whose means God wrought her de-
liverance from the house of bondage. This is the Sardis
state of the church, which we see exhibited in the high-
church parties of England and Scotland, as distinguished
from the Methodist or Evangelical parties which have
started up in both, and indeed in all parts of Christendom
within the last century, originating with the labours of
Wesley and Whitfield, and propagated by the labours
of Romaine, Scott, Newton, and such like worthy men.
These, together with all their followers, differ from the old
veteran school of the Reformers, by caring little about the
glory of a name, whether for learning, for orthodoxy, for
discipline, or for any thing else, save zeal in promoting
personal safety, and extending the bounds of the Evan-
gelical kingdom. The authority of the church, the vita-
tality of the sacraments, the deep and large knowledge of
the truth, the zealous and masterful exposure of error, any
thing and every thing which appertaineth to nice discern-
ment and discrimination, is by them set at nought; and
looked upon as troubling the happy peace and perfectness
which they enjoy. The great mass of their writing con-
sisteth of Reports for religious societies, in order to shew
how increased they are in goods, and how excellent and
wonderful are their doings over the whole earth; and next
to these their popular sermons, holding up the all-suffi-
ciency of those most narrow views of doctrine and practice
which they hold. If they are tried with any higher doctrine;
Calvinistic, for example; they say, Of what use is it? it doth
but stir controversy;-with any newer doctrine, as the
Lord's coming and kingdom, they say, Why withdraw us
from the sufficient way of truth in which we are walking?
Is not that which we now hold sufficient for salvation? If
they are tried with any fuller doctrine, as concerning the
person of Christ, and the manifestation therein of the
work of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they say, Surely it
cannot be true, for our ministers never preach it to us. If
they be tried with any purer doctrine, as concerning the
assurance of faith and the completeness of sanctification,
body, soul, and spirit, they say, What dangerous doctrine,
that a person should be sure that God hath saved him in
Christ where then the necessity of our religious societies.
and other works; for if we are safe, what more is needed?
VIII.] Sardis-Univer. Bishop: General Observations. 789
They are instant about nothing else but their own per-
sonal safety. If they be tried with any more hearty and
loving doctrine, as the atonement and redemption wrought
out for all, they are distracted with rage, saying, Where
then is the difference between us and the wicked? never
dreaming that it is possible of the two classes they may
be the more wicked, like the Pharisees of old, who were
much farther from God than the publicans and sinners.
To this form of the church belong the great body of the
Dissenters both of England and Scotland, and so many of
the established churches as look upon the religious so-
cieties, and their subscriptions, and their reports, as the
great index to the prosperity of religion. If there be any
meaning in these names by which the seven churches are
designated, as hath been thought by many excellent in-
terpreters, the name Laodicea signifying the voice or
judgment of the people, is most expressive of another
feature of this last form of spiritual temptation; for, be-
yond all question, the only authority which they acknow-
ledge is the voice of the majority. Their ministers and
leaders every where are of the people's choosing, their
responsibility to the people, their influence according to
their popularity: newspapers and magazines are their
oracles, and the extent of their circulation is the criterion
of their excellence. It is as pure a democracy, and as little
of a church-polity as the present government of France: it
keeps up the form of a church, as France doth the form of
a monarchy; but the reality, the power, the dignity, and
the compelling authority are all gone. This is the Lao-
dicean state of the church, which is running a most rapid
career and daily winning upon the old Reformation eccle-
siastical spirit; which, like the old Tory spirit in the
state, is ashamed to shew itself, and content to conform to
the arbitrary dictation of public opinion;-of the popular
judgment, which is the literal translation of the word Lao-
dicean.
Between these two is introduced an intermediate state
of the church called the Philadelphian. It will be observed,
that, in what we have written upon the historical appli-
cation of those seven churches, we have regarded them
rather as seven successive forms of trial, with the corre-
sponding forms of resistance, than seven distinct and well
3 Y
790
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
defined periods of time. And, forasmuch as a new spirit
flows in upon the church, like a tide gradually and slowly
swelling to its height, and then slowly receding to make
way for another; we may, and commonly do, have the
presence of two at the same time subsisting; the one in the
condition of ebbing out, the other of flowing in. Such is
the state in which the proud and mighty spirit of the Re-
formation, and the broad, yet shallow, pretending yet.
weak spirit of Evangelicalism, are exhibited before us; the
former almost ebbed away, the latter coming in with
crested pride, and expecting to sweep down all barriers
of former wickedness, and possess the wide world. But
though thus proud and vaunting, it hath done but little
towards the conversion of mankind, and is yet very far
from the mark of the prize of its high ambition. It is
coming in, but not yet near its spring-tide mark. And
before it arrive at this, there will be exhibited fair
and lovely, yet small and unnoticed, "with little
strength," yet faithful to the word of Christ and to the
testimony of his name, the Philadelphian church, whose
commendation is the sweetest of all the seven.
In con-
trast to the church of Sardis, which was bound together
only by a name, this church so united by true brotherly
love (as the name Philadelphian imports), and keeps the
word of his patience, and is preserved from the hour of
fearful trial which is to come upon the whole earth. This
word of Christ's patience I regard not as referring to trials
of persecution so much as to the patient looking for his
appearing: "Be patient," brethren, "for the coming of
the Lord draweth nigh;" and the hour of temptation viewed
in reference to the same historical sequence would refer to
that fearful tribulation of all nations which precedes his
coming, from which this faithful church is preserved, and
out of which it is taken. Without going into particulars
at this stage of our inquiry, if I err not, this Philadelphian
church hath reference to that chosen few who are set for
the witnesses of the Lord's coming, and for the testimony
of all his truth, who are now beginning to draw upon
themselves the reproaches both of the waning high-church-
manship, and of the growing Evangelicalism. Interposed
between the two it stands lifting up its voice for all that
is precious in the good work of Reformation, adopting all
VIII.] Sardis-Univer. Bishop: General Observations. 791
:
that is precious in the Evangelical work, and adding
thereto all that hath been found most precious in other
ages of the church,-a witness for all the truth. With
these men I cast in my lot, to keep the word of Christ's
patience, and to enter into the reward of his inheritance.
To the standard which with others I have been enabled to
lift up for a fuller Gospel than the Reformers preached,
or the Evangelicals preach, I perceive a rapid gathering
of good men and true, from both the Sardian and Laodi-
cean parties of the church. But nothing like a general
assent of the two bodies, who are only the more enraged,
and forget their common quarrel to put down this family
of brethren who are every where arising armed in the
panoply of truth. Scotland, the most active and energetic
and religious of the kingdoms, is beginning the fierce and
furious work of pulling down this novelty, and others will
follow and as there both parties are sworn against us,
so elsewhere will it be; but Christ will give us the shelter
of his wings, and we shall be saved when he ariseth to
shake terribly the earth. To those who are looking and
waiting for him, he addresseth the words of the prophet:
"Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and
shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a
little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For
behold the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also
shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her
slain" (Isai. xxvi. 20, 21). Hatred and opposition to
these the wise virgins, who are witnessing against the
Sardian nominalism, and the Evangelical self-sufficiency,
will unite these two parties into one, and bring out the
evil of both. They will no longer have any cloak for their
sin; and our work of testifying being over, they will collapse
and coalesce into one great hideous wickedness, combining
all the people into a cold selfishness which the Lord shall
visit with the lothings of his disgust. And this, if I err
not, is the true account of the Sardian, Philadelphian,
and Laodicean spirits, as they are now witnessed in
the church called Protestant, which since the Council of
Trent hath been the only form of the visible church;
Romanism being the apostasy visible, the harlot confessed.
Such I conceive to be the true order of the succession
3 Y 2
792
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of the last three churches of the Apocalypse, looked at
in their historical aspect; but as this hath always been in
our eye subordinate to the catholic aspect under which
we have sought to view them, for the profit of all Chris-
tian churches and of all Christian men, we now return to
our ordinary method of considering the truth of God and
of Christ set forth to us in the epistle to the church of
Sardis ;-premising only that Sardis was a city of great
antiquity and renown, the capital of Lydia, and the seat
of Croesus, far-famed for his wealth and splendour, whom
Cyrus overthrew, and possessed his capital ere yet he
became master of Babylon, of all the cities of Asia
the only one that surpassed Sardis in riches and splen-
dour. It was situated about twenty miles south east of
Thyatira, and was noted for its prosperity and sensuality.
To the angel of the church therein planted, this epistle
is addressed, which we shall as usual take up under its
three parts. First, The Universal Bishop's style or desig-
nation Secondly, His message to the ministers: Thirdly,
The Spirit's promise and exhortation to all the members
of that church, and of all churches, and to every one
that hath an ear to hear.
I.—OUR HIGH PRIEST'S STYLE OR DESIGNATION.
"These things saith he that hath the seyen Spirits of
God, and the seven stars." The word in the original,
which is translated hath, signifyeth possession, or owner-
ship, or occupation. The term seven Spirits, occurring in
the benediction beside the Father and Christ, can only sig-
nify the Holy Ghost; and the seven stars are, by interpre-
tation of Christ, the angels, or ministers, or bishops of
the churches. The style here adopted doth therefore
assert Christ to be the possessor of the Holy Ghost and
of the Christian ministry; who hath then to do with them
as it seemeth to him good. What is intended to be con-
veyed by this information, and wherefore should it be held
forth to the church of Sardis in particular? Let us first
do the part of the doctor in unfolding the matter, and
then of the pastor in applying it.
1. In order to explain the full force and application of
the prerogative implied in these words, "who hath the
seven Spirits," it is necessary to take a distinction between
VIII.] Sardis― Universal Bishop: His Style.
793
:
the Spirit of Christ and the Seven Spirits, or the Holy
Ghost, as given to and enjoyed by the seven, that is, all
the churches; or, the one holy catholic church. The
Spirit of Christ which we need to have, in order to being
his members, (Rom. viii. 9, “Now if any man have not
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his,") signifies that Spirit
of a holy redeemed elect man which was in God's chosen
One, whom he raised up from among the people; that Spirit
which in its fulness, both of faculty and of action, is de-
scribed in these words of the Prophet Isaiah: "And the
Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wis-
dom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord and
shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the
Lord, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. But with
righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with
equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of
his lips shall he slay the wicked" (Isaiah xi. 2—4). This is
that perfect form of manhood, that perfect image of God
which Christ exhibited in our fallen nature, making it not
to become unfallen manhood, as ignorant and ill-informed
men foolishly set forth, but making it to become spiritual
manhood, which can know neither fall nor imperfection;
and being so, capable when it hath raised the body in
spiritual perfection, of propagating itself into other per-
sons, as a spiritual power capable, in a corrupt body, of
overcoming its mortality, as it doth in the church, yet
waiting for the redemption of the body, and groaning
until it be brought to us at the coming of the Lord with
all his saints. This is the Spirit of Christ, not the Holy
Ghost in his Divine essence, but the Holy Ghost as ren-
dered into the life of holy manhood by Christ, and thence
propagated in streams of life through all the church of
God. As the mother alone breathes the vital air of heaven,
and, having rendered into nourishment of life, imparts it
in the warm stream of her blood to the babe which she
carries in her womb, so Christ alone is capable of receiv-
ing the Holy Ghost in his proper essence, as being himself
God; and having therewith first sanctified his body in
the generation and all his life long, and then raised it
3 Y 3
794
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
from the dead, he doth from that body send forth the
regenerating life into those who are in him, as the mem-
bers are in the body, or the branch in the vine, or the
child unborn in the mother. He, with his church in him
and of him, forms one body animated with one life and
one mind; He, breathing the spirit and elaborating it.
into the stream of human life which he sends throughout
his many members. This is what in Scripture is called
"the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," derived to
us from eating his flesh and drinking his blood; as it is
written, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I
in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by
the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by
me" (John vi. 53-57). In these words we are taught,
that the life of a Christian is not by receiving the Holy
Ghost out of the Godhead direct (which is to make man
capable not only of comprehending, but of direct com-
munion with, and absolute receiving of, the incommuni-
cable Godhead), but out of the fountain of human life, of
everlasting human life, which is opened up in Christ. And
this is the reason why over the bread of the Lord's Supper
it is said, "This is my body; take, eat." Not, This is my
Spirit, but This is my body. And why not This is my
Spirit? Not because we receive at that time his flesh
as the Papists doat, but because we receive the Spirit of
an embodied Christ; not of a disembodied Christ. The
thing we want is the Spirit of an embodied man, able to
take possession of this spirit of an embodied man which
is in me, and to empower it to please God. I have the
life of an embodied man under a law of sin: what I want
is the life of an embodied man under a law of holiness.
It is not abstract spirit, but spirit with bodily affections,
which I need: it is not the voidness and incomprehen-
sibleness of a disembodied Spirit which is presented to
me in Christ, but the distinctness, and fullness, and sym-
pathy, and power of an embodied Spirit.
I know a
flesh-and-blood man, I see such an one altogether holy in
VIII.]
795
Sardis—Universal Bishop: His Style.
Christ; and I know that he hath power to propagate him-
self by regeneration into as many as the Father shall give
him, and of forming in them an image of himself, who is
the perfect image of God. Now this is what I need; and
this is preached to me to be in Christ, and to be com-
municated in Baptism, and in the Lord's Supper; the
former being the regeneration, the latter the completeness
of the body, and likewise the completeness of the inheri-
tance. This is what in Scripture is called Christ in us,
(the Holy Ghost in us is, I think, a different thing): this
is what is called the mind, and the spirit, and the life of
Christ. This also is what the Apostle signifies, when he
thus writes: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless,
I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me"
(Gal. ii. 20). And in respect of knowledge, this is what he
means, when he says, "When it pleased God, who se-
parated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his
grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him
amorg the heathen; immediately I conferred not with
flesh and blood" (Gal. i. 15, 16). As it was the very God,
who was present in the man Christ Jesus, (though without
Godhead attributes, which cannot come within the limits
of manhood,) the very person of the eternal Son of God,
even so verily is that very person present in the believer,
and that continually to nourish and sustain him, and rear
him up to the stature of the perfect man, to the measure
of the fulness of Christ. We are members of Christ, of
his flesh and his bones; we have not a separate life, or a
separate being, or a separate substance, but the same,
though our personality be distinct. And so the body of
Christ being many members, and yet one Christ (1 Cor.
xii. 12), doth continually hold up to view the great fun-
damental principle of the Godhead, which is more than
one person in one substance or life. This is the true
doctrine of the Christian life, but one wholly unintelli-
gible to those who account it as blasphemy to say that
Christ could be tempted to sin; as if this were to assert
that God could sin, or that God could be tempted. What
would those divines (falsely so called) say to the primitive
church, contending against the Arians for the liberty of
796
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
saying, not that God could be born, and could be tempt-
ed, and could die, but that God was born, was tempted,
and did die? Methinks some of our Presbyteries, and
Synods, and Assemblies too, would make sad havock of
the Nicene Fathers, if they could lay their hand upon
them. But if, in saying that God was born, was tempted
to sin, was dead, we did say that Godhead was under
these conditions of the mortal creature, then indeed we
were worthy to be excommunicated as heretics; and the
same was done by the Nicene Fathers to those who would
not assert all these things of God personal, though they
would have died many times rather than assert them of
Godhead substantial. The ignorant man says, How can
these things be? and the heady man says, Away with such
subtle distinctions and refinements; and the self sufficient
man says, I abhor all such things: but the wise man says,
I will consider them; and the well-instructed man says,
I know them to be the ground and pillar of the truth.
But to return
I have said this much concerning the Spirit of Christ,
in order to clear the ground for what I am now about to
say concerning the seven Spirits of God which he assert-
eth himself to possess. The body of Christ, the church
of the living God, who are thus by regeneration begotten.
into the life, and reared up into the manhood and maturity,
of Christ, is for certain great ends of God thus constitut-
ed and prepared; and to fit it for these ends it is that
the Seven Spirits, or the completeness of the Holy Ghost
(for that is the power of the number seven), is given to
Christ; in order to fit and furnish them for their high
offices, whether in this age or in that which is to come.
When I say the completeness of the Holy Ghost, I mean.
the communicable completeness; that fulness which is
necessary for the ends of God in constituting a church,
in giving to Christ a holy seed. When God had raised him
from the dead, and set him above all in the Highest, and
put all under his feet, he gave him, thus advanced and
glorified, to the church, which is his fulness, the fulness.
of Him that filleth all in all. Again, after he had perfect-
ed righteousness, and presented his body without spot
upon the cross by the Eternal Spirit, and was by the Fa-
ther declared to be his Son with power, by the resurrec-
VIII.]
797
Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
tion from the dead; he had still a something more to re-
ceive, which is the promise of the Holy Ghost: "There-
fore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost,
he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear" (Acts
ii. 33). For this unction, we have observed in our digres-
sion upon the endowments of the church, he had positively
and more than once commanded his Disciples and Apostles
to tarry at Jerusalem, until it should be poured out upon
them from on high;-shewing us, that though regenerate
persons, already quickened by his words, which are spirit
and life, upon whom he had already breathed after his re-
surrection, still they must wait for the furnishing and fitting
out of the Holy Ghost, before they could enter upon any
undertaking for God and Christ; before they could be the
church, the witness of the resurrection, the preacher of the
Gospel, the pillar and ground of the truth, the teacher unto
the principalities and powers in the heavenly places of the
manifold wisdom of God. This office of accomplishing
the church for all things for which she is destined in the
purpose of God, and redeemed by the blood of Christ, is
performed by the Holy Ghost in his own, and not in Christ's
personality; as the Comforter or Paraclete, and not as the
Spirit of Christ. In which office he abideth with the
church for ever, and leads her into all the truth, taking
the things of Christ and shewing them to her soul. Christ
in his own person communicates to the church his life and
holiness, his flesh and blood, the continual support of his
being; the Holy Ghost, in his own person, communicates
to her all the outward advantages which lie between this
world of humiliation in which we are, and that world of
glory to which we are called. As Christ, when he as-
cended up on high, had given to him all power in heaven
and earth, received then "all things which were delivered
to him of the Father" (Mat. xi. 27); so we by the Holy
Ghost do receive in this present age the knowledge and
the faith of the same, and in the age to come the actual
possession of them. Nor receive we only the knowledge.
and faith of them in this present age, but likewise a first
fruits and earnest in those gifts of the church which are
part and parcel of the full possession which shall be
brought to us at the redemption of the inheritance. And
798
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
in this sense the Spirit is again and again called the seal of
the good things to come, the heavenly inheritance, and made
consequent upon a man's believing in Christ: "After that
ye believed, ye were sealed with that Spirit of promise
which is the earnest." And therefore also he is called
"the Spirit of promise," both as being the promise of
better things to come, and as being the special promise
of the Christian church, written in the Prophets, and con-
firmed unto us by the Lord, in these last words which he
spake to his church (John xiv, xv, xvi). It is evident from
all the promises in these chapters respecting the Comforter,
that he is distinct both from the person, Christ, who sends
him, and from the persons, Christ's servants, to whom he
is sent; and as a distinct person from the persons of the
saints he is ever recognized in the Scriptures; for example,
in respect of his witness, "The Spirit himself beareth
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God ;
and again, in respect to his intercession, "Likewise the
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what
we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what
is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God" (Rom. viii.
26, 27). Here the Spirit in the heart of the saint maketh
intercession for him in cases where he himself is in
ignorance, not knowing what he ought to pray for. The
truth therefore is, that, so far as the personal subsistence
of a believer is concerned, he is to attribute it to Christ,
who hath redeemed him, and doth form anew in him the
image of God; so far as his outward actings are con-
cerned, his powers and functions as the church of God,
whether in humility or in glory, he is to ascribe them
to the Holy Ghost;-Christ the inhabiting life, in whom
we live and move and have our new being; the Holy
Ghost, the endowment of that life with honour and power
over the creation of God.
For want of keeping this distinction in view, together
with general ignorance upon the doctrine of the Trinity,
and the offices of the several persons thereof, the great
question of our Lord's human nature is at present fearfully
confused. So far as I can gather the meaning of the
VIII.]
799
Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
gainsayers and persecutors of the truth, their notion is, that
we affirm the second person to have been of himself insuf-
ficient, and in continual peril, or rather certainty, of failing,
had not the third person come in to his help; and so they
blow the trumpet of falsehood over the land, asserting
that our doctrine, or rather the doctrine of Scripture, that
Christ presented his body holy by the eternal Spirit, is as
bad as to deny that Christ himself is God.
Whereof the
error, and the crime is, I believe, more from their ignorance
than their malice. "Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do." If they would be at pains to learn on a
subject on which it is no dishonour to a man to be ever
learning, they would find that their own imagination is
the heretic, and, in some instances perhaps, their envy
and malice. For those whom with unsparing rancour in all
ways, and by all means they misrepresent, maintain that
the second person, and he only, did the work of over-
coming all his enemies, of condemning sin in the flesh, of
overcoming the world, and casting the devil out. The
Son in his own person, and not the Holy Ghost for Him,
did the work of perfect righteousness in flesh of our flesh,
in mortal and corruptible, and, so far as its own properties
were concerned, in sinful flesh. And why then do we
speak so much of the Holy Ghost's part in the work?
First, Because the Scriptures do so, as to his generation
(Luke i. 35); as to his baptism (iii. 22); as to his tempta-
tion (iv. 1); as to his preaching (iv. 18); as to his mira-
culous works (Acts x. 38); as to his sacrifice (Heb. ix.
14). Now we are resolved to speak as the Oracles of God
do speak, according to the commandment: "If any man
speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." Secondly, Be-
cause it is the first point of all divinity, that Godhead
properties cannot come into the compass of manhood
limitations. And therefore, because the Son of God, in
doing the work, doth it as the Son of man, we cannot
bring his Godhead and mix it up with his manhood. If
he doth not make use of his Godhead substance, of what
doth he make use in restoring life and holiness to the cor-
rupt substance of the virgin? He makes use of the Holy
Ghost given to him of the Father, who comes to the Son
of man as the redeeming and regenerating life; and is by
the Son of man used for the ends of sanctifying and im-
1
800
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
mortalizing that nature of ours which he took as he found
it, unholy; and made it holy the same instant he took it,
by the eternal Spirit. This gives us the manner of Christ's
subsistence as a man, and the Son of man; this is the only
scriptural and theological account of his personal subsis-
tence; the person of the Son of God united to the nature
of fallen man by the Holy Ghost, and thereby prevailing
to stay and repress all its sinful and mortal propensities,
to make it sinless and immortal. And this also is the
account of our personal subsistence in him: he, with that
same spirit of life, apprehends us and maintains us through.
faith upon him in a continual life of holiness, notwith-
standing the preventions of our own evil nature.
If I err not therefore, the distinction between the
church mystical,-that is, the Head with its members, the
Vine with its branches,-considered in itself, and the same
body possessed with the fulness of the Holy Ghost, is the
same distinction as between the person and the office-
bearer; the personality standing in Christ, the qualifica-
tions for the office standing in the Holy Ghost. All the
will is of Christ, all the manifestation of the Holy Ghost.
If we think a good thought, if we speak a good word, if
we do a good act; in one word, if we live to God, the
glory appertaineth to Christ who quickeneth in us all life
and holiness, and maintaineth what he quickeneth; as men
redeemed, the glory appertains to the Redeemer; but as
men advanced high above man's original estate, the glory
appertameth to the Holy Ghost. To have brought us
back again to be God's image and likeness, and, I think,
also to bring us back again to be the lords of the earthly
things, belongs to Christ: but to carry us into the higher
region of the heavenly things, and to present us in the
new Jerusalem to dwell with God, and to exercise rule
over the heavens; this is proper to the Holy Ghost. But
this is a deep subject, and needs yet further clearing out: we
shall therefore endeavour to work it upon a deeper parallel.
The constitution of man originally was earthly; "The
first man is of the earth earthy," his utmost dignity arose
no higher than to the supremacy of the sheep, and oxen,
and other creatures upon the earth. To him belonged
"the earthly things." To redeem this creature and his
earthly kingdom out of the hands of the devil, and utterly
vin.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
801
to destroy the devil's works, and cast him out of the na-
tions and kingdoms of the world. This is the work which
is set for Christ, and plainly written for him in Moses,
and the Psalms, and the Prophets: and this to do he
must wear the image of the earthy man, and present it
faultless in the sight of God, without spot and blameless.
This being done, his reward is the redeemed world, and
the redeemed race of men; the abolition of death, and
the casting out of Satan, and the recovery of creation to
that original intention and operation which sin had in all
things defaced, but in nothing destroyed. To rise from
the grave in the condition of the first Adam, eating and
drinking, and having dominion over the earth, and to
bring mankind from the grave, and to draw the world
from under the curse; this, verily, was the thing for which
Christ had wrought, and the proper reward of his finished
work. To this were added various subsidiary arrangements
of God with respect to the ordering of the redeemed
earth; as that Abraham's family should be a nation of
kings and priests; and David's family the king over
them, and so over all the earth; and Canaan their pos-
session for ever and ever. But these are only parts of the
great whole, that the earth, with flesh and blood its ruler,
should, by Christ's taking flesh and blood, be all re-
claimed from sin and death, from the grave and hades.
And to do all this the Second Person of the Godhead in
his personal subsistence as man availeth; and in him thus
redeemed mankind in flesh and blood as at first created,
and the world, shall be exhibited in the ages to come;
fulfilling those very ends for which our Creator did intend
them. But, besides these earthly things which Christ
purchased to himself as a man by his blood, there are
heavenly things which were given to him by the good
pleasure of the Father, and which are to be looked upon
as the reward, and honour, and glory with which God
crowned him as his own Son; in his subsistence of man,
indeed, and because he humbled himself to subsist as a
mortal and servile man, but chiefly because being in the
form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with
God, he did thus humble and abasc himself for the glory
of the grace of God. Because as Son of God, and very
God of very God, he did thus humble himself to become a
{
3 Z
802
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
worm and no man, to be broken-hearted with reproach
and consumed with grief, God did far more highly exalt
him than to the head of the earthly things, even to the
head of the heavenly things; he did reward him with the
fellowship of his own throne, and constitute him for ever
both Christ and Lord. This dignity, far above all angels,
and principalities, and powers, and every name that is
named, not only in this world but also in that which is to
come, is out of man's natural sphere, is out of redemption's
proper limits, is a new going forth of God to glorify the
creature, is a thing yet unprecedented in the annals of
creation, is indeed the bringing in of creation's majestic
Head-of creation's crowned King. It was indeed the
oldest purpose of God, co-eval with the birth of a purpose,
that thus it should be completed, and thus for ever stand
secured; and the church also is to be brought into the
fellowship and likeness of the Christ, fashioned for his
helpmeet, his beautiful bride, and faithful spouse for ever:
but though old in the purpose, as the origin of any pur-
pose in God, and old in the word as the fall of man, it
became a reality at the ascension when Christ was carried
up to the right hand of the Father, and crowned Lord of
all; not there to sit inactive, but there to sit supreme in
council and in work, to hold the sceptre and execute
the behests of God over all the creation of God, visible and
invisible, in heaven and on earth. And to this heavenly
kingdom we are called of God, who have received grace
to believe in Christ and been baptized into his church.
Be it then well observed, that this elevation of the man
Christ Jesus, above man's original and primitive condition.
in which he was created, must, like every new work of
God be performed by the three persons of the blessed
Godhead. It is a new thing that man should sit upon the
throne of the eternal God; and to fit man for this occu-
pation, cannot be without a working of the Father, and
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, superinduccd upon that
work which generated him the earthy man. He, the
Son, is the subject of this work; the Father is the worker
of it upon the Son of Man; and the Holy Ghost is the
manifestation of it. That promise of the Holy Ghost
with which he was gifted when he ascended up on high,
is no less, therefore, than the needful putting forth of
VIII.]
803
Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
:
Godhead power to carry him into the heavens, and fit
him for the work of ruling the heavens and while it is
the mighty beginning, it is also the mighty upholding of
manhood in that new sovereignty of God, and the means,
the only means, whereby the church can be brought to
that highest estate of creation. The gifts of the Holy
Ghost, therefore, as distinguished from the Spirit of Christ,
I regard as the work of God in his ascension and glorifi-
cation, as distinguished from the work of God in his ge-
neration both works are for a continuance; the work of
his generation is continued in our regeneration; and the
work of our glorification shall be at our resurrection to
glory, whereof we have now an earnest and a first fruits
in the gifts of the Holy Ghost, with which the church was
endowed at her Lord's ascension, that she might know
for what a high and glorious end she is destined of God,
and of Christ, in the ages to come, for ever and ever.
And, if I mistake not, we are now got to the root of
the matter.
Be it so, then, that the gift of the Holy Ghost, in the
baptism with the Holy Ghost, which was not until Christ
was glorified, which was not but for the glorification of
Christ, is a new forth-going of Godhead to advance his
creature into a new estate into which creation brought it
not, and for which incarnation of Godhead did but pre-
pare the way; and we have a great light cast upon the
text before us, and, indeed, upon the whole mystery of
God and of Christ. Up to the time of his baptism he was
the man generated of the Holy Ghost, in the condition of
keeping the law; the man made of a woman under the
law, the holy man and the faithful Jew. From the time
of his baptism with water and the Holy Ghost, he is the
Church man, the first Christian, enjoying the first-fruits
of the Spirit, and the earnest of that glorious reward which
at the ascension he is to receive from the Father; wait-
ing, however, still for the redemption of the body, and the
laying down of flesh and blood, in order to his entering
the kingdom of heaven. In these two estates he is suc-
cessively the federal Head of two races. The first, the
Jewish nation hereafter to exist in holy flesh and blood,
upon whom and into whom he shall pour that regeneration
which shall circumcise both heart and flesh, and make them
3z2
804
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
able to keep the whole law of God. And to this state the
other nations shall be free to enter themselves; and not
taking the, advantage of that privilege, nor yielding re-
verence and obedience to the Jew, Christ's mystical flesh,
they shall, at the end of the thousand years, suffer a fear-
ful catastrophe, after which the whole creation of flesh and
blood upon the whole earth shall for ever be Christ's
mystical flesh, originating from and continuing that form
of being, man redeemed from the curse of the law, which
Christ was from his birth to his baptism. The second race
of which, from his baptism to his ascension, he is the
federal Head, is the baptized church; which now enjoys
the same baptism of the Holy Ghost, and is required to
lead the same supernatural and wonder-working life, until
the day of her general congregation from the grave and
from the world, into the New Jerusalem, which is the
completeness of their number and the consummation of
their glory; and thenceforth shall they shew forth unto
the principalities and powers in the heavenly places God's
archetypal form of being, creation's glorified Head, the
Almighty's chiefest work, Christ and his church, one body,
"the fulness of him who filleth all in all," yea "all the
fulness of God."
To the effect of advancing the being of the church out
of the natural into the spiritual, it is that Christ hath the
seven Spirits of God in his hand, to do with as pleaseth
him, besides having in himself Holy-Ghost life to quicken
those in flesh and blood subsisting whom it pleaseth the
Father to give unto him. That surpassing mightiness of
the power of God (Eph. i. 19), whereby the dead Christ
was exalted into the supreme Lord of heaven, is a work-
ing of the Divine power, which far far outpeereth creation
and regeneration, and aught that hath been or ever shall
be done of the Almighty God. And all this energy of
power exhausting the utmost amount of what shall ever
be manifested on earth or in heaven, Christ now possesseth
in hand, to do with it the eternal purpose of God, which
is to glorify the church with the same glory he himself
now possesseth. Christ is there asserted and vindicated
against Socinians, Unitarians, Infidels, and Devils, to have
been the Creator of all things, by his occupying and
putting forth that unexampled work which lifts creation
VIII.]
805
Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
from its grave, and sets it far above creation's primitive
estate into an elevation, and a dignity, and an infallibility,
of which there never hath been and never will be the like.
The Church glorified as far surpasseth creation arrayed
and accomplished in all primeval goodness, as Christ upon
the throne of the Eternal God, and upholding all things
by the word of his power, surpasseth Adam, creation's
lord. And therefore he who hath in hand that power of
God, the seven Spirits, with which to do the work that
surpasseth, is proved to be at the least not inferior to
him who did the work that is surpassed. But he is
proved to be the same, inasmuch as it is creation which
he setteth on its feet again, and fixeth in its rest and in
its glory for ever, but who should be able to enter into
creation's chambers and reform them all, out of creation's
dust to rebuild creation's fabric all anew, and as he did it
to infuse into it a cement of immortality, and cover it with
the very glory of God: who could do this but the Creator
himself? Whereby we come to know that the man who
was crucified is he who created all things in heaven and
on earth, is the very power and mightiness of God, is
above all power visible, above all power comprehensible;
"for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have en-
tered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him." And, oh! when this is
made sure, which very many confess with their lips, but
very few understand or believe in their hearts,-when it is
established beyond all question that Jesus of Nazareth is
the Mighty God, that he who so sweetly spake, so gently
behaved himself, and so generously died for man, is the
very God with whom we have to do,-ah me! what a
dark secret is disclosed, even the secret of God Almighty's
heart; and how beautiful, and lovely, and generous, and
good, is the revelation of it! How worm eaten and dry-
rotted is this great question of the Divinity of Christ be-
come! what verbiage, what clashing of texts, what thin
and slippery argument! Why do not they carry the ship
out of these shallows into the deep sea, and let her steer
a gallant course? It is because they are landsmen, and
no mariners, who have got the steering and the com-
manding of her and there she lies broken upon the
banks, oftener high and dry than in her proper element,
3 z 3
806
[LECT'
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
beat upon by the sun until all her seams are beginning to
open; and soon, very soon, if God send her not a better
crew, the gallant ship will be seaworthy no longer, and
the country people will come down and break her up for
firewood. Come with me, O ye enslaved people! who call
man your master, and are giving and taking honour; and
look at Jesus of Nazareth sitting in the throne on high,
in the eternal throne of the Majesty on high, upbearing
God's government and representing God's person; and
tell me if he can be less than God who doeth this.
But if you want further proof, come and see him put-
ting a new life into creatures, so that they shall stoutly
stem the main strength of creation's drift away from
God, set their breast against creation's tumbling, toil-
ing abyss, and rise sublime above it, bearing it aside
with an
arm stronger than it. But if still this work
of regeneration satisfy you not, come with me and see
him raise dead creatures out of dust, and set them up
in a life transcending not only Adam's goodly estate, but
the estate of angels, and principalities, and powers, and
ascending into a glory upon which he that looks shall
look upon the glory of God: "I beheld New Jerusalem
descending from heaven, having the glory of God." But
if it be said by these daring unbelievers, I see not this
now, and what sign and token have you to give of it? it
is but your own dream.' And our word-theologians will
be as ready with the sceptical retort as any infidel of them
all. My answer is, The church hath a first-fruits of that
power, an earnest of that glory, part and parcel of that
reward, in the gifts of the Holy Ghost, into which she is
baptized. Hear Christ, speaking to her spirit in a way
that understanding knoweth not, and edifying her spirit
by an intercourse above and beyond all conception, in
these men speaking with tongues: hear him communicat-
ing intelligence of the unknown sounds to that other order
of men, interpreting these tongues; and behold how the
hearts of both are delighted and refreshed, though the
understanding be unfruitful. The word may, when it is
interpreted, be only some oft-repeated verse of Scripture;
but behold it is new to them, because Christ is putting
the Spirit of glory into it, and making it prolific of heart-
power. Remark that other order of men, in whom Christ
VIII.]
807
Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
is discerning all sorts of evil spirits in the hearts of men:
behold how their eyes are reading consciences, and their
word` is upon the spirits of men, and they are cleansing
hearts, and ministering to souls diseased, and casting
seven unclean spirits out of possessed men. Wonder to
behold that other order of men ruling the waves of the
sea, and the winds of heaven, raising the dead, opening
the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf,
and making the lame man to leap like the hart. And oh,
hear what strains of meekest wisdom flow from that band,
what ocean fulness of knowledge from this; what intrepid
faith in the power and presence of Christ is with these,
and what gifts of healing with those. And thus offering
to the sceptic's observation, the first-fruits of that power
and glory, I would ask him if that be not enough to con-
vince him of the creative, and more than creative, power
which is in the name of Christ, if that be not a foretaste of
a more excellent glory than creation's first estate, awaiting
all those who believe in his name. But if he turn upon
me and say, Where are these things you speak of in all
this world, for as yet I have seen none of them? I can shew
him the thing upon record as a matter of history in the
New Testament. But if he say, I care not about such an-
cient records surely God would not have left so great a
thing as you speak of to be transmitted through the uncer-
tain channels of eighteen centuries, which have swallowed
up mightiest nations: nor am I able by interpretation to
construct the glorious thing you speak of, or to get any
lively idea of it into my mind; at least such an idea as
ought to satisfy one in so great a matter. Alas, alas!
I have no answer to make to this. The church hath lost
the witness and testimony of the truth of the glory which
is to come. She hath ceased to be the pillar and ground
of the truth. All I can say is, I believe but for our
faithlessness this light would not have been darkness;
and I trust to our faithfulness it will soon be made light
again.
:
While therefore Christ-as the perfect and all-sufficient
man, who hath, by taking the likeness of sinful flesh,
condemned sin in the flesh, and wrought out a perfect
righteousness for mankind-is demonstrated unto all men
in the work of regeneration, whereby other sons of men
808
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
are enabled to become sons of God, other men in flesh
enabled to overcome flesh, and hold it down in self-in-
flicted death, and to fulfil the righteousness of the law in
walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit; while thus
is manifested the certainty that Christ was true man, and
holy man, and perfect man, though in mortal flesh and
blood subsisting, the Second Adam who alone is able to
beget holy men, and to produce God's glory, and perfect.
God's image in fallen mortal flesh, and fill up the measure
of his righteousness, and satisfy his demand of law, and
do every thing proper to the man-redeemer of man; there
is further and far more excellent demonstrated by his pos-
session of the seven Spirits, by his endowment with the
seven eyes, the omniscience, and the seven horns, the
omnipotence, of God, by his ability to have and to hold,
to use and to exercise the all-mightiness, not of the God-
creative of this world, but of God-productive of all his
purpose, whereof creation was but the first leaf.-(Ah
me! what a thought! that man, and the Son of Man,
should be the orderly leader forth of God's eternal pur-
pose, its doer, its upholder; and that it should be but a
chaos; and waste of death, until God in man's nature came
to set it up again, to restore and rebuild, and for ever sus-
tain the fabric of the outward fulness of God. I am lost
in wonder and admiration, in adoration and praise; I see
my nakedness and vileness as a sinner, as a saint my eternal
honour and glory. The Lord hath enabled me to con-
ceive and to utter his goodness. My soul is comforted.
I cannot, I will not cease to praise him.)-I say, what fur-
ther and far more excellent things are manifested by the
prerogative in the text expressed," He who hath the seven
Spirits of God," which God hath enabled me to unfold in
these few pages, and which I never understood so perfect-
ly before, whereby is shewn forth the truth, that God
within the bounds and limits of the church, and the form
of the risen God-man, predestinated but not yet realized;
real indeed in the fixed purpose, but not in the historical
event, did create all things, and doth redeem all things;
and, what is infinitely more, will glorify the church, and
by her do with creation all which the Father's utmost be-
neficence and superabounding grace hath determined to
be done. And can it be that my nature hath in it virtues,
VIII.]
Sardis- Universal Bishop: His Style. 809
powers, and possessions of this grasp and range, and shall
be, yea, and is, informed with all the fulness of God, and
crowned with the glory of God, and entrusted with the
orderly forth-bringing of the purposes and executing of
the behests of God. Ah me! what a creature I am
formed to be! O Jesus, the world's Redeemer, but man's
glorious Brother, Champion of our primitive rights, Captain
of our salvation, and advancer unto God's own throne of
our nature, what sacrifices of thanksgiving, what hymns
of praise, what adorations, what meditations, are thy
due from man? and yet not thine but thy Father's; for it
is to thy Godhead that the glory of thy manhood is due:
it is to thee, Son of the Father, very God of very God,
that the prerogatives of the church, head and members, are
all due; for in thy manhood thou wast like me a conceived
child, a born babe, a swathed infant, a man of sorrow
and reproach, a martyr, a dead and buried corpse it is
Godhead which brought thee through the narrow passages
and dark abysses of our being, and launched thee fair and
free into that ocean-fulness of the Godhead, where thou
bearest us, poor, frail, and sinful creatures, in thine ark of
salvation. Oh! that I had the love of the seraphim, and
the voice of the cherubim, and the archangel's trump, that
I might fitly set forth the glories of thy works, and the
excellencies of thy ways unto the sons of men.
Oh my
God! anoint me with the oil of joy, fill me with the
word of wisdom, and put new songs in my mouth, that I
may instruct this generation to know thy praise, before I
go lience and be no more. I am full of matter, but they
understand it not: oh! make my tongue like the tongue
of the learned; that they may say no more, He speaketh
parables. Take away their word-wresting, their lying in
wait, their going about the city in the evening with eaves-
dropping purposes; and enlarge their hearts from the
possession of envy and malice, and ignorance, and cruelty,
that they may attend upon thy faithful servants, who are
seeking to teach thy truth unto this generation of thy
children. "How great is his goodness, and how great is
his beauty! Corn shall make the young man cheerful,
(to grow or speak, margin), and new wine the maids.”
"And hath the seven stars.”
The style of Christ, the Universal Bishop, which he
810
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
hath preferred to assume in the ear of the angel of the
church of Sardis, is two-fold, "Who hath the seven Spirits
of God," and "Who hath the seven stars : whereof the
former determineth him to be the Head of the church, which
is the head of the redeemed creation of God, and proveth
him to have been the Creator of that world which he not
only raiseth from the ruins of death, but also, by means of
these seven Spirits, putteth the glorious dome upon it.
Now, the second part of this style,
"Who hath the seven
stars," implieth, according to the interpretation of that
symbol given in the third Lecture, and enlarged upon in
the last, that he not only hath the sole possession and
occupancy of the Holy Ghost, abstractly considered, but
likewise of the same Holy Ghost embodied in the persons
whom he hath constituted the angels of the churches.
The former is the larger of the two designations, the lat-
ter is the more personal and particular of the two; the
former hath respect to the fulness, the latter to the first
fruits of that fulness. These seven angels of the churches
do in this book represent both the ear which heareth
Christ, and the life which declareth his mind to the peo-
ple, and withal the hand with which he governs and rules
his church, being inclusive of all persons whom God hath
set in his church, whether for word or for work: First,
Apostles; secondly, Prophets; thirdly, Teachers; after
that miracles, healings, helps, diversities of tongues. I
do not say that he whom Christ addresseth as the angel
of a church, did necessarily possess any or all of these
administrations of the Holy Ghost, but that as he is the
channel of communication between Christ and the church,
in him these subordinate orders are represented just as
though a king have neither the knowledge of justice and
judgment, which pertaineth to his legal ministers; nor yet
of diplomacy, which pertaineth to his ambassadors; nor
yet of war, which pertaineth to his commissioned servants
of the army and navy ; nor yet of government, which per-
taineth to his governors of provinces and of kingdoms;
yet is he regarded of God, as the channel of his gifts to a
nation, and holden responsible for the actings and doings.
of all these several departments into which the preroga-
tive royal is subdivided. When Christ therefore saith,
I am he which hath the seven stars," he must be under-
VIII.]
811
Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Style.
stood to put in a claim, not only to the rulers and heads
of the churches, but likewise to all the gifted persons
of every name and order through whom any manifesta-
tion of the Spirit is made for the benefit of the whole;
and in making such a claim, he must be understood
at once to demand the homage of these gifted per-
sons, and the thanksgivings of the church for such
diverse channels of good, conveying to them power
from their Great Head, unto whom all power in heaven
and in earth is committed. Yet, when taken at its fulness,
the gift of the Holy Ghost thus distributed by many
living channels throughout the living body of Christ, is
but a first-fruits of that harvest which shall be reaped
when the Son of Man cometh sitting on the cloud with
a crown upon his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.
Then, indeed, shall the church put on her beautiful gar-
ments, and rise from the lowly bed of death to be the
mistress of the house of God and the queen of the realm
of creation. When the Holy Ghost in his completeness,
in that completeness which can never be added to, shall
display his utmost power of life, in bringing forth from
the dust of corruption, the living city of the new Jerusa-
lem, fit abode of God, and furnished with the fulness of
his glory; then shall the Holy Ghost stand perfectly ex-
pressed, and hence shall creation drink the radiancy of
light and the river of life. But into this fountain of light and
life shall no new particle of glory enter, nor shall its con-
summate completeness be ever diminished, for it is the
seven Spirits of God embodied in the body of Christ. All
this resplendent orb of light and life which shall concen-
trate within itself and give forth to creation's utmost
bounds the whole of Godhead-beauty and blessedness
which shall ever be expresssed. The church hath in her
angels, stars to rule the night until the morning star, the
Shechinah glory, burst upon the terrified nations, being the
harbinger of the coming day which scattereth the spirits
of darkness that now trouble the world's peace; whereupon
the stars shall no longer appear, but lose themselves in
that one globe of light, the new Jerusalem, which con-
taineth all the saints of God, both the ministers and the
people. I cannot help observing the perfectness of the
symbol, which, in its broken fragments, we have ofttimes
had occasion to explain, and which we would now recom-
812
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
pose into one beautiful and harmonious whole. The days
of creation were not mornings and evenings, but evenings
and mornings: "and the evening and the morning was
the first day:" and so also is it with the new creation of
Christ the quickening Spirit, who having possessed him-
self by purchase of blood, of creation-lordship, and
being seated on the throne of God to make of the re-
deemed creation what seemeth good in his sight; and to
this end, being possessed of the seven Spirits of God, doth
bring out the order of his work by an evening and a morn-
ing. The evening, the stilly evening, is the season which
hath run since he entered into his rest, and during which,
like Isaac, he walketh forth meditating upon the earth,
and receiving the bride whom his Father hath provided
for him; during which season he hath the stars to rule
the night and the stars are the angels of the churches,
messengers of grace, guides of weary travellers and ma
riners tossed upon the sea. And as these stars were led
forth like a flock by the Star of Bethel, the Shepherd of
Israel, who shineth forth from between the cherubim, the
true Lucifer, at once the star of even and the star of
morn, so shall their seasons of rule be ended by the re-
appearance of that star of Bethel, as the star of Jacob,
the morning star, who now, gathering into himself the
whole lights of the heavens, shall shine alone his short
hour flaming in the forehead of the morning sky. Then
shall the earth be refreshed with the dew, and its solitary
places begin to be verdant and to expect the cherishing
heat of the orb of day; whereupon the light of the glory
of God, the new Jerusalem that cometh down from hea-
ven, shall arise and shine, for her light is come, and the
glorious God is risen upon her, in whose light the nations
of them which are saved shall walk: "For the glory of
God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."
And then the day dawns which shall know no decline at
all, nor night at all. And now of creation may it be said
in the language of the prophet Isaiah, "The sun shall be
no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the
moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto
thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy
sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon with-
draw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light,
and the days of thy mourning shall be ended” (lx. 19, 20).
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 813
We conceive, therefore, that Christ, in this fifth style
which he takes unto himself, doth claim both the lights
which he hath set in the church during this season of the
world's darkness, and that complete light which he shall
be unto his church when the season of her darkness is
ended, and the morning star of the epiphany in the cloud
hath brought in the eternal day of the new Jerusalem and
the world's blessedness. And with respect to the appli-
cation of this style to the case of the angel of the church of
Sardis, wherefore the great Shepherd should have chosen it
rather than any other, we have to observe, that this church
was beset with the temptations of nominalism," Thou hast
a name that thou livest, and art dead;"—of slothfulness, and
beedlessness, and indifference to the future, "Be watch-
ful;"" if therefore thou wilt not repent;"-of weakness,
"strengthen the things which remain and are ready to die;'
-of shortcoming in obedience, "I have not found thy works
perfect before God; "— of great abuse of privilege, "remem-
ber how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and
repent:" and being in such a state of weakness and unpro-
fitableness, of heedlessness and deadness, Christ presenteth
himself as possessed of all the power of God for strength-
ening and reviving the weak, and of right in all the mi-
nisters of the church, if possible to awake his servant to
the sense of his responsibility, and the shame of his wick-
edness. As if he had said, Arouse thyself, my servant,
for in me thy strength is found: awake, arise from the
dead, and I will give thee light. Call upon thy church
to seek help from the Head. I am the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever. Ye are not straitened in me, ye are
straitened through your own unbelief. The fountains of
the Spirit are all open to thee as at the first.
All thy
well-springs are in me. Why then, O thoughtless, thank-
less shepherd! art thou so far departed from thy first
estate? Why standest thou all the day idle? And why
with folded hands dost thou weary my patience, and bring
upon thyself the fierceness of my judgments?' But the
pointedness of the application will the better appear as we
proceed to open the epistle itself.
II. THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE ANGEL OF THE CHUrch.
If, as we are strongly inclined to believe, for the rea-
4 A
814
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
sons laid down above, this Sardis state of the church be
that into which the work of the Reformation is now come,
and in which the churches called Reformed are now
sitting, then are these instructions to the angel of that
church most important to such of the ministers of the
churches of Scotland and England as prefer with me to
rank under those ecclesiastical constitutions of doctrine
and discipline delivered unto us by the Reformers, rather
than to adopt the unfledged views and fluctuating notions
of the religious populace, known by the name Evangelical,
and to be carried about by every wind of doctrine which
they issue in their periodical publications. There are
still a goodly number both of the ministers and
people of this land who cleave to the forms and
habits and associations which gathered around the
church at the time of the Reformation, having a holy
abhorrence of the Papacy, a deep veneration of the
catholic church, a reverend esteem of the Christian mi-
nistry, a deep feeling of the sacredness of the ordi-
nances, and a dutiful observance of the customs and
ceremonies of religion. Indeed there are whole pro-
vinces of Scotland, and England too, which have never
been visited with evangelical liberalism, and hardly know
that such a thing exists as is counted for religion in
our large towns; which still look upon the creeds of the
church as the rule of orthodoxy, not the columns of a
newspaper, and regard the heart, and the closet, and the
fireside, as, the proper seats of religion-not the saloons of
fashion, public meetings, and committee-rooms,-who look
up to the pulpit as the appointed channel of instruction,
and the world as the appointed place for practising it, and
who can be religious without either a Bible Society, or a
Missionary Society, or even a School Society amongst them.
To these regions of the church, where old Matthew Henry
has not given place to Scott, nor Luther to Wesley, nor
Hooker to the religious Reports, nor Guthrie to Newton,
it is my calling now to address instruction from this letter
to the angel of the church of Sardis; as it will be here-
after my duty under the Laodicean epistle to address my
reproof to the evangelical, at once the lowest and most
grovelling, yet most pretending form of godliness which
hath ever appeared. The Roman apostasy flowed in
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 815
through decay of love, yielded a noble army of mar-
tyrs, then nursed a set of corrupt and sensual doctors,
and ended in permitting the false prophetess to have her
will and her way in the church of God, wherein she now
sitteth as a queen, saying, I shall see no sorrow. The
Protestant liberalism, or infidelity, flowed in through the
vain-glory and hollowness of a name, yieldeth a loving band
of brothers, mighty in word and witness, and is consum-
mated in the supremacy not of a woman but of the popu-
lace. The Roman apostasy is the woman, or the church
triumphing over Christ. The Protestant apostasy is the
people drowning with their multitudinous voice all voice
of God, and of Christ, and of the church. To stay this
madness of the people, to encourage that little band of
brothers, who are making their voice to be heard in the
Philadelphian church, and, if possible, to draw them fresh
supplies of men, both from the wrecks of the Sardis, and
the beginnings of the Laodicean, church, this is the good
and gracious and glorious object which God now yieldeth
unto me his servant in the exposition of these three
epistles.
As there is nothing so excellent as a good name when
it speaks the goodness of the inward man, expressing
truly and fully unto the ear of others that secret and
hidden man of the heart, which having heard of they
may come and prove and be satisfied; so is there nothing
more pernicious, than to assume in name, what in reality
we are not, and to hold forth in the ears and eyes of men,
pretensions and appearances, which we would have them
to receive and rest upon, whereas they are but baits to
catch the unwary, or traps and gins planted for their
destruction. The first and most precious of all things is
an honest heart; and the next is a truth-speaking tongue
and unpretending face. God, containing within him-
self the fountain and fulness of all perfection, did from
the beginning put forth the same under various names,
whereof the three chief be these: God, the God of
Abraham, and Jehovah; the first, signifying his good-
ness to all creation; the second, his love to the church;
the third, his unchangeable and irresistible faithfulness.
This name of God, in many ways expressed, the world of
wicked spirits, wicked men, and wicked things, strove to-
4 A 2
816
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
>
gether to obscure and to falsify, bringing the creation to
be not an orderly fabric of goodness, but a confused mass
of wickedness; Abraham and the church to be, appa-
rently, not the blessed, but the cursed ones of God;
God's promises to be, not very faithfulness, but seeming
defeat and disappointment; for man, his image, lies low
in dust and corruption; Abraham and the chosen seed
outcast from the chosen land, and the chosen city, and
the chosen mount of God,—not the kings and priests,
but the outcasts and off-scourings of men. The name of
God lay like an Egyptian hieroglyphic, hid in darkness,
yea, like the name of a liar, without honour; like the pro-
mise of a deceiver, without faith; till He came whose work
it was by his former coming to glorify the name of God :
"I have glorified thy name, I have finished the work
which thou gavest me to do.' This work of reclaiming
the name of God from dishonour and distrust, did Jesus
accomplish by presenting man, as man ought ever to have
been, pure and holy, a reflection in all his being of the
very being of God; and he did moreover, by keeping the
law, and winning the inheritance, prove God to be Abra-
ham's God; and by overcoming death, and redeeming
creation, and casting the devil out, he did prove God to
be Jehovah, who changeth not, and will make good what
he intended from the beginning, and all along declareth
in his word; and now God's name is placed through the
work of Christ beyond all suspicion, and his promises to
mankind beyond all doubt; and for this excellent service,
by the Son of Man performed, "God hath given him a
name above every name," -a name which is a passport
unto heaven, and opens the treasury of God unto the
poorest petitioner; so that whatsoever we shall ask the
Father in his name, he will give it to us.
Such high
store doth God set upon a name, that he threw forth his
own substantial being in the form of a name, for men to
trust on, in spite of all gainsaying appearances; and men
were saved, and were perfected, and were delivered accord-
ing as they trusted in the dishonoured and rejected name
of God. And Christ was perfect, complete in all things,
wanting nothing, because he trusted ever and entirely in
the repudiated name of God. He glorified God's name
by believing that behind it was God's being; and so he
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 817
was delivered out of all temptations; and such unstag-
gering faith had he, such stedfast confidence, because his
person was Divine, though his subsistence flesh: he knew
God by knowing himself; his person baffled his circum-
stances; his person overcame his nature, the devil, and
the world. If any man ask how I know that Jesus of
Nazareth was God? I answer, because Jesus of Nazareth
never doubted one word of God, though his human
nature, and the round world, and the spirits of delusion
and darkness strove, with might and main to shake his Je-
hovah-faith, in Jehovah's faithfulness. An honest man
alone can believe an honest man in this dishonest world.
God alone can believe God in this godless world. Well
said a friend to me, It is like casting yourself over a pre-
cipice to believe in God; and he might have added, and
that no one will, nor can do, but by God doing it in him.
What is a believer? One in whom Christ's life is; that is,
God's life. And what is the fruit of God's life in a be-
liever? The fruit of God's life in a believer is, to believe.
Christ believing in the name of God, which had become
empty as the echo, earned for himself the honours of a
name-the honours of a co-equal name-so that it is no
longer God's name which goeth about the world seeking
credit, but the names of God and of Christ go hand in
hand. God says,
"Believe in him whom I have sent, and
believe on me.
Christ says,
"Believe in God who sent
me, and believe in me." Conjunction most glorious!
unto which the Spirit beareth eternal testimony; and
not the Spirit only, but the water and blood, that is, the
baptized church and the redeemed world. The church
with water baptized, the world by blood redeemed.
Such then being the glories of a name, behold at
once the honour and the dishonour, the grace and the
guilt, of the Sardian church, set for the testimony
of the truth which had become obscured and falsified
by the words and works of Jezebel, that mother of harlots
and prophetess of falsehood. The false Apostles, the
Balaamite doctors, and the Nicolaitane professors, had
brought the true church of Christ, into as great perversity
and obscurity, as ever was God's name by the idolatries
and traditions of the world, out of which Christ retrieved
its grace and truth; for "grace and truth came by Jesus
4 A 3
818
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
""
Christ. When things had come to such a pass in the
Christian church, which is the pillar and ground of the
truth, not accidentally connected with, but coming forth
of, the substance of Christ, and an integrant part of the
eternal purpose of God, it well became the care of God
and of Christ to raise up men of renown, who should
separate the good from the evil, and lift up single-handed
witness like Christ's own, against those hordes of saints,
doctors, and monks of every name, who had overspread
the face of the church with all filthy and hideous disguises.
(Ye birds of darkness, how I rejoice to see your vile and
gloomy habitations ransacked in these days by the hands
of the destroyer. O ye deceivers, ye are at length exposed.
O ye false and treacherous dealers, they are now dealing
treacherously with you. I rejoice, I do and I will rejoice,
to see these Romish priests, these prophets of Baal, these
priests of Moloch; for their worship was unholy as Beor
and cruel as Moloch; I rejoice to see you scattered to the
winds of heaven. "Double to her double according to her
works; in the cup that she hath filled, fill to her double;
Hallelujah!) This evil confederacy which had overcome
the church, that horrible perdition to which it was doomed,
to expose and express in word, was the calling of the
heads of the Reformation, whereby they obtained unto
themselves, and the churches which they planted, the
glory of a name and to that name are they well entitled;
for next to the work which Christ wrought in redeeming
the name of God from the oppression of idolatry and
falsehood of error, was that work which the Reformers
wrought, in delivering the name of Christ, in his church,
from those sevenfold deceptions with which it had become
altogether defamed. It was a high vocation, and well and
faithfully did they labour therein, whereby the Protestant
Church became renowned, and Luther might, with more
truth than vanity, well begin his last will and testament
with these words, "I Martin Luther, of note in heaven,
and earth, and hell;" and still better with a prophetic foresight
was that wish of his, that his books might not live after him;
I
say with the prophetic foresight of that worship of a name
which was to become the downfall of the work which he had
so gloriously begun; for truly how well it may be said of
all the churches called Reformed, "I know thy works, that
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 819
thou hast a name to live and art dead." To hear the Church of
Scotland talk, you would suppose that she was still the same
with her who attacked the dragon in his den, and drove
him in terror from her land; who brake the chains of
darkness, and shook them off as a strong man doth the
bonds of sleep in the morning. To hear them talk who
rule the synagogue, you would think, that she was the same
who endured almost a full century of persecution and
bloodshed for the truth; and, what is higher pretension still,
you would suppose, that she is still the same who opened the
treasuries of God to a needy people, and made them rich
in all spiritual good, who threw the cords of God and of
Christ over a stout, self-willed, mighty, and indomitable
people: whereas, what is the truth? The truth is briefly ex-
pressed in the text; "she hath a name to live, and is dead.”
There are no such men as the Knoxes and the Melvilles of a
former age. There are indeed imitators of their defects and
deformities; men who have imbibed the radicalism and
insubordination which deform their noble character, and
think to build for themselves a similar name by enacting
the part of bravoes, and running a-muck against the holy
ordinances of good order and government. There is no
such Gospel preached as did then enlighten the darkness,
and break the bonds of the human mind. Their Gospel
is the name of a Gospel, but without the power: they
take unto themselves the name of preaching the Gospel to
every creature under heaven; but when you take it to task
there is in it no good news to every creature, no, nor unto
any creature under heaven,-for they preach a benefit from
God in Christ, to an unknown and unknowable portion of
mankind, which is a benefit to no one, forasmuch as no
one can know whether or not he be among the number.
They take the name of preaching the electing love of
God, and therein think that they magnify his sovereignty
and his holiness, in passing by the wicked whom it pleaseth
him not, and choosing the wicked whom it pleaseth him,
to save. But truly they do magnify neither his holiness
nor his sovereignty; not his holiness, because by con-
founding redemption with election, and regarding them as
one thing, they make God to elect without any respect to
a redemption received by some, and rejected by others,
without respect to a righteousness presented to all, but
820
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
received by some and rejected by others. Neither do they
magnify his sovereignty, which is to choose whom he
pleaseth to choose, because they make the redeemed to
be only as many as the elected. But if it should be said
that God, having a purpose of election for certain, sendeth
Christ to redeem only so many, then do they destroy the
love of God to man, as man, and the manifestation of God
to men in Christ, as their God. For if Christ be only God
manifested as an electing God, then is God, as a God
loving his creatures, not manifested at all. He is mani-
fested as a God making distinctions; but the principle on
which he makes them is not manifested. It is God the
head of destiny, it is man the creature of destiny, whom
this their abominable doctrine of particular redemption
setteth forth. And I might go through every other doc-
trine, as at present preached in our church, and shew that
it is but a fallacious name: and this I will do, if God per-
mit, in some separate treatise; for these convictions are
not given to be hidden, but to be proclaimed on the house
tops, and, if need be, under the gallows tree. Again, to
hear the Church of England speak, you might suppose
that her bishops were men, worthy to stand in the room of
the Latimers and Ridleys and Hoopers and Andrews and
Jewels; whereas, in general, the truth being told, they
know not what be the first principles of the doctrine of
Christ, and lie land-locked in the miserable shallows of
Arminianism, or shipwrecked on the rocks of Pelagianism.
Such thriftless waste of words as go to make up the sum
total of their preaching. And for discipline, if it be in
use at all, in either of the national churches, it is for the end
of restraining, fettering, and casting out, any one who dis-
tinguisheth himself for his orthodoxy and faithfulness. And
for ecclesiastical government, it is in our church a con-
tinual contest of parties; in the Church of England, an
usurpation of the rights of the clergy by a few prelates
with no higher nor better orders than themselves.
totally indifferent is our church become to the command-
ment of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the office and order
of Deacons hath ceased, and that of Elders come into as
great a state of secularity as any order in the Church of
Rome. And yet the magic of these names, Church of
England and Church of Scotland, and the credit of our
So
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 821
excellent standards, and our admirable Confession and
Catechisms, and the Liturgy, and the Canons, and other
things of the like kind, carry with them the continual
impression, that all things are standing in the same state
in which they were, when these forms of truths were com-
posed and enacted. That name, that good and glorious
name which the Reformed Churches purchased for them-
selves, with the price of all their mind, and all their heart,
and all their life devoted unto God, we now live upon ;
and, forgetting what we are, nor caring to look into the
poor remnant which is left us, we, with a dishonesty
equalled only by our pride, continually appeal to the
empty name, saying 'Are not we the churches which
cast down the Papacy, and set forth the forms of true
doctrine and righteous discipline on the earth?' There is
nothing like this feature in the Roman apostasy, which is
the same mother of abominations and prophetess of lies as
it ever was. It has no claim to be changed: it is an un-
changed and unchangeable system of wickedness. But
the Protestant churches are changed: they are in no re-
spect whatever the thing which they were; yet they pre-
tend to be the same: they have a name to live, and are
dead.
So true is this felt to be, that, when the evangelical
form of the church came into existence, it began its
course by denominating what it found in existence nominal
Christianity; and when they would take a distinction be-
tween themselves and others, it is in this very way they
do it, calling themselves evangelical, and others nominal
Christians. It is to these nominal Christians, and to these
nominal ministers, that the instructions of our Lord in this
epistle are addressed; and very remarkable it is that he
should have any thing kind to say to those "who have a
name to live but are dead." One should think that He, who
is truth, would be so disgusted with such vile hypocrisy as to
pass them by with silent contempt, or cover them with indig-
nant reproach. Not so! And why not so? Because not
only truth, but grace, came by Jesus Christ. He glorified
the name of God; which name is "The Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth." That reverence for a name which
still subsisted in the angel of the church of Sardis, is
822
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
still a spark which Jesus would blow into a holy flame,
because he that is fullest of grace, is ever fullest of hope.
Well was it written of him, "the smoking flax shall he not
quench, nor break the bruised reed;" and let me, who am
not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes, imitate the
high and noble example of charity which he setteth before
me. Ah me, were those calling themselves evangelical
possessed of his spirit, would they thus entreat the nominal
professor, as if he were an unbaptised heathen, or an ex-
communicated publican? Let us who think ourselves spiri-
tual, turn to the example of our Lord, and learn how to
treat those, whom we have too good reason to believe, are
but nominal Christians. The angel of Sardis, not in the
judgment of man, but in the judgment of Him who cannot
lie, was a nominal minister, and the head of a church con-
sisting mostly of nominal professors; and yet hear how
kindly, courteously, and faithfully, the good Shepherd
dealeth with him and his people : "Be watchful, and
strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die :
for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Re-
member therefore how thou hast received and heard, and
hold fast, and repent." (iii. 2, 3.)
The first part of this exhortation is unto watchfulness,
pointing out to us at once, the cause, and the remedy of all
declension, in the Divine life, which God entrusteth unto
every one of his children, to be reared up to the stature of
the perfect man, by a diligent use of all the means of
grace, and watchful observation of all the temptations and
injuries to which it is exposed. For as in natural, so in
spiritual things, no child will grow and thrive unless there
be a continual care and watchfulness, first of the mother,
then of the nurse, then of the master, and finally of itself;
and what is true of a person is true of the pastor of a
flock. It is of the nature of a flock to increase, and to
grow into more flocks through the watchfulness of the
shepherd; and if it should decrease, and be ready to die
out, it argues want of care and watchfulness on the part
of the shepherd. Whether, therefore, you respect the
angel of the church of Sardis in his personal or pastoral
character, it was both wisely and graciously said unto him,
"Be watchful;" and this word Christ speaketh to every
idle shepherd, who, seeking a good name, doth neglect
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 823
6
good works,—or, having a good name, is grown indiffe-
rent to the eye of God, who seeth not as man seeth, but
judgeth righteous judgment. To those respectable mi-
nisters who seek and find the world's favour, and are
exceeding fearful to transgress the bounds of worldly pru-
dence, or to be found in any extravagance from the broad
way of common resort and good repute, Christ saith,
"Be watchful." Be watchful over what?-over thy re-
putation with me, over thy standing with him to whom
the seven stars belong. As if he had said, Mine thou
art by purchase' (for even the reprobate he hath bought,
2 Pet. ii. 1); and mine thou art by office and prefer-
ment, being the strength of my right hand; and mine
thou art by commission, for I have committed to thee the
cure of souls: therefore, be, thou watchful. Take heed
unto thyself, and to all the flock over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made thee overseer, to feed the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.' And
if thou want supply of the spirit of power and of love and
of a sound mind, behold the Seven Spirits of God, which
are mine for thee, and for all who will receive and use
them for the ends of edifying the church which is my ful-
ness. Betake thyself to thy calling, thou heedless shep-
herd, and fear not to be supplied with the needful strength.
Look thou to my Father's chosen ones, and I will look to
thee. But if thou wilt go about to seek honour of thy
fellow-worms, thou shalt never be able to receive “ the
honour which cometh from God." Ah me! how needful is
this exhortation of the Lord in these days, when the fear
of public opinion, the brand of being singular and alone,
the odium of being evil-spoken of, hath eaten out, not only
the communion of ministers with their rejected and de-
spised Head, but even the personal dignity of responsible
We are men no longer, but pieces of a machine--
parts of a frame-work set up to catch the observation and
excite the wonder of the multitude. To make a fair
shew in the flesh, to win a high name, or to appropriate
to ourselves the name which our predecessors in the
church have won, to live idly and hypocritically upon
their hard earnings, this is the deep-seated mischief which
preys upon the vitals of the Christian ministry in these
Protestant churches. There is no remedy but one, which
men.
824
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
is, to remember that not the people nor the ministry, but
the Lord, is our master; to remember the prerogative of
Christ, expressed in these words, "These things saith he
which hath the seven stars." We are his property, and
not the property of the people, or of any earthly powers
whatsoever. If there be any thing, in this office which I
fill, peculiar and proper and essential to it, it is this, that
it is responsible to no one but Christ. As we have so
oft asserted and proved in these lectures, the authorities of
the church do not stand between the minister and Christ.
He has no business to be thinking of them, but of Christ,
and labouring for Christ in the ministry of the flock; and
if the authorities of the church would interfere to prevent
him from declaring the doctrines and executing the com-
mandments of Christ, he must obey the Head rather than
the members, and look upon the members as rising up in
insurrection against the Head. He may be wrong in thus
doing, and the church may be right in preventing him;
but to come to such personal determination, and act out
his office under such personal responsibility, is his duty;
and because there are perils in the way of our duty, is not
to prevent the undertaking of it, and the going through
with it also. The authorities of the church with which he
holdeth communion may take upon them to resent this
his self-determining liberty of action, and may exert
against him her extremest discipline, even to the greater
excommunication: she is required on her responsibility to
do so, and she doth it at her peril: and when the angel of
a church is thus entreated by the church, it is his duty to
receive his chastisement meekly, to be put out of the
synagogue; and, so that he seeth it to be for Christ's sake,
gladly to go forth without the camp bearing his reproach.
But what then; is he to cease labouring in his vocation of
declaring the truth because the church, according to his
conviction, hath rejected him for holding it? While that
conviction lasts, he is only the more strenuously to declare
it, that the church may not deceive the world, betray the
truth, and dishonour God. This is the great spiritual wea-
pon of Protestantism: it is good to search it out from among
the rubbish of antiquated notions, and to burnish it for
action, because I fear it will be soon called into use again.
This is not insubordination to authorities, but testifying for
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 825
the greater authority of Christ. It is not schism, but tes-
timony for the truth. It is not apostasy, but the only
way of preventing the church from apostasy. It is the
dignity of a person, it is the inalienable right of a respon-
sible person; whereof an angel of the church is set on
high in his place, to give an example to all other persons
whatever.
"
The second part of this exhortation, to the minister of the
church of Sardis, directeth his watchfulness into the chan-
nel of strengthening the things which remain," as the
right way of recovering those things which lay buried in
neglect. There was still some remnant of a church in
Sardis, which the Saviour did not despise, and to the care
of which he calleth the nominal bishop of the church;
just as Jeremiah called the last king of Israel to use well
the fragments of power which remained to him, with the
assurance, that if he would obey his voice and observe
God's Sabbaths, it would be well with him and his poste-
rity, notwithstanding all the threatenings of the Lord.
What these things were in the church of Sardis which re-
mained in a dying state, we are not informed; though I
think from what follows, it may be inferred that they were
works of some kind, seeing it is immediately added as the
reason of the exhortation, "for I have not found thy works
perfect before God." To do good works is the calling of
a Christian and a Christian church. The truth as it is
in Jesus is the light in which he is to perform them, and
faith in the operation of God through Jesus Christ is the
strength; but the works are the end for which the light
shineth and the power is given: "Let your light so shine
before men, that they, seeing your good works, may glo-
rify your Father which is in heaven." "Who is a wise
man and endued with knowledge among you, let him shew
out of a good conversation his works with meekness of
wisdom." It is by our works that the world is to know
the excellency of our profession, for as yet they are
ignorant of the doctrine of salvation; and it is by our
works that we shall eventually be judged of God. Now
of all good works, love to God and Christ and the souls of
men is the informing principle, without which they may
not be called good, of whatever appearance and form they
be. Proceeding from custom, or man-pleasing, or the
4 B
826
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
desire of a good name, or fear of God's wrath and the
desire to propitiate his mercy, they are not good and
acceptable unto Him, whom they acknowledge not as the
supreme good, neither hold forth to men as the origin, the
end, and the object of all goodness. Any work, to be
good, must proceed from a heart which God hath made
good; that is, a heart which God hath filled with love,
for love is the forthgoing of goodness. Now the angel of
the church of Sardis was consulting not for love, but for
a good name: like the Scribes and the Pharisees, he was
doing his alms to be seen of men; and he had his reward
of men, but not of " our Father which is in heaven." This
worm in the bud of them all was, I take it, the ground of
their imperfection, as well as the incompleteness of their
amount. For they wanted in quality, as well as in quantity :
they were defective in kind, as well as in number. The
expression" before God" confirms me in the idea that
there ran through all his works a radical defect, arising
from respect to the opinions of men. His Master doth
not quarrel with their aspect before men, but with their
aspect before God. It is most likely that this well-
approven bishop, who had a name to live, was the most
respectable of all the seven in the sight of men; that
he was a good man and a perfect bishop in the eyes
of the world, and had their approbation in all respects.
I know many such, of whom the world doth nothing but
speak well; and if the word of the Lord be true, "Woe
unto you when all men speak well of you," I much fear
for these that their works cannot at the same time be
perfect before God." Without arrogating to man the
Divine prerogative of judging the heart, we may without
any hesitation pronounce that the favour of the world,
the voice of public opinion, is not compatible with the
voice and approbation of God; for the Lord putteth the
world and the church into express contradiction, the one
of the other. "If ye were of the world, the world would
love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I
have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you." "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be
of good cheer, I have overcome the world." "If any man
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
These, with many other passages, and indeed the whole
<<
f
VIII.] Sardis Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 827
tenor of Scripture upon the subject, point it out as an
everlasting truth, that the approbation of God and the
approbation of the world are two things altogether incom-
patible with one another, and that he who enjoys the one
may assure himself he doth not enjoy the other. This is
a searching and trying truth, which is greatly abused by
evil-tempered and schismatical men; but it is not the less
a truth of God for the guidance and consolation of Chris-
tian and catholic men. And it is the truth which, above
all others, should be pressed upon the consideration of
those ministers of the Gospel who enjoy the good report
of those that are without.
In applying this truth to practice, there is no small
difficulty, arising from the intermixture of the church and
the world in one heterogeneous mass of baptised persons,
including the whole population of the kingdom. From
the total breaking down of discipline, and the indiscri-
minate administration of baptism to all, it is left to
every one to distinguish for himself between the church
and the world, of whom, the good opinion of the former
should be our encouragement, and the good opinion of
the latter our discouragement, in the ways of righteous-
ness. In the midst of this confusion, there are one or
two considerations which may help a man's judgment,
though nothing can supply the want of discipline in the
church. The first of these is, that the church is "the
little flock;" the world the multitude; the way of truth
the narrow way, which few find,-the way of lies, the
broad way in which many walk. If therefore the many
of the baptized nation be with a man, he may fear that
he himself is not with God. And instead of things
growing better in the latter days, towards the coming of
the Lord, they grow worse; insomuch that, when the Lord
cometh, it shall be a question whether he shall find faith
on the earth. A second help to discern our way, in the
midst of the existing confusion, is by feeling whether we
suffer persecution for the sake of the truth which we hold;
for it is written, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution." Do those who profess to care
for none of these things; the politicians, the statesmen,
and the economists, the fashionable, the busy, the lite-
rary, and the religious worlds; in one word, the worldly
4 Ƒ 2
828
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
classes of the community; do they sympathize with us,
or do they cast our names out as evil, and cover us with
their reproaches? Do the oracles of wickedness which
issue from day to day, and from week to week, and from
month to month, take part with us or against us? For
there is no fellowship between light and darkness, between
Christ and Belial, between God and Mammon. There
is a third test of a nicer kind, to which our Lord himself
directeth his disciples, in these words: " They shall put
you out of the synagogues; yea the time cometh, that
whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God ser-
vice." When the synagogues and churches of the land
have come to include the whole community without dis-
crimination, it is most manifest that they cannot be in a
fitter condition for enacting the evil here foretold. The
public opinion is become the church opinion; the world and
the church are visibly blended in one. It may be that the
world's evil inclination will be somewhat prevented by
the mixture of the church; it is certain that the good dis-
position of the church will be weakened, and in the end
destroyed. "Evil communications corrupt good manners.”
And the effect will be, that when one standeth up amongst
them with the words of Christ in his mouth, and the ways
of Christ in his heart, he will so rebuke their evil deeds,
and worldly compromises, that they will not bear him,
but will speak evil of him, and cast him forth from the
midst of them, as a blasphemer of God, and a hater of
men. And, to such a pitch, will his uncompromising faith-
fulness and godlike charity excite the enmity of the na-
tural man within them, that they will come at length, as
the Jews and Romanists did, to count it a service done
to God, to make away with him from the face of the
earth. Now let men consider whether in the midst of
this heterogeneous mixture, named the church, they prove
these trials, and they shall be able to discern whether
their name is good before men or before God; whether
their works are perfect before men or before God.
While we thus do our best, in the midst of the hideous
corruption and inextricable confusion of church and world,
to obtain the correction and safeguard which there is in the
approbation of the righteous, and the disapprobation of
the world, we ought to be careful, not to treat baptized per-
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 829
sons as the unbaptized world; from whom they differ in
privilege and responsibility in the same way as, and to a far
higher degree than, circumcised Israel differed from the
uncircumcised nations. Men are in all cases much
changed by being baptized, either for the better or for
the worse for the better, if they know and enjoy their
privileges, and walk in their duties; for the worse, if they
do not. And when it so happens that a baptized church
is chiefly and almost entirely of the latter sort, then is it
the most miserable quarters for a godly man upon the face
of the whole earth. He will find there more scorn, more
falsehood, more cruelty, more that is against nature, than
amongst the most savage nations of the world. There is
nothing on earth half so fiendish as a church which hath
resolved to walk according to the flesh. "Where re-
ceivedst thou these wounds? In the house of my friends."
-In what I have set forth above, therefore, let me not be
thought to gainsay, what I have so often said concerning
the awful reality there is in baptism, and the entire change
it makes in a man's standing: I have but endeavoured to
help a child of God, out of the dilemma of having to do
with such a hideous mixture as the visible church is be-
come through our neglect; and shewing him, how still he
may obtain the safeguard of the approbation of the bre-
thren, while he is preserved from the delusion of thinking
that he hath it, when he is borne upon the shoulders of the
irreligious mob, which the visible church hath become. But
the best way of all is, for every minister to do his endea-
vour to restore discipline, to stand stoutly up to the ca-
nons of the church, and insist upon a blameless walk and
conversation in every one who sits down at the table of the
Lord. And this he will best do by exhibiting to the con-
sciences of all, the awful sacredness of the sacraments, and
following up the word of preaching with a word of coun-
sel and rebuke, and in the train of this bring up the au-
thority of discipline; and, if need be, its severity also,
which can as little be wanted in a church, as chastisement
can be wanted in a family, or pains and penalties in a state.
Next to the subject of standing well with men, and so
ceasing to stand well with God, suggested by this second
part of the exhortation, is the standard which our Shep-
herd and Judge sets before his servant, " perfectness be-
4 B 3
830
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
fore God," after which to shape and by which to estimate
his works: "For I have not found thy works perfect
before God." Nothing can be more demonstrative that
the standard with which Christ measures is the standard
of perfection; that nothing short of it will satisfy him,
and that every thing short of it is to be confessed and
mourned over, and with all diligence made up. But where
are the means, and wherein is the supply? Let the style
adopted by the Chief Shepherd furnish the answer:
"These things saith He that hath the Seven Spirits of
God." Hath them for what? For the church, to which
he is given crowned with that surpassing glory for a Head;
and she given to him to have and to hold the fulness of
power and glory which is in the Head: " and hath put all
under his feet, and gave him to be Head over all unto the
church, which is his fulness, the fulness of Him that filleth
all in all." Now if there be in the Head the sevenfold per
fection of the Spirit of God, why should there not be the
same in each of the members? For no reason else than
that these members either know it not; or, knowing it, be-
lieve it not; or, believing it, keep it not in memory; or,
keeping it in memory, fail to act upon it. When God
graciously informeth us that Christ, filled with all the ful-
ness of the Godhead which in body can be expressed, is
the Head of the church, which is his body, whereof we
are members; we, receiving this gracious revelation, are
that instant rendered responsible for the possession of the
fulness, and, being so, are by the same token expected to
be complete in him, and to grow up into him in all things.
This is the reason why perfection is, and must ever be,
looked for by God, from the weakest and wickedest of men,
when he joineth himself, and is by God joined to Christ in
the sacrament of baptism: and for God to expect less,
would be either to declare that the gift in Christ is not
for communication; or that, being for communication, it
is not equal to the work of triumphing over the imper-
fection and sinfulness of the creature.
There hath of late been introduced a most baneful method
of bringing out perfect holiness before God, by saying that
the creature can do, or can be made to do, no good or ac-
ceptable thing whatsoever; but, regenerate and endow him
as you may, he yieldeth an imperfect and polluted action at
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 831
all times, which God could not by any means accept on its own
account as righteous, but which he accepteth as righteous
on account of the righteousness of Christ. This, which
is in every body's mouth, hath so many errors in it, that
I hardly know where to begin the enumeration of them.
First, it makes God call that which is unholy holy. Now
what is unholy is sinful, and cannot by any addition be
made holy it may be forgiven of God, but approven it
cannot be. That it is forgiven to the believer because of
Christ, I fully admit; but that it is called righteous for
Christ's sake, I utterly deny.-Secondly, it makes Christ
have a power of righteousness which he doth put into
action through the believer, but which fails to produce one
righteous action; and to remedy this failure, a store of
inactive righteousness, a treasury, a reservoir of merit,
which he keeps in reserve to make weight, and so bring
up the defectiveness of the believer's works to the stand-
ard of God's absolute perfection.
Which is to present us
with a Head who holds back his strength from the mem-
bers out of mere reserve, and who puts forth what he does
put forth only to be baffled, and so patches up the matter
out of the remainder of merits which he took care to keep
beside himself. Such conclusions !-Thirdly, it denies the
nature of the regenerate man to be holy in himself, and
contradicts all Scripture; and it denies that the regenerate
man doth good works, and that he fulfils the righteous-
ness of the law, and that he is any thing else than a sin-
ner,—not so great, indeed, as the carnal man, but still
thoroughly and in all particulars a sinner. Oh! what a
wickedness is contained in that common form of humble
or rather pharisaical words: We do nothing good-our
best actions are evil, and accepted of God only for the
righteousness of Christ.' They are either accepted or not
accepted: if accepted, they are the work of Christ in us,
the fruit and offspring of the regenerate man; if not ac-
cepted, they are the works of the flesh, altogether sinful
in God's sight, and the proper subject of godly sorrow,
and repentance, and remission. But that good works are
done, and ought ever to be done, by the regenerate, is
manifest, both from the requirements and declarations of
all Scripture; as, for example, Gen. vi. 9 ; xvii. 1: Ex,
xix. 6: 2 Kings xx. 3: Job i. 1—8: Psa. xv. 1, 2; xxxvii.
1
832
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
3, 27, 37; ci. 2-6: Ezek. xiv. 14: Matt. v. 48; xvi.
27: John xiv. 23; xv. 3: Rom. xii. 1, 2: 1 Cor. vii. 15,
19, 20: 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11; v. 15, 17; vi. 16-18: Gal.
ii. 20: Eph. i. 4; ii. 10; vi. 8: Phil. ii. 12 - 16: Col. i.
10, 22, 28; iv. 12: 1 Thess. iii. 13; v. 23: 2 Thess. ii. 13-
17: 1 Tim. ii. 2—10; v. 10, 25; vi. 18: 2 Tim. ii. 19,
21; iii. 17; iv. 18: Tit. ii. 7, 12, 14: Heb. x. 22-24;
xi. 5; xii. 10, 11, 14; xiii. 21: 1 Pet. i. 15, 16; ii. 9;
iii. 10-17; v. 10: 2 Pet. ii. 7-9: 1 John ii. 5, 6, 29;
iii. 6-9, 22: 3 John 11: Jude 24 Rev. ii. 2, 9, 13, 19,
23, 26; iii. 8, 15; xiv. 13; xv. 12.
We maintain, therefore, that in virtue of these Seven Spi.
rits, of that complete Godhead power which is in the Head
of the body for distribution throughout all the members,
every member, whatever be his office, ought to present a per-
fect work before God. In our observations upon these Seven
Spirits, we referred them chiefly to the heavenly glory into
which Christ hath entered, and of which the church received
a first-fruits on the day of Pentecost, to fit her out for the
perilous voyage on which she was then launched, of bearing
credible witness to all nations, of a world which had been
redeemed by Christ, and was about to be blessed with
the presence and benefit of his glory in the new Jerusa
lem, which is to come down from heaven. While we thus
interpret the Seven Spirits as distinguished from the Spirit.
of Christ, the former the life of the heavenly glorified
things, the latter of the earthly holy things, we are far
from supposing that both are not equally and alike the
work of the one indivisible Holy Ghost. To set this
great truth forth in its completeness, there are three mani-
festations of the Holy Ghost: the first is creation, which
is not the sevenfold, because it is capable of increase; the
second is regeneration, which is the Spirit triumphant over
a rebellious creation, and enforcing it to obey the will of
God; the third is glorification, which is the creature purged
from all wickedness, and filled with all the fulness of God:
but all these worketh the self-same Spirit upon the self-
same substance, originating in nothing, and drawn through
these successive stages of progress towards the full ac-
complishment of the Divine purpose therein. Into the last
of these states Christ alone of all creatures is as yet
entered; and into this the church alone hath the promise
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 833
of being brought; and for the end of testifying her exclu-
sive title to this sevenfold glory, the gifts of the Holy
Ghost are restricted to the church, while the redemption
is extended to all. It is true that these gifts of the Holy
Ghost were for the unfaithful as well as for the faithful of
the church; because God will shew in all stages of the
creature's progress towards good as towards evil, the pre-
sence and operation of a will which is not brought into a
necessity of well-doing or of evil-doing, but in every stage
free to choose or to reject, to use or to abuse; of a will
which looks for its recovery and establishment, not to any
gift of God, but to God himself, to the absolute and
invisible Godhead, to the abyssmal will of God for ever
hidden in the Father. It is the Father's prerogative to
incline the will unto Christ by giving it faith upon, and
desire after him: that inclination of the will which God,
who worketh all in all, hath wrought in a believer, ever
seeks to express itself in forms of reason and of action,
and is thereby forced out upon Christ, who is the Father's
will, expressed in perfect reason, and upon the Seven Spirits
of Christ, which is the Father's perfect will, expressing
itself in action. And thus it is that God, and Christ, and
the Seven Spirits, are co-essential and co-operative in every
believer towards the production of any true and perfect
work of godliness. Wherefore it is written," Now there
are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there
are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same
God which worketh all in all." (1 Cor. xii. 4—6.) These
working together according to their several offices in the
members of Christ's body, it is little short of blasphemy
to assert that the fruit will not be a good work perfect before
God. To hold that the actions of the regenerate man
introduced into the body of Christ, and, having in him the
power of the Head, are not, and cannot be holy, is to say
that God is baffled by his creatures, that God having pur-
posed and undertaken a work of regeneration in man, hath
utterly failed. The truth of Scripture is, not 'He that is born
of God must ever sin ;' but "He that is born of God cannot
sin." What is born of the Spirit is spirit; and the spirit
ever lusteth against the flesh, and its fruits are in all good-
ness and righteousness and truth. If indeed, as these poor
834
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
erring brethren roundly assert, it would constitute Christ a
sinner to take and to bear flesh with the law of flesh in
it; then it must be that every action of the regenerate
man must be sinful, having to prevail over the law of flesh
in his members. But if, as the truth of all Scripture and
theology is, that Christ took flesh with the law of flesh in
it, and against that law prevailed to work out a perfect
righteousness, and present his body acceptable unto God,
then did he originate a new power in law, the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, of which the very essence
and character is to make man free from the law of sin and
death; and to enable him to fulfil the righteousness of
the law, by walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
Now because a baptized man is baptized into this single
truth that Christ has condemned sin in the flesh, and in-
troduced into it the life and law of righteousness, he is a
debtor to crucify the flesh, not in part, but altogether; and
to serve the law of righteousness, not in part, but altogether.
And therefore God can require of us nothing short of per-
fection, or be satisfied with nothing short of it; and so at
our baptism we are required to fight against the devil, the
world, and the flesh, like good soldiers of the Lord Jesus
Christ. To require less, as hath been said, would be either
to say it is impossible with God to bring holiness out of
flesh, and therefore that Christ did never take flesh as we
have it, but in some better state; or it were to say, that as
Christ is, we are not in the world, as he overcame we are
not to overcome; that there is not oneness between the
Head and the members; that he hath a power which we
have not, and in the days of his flesh put forth a power
which he doth not give us to put forth in the days of our
flesh. And either of these positions is antichrist. I have
no hesitation in saying, that to deny that Christ came in
flesh with law of flesh is antichrist, and that the church.
which will maintain it is apostate, and ought with all haste
to be forsaken by the faithful; whom indeed she will not
bear, but will persecute forth of her doomed city,
If then perfection, and nothing short of perfection, it
becometh the holiness of God to require, and the condition
of a member or minister of Christ to yield, why is it
that there is in every good man such a readines to
confess sin, and account himself guilty in the sight of
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 835
God? and why saith the Apostle "If any man saith he
sinneth not, he is a liar and the truth is not in him?" The
answer is, first, that a man confesses not his own sin as a
person merely, but the sins of flesh, and so in some sort
the sins of all persons: and hence it is that in those Psalms,
as the xlth and Ixix th, which refer to Christ, we find him
at one and the same time asserting his own righteousness
and confessing his numerous sins, which were a palpable
and glaring contradiction, but for the truth that a man
feels himself answerable for the sins of all flesh, and called
upon to confess it as his own; for flesh is one thing:
there is not my flesh and thy flesh, but flesh which one
man made sinful in the mass, and another man redeemed
in the mass from the power of sin by introducing through
the soul the law of the Spirit of righteousness. And in
this sense the greater saint a man is, the greater confessor
of sin, the more lowly penitent, the more deeply exercised
before God in intercession for all men whatsoever. And
so it is that Christ, being perfectly holy, is infinitely
aggrieved with the sin of that flesh which he took, and
taking which he thoroughly apprehended what a fearful
pit of darkness, what a miry clay of iniquity it was. In this
lay his suffering, his agony, his crucifixion, his warfare,
his victory, his victory always, and always complete.
Now, in so far forth as confession of, and contrition for, sin is
of this common and brotherly kind among all of the com-
munion of flesh, it argues no personal nor actual trans-
gression in him who makes it, neither any victory of his
flesh, but is compatible yea and always present with a
body, soul, and spirit blameless before God. But it is most
true that besides this agonizing of the believer, under the
iniquities which flesh is ever breeding and ever bringing
forth from all its fountains, there are personal sins, real
fleshly sins, fruits and works of the flesh over which he
hath to mourn. Besides such agonies as the Apostle
uttereth over the vileness of flesh in the viii th chapter of
the Romans at the very time he could say, "The law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the
law of sin and death which is in my members;" there are,
it is to be feared, in the most advanced Christians times
and occasions wherein the flesh getteth the mastery over
the Spirit, and peculiar transgressions are committed.
836
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Whence come these daily sins in thought, word, and deed,
whereof we confess ourselves to be guilty? I answer
without a moment's hesitation, from want of faith in Christ
as having crucified the flesh, and by the Eternal Spirit
fulfilled righteousness with every member of his body
which he presented holy upon the cross. If a man ever
believed in Christ as the flesh-mortifier and the spirit-
quickener, I make no doubt he would be ever holy in
thought, word, and deed. To deny this, would be to deny
that Christ was at the call of our faith; or else that, being at
faith's call, he was unable to succour the believer; or, being
able, that he is not at all times willing: every one of
which positions is a blasphemy. But then the question.
is put, Are you sure that a man may ever act faith? He
both may and he ought. He may, because Christ as a man
did so, and proved that manhood was capable of it when
informed by the Divine personality of the Son; and he
ought, because by his baptism he is brought into the body
of Christ to have the information of that Divine personality.
And being thus sustained by the Son of God, who yielded
the soul's perfect service of an unceasing faith, he ought to
yield the same; and if he yield it, to deny that holiness
will follow, is to deny that God is ever accessible to the
poorest and most unworthy creature who puts his trust in
him, which Christ, a worm and no man, proved to be the
greatest blasphemy against the inexhaustible goodness
of God. For want of faith therefore in the Lord's Christ
as a regenerate head of holiness through the Spirit, the
regenerate man doth commit sin, and not from any neces-
sity of sinning, or from any other cause in his condition
or circumstances. All sin in the church cometh of want
of faith, as all righteousness cometh of the presence of it.
And a believer is not a holy man in respect of sins past
forgiven, but in respect of sins present overcome and put
away.
:
So much then the more guilty are we for every sin, if
so be that we ought ever to be perfect? Yea, verily and to
place guilt in its true light I have set forth these things.
To exhibit it as an act, not of necessity or of circum-
stances, but of real deliberate pleasure in sinning; to
shew it forth in its true character as an act of the will,
preferring evil to good, and the world unto God; not to
v111.] Sardis—Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 837
please any one's vanity or self-righteousness, but to exhibit
his sin as doubly sinful, I have put this point of perfection
upon its true scriptural and theological foundation. Well,-
and do you leave us there? Surely not. When I have
thus shewn the believer that his every sin is of kind the
same with Adam's first sin, being done against a standing
of perfectness, though of far deeper die, as being done not
against a God-Creator merely, but against a God-Creator
sinned against yet forgiving, becoming a God-Brother,
and as such dying for men; when I have thus brought out
the true free-will guilt of sin against a God revealed in
Jesus Christ, I do not leave the sinner there to pine and
perish, but address myself to the work of shewing forth
the virtues of that blood which cleanseth from all iniquity.
Having exhibited the baptismal covenant for an imma-
culate life, and the virtue of Christ's body to nourish this
new life up into the perfect image and form of Christ; I
then preach the virtue of the other part of the Lord's
Supper, the blood of the New Covenant presented to us
and partaken of in the cup; where is exhibited the blood
of Christ, as the fountain opened in the house of David for
sin and for uncleanness; whereby every sin of every believer
is freely pardoned. And I entreat all to come and receive
that pledge of sins remitted, and of an inheritance be-
queathed to the sinless. This is the act of faith on Christ
as an Intercessor continually presenting his body, as of a
Lamb slain, in the heavens to the Father; and ever saying,
'Behold this perfect sacrifice for the sins of men; and, in
consideration of this, hear, O Father, and accept these
prayers, now presented to thee by thy saints for forgive-
ness' and in honour of his continual High-Priesthood,
the Father accepts the offering, and ever grants them for-
giveness out of the greatness of his love and grace. There
are these three things in the church: First, a new generation
of water and the Spirit in the sacrament of baptism:
Secondly, a nourishment of the same regenerate life up to
a perfect man in the womb (so to speak); that is, in
the body of Christ: and, Thirdly, the atonement of his
blood for all transgressions we commit against the mercy
of God; through which atonement we obtain the fellowship
of that inheritance which Christ purchased with his blood.
And how is the glory of that atonement enhanced, when
4 c
838
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
it is seen as made, not only for all flesh, but likewise for the
sins of all the church of God, whose sins are so much
deepened in their die, above the worst sins of the unbap-
tized world. This is the true Christian doctrine of the
membership of Christ: which being received, will cause
much sin to cease, greatly increase good works, and make
us advance more and more near unto perfection; will
give sin its true depth of guilt, as the act of a will against
the most gracious God, and so place the preciousness of
the sacrifice and intercession of Christ in its proper light.
Would that God might be pleased to make many souls
receive and rest upon it; for it is not the word of man,
but his own most sure word of truth given for the sanctifi-
cation of his people.
""
And when any member, or office-bearer in the church
hath fallen away from his stedfastness in the faith, and
departed from the way of holiness, and no longer yieldeth
"works perfect before God," what counsel and instruction
giveth Christ our Head for recovering him from the
snare of Satan? It is in these words: "Strengthen the
things which remain, and are ready to die." The method
of recovery is, to look well after what we still possess, ac-
cording to that standing rule of the Gospel, "Unto him that
hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly:
and that other, "He that is unfaithful over the least will
be unfaithful over the greatest:" and "if ye have not been
faithful over the mammon of unrighteousness, who will
intrust unto you the true riches?" God never resigneth
his creature, however unfaithful he become: he still look-
eth upon him as his responsible creature, and expecteth
him to make a good use of what is left in his hand. God
giveth liberally, and upbraideth not. His prodigal children
are ever welcome to return, in whatever misery they are
found, and however they may have dishonoured their good
Father's Name. There is a practical illustration of God's
not imputing sin, in this his way of dealing with the angel of
the church of Sardis, which is very comforting to a poor
sinner labouring under the sense of neglected opportunities
and misused talents. The great Judge, whose eyes are
like a flame of fire, doth not lay upon his servant any sore
rebukes, or exact of him any severe penance, or place him
at a distance upon his good behaviour, or require of him
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 839
2
any period of probation; but, without reference to the past
delinquency, calls upon him simply to make the best use
of what is left; to "strengthen the things which remain,
and are ready to die." And this is true wisdom as well
as mercy; for it availeth not to grieve a man's heart with
upbraidings, or to cast his spirit down with heavy tasks,
or to represent to him how much he hath squandered, or
into what misery he hath brought himself, unless you do
shew him what to set his hand to in the instant, and by
what means to regain his lost ground, and recover himself
from his present misery. What, for example, would
it avail in me possessed with the views of a Christian
church, which I have learned from these epistles, to go
to some landward parish of my own dear Scotland, where
all is dead as a stone through the freezing power of two
or three generations of legal preachers; or to some city
parish where all is sour as vinegar, bitter as gall and
wormwood, and proud, scornful, and self-sufficient as
Satan himself, through the preaching of some systematic,
critical, hair-splitting high Calvinist; and bestow upon
them violent philippics upon their present wretchedness,
or set before them strong and vivid representations of a
perfect Christian church, full of life and love and power
and joy? Such a method were sure to drive them mad
with rage, or to intoxicate them with vanity, or to split
them asunder, and rend them to pieces as when a ship
is taken all aback with a mighty wind. I once knew an
instance of a Christian church, which had long languished
in a lifeless state, at length blessed with the ministry of a
man who set his face like a flint, and without fear deli-
vered the truth in its fulness, and loved to declare the mys-
teries of the kingdom; and I have lived to see their latter
end worse than the beginning. The old bottles would not,
or could not, contain the new wine. Again, I knew another
man who came unto a flock which was literally no flock,
being but a handful of persons gathered through attach-
ment to his person, who was as ignorant of the truth of
God as Evangelical ministers generally are, and was as
zealous in the use of eloquence and argument and affec-
tion, and such like weapons of straw as other famous
preachers are; but God was pleased to untie his Evan-
gelical bonds, and to enlarge his knowledge, and to open
4 c 2
840
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
to him the riches of Christ; which ever as he learned he kept
opening to his people, strengthening the while the orders
and ordinances of the church, and all things which were
left of sound doctrine and wholesome discipline; and the
result hath been that they have grown with him, and have
advanced thus far together in love and fellowship: and may
God prosper them to the end!-Oh yes, I know from ob-
servation as well as reflection, that the true way to do
either a person, or a minister, or a church good, is to re-
quire him to strengthen the things which remain, and are
ready to die. If I, as an accomplished agriculturist from
the Lothians of Scotland, should in my travels over the
world fall in with some half-civilized people, scraping the
surface of the earth with sharpened stakes, casting in
their seeds, and so leaving them to thrive or perish as
Providence might order it; what were my wisest course?
To call them together, and read them lectures on the
Scottish system of husbandry, and the wonderful inventions
of art by which we wait upon nature's productiveness?
How idle and vain were such discourse, however exact
and eloquent! The part of a wise man would be to take
them where he found them, and, calculating upon the laws
of human nature, which seeks the best that can be attained,
to improve this implement and to correct that method of
management; to improve the seed by sowing every choicest
particle, here to drain the moist, and there to irrigate the
dry places; to improve the breed of cattle, and the structure
of the houses; and so from one thing to another to advance
onward with a sure and steady pace towards perfection.
Even so Christ would have the spiritual husbandry of any
decayed church to pursue the path towards recovery. But to
come to particulars on a question of such unspeakable inte-
rest to the Protestant churches, which I have shewn stand
represented in the church of Sardis ; I would endeavour to
do my part, through great weakness and many possible errors,
to shew how those wrecks of churches, which are in these
realms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, may best find their
way back to that primitive state of endowment in which, in
my
former Lecture, I shewed that the church of Christ was
set up. As one given in trust with the vineyard, I would shew
how this vine, which is all dismantled of its glory, and
trodden down to the earth, may rear itself again and hang
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 841
in clustering bunches of richest fruit. God help me with
wisdom.
The words, "strengthen the things which remain that
are ready to die," I look upon as the very oracle of Christ
to the churches in this island; which, if observed by
minister and people, will not only be our salvation from
impending ruin, but likewise our restoration to ancient
primitive faith and fulness of gifts. For that there is a
remnant of life and piety and communion with the Head,
and with one another, left among us, no one can doubt.
Let me then go about the work of explaining this oracular
response for our present time of extremity. And to begin
with those of my own order, in whose mouth is reposed
the ministry of the word: Theirs it is, to receive the word of
wisdom and the word of knowledge promised by the Spirit,
which may fit them to be pastors and teachers of the
flock. And this they will do, by strengthening that
dependence upon the Holy Ghost, which hardly any one
is without in a lesser or greater degree, by increasing
prayer and meditation and secret exercises of every kind,
and pressing upon their churches to co-operate with them
for the same gracious end. Also by denying themselves
to the arts of human eloquence, to the powers of natural
reason, to the words of man's wisdom, and all the attrac-
tive beauties of discourse; for while these precede, or go
hand in hand with, the spiritual suggestions, the latter will
make no progress. Let the Spirit have his will and his
way with your mind, and with your tongue, and be well
assured that he will bring forth the word in strength and
power and demonstration; and, if need be, in beauty and
splendour and sublimity,-in one word, in perfectness.
I have proved my lesson, and know that it is true.
one more studied, and, according to the general opinion,
few had profited more in the gifts of natural reason as
set forth in discourse from the pulpit, and certainly never
was man more intent after the knowledge of the truth, or
more zealous to communicate his convictions unto others.
But when God shewed me the more excellent way of
casting my reason into the forms of his own word, instead
of casting his word into the forms of my own understanding,
and taught me that his truth was not wrapped up in some
score of texts, well culled from the Gospels and the Epi-
No
4 c 3
842
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
stles, but developed in divers manners throughout the
Scriptures, and fructified in the believing soul by the Holy
Ghost; I communed not with flesh and blood, but laid
aside all former ideas of my profession, and submitted my-
self to the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Since which time
I have somewhat profited in the word of wisdom and the
word of knowledge, and doubt not, by God's grace to profit
much more to the saving of my own soul, and of those
who hear me. It is not from any desire to speak of my-
self, but to tell my brethren how God delivered me from
the bonds and trammels of argument and oration, that
I further put upon record the particulars of the method
which He took; to the end they may be enlarged into the
same liberty. After seven years' silence in my native land,
a voluntary penance which I put upon myself, that I might
not be ever vexing, by the liberty of my discourse, their
more cautious, close, and dogmatical taste,—I went down
to open my mouth once more unto my brethren; and
having read one or two compositions in the pulpits of the
metropolis, it was so ordered that I should spend a fort-
night among the manly and unsophisticated people of the
south of Scotland, the land of my fathers. Strongly did the
Spirit testify within me, Why wouldst thou go and read to
them these fragments of truth, which thou hast written with
so much care. They have not heard thy voice these many
years, and may never hear it again: so open thy heart
and not thy papers to them, and trust thou me. Oh,
what a conflict there was then between nature and the
Holy Ghost. Nature said, Thy fame is great, thy labour
hath been vast in composing these sermons; thou art
all unskilled in extempore discourse: the land is full of
jealousy towards thee; thou hast their suffrages all to gain:
the Scotch are a stubborn and untoward people, and their
ancient simplicity with respect to preaching is much cor-
rupted by modern masters in the ait, who have brought
strength of faculty and power of natural reason to bear
upon the great questions of the orthodox faith. But the
Spirit wrought with me, and said, Wilt thou then treat thy
father and thy mother, and all thy kindred, and all these
hearty people, with poor and puny fragments of thy mind
because there are cold critics and cruel enemies abroad?
and wilt thou be unfaithful to thy Master, who hath taught
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 843
thee so much concerning his coming and his kingdom,
and the judgments which are ready to be poured out
on the earth? Thus it went with me, and I was sore
divided. I took counsel with two, the nearest and the
dearest to me upon the earth, who inclined to think
it was a hazardous experiment, and advised that I should
take along with me my store of papers, the accumulation
of seven years' laborious study. And so I did: but, praised
be the Lord, they were suffered to remain undisturbed.
For so much sustenance did I receive, such fulness and
freshness of matter, such power and heartiness of utterance,
that from that day to this I have felt the most assured
confidence in the Holy Ghost; and, during months of daily
laborious preaching, have often fainted indeed in body,
and my very bones cried out with pain, but never have I
once fainted in spirit. Thus did the Holy Ghost deliver
me from that dangerous pinnacle, in which the approba-
tion and applause of distinguished men had exalted me,
and set my feet in a large room and a safe place, esta-
blishing my goings. And thus will he speak in the hearts
of all ministers, as it were, forcing them from their false
positions, if they will but give heed to his voice. The trial
was no small one to my flock also; and some of them still
regret the absence of that natural beauty and grace with
which they were won from the world into the heavenly fold;
but God strengthens me by degrees to wean them of these
childish things; and I have a full confidence that, as it
is needful, he will supply all their wants out of his own
spiritual fulness. Still, however, I have not ceased
to labour in my study, by night and by day, with
diligence, strengthening myself in the knowledge of his
word, and, what is much more important, in the knowledge
of himself; waxing bolder and bolder, according to the
distinctness and certainty with which the Holy Ghost
speaks within my heart. In the same way will others find
enlargement from that terrible bondage to written words,
which has ever been the milstone around the Church of
England, which was introduced into Scotland by the
frivolous school of Blair, and hath now gotten the victory
over almost all our preachers. It is not by a desperate
effort that a man will disentangle himself from the yoke,
but by strengthening that trust in the Holy Ghost which
844
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
remains alive within his heart. Sampson's seven locks
had to grow again before the Nazarite's might returned.
Nature cannot cast nature out; it can only overturn and
overturn the fabric; it cannot lift it from the ground. It
may be that the Lord will give some of the masters in
the church emancipation: I know he can: but they must
know the evil of their state before they will seek deliverance
from it; and that, I fear, they have not seen as yet. I now
perceive it to be a very great mistake to go to the pulpit with
words composed in the closet, and reading them off, to
think that we fulfil the part of a minister of the word.
"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.”
And who shall so speak, but he who is speaking from the
same Spirit who inspired these oracles? For the end of
distribution, Christ hath the Seven Spirits: he did not
cease to have these Spirits when the canon of Scripture
was closed; and, having them for ever, he will distribute
them for ever through the members of his body. The un-
belief of other ages was not so great infidelity, as that
which in this day is called belief. The church at present
is, I think, a greater infidel than the infidels of former
times. Mohammed believed a great deal more of the
Scriptures than many of our most approved churchmen.
Never till now was it creditable to believe the least pos-
sible. O God, have mercy upon us; Christ, have mercy
upon us!
I insist the more upon the gifts proper to the ministers
of the word, because until this high-priesthood of reason,
this continual ministry of incense to the natural faculties
of men, be superseded, by the high-priesthood of the Spirit,
and the ministry of supernatural truth to the faith of the
church, there never will be any general manifestation of
the fruits of the Holy Ghost among the people. The gift
must re-appear in word, before it re-appear in work. There
must be a testimony before there will be a fulfilment.
Preaching as it is at present practised, is no ministry of
the Holy Ghost, but of man's good sense, cultivated by
education and learning; and it begets in the people the
dislike of supernatural agency, the distrust of Christ as
the possessor and distributor of the Seven Spirits of God.
When I hear of valiant preaching of Christ as the rightful
possessor of the Seven Spirits, and of the church as "his
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 845
body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all," I will hail
the dawn of the church's rising glory, and of the Spirit's
returning strength. And it is because I hear of this in
divers parts of my dear Scotland, that I have such steady
hope in the midst of these tempestuous clouds which are
ready to burst upon her. And my exhortation to all the
holy brethren who are looking for the consolation of the
church, is, that they would weary God, and give him no
rest, till he raise up stout-hearted ministers, who will come
forth in the fulness of the Spirit, and set their face like a
flint, against the infidelity both of preachers and of people.
The little brotherhoods whom he is gathering out of all
the churches in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and I
doubt not in other parts also, these beginnings of the Phi-
ladelphian church, ought, I think, steadily to direct their
prayers to this one object, that it would please God either
to instruct their present ministers in the mysteries of
the person, and office, and kingdom of Christ, or that he
would raise up others in their stead, who might make an
end of this high-priesthood of the natural faculties, and
give forth the oracles of the Spirit from faith to faith
being endowed with the word of wisdom and the word of
knowledge from Him who hath the Seven Spirits of God.
Meanwhile, for the revival of the other gifts amongst
those, who know that they are the church's dowry, I would
press the general rule, “ Strengthen the things which re-
main, and are ready to die." Let him who is moved with
tender pity and compassion of the sick, and hath delight
in visiting their beds of languishing and ministering com-
fort to their souls, strengthen this movement of the Spirit,
and observe towards which object of his merciful visita-
tions, the Spirit calleth forth his prayers the most strenu-
ously and the most frequently: let him feel his way, and
hear the voice within him, and observe the leadings of
Providence; and he will be guided, yea forced, to those
objects in whom God hath a purpose to manifest forth his
glory in the way of healing. In a case which hath oc-
curred within these few days under my own knowledge and
observation, as clear and distinct as was the healing of
Jairus's daughter, the Spirit did in this way lead on, and,
as it were, gently enforce his servant to say the word,
"Arise and walk.' His heart had been strongly drawn
846
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
:
to the handmaid of the Lord for nearly two months,
though far distant from her place of abode, and not much
acquainted with her or her family. On the day when the
glory of God was to be manifested in the house, though
drawn thither by the faith and desire of the work about
to be done, he was twice on the eve of departing, and was
twice gently entreated by the father of the maiden to
abide a little longer, for the delight he had in his com-
pany and discourse and as Abraham and Lot, for their
hospitality, got signal manifestations of God's favour, so
did this pious father, though nowise a believer in, but ra-
ther opposer of, supernatural power, that night receive his
daughter whole and sound, after eight years of sorrowful
disease, and disablement in her members. The Lord per-
mits not his servants to act presumptuously in such matters:
or rather our faith is weak; and as he did to Peter, he
bath to take us by the hand, that it sink not altogether.
I should say therefore, both from the general precept, and
from the only instance of healing that has come under my
observation, that the true way of obtaining the revival of this
gift is to strengthen that ordinance of the visitation of the
sick, which still remaineth in all the churches, and was in-
stituted for the end of healing, and not for any mere con-
solation of the afflicted person.
Two other instances of as remarkable a kind have occur-
red under my own personal teaching of the sick. These had
"the gift of faith by the same Spirit :" and when they heard
from my lips, that there was ground for believing, not only
that Christ in them could glorify God by enabling them in
their agonies to say, Thy will, not mine, be done; but also,
that God would glorify Christ in them, by healing all their
diseases; they did, one of them straightway, and the other
after two or three conversations, believe, and were instantly
healed of their diseases, to the wonder and astonishment of
all around. Now, both these persons were examples of lively
faith, in that which they did believe; insomuch that the one
was most joyful in the prospect of instant death, and the other
in the prospect of a life of disease and infirmity. God be
praised, they are now healthy and happy in their families.
This also confirms the rule, " Strengthen the things which
remain and are ready to die." These had strengthened
their faith, and were ready to receive the word when
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 847
it was spoken to them. They were full of assurance of
spiritual benefits; and when temporal benefits were
proposed to them upon the same authority, they believed
with the same assurance, and were healed. Until the pre-
sent most false and miserable doctrine, that a doubting
Christian is a good Christian, be swallowed up in the
belief of God's faithfulness, and assurance be preached
as of the very essence of faith, there will be no general
manifestations, of "the gift of faith," which the Apostle
placeth next to "the word of wisdom and the word of know-
ledge." And until prayers for the sick in the churches be
more than a formality, and visitation of the sick more
than an ordinary visit of comfort, instruction, or exhorta-
tion, there will be no general revival of " the gifts of heal-
ing," which come next in order. And for "the working
of miracles," it is to be eschewed, by holding fast and
strengthening the doctrine, that every work of the Spirit
whatsoever is supernatural or miraculous. If men will
break to pieces the base fabric of error, that conversion
and edification come about by natural means and occasions,
and that the church is only a better sort of civilization,
a purer sort of society, and will uphold with might and main,
that every act of the Spirit is supernatural; and that the
ordinances, though they have an appropriateness to the spi-
ritual grace, have no power or efficacy to produce the same;
if we will strengthen the good doctrine which is ready to
die, that the new birth is " not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God;" and make
the people familiar with the supernatural in all the opera-
tions of Divine grace, and beat down the affirmation, as
false in fact as it is contemptible and pernicious in doc-
trine, that miracles were only provided in the church till
the canon of Scripture was completed, it will not be long
before we shall see the blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, the deaf hear, as well as the poor evangelized.
Of" prophecy," which is the next gift and endowment of
the church, to be occupied as a talent until Christ shall
come again and call us to account, the way to revive the
energy and the manifestation is, for those who have felt
their souls most strongly drawn out to the consideration
of things to come, and to the prophetical word, to con-
tinue to walk in this department of the manifold wisdom
848
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
6
of God, and to give heed to the Spirit speaking within.
them concerning coming events; for it is as much the
Spirit's province "to shew us things to come" as any other
part of truth; and they who deny to the Spirit this office
in the church do verily blaspheme against Him, and
contradict the promise of their gracious Lord.
And to
whatever arguments they may maintain their erroneous
doctrine, that the spirit of prophecy is ceased in the church,
the answer is, Ye make void the Scriptures by your
traditions; for Jesus said, "The Comforter shall lead you
into all truth, and shall shew you things to come;" and
ye say, The future cannot be known by any man; since
the canon of Scripture was completed, the Spirit giveth
no man to know the future; and even to interpret pro-
phecy, which hath respect to the future, is beside the
office of a wise steward, and unworthy the attention of a
good Christian, and must be left to wild and fanciful spe-
culators, restless spirits, who care not to intend the present
weal of the church, but will be hunting after novelties and
brooding over uncertainties.' Therefore ye make void the
word of Christ by your traditions, O ye evil-speaking
men! thoughtless, it may be, but not the less evil-speaking
men. He that will most honestly and earnestly contend
against this abominable lie, which in all forms they are
serving up as an opiate to stupify the church, he that will
occupy himself with the prophetic Scriptures, and main-
tain their high dignity, and shew forth their excellent
uses, he it is who is most likely to be the vessel for con-
taining the precious gift of prophecy. I do not mean that
learning in the prophecies, or in the systems of interpre-
tation, or in the canons of interpretation, availeth much
to the obtaining of this gift; but the drawing of the soul.
to look forward, the interest of the soul in things which
are about to be, the intercession of the soul for the avert-
ing of calamities and for the procuring of blessings. Ah
me! what notable instances of this wonderful gift, are there
not recorded in the histories of those excellent men, who
were submerged beneath a sea of calumny, and living in
secret places from the fear of man's violence; of men who
had a faith in Providence, and understood the mystery of
the wheels of Providence ; of men who had a faith in God's
truth, and, being cast out of the church for their faithful
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 849
witness of it, were left to feed on hope, and promise, and
prophecy ;-our Covenanters, for example, whose story,
written by the worthy Thomas Howie, hath so many in-
stances of this kind, that a late zealous, but unbelieving
editor hath found it good to weed it of these unbecoming
testimonies to a supernatural gift still subsisting in the
church. To men who are resting upon worldly prudence,
and taking every kind of expedient for the security of the
future, there will be no manifestation of this gift; but to
those who are resting on God day by day, and wrestling
with him earnestly for the church and for her particular
members, it will be given I believe, and that speedily, to do
the part of Agabus, who foretold the dearth and prophe-
sied upon Paul; the part of him also who prophesied upon
Timothy; the part of them, in former times, to whom God
revealed every thing before he would do it in the city.
Therefore, if the church would attain to this gift, let her
strengthen the faith in God as a forewarning God, who
giveth to his servants notice of the things which are about
to come to pass; let them meditate, and teach, and give
heed to those who meditate and teach, the prophetic parts
of Scripture.
With respect to the "discernment of spirits," which is
the next endowment of the church; as it is written by the
Apostles that these spirits were to be proved by certain tests
of doctrine, of which the chief were, that Christ was come
in flesh, and that he is to be obeyed as Lord of all; we are
inclined to believe that by degrees, as the church doth
emancipate herself from questions of words and human
forms of doctrine, and establish herself in the doctrine of
the holy unction which she hath received, it will come to
pass that the faculty of discerning spirits will revive in
her, and believers will at once distinguish the spirits
of Antichrist from the Spirit of Christ, false prophets from
true, by the language which they hold upon these cardinal
points of the Christian verity. The way, then, by which
to recover this dormant gift is for the church to have done
with scholastic and systematic theology, which are men's
tests, and to become wise and learned in those heavenly
doctrines concerning the person and office and coming of
Jesus Christ, who is the fulness and office of Godhead in
a body. The question should be, not, Is he Calvinist, or
A D
850
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Arminian; is he Episcopalian, or Presbyterian; is he Papist,
or Protestant? but, Is he of Christ, or of Antichrist,-is he
of the wheat, or of the chaff? The day of decision is at
hand, when none but the plants which our heavenly Fa-
ther hath planted, shall be left standing by the axe of the
feller who is coming up amongst them; and besides, there
is neither truth nor charity in applying to each other
the flattering unction of a human name, which hath no
weight or currency in heaven. What though your friend
be a good Presbyterian, or a good Episcopalian, will that
save him? There is "no name given under heaven by
which men must be saved but the name of Christ." This
gift of the discernment of spirits will, I likewise believe,
make progress along with the revival of love; for sure I am
that it was exercised out of a godly jealousy and watch-
fulness over one another, to pluck out the roots of bitter-
ness which still remained amongst the brethren, to the
endangering of their own souls, and likewise of the whole
church. I am well assured, that if we loved one another
with pure hearts fervently, God would grant to us as clear
a discernment of each other's faults and evil possessions,
and would raise up amongst us, persons, who could search
and probe the spirit for the knowledge of its ailments as
skilfully as the physician doth examine the body, and
ascertain the beginnings and hidden seats of its diseases.
Moreover, I believe that the strengthening of discipline,
which in the church, is what regimen and medicine are in
the world, would be a great means of regaining the neg-
lected gift of discerning spirits. Discipline, I mean, exer-
cised not only by the rulers of the church, whose office
hath to do only with notable cases, but by the mem-
bers of the church, in all faithful loving-kindness one to
another. I am sure that the Spirit is continually urging
one to point out this and that evil in one's friends, whom
our treacherous tongues, consulting, not for mutual good
but mutual flattery, refuseth to obey. Now until men will
be faithful in these small things, they shall never be entrusted
with the greater things; for "unto him that hath shall be
given, and he shall have more abundantly; and from him
that hath not shall be taken even that he hath." Let
us therefore strengthen the things which remain, and are
ready to die.
VIII.] Sardis--Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 851
With respect to the "other tongues," whether as spoken
or interpreted, which is the last of the gifts in the enume-
ration of St. Paul to the Corinthians, we have to observe
that it is a sign which was given to the church, to coun-
tervail in the sight of the heathen the contemptableness of
preaching, which is not with the words of man's wisdom,
nor with the arts of human eloquence, but with the de-
monstration of the Spirit in the gift of tongues and other
gifts. Preaching is God's way of foolishness to ashame man's
way of wisdom by the mightier effects which it produces
upon the hearer; but that men might not despise the
childish simplicity of this ordinance, its "line upon line,
its precept upon precept," there was added the power of
the Holy Ghost, for which the first preachers were re-
quired to wait in Jerusalem till they were endowed with that
power from on high; and Paul, in a certain place, speak-
ing of teachers, who with vain words of man's wisdom
perverted the church, saith, "I will know, not the word
only of such an one, but also the power." From this
consideration we are inclined to believe, that the gift of
tongues will arise, in those parts of the church where the
truth is most called in question, and is like to be overpower-
ed by the weight of human opinion and man's preaching.
Then, and there, will God make his own voice to be heard,
and his own presence to be recognised in the despised and re-
jected defenders of "the faith once delivered to the saints."
Moreover, when he is minded to send forth anew Apostolical
and Evangelical men, to give that warning unto Babylon,
and to all the nations of the world, which is prophesied of
in this book, saying, " Fear God, and give glory to him, for
the hour of his judgment is come," I feel a strong conviction
that the work will begin, as it began of old, with the gift.
of tongues; and it appeareth to give no small sign of an
approaching work of this kind, that the gift of tongues is
reported to have re-appeared amongst us. Furthermore, I
have come to understand from a deeper meditation of Joel's
prophecy, that this gift of tongues which Peter asserteth
to be the fulfilment thereof, was intended as a seal against
the fearful day of the Lord, from which there is to be
deliverance in Mount Zion, and in the remnant whom
the Lord our God shall call; and therefore I would say,
Strengthen the missionary spirit that existeth in the
4 D 2
852
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
church; deliver it out of the hands of self-constituted com
mittees, and let it be resident in the members of the church,
whom God shall thereto call by his gifts; strengthen the
anticipation of impending judgments which is now in the
church, and with it the desire of warning the world, and
God will add the gift of tongues, that the desire of the Holy
Ghost in the hearts of his people may not be defeated. Beat
down the error, the hideous error, that God doth not love all
men, and willeth not that all men should repent; and
maintain the truth, that the world and all mankind have
the barrier of sin removed from between them and God,
that they may draw near to him in faith of the atonement
which Christ hath made: act upon this truth in your fami-
lies, in your flocks, in your neighbourhoods: tell his love
of all men unto all men, and rest assured that the Lord
will enable you to tell it beyond the bounds and limits
of the English language, in every language of the earth.
Finally, "strengthen the things that remain and are ready
to die ; make no bounds, nor leaps, nor desperate reaches,
after a something which the Spirit hath given no notice of
in your own soul. Let the Holy Ghost, and not man's
ambition, move your prayer for gifts; let the Holy Ghost,
and not man's affection, move your desire to exercise your
gifts. Thus, by abiding in our places, and minding our
callings, and filling our offices in the church, and strength-
ening our graces, and well occupying what gifts we have,
shall we be increasing more and more in knowledge, and
in love, and in power, and in humbleness of mind, until
we come to be the fulness of Him that filleth all in
all. There can be no doubt, that God is greatly blessing
his church, in many ways, both by word and by deed, that
he is reviving the power of preaching, that he is awaken-
ing the spirit of love and unity in the hearts of his people,
and that he is confirming their faith by signs and won-
ders. I see a glorious dawn; and though it be sadly
clouded and overcast, I feel assured that it is no northern
light sent to cheer the night, but the full blush of morn
which fills the eastern heavens. Ours it is to propitiate its
coming with songs of the morning, and to hail the rising
Sun of Righteousness. Ours it is to welcome the unequi-
vocal tokens of the coming Lord, to invoke the holy Light
to come speedily and disperse these envious clouds of dark-
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 853
ness. And as, on the day of the jubilee morn, men were
stationed on the eastern mountains of Jerusalem to catch
the first streak of dawn, and give intimation thereof to the
priests who stood in the temple, ready harnessed to sound its
welcome through the silver trumpets, whence, caught by
the watchman stationed on every neighbouring hill, the
glad tidings were sounded from mountain top to mountain
top, and reverberated through all the valleys of Israel, and
welcomed every where with music and with dancing; so
ought we, who watch around the walls of our spiritual
Zion, and are scattered over her borders, to lift up our
voice like a trumpet and welcome right joyfully the signs
of the coming redemption and glory; nor be discouraged
by those present possessors of the inheritance, who, not
being the rightful owners, are full loth to hear that their
tenure is fast coming to an end.
After this instruction to the angel of the church of
Sardis, comes another of the same kind, and not less ap-
propriate to the condition of the church in this land, and
to all the Reformed churches; "Remember therefore, how
thou hast received, and heard, and hold fast till I come."
These words carry an appeal to the trust which had been
committed to him, both as to gift and as to preaching; for
the receiving, I think, refers to the gift of the Holy Ghost;
being the same word as is used by Peter on the day of
Pentecost," Ye shall receive the Holy Ghost," and by
our Lord (Acts i. 8), "Ye shall receive power," and in the
narrative of the Samaritan church (Acts xiii. 15, 17, 19),
and every where, I may say, throughout the Scriptures.
But as to the hearing, I think it refers to the preaching
of the Gospel. How can they hear without a preacher?
And both together are included in that word of the Apo-
stle, "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or
by the hearing of faith?" There being these two ways of
communication by gift, and by preaching, which in the old
time went together, and were intended always to go to-
gether, the chief Shepherd chargeth his unfaithful servant
over the flock of Sardis, to remember how abundantly he
had received and heard: and the like charge giveth he
to every pastor of every flock; nor will he be turned
aside in the day of account by any pretence that we
received no such gift, and heard no such preaching.
4 D 3
1
854
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
The gift and the preaching were unto his church; to every
member according to its office in the body, to every ser-
vant according to his ability. Of all the true servants no
one was passed over; each had a gift to trade upon, until
his Master should come again: to all the baptized Peter
promised the gift of the Holy Ghost, and all the brethren
in the church of Samaria received it. Christ doth not
contemplate his church as subsisting in many generations,
and having a different responsibility, according to their dis-
tance from the time of his incarnation. He contemplates
his church as one body, independent on time and place,
of which all the members are equally near and equally
dear to him. He presents himself as the Head of that
body possessing the Seven Spirits of God, and the seven
stars; and he saith, Were you at a loss for power in the
Holy Ghost? why believed you not on me? why made you
not your suit unto me? Were you in want of a star, an
angel, to enlighten you? why made you not your request
unto me? What I possess you possess: all mine are
yours is it not written, "All things are yours, whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or things present, or things
to come, or life, or death; for ye are mine, and I am
God's ?" This is the law of the church, and be assured
this is the language which Christ will hold to every mem-
ber of his church; and the sooner men take this to heart
the better for them. Let no one grudge or grieve, but
rather rejoice that in Christ Jesus he hath such a privilege.
Would the poor weavers in Spitalfields rejoice or grieve,
did I tell them that there is wealth of money provided
for every one of them, and standing at their names in the
book of the Bank of England? And should the poorer
church grieve because I tell her, that in Christ Jesus
there is provided for her riches and wealth to supply all
her wants? Let them deny, if they can, that Christ hath
the Seven Spirits of God; let them deny, if they can,
that the church is his fulness: but if these two verities
they dare not to deny, let them rejoice in their strength, and
go about their work manfully and cheerfully. I say,
therefore, to every minister, and to every member of
Christ, "Remember what thou hast received and heard :"
thou hast received Christ, and with him God will freely
give thee all things: thou hast heard the Gospel, which is
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 855
glad tidings of great joy to thee and to all mankind: or if,
O reader, thou knewest not before, that thou hadst these
words, and these gifts treasured up for thee in Christ,
thou knowest it now; and see that thou believe it; and
believing it, that thou act upon it, and tell it to thy neigh-
bours and thy friends, that they may be partakers with thee
of the fulness of Christ. Remember what thou receivedst
and heardst.
The gift of the Holy Ghost came with, and not without,
the preaching of the Gospel. As they heard Peter preach
the Gospel unto them, Cornelius and his company re-
ceived the Holy Ghost; and the Galatians received the
Holy Ghost by the hearing of faith. And I believe that
the reason for which these gifts were not received at the
Reformation was the defective preaching of Christ, whom
indeed they well understood, and declared as the only
sacrifice and atonement for sin, but very imperfectly as
the High Priest and Head of his church. For had they
understood his glory as they understood his incarnation,
the heavenly things as they understood the earthly, I
make no doubt they would have received the gifts of the
Holy Ghost, which hold of the former; as well as the
fruits of righteousness, which hold of the latter. The
Reformers had too strong an enemy in their face to think
of any thing else but their deliverance out of his hand;
and they rested too much upon the secular arm for the
promotion of religion. They contemplated the church
more in its national than in its celestial aspect: they ap-
pealed too much to history, and learning, and human au-
thority; all which was indeed greatly for the benefit of
the kingdom, but much to the detriment of the church.
Their minds were possessed with the questions of the day;
and being full of these, the Scripture was considered more
in its bearings upon them, than in its own integrity and
fulness. Take up the writings of any of the Reformers,
even such as Jewel or Hooker, and you find learning,
wisdom, and sound divinity; but withal it hath respect to
the earthly, rather than the heavenly, relations of the
church. Their knowledge is limited; their ideas few :
and their discourse scanty, concerning the glory of
Christ, and the glory which is to be brought to us at his
appearing. To clear the questions of the king's authority
856
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
and the authority of the church, of the Law and the Gospel,
of the sacraments and the orders of the church, of ceremo-
nies and customs, was the main argument of their discourse.
In their symbols of faith, they were Protestant more than
Christian, scholastic more than apostolic, systematical
more than evangelical. How little have you there con-
cerning the personal offices and operations of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost! how much concerning election,
justification, and the sacraments; how little concerning
the present office and dignity of Christ, the future glory
and the kingdom! These things were not opened unto
them: there was little or no discourse concerning the
promise of the Spirit into which Christ entered when he
ascended up on high. Of the Spirit of Christ in the be-
liever, they much discoursed: of the Holy Ghost, as the Spi-
rit of the Father, exceeding little; wherein, though I lament
over their shortcoming, on their own account, I blame them
not, neither would be thought to detract from their excel-
lent work. But I would speak the truth for the truth's
sake; and also to explain how it was that they received
not the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The subject of the first
resurrection, of the coming of Christ, of the judgment of
the nations, and of the new Jerusalem, and the new hea-
vens and the new earth, of the restoration of the Jews
and the condition of the world, was to them still covered
with that darkness and indistinctness which the apostasy had
brought over every other doctrine of the Christian faith.
Upon these points they retained very much the form of
doctrine which they found. Now, till these subjects are
opened to the church, till the church is put into the con-
dition of a witness for Christ's glory, which, personally,
he now possesseth, and hereafter will bring to his mem-
bers, she will not be endowed with the heavenly gift
and the powers of the world to come, which are the seal
of that testimony. Till then, she knows not what use to
make of them; they are not for shew, neither are they
for comfort, but they are for proof; and before you bring
your proof, you must first enunciate your proposition.
Within these few years the church hath been enunciating
the truth, concerning the glory and coming of Christ.
This is now the word of the preacher; and to this, which
the multitude, with the rulers and chief priests, are de-
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 857
nying, God is giving his testimony, by causing signs and
wonders to be done, in the name of his holy child Jesus.
This now is the true reason why the gifts in time past have
disappeared from the church. Would any one expect holi-
ness without preaching Christ's holy life in our flesh?
would he expect holiness by preaching the Anabaptist
doctrine of Christ's having other flesh, or no flesh at all;
or by preaching the merit of our own works, or by preach-
ing free will; or by preaching the merits of saints, or any
such "doctrines of devils?" No more may any one ex-
pect the gift of the Holy Ghost, without preaching Christ
glorified, Christ endowed with the Seven Spirits of God,
for the service of his church; and, thus endowed, pre-
sent in the members; and coming to glorify them with
himself; and to use them in judging and governing the
earth. These truths have ceased from being preached
openly in the church, since the first four centuries; and,
accordingly, since the same period have the gifts ceased in
the church.
There were many causes which conspired together to
obscure and hide those truths, of the heavenly things, of
the glory of Christ and his church, of Christ speaking
from heaven in his members, upon which the gifts of the
Spirit attend as the witness. Whereof the chief were, first,
the adoption by the preachers in the church, of those
methods of discourse which the ancient philosophers and
orators of Greece and Rome brought to such perfection:
very early was the foolishness of preaching cast aside, for
the eloquence and learning of the ancient schools. Now,
as we have seen, the power and demonstration of the
Spirit were given to countervail the human weakness,
artlessness, and childishness, which appeared in the method
of the preachers. This evil by no means ceased at the
Reformation; but was rather revived, and brought to
great maturity in the theological and systematic discourses
which followed thereupon.-The second reason was, the
departure of the church from the witness of the Holy
Ghost to the witness of councils, whose collective deli-
berations and judgments came, to supplant the apostolical
evidences, of signs and wonders and miracles and gifts of
the Holy Ghost. At the Reformation, this was strength-
ened, instead of being weakened, in the Protestant churches;
858
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
which, by their Articles and Confessions, defined the form
of their doctrine, with even a more authoritative hand, than
had been done before or was ever done after, save in the
Council of Trent: and we, their successors, instead of
giving liberty to the Spirit to testify upon any point more
fully, seem to grow more and more resolved against
permitting any such liberty of the Holy Ghost.-The
third reason, as it seemeth to me, for the cessation of
discourse concerning Christ's glory, and the consequent
cessation of the seal thereof in these gifts, was the transfer
which, towards the end of the third century, was made of
the church's trust and confidence, from Christ her Head
unto the "powers that be," His representatives on the
earth; to whom, indeed, it was the duty of the church to
yield all subjection in the Lord, as it was their duty to
furnish her all protection and patronage in the Lord; but in
things spiritual, in things internal to herself, she must own
no head but the Lord Jesus Christ. From the time of Con-
stantine, the church began to make flesh her arm, to court
secular honours and worldly well-being, until, by degrees,
the Lord raised up in the false prophet, that is, the pope
of Rome, a scourge both to her who gave, and to them
who received the honour that pertaineth only to Christ.
Now, though the Reformed churches did faithfully and
right manfully extricate themselves, from the dominion of
this the little horn, which domineered over the ten-horned
beast, they still leaned much more to the civil power
than they ought to have done. I mean not to deny, that in
the Scottish Church, we did put that question upon its proper
basis; but to assert that the question altogether looked too
large and prominent in the eye of the Reformers, to the
eclipsing of the true question of the Headship of Christ.
The Scottish Reformers would have brought out of the civil
magistrate, a well-spring of nourishment unto the church;
and, had they understood the subject of Christ's headship,
and his way of asserting it, by the gifts of the Spirit, they
would have been preserved from such a delusive hope. Not
perceiving that Christ had intended, in all time until his
coming again, to preserve in his church, by signs, and
wonders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, the presence of his
own supernatural protection; and taking upon them, from
the false miracles of the Papacy, to doubt, and even some
VIII.] Sardis--Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 859
of them to deny, that miracles were any longer to be
looked for in the church; it came to pass that they sought
so to limit and define and regulate the office of a king,
as that he should yield to the church that patronage,
safeguard, and promotion which Christ alone is able to
afford. And, labouring in this way, the Scottish Reformers,
and not a few of those upon the continent also, lost the
true doctrine of the king's authority, and adopted the
false doctrine, that if a king rule tyrannically, he may be
resisted, and even deposed, by a Christian people; which
is at once to disobey the commandments of the Lord and
his Apostles, and to refuse the example which they and
the primitive church for three centuries set before us. To
refuse, indeed, the command of an earthly sovereign,
when it contradicts the will of God, is the act of a true
subject of the Lord Jesus Christ; but to resist him, is to
resist God and Christ, whose minister he is. While the
Scottish Reformers, in their ignorance of the nature,
extent, and continual manifestation of Christ's headship,
did thus, by seeking to bring more out of an earthly king
than his office can yield, overturn the principle of sub-
jection altogether, making it to depend upon the judg-
ment of private persons, whether they should obey or
resist; the English Reformers being well guarded on this
hand by the vigilance of a queen, jealous of her prero-
gative to the very uttermost, yet failed in preventing
her from meddling with the sacred offices of the church
itself, even to the interdicting of preaching altogether.
Desirous as I am at all times, and in all ways to justify
that great work of God, both in England and in Scotland,
I cannot help lamenting that the Church of England
should ever have permitted the name, Head of the Church,
to be given to any creature upon earth. In this matter
the Scottish Church was more wisely guided of the Spirit.
When the kings of Great Britain would have practised
with her as they had done with the Church of England,
she at once came forth with a noble testimony of martyrs
against the usurpation; and, during that season of perse-
cution which occurred in the reigns of the last two of the
Stuart family, when the Church of Scotland was cast out
for her testimony to Christ as the only Head, there were
wrought, for the sake of that noble army of witnesses,
860
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
things wonderful; as truly miraculous and supernatural, I
believe, as ever occurred in any age ;--insomuch that when
Woodrow, the father of the church historian, and himself
long a persecuted man, was upon his death-bed, it lay heavy
on his conscience that he had not recorded the wonderful
dealings of God with his persecuted servants in those days;
and he took his son, the church historian, pledged by solemn
vow to a dying father, that he would do his best, to gather
up the traditions and monuments of these miraculous inter-
positions, which were still to be found surviving amongst
the people. And how faithfully he did this, is partly
known by his Church History, and is partly not known
through the, I must call it, neglect, of the University of
Glasgow to make public those many volumes of his
narratives which lie hidden in their public library. Me-
thinks to have given forth to the church these monu-
ments of God's dealings, with our persecuted fathers,
would have been a still more excellent work, than building a
stone monument on the summit of every hill. But since
the period of these wrestlings for the headship of Christ,
which concluded at the Revolution, there hath been in
this country, in Scotland as well as England, a deathlike
silence concerning the headship of Christ, and a contented-
ness with the secularities of government, which has done
more, at least in our own church, to destroy the spirit of
religion, than all the persecutions she hath endured since
the Reformation. Now, however, that, with all ber strength,
with all her popularity among men of all parties, she is
turning, or about to turn, her hand against the testimony of
God's love to the world, Christ's work in sinful flesh, and the
Spirit's assurance of salvation in the soul of the believer,
the coming of Christ in his glory, and the work of
the Spirit by outward signs and gifts to testify thereto;
now that the witnesses to these the foundations of the
faith and hope as it is in Jesus Christ, are every where
throughout Scotland contemned and spoken against, we
may rest assured that the Lord will honour them, and
speak for them from heaven; as he did heretofore for the
Apostles and Disciples rejected from the synagogue, when
he stretched forth his hand to heal, and caused signs and
wonders to be done by the name of his holy child Jesus.
There are many other causes which might be enumerated
VIII.] Sardis- Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 861
for the cessation in the church of these wonderful works
and gifts of the Holy Ghost: but I think they all resolve
themselves into these three, which have been mentioned,-
the adoption of the wisdom of the natural man, instead
of the foolishness of preaching by the ministers of the
word,—the looking unto councils and assemblies of the
church for the determination of questions, instead of ap-
pealing them directly to the Holy Ghost,-the reposing on
the protection of the king of the state, instead of the pro-
tection of the Head of the church. These three causes
have conspired together to produce an almost total blind-
ness unto, and silence upon, the glory of Christ, and the
heavenly things connected therewith; whence also it hath
come to pass, as of necessity, that the Spirit, having no-
thing to witness to, hath ceased from his witness. But
whose fault was all this? Ours, be sure, and not Christ's
or God's; and when we cease from our backslidings and re-
turn unto the Lord, will not the Lord return unto us? Will
he fail of his promise? Is his church not his church still?
Are we straitened in him? Verily no: we are straitened in
ourselves all this hath come upon us for our unfaithful-
ness and unbelief. Therefore hold up your heads, brethren,
for your redemption draweth nigh; lift up your voice like
a trumpet, for your salvation cometh; open your mouth
wide, and it shall be filled. A day of glory is dawning
upon the church, and a day of strength. She is about to
be separated from the dross, and to shine like the molten
gold; and the dross indeed will be blown away by the
windy storm that is arising. I feel it: he is sitting as a refiner
amongst the sons of Levi. I feel it: it is a day of search-
ing. As the masters of the synagogue searched the houses
of the Jews for leaven, to destroy it, if any should be found,
before the days of unleavened bread, so He whose eyes
are like a flame of fire is searching the hearts of his people,
to see if there be in them any leaven of malice and ini-
quity, that they may be wholly an unleavened lump, holi-
ness unto the Lord, and ready for the Master's use when
he shall appear. Therefore I say unto the churches in
this land abiding, and unto all the angels of the churches,
"Remember how ye have received and heard;" and I add
therewith the two other words of our great Shepherd,
"Hold fast and repent."
4 E
862
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
The word translated, "hold fast," is the same which in
the epistle preceding is translated "keep," and not the
same with that which is there translated "hold fast ;" and
would have been better translated here, as in the former
instance, "keep." It does not convey in the original the
idea of any force exercised to wrest the thing away; but
simply the duty of carefully preserving that which hath
been committed to our trust. It is the word commonly
used in the expression, "keeping the commandments;" and
is three times used in this chapter, besides in the place
before, as ver. 8, in praise of the angel of Philadelphia,
"Thou hast kept my word;" and again, ver. 10, “Thou
has kept the word of my patience, I will also keep thee
from the hour of temptation." To this duty of keeping
what hath been committed to his trust, the angel of the
church of Sardis is called, indicating to us, that every gift
of God, and every word of God, is secured to us, only
upon the condition of our own faithfulness in keeping it.
This ought to be of itself a sufficient answer to those who
ask, Wherefore have the gifts of the church ceased? The
answer is, The church was not careful to keep them; and
so it is with every gift, whether of creation, of providence,
or of grace; and so it must be, in all gifts from a holy
God, unto a responsible creature. If God were not to
call an account, he would neither he acting the part of a
holy God nor honouring the dignity of a responsible
creature; and if he were not to visit the misuse of his
gifts with the diminution, or withdrawal of them, he would
be the patron of unholiness, ingratitude, and disobedience.
At first he endued man with free will, and lordship over
the creatures; both of which gifts he sacrificed by the one
act of listening to the voice of the creature whose lord he
was, and so lost the freedom of his will, and had it
brought into bondage to the creation possessed by that
evil spirit who spake in the serpent. So, also, the angels
kept not their first estate, and are reserved for chains of
darkness against the judgment of the great day. Christ,
the Redeemer, took up things as he found them; took the
will under its bondage, and the flesh under its law of sin
and death, and the creation under the dominion of the
devil, and prevailed to cast the devil out, to condemn sin
in the flesh, and to redeem the will of man, and make it
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 863
at all points harmonious with the will of God. And hav-
ing accomplished this work, whereof the proof is in his
resurrection, He requires of his people to keep that of
which He put them in possession; that is, to keep their
mind or will obedient unto God, their flesh with the sin in
it condemned, the world with the devil in it cast out.
We have body, soul, and spirit, to preserve blameless,
until the day of the Lord; and because no mere man
could do this, until the Son of God came and did it for
us, so no man can keep what he did otherwise than by
having the Son of God indwelling in him. It is Christ in
us who keeps the house clean, which Christ cleansed; and
keeps the tenant free, whom Christ set free. Neverthe-
less this is not done without great personal sacrifice, and
self-denial on our parts. For we are not like a wheel, to
be whirled round the other way at the will of another
nor like a balance, to be poised down by an additional
weight; but we are creatures with a will, though in bon-
dage, with a mind, though alienated from God by the
wickedness that is in us: and Christ in us is a purely spi-
ritual presence, working in and upon the mind by know.
ledge, by love, and other spiritual applications, which,
receiving the renewed mind, is called upon to gird itself
to the work of denying the course and inclination of
nature, of keeping alive its communion and fellowship with
God, of mortifying the flesh with its affections and lusts,
of denying the world, and being transformed by the re-
newing of the mind. Now this work of believing in Christ
for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
and, having believed, of testifying to the wisdom which we
have received, and enjoying cleanness of conscience, and
devoting ourselves to the Lord, and escaping free from
all bondage, is a heavy, laborious, painful work, and
needeth to be encouraged and sustained by every means
whatsoever. I say not but that the work is its own reward,
and that we ought to love holiness for its own sake, yea,
and glory in the freedom with which the Son hath made
us free; but truly, with all the advantages of promise and
hope, and with all the first fruits of that glorious reward,
the church hath ever found it a heavy labour to persevere
in the work of keeping that which is committed to her
And therefore it is, that the gracious Lord,-when,
trust.
4 E 2
864
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
by rising from the dead, he had set man upon his feet
again, and by ascending into heaven had received the
reward for that work accomplished, when he had received
the celestial throne, in reward for having redeemed the
earthly kingdom,--sent down a first-fruits of that heavenly
treasure and glory, for the purpose of encouraging those,
who had set their shoulders heartily to the work of perse-
vering in that redemption, which for them he had wrought
out. To those who were diligently keeping the earthly
glory which his resurrection accomplished, and glorifying
God on the earth, as he had done, he did send down the
first fruits of their reward, as an encouragement to them
to go on, to keep the faith, and finish their course with
joy. And I believe, that, while the church stood to it,
and preserved her holiness, and love, and liberty, and
loyalty to God, she was fed and strengthened from that
celestial fountain of the Holy Ghost. But as she failed
to keep herself unpolluted from the world and the flesh,
and ceased to be a witness of Jesus and the resurrection,
the Lord in glory, whose righteousness is his Father's
righteousness, must withdraw his countenance from his
faithless spouse, and leave her forlorn of those celestial
ornaments with which her beauty was worthily bedecked.
All glorious as the sun, with a crown of twelve stars, and
raiment whiter than any fuller could white them, she stood
on earth the mother of saints, the innocent object of all
the world's contempt and hate, the beloved object of the
Lord of heaven. And he left her not alone, but he fed
her with celestial food, and gave her wings as the eagle,
that she might ascend on high, and commune with heaven.
While thus she stood faithful to her Lord, she was
honoured of her Lord with heavenly gifts, wherewithal
she might bless, not her own children only, but the re-
creant world, and teach the enemies of God what was
the grace and mercy of him against whom they were in
arms. "Keep," saith Christ to the church of Sardis; and
"keep," say I, in his name, unto the Protestant churches,
keep faithful unto Christ; keep the standing of redeemed
men, free and not using your liberty as a cloke of licen-
ciousness; walk as he also walked, and crucify the flesh,
as he also crucified it; perfect holiness as he also perfected
it; have, in one word, the Spirit of Christ, and exhibit
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 865
the Spirit of Christ, and it shall not be long before you
receive the Spirit of power and glory. If the church
would keep the commandments of Christ, Christ would
fulfil all his promises to her; and these commandments
are not grievous to him who hath the Spirit of Christ:
to him who hath it not, they are impossible but how
can the church have the Spirit of Christ, when not the man
Christ Jesus, but the Evangelical system is preached to
the people. If they would preach Jesus and the resurrec-
tion, instead of preaching a set of theological terms and
dry moralities, God would use their word to beget Christ
in the hearts of the people; and to the babes of Christ
thus begotten by God, it would come easy to bear his
yoke, and to carry his burden. But with their preaching
of natural things to the natural man, with their words of
natural wisdom, they have made a church of hypocrites
and unbelievers, worshippers of reason, and haters of
every thing supernatural; so that they cannot receive
the wisdom which is from God, the spiritual things which
are spiritually discerned. This is a great evil under the
sun, that by false and ignorant teachers the Lord's flock
should be corrupted. But it is still worse, that, when the
truth appears in the mouth of faithful teachers, these self-
sufficient naturalists and rationalists combine, at once to
extinguish it as foul error and superstition; and the poor
church is left like a man bewildered, who has wandered
till he is weary, and is ready to lay him down and sleep
in the cold night, though it should be to rise no more.
I feel assured in my own mind, that if our church do so
persecute the faithful in Christ Jesus, God will send upon
her some scourge, either from the hand of the Papacy or
of Infidelity, perhaps from both; and she will then feel
what a poor wreck of her former self she is now become.
If, as is truly the case with her, and not with her only,
but with every Reformed church, there be little left to keep,
then is there much present to repent of, which is the last
injunction of our Shepherd.
It is most comfortable to reflect, that for every disease
of man's soul there is a remedy in God's grace; that from
every wandering of man's wicked heart there is a way of
return unto his Father's house. God is indeed very gra-
cious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. A man
4 E 3
866
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
would have despaired of such a servant as this minister
of the church of Sardis; a man would have been ready
to cast him off, as utterly hopeless; not so the God-man,
"whose ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our
thoughts; for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever."
Therefore, without any violence, without any upbraiding,
with gentle and kind remonstrance, doth he deal with this
squanderer and spendthrift, who thought only of the ap-
probation of man, and set light by the favour of God and
of Christ. I am not worthy to be the interpreter, nor
art thou, O reader, worthy to have these gracious words
interpreted to thee. Let me, as they pass through my
mind unto thine, have the first taste of their grace and
sweetness. How gentle a Master art thou, O my Bishop!
Verily, verily, thou art meek and lowly, and with thee
the weary and heavy laden shall find rest unto their souls.
O good Shepherd, think of me, and of my flock, in these
backsliding times, and enable us by thy good Spirit to
keep and to repent. As thy servant hath taken upon him
to interpret these words of thine unto the churches, and
hath lifted up his hand, and vowed to be faithful, and to
set down nought out of favour, or out of malice, grant
unto him first of all to repent of all his naughtiness,
wickedness, and unfaithfulness in thy sight, to gird up
his loins like a man, and serve thee with all his heart.
In this mind it is, that he undertaketh, without partiality
and without hypocrisy, to apply thy words unto the mi-
nisters of thy church, and unto their flocks.-O I am not
ignorant, my brethren, of the sad condition into which we
are all declined away. Our strength is gone like to a man
dying of consumption: we cannot breathe the element of
spiritual life; we have no voice to declare the glorious.
things of God; and if we had a voice, we have no know-
ledge of them to set forth. And how is this, O my
brethren? God's hand is not removed, his arm is not
weakened, his love is not exhausted, his strength is not
impaired; and for Christ, hear him speaking to you the
comfortable words of this epistle, for ye are not worse
than the angel of the church of Sardis. Awake, shake
yourselves from the dust; arise, and Christ shall give you
light. Say not within yourselves, It is not so; we are
not so far faded and gone; our beauty is not turned into
!
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: His Instructions. 867
corruption, nor are our garments moth-eaten. Ah, so thinks
the man in the last stage of consumption: he dreams
of recovery, and oft is his pale and emaciated cheek
flushed with a hectic hue, which, though it look beautiful
and healthy to the inexperienced eye, is to the physician
the surest symptom of death. And so, be assured, is it
with the church at this present day. Her zeal for doctrine
that now of late hath flamed up, betrays only her ignor-
ance and incapacity of entertaining sound doctrine. Her
zeal for discipline reveals only the want of that love which
is the soul of discipline. Ah me ! what searchings of heart
are there not for thee, O my mother church! Now be
convinced, O men and brethren, that we are come to an
exceeding low estate, that our garments are moth-eaten,
that our beauty is like a fading flower, and our fruitful-
ness is utterly blighted. Why should we perish for want
of taking thought, and timely repentance? Is there no
man, is there no intercessor? Oh get ye up into your
watch-towers, ye that know the peril of our Zion. Gird
on your arms, and stand in the breach, ye mighty and
valiant men; lift up your voice and weep, O ye that look
upon the desolation of our city; call upon the Lord, for
he will have mercy, and will abundantly pardon. I lately
dwelt in a house beside a lady who was in the last stage
of consumption, which the physicians pronounced one of
the most rapid they had ever known, and that it would
certainly terminate her days very shortly. In one day,
she was made whole and well. So the consumptive
church, the church almost entirely consumed away, may,
through faith, in one day become whole and well. There
is not a minister, the most hardened in transgression, the
most dead to every sense of duty, the most subject to the
devil, the world, and the flesh, who may not in one day
become faithful and true faith, and repentance the fruit
of faith, are not dependent upon time, place, or circum-
stance for their efficacy, but are entirely supernatural
works of the Spirit of Christ. O that God would turn
the hearts of my brethren to the things which he hath
enabled me to write, concerning the present estate of the
church; for it is true, and, being true, ought not for any
unworthiness or infirmity in me to be postponed or reject-
ed. O my God, I turn to thee: thou art my comforter.
868
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
The land is sore afflicted. This day when I write these sor-
rowful words, such a cloud of apprehension hangeth over
this city, as in the memory of man hath not been equalled.
A sovereign, beloved of all the people, is advised by the
heads of the government not to venture into the capital
of his kingdom, nor to partake of the banquet which hath
been prepared for him, and a thousand of the chief of his
people. And for once, this day, which hath been in ages
past a day of festivity and mirth and splendid pageantry,
is become a day of fear and dreadful apprehension. The
garlands hang all around the halls of the banquet house,
but there is no eye to look upon their beauty: the meats
are preparing, but there are no guests to taste of them.
Behold the chief ruler of the city, with all his counsellors,
are afraid and hide their faces. They called unto feasting,
but the Lord hath called unto fasting. It is an omen
hard to read; and perhaps the Lord would have it not to
be read at all, but to exercise us with its fearful uncer-
tainty. Surely, as in the burden of the valley of vision,
the Lord God of hosts did call us to weeping, and to
mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth;
and behold there was joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and
killing sheep: but here He arrested us, and said, "Ye
shall not eat the flesh, and drink the wine, but ye shall
be in perplexity and dismay." Hath he done this in grace
and mercy, or hath he done it in judgment? Where is
the wise man, skilled in the ways of the Lord, who will
give the interpretation thereof? It is a wonderful provi-
dence, a providence most strange and wonderful. It is
too deep for my understanding; yet dare I to hope, and
almost to believe, that it is done in answer to the prayers
of the people who know the Lord in this city. I know
that at the very time the resolution was come to, prayers
were making, by desire, in at least one church, that the
Lord would bring the counsels of the wicked to nought;
and I fondly hope, that the measures which have been
adopted, are in answer to those prayers, and for the pre-
venting of pillage and bloodshed. God grant that on the
morrow I may not have to cancel, nor to contradict, what
I have now written. O that man would believe that judg-
ments of a fearful kind are hanging over this land, and that
the Lord lingers to hear if there be any intercessors! But,
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 869
alas! the church which should have been the interpreter
of providence to the land, and the intercessor between
God and the guilty people, we the ministers and elders of
the church have refrained our voice; we have been at ease
in Zion; we have not been faithful to our king, our coun-
try, or our God. We have been the loudest to speak of
glorious and good things; we have sounded forth joyful
acclamations, because of the things that are coming on the
earth. And of all the church, who have been the loudest
in these prophecies of lies? Those who hold the head the
highest, saying, We are the people; those who have taken
to themselves the name of Evangelical. From them, and
from their reports, and from their most erroneous views, have
proceeded these false expectations in the bondage of which
the church is now holden, that she should not be able to
know the signs of these times, which even the worldly and
the infidel people can discern. Ah me, what have we to
repent of, to repent of in dust and ashes!
THE THREATENING.
The good Shepherd, having thus given instructions to
his unworthy servant, proceedeth to enforce them, by a
threatening in case of disobedience; and because, of all
his delinquencies, the want of watchfulness was the root,
the threatening turns upon this as being inclusive of all
the rest. "If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come
on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what
hour I will come upon thee." Though in our interpreta-
tion of the words, "be watchful," with which the instruc-
tions begin, we explained it in a large sense, as applicable
to the whole pastoral care, we feel now a disposition to
add thereto a more particular application of it, derived
from the connexion in which it is here introduced. Not
in this passage alone, but in so many besides, is the duty
of watchfulness connected with the event of the Lord's
appearing, that we make no doubt there is a very frequent,
and almost a constant and necessary, connexion between
the one and the other. Let me first point out the in-
stances in which the duty of watchfulness is connected
with the coming of the Lord. In the xxiv th of the Go-
spel by Matthew, which, with the xxv th, is a regularly
constructed discourse concerning the coming of the Lord,
870
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
after having declared, that " of the day and hour of his
coming knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven,
but the Father only ;" and added, that the world should be
apprehended by it in the lap of ease, and peace, and carnal
security, as by the Flood, and that his saints would be
caught away from the side of their nearest and dearest
friends, without being able to lend them any help, he
adds, "Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your
Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man
of the house had known in what watch the thief would
come, he would have watched, and would not have suf-
fered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also
ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of
man cometh" (Matt. xxiv. 42-44). And having drawn
out the same momentous truth into the form of the Parable
of the Virgins, he concludes it in like manner with these
words: "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day
nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh" (xxv. 13).
This passage is the more to be noted, as containing the
same similitude of the thief which is in our text. And
this similitude is drawn out into a practical form by the
Apostle, in that very comfortable discourse upon the second
advent, contained in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians
(iv. 18—v. 12). He there refers to it as a thing con-
stantly known in the churches, that "the day of the
Lord so cometh as a thief in the night" (v. 2), and that
the churches knowing this were so enlightened as that it
should not overtake them as a thief; and by their expecta-
tion of that glorious event he denominates them "children
of the day," as our Lord in another place calleth them
"children of the resurrection ;" and therefore, says he,
"Let us not sleep as do others, but watch and be sober." In
another place also, and that a passage of the Revelations,
is the same duty of watchfulness connected with the Lord's
coming as a thief: "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed
is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he
walk naked, and they see his shame" (Rev. xvi. 15). How
incumbent the duty of watchfulness is upon all, and how
it is connected with the coming of the Lord, and the im-
penetrable secrecy of the time thereof, is strikingly set
forth, and oft repeated in the following words of Mark's
Gospel : "But of that day and that hour knoweth no
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 871
man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the
Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray;
for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man
is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and
gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work,
and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore,
(for ye know not when the master of the house cometh;
at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the
morning;) lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping.
And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch" (Mark
xiii. 32-37). Of such watchfulness, the blessed reward
is variously set forth in Scripture, particularly in these
two passages of Luke's Gospel : "Blessed are those ser-
vants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching:
verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make
them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and
serve them" (xii. 37). "Watch ye therefore, and pray
always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all
these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before
the Son of man” (xxi. 36).
From these examples it is manifest, that the duty of
watchfulness is not accidentally but regularly and formally
connected with the uncertainty of the Lord's coming. I
do not say that this is the only ground of watchfulness
laid down in the Scriptures; for Peter saith, "Be sober,
be vigilant (watch), because your adversary the devil, as
a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may de-
vour:" but that it is the common and formal ground of
watchfulness presented to the Christian church. And
while I say this positively, I assert negatively, that the
uncertainty of life, and the nearness of death, is not the
formal ground of watchfulness given in the Scriptures;
though it be so by popular preachers, who thereby make
void the coming of the Lord, as a practical topic of all
preaching of the Gospel. Now, wherefore the coming of
the Lord should thus be continually made the ground of
watchfulness, is evident to any one who will take the
Lord's own views of his church. This he representeth
by various similitudes; as of a household of servants,
whose master is gone forth to a wedding, which in Eastern
countries took place in the fore-night, and left his servants
in charge to sit up and wait till he should come home again :
Į
872
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of a nobleman who went into a far country to receive a
kingdom, and, meanwhile having set his servants up in
trade, returneth to reward them with dignities according
to their diligence: of a thief, who chooseth the sleepy
hour of midnight to break into the house and plunder it
of its goods. The ideas out of which these and all other
similitudes are composed, are, first, that by his former
coming he purchased the world, and the inhabitants thereof
with his precious blood, and by his resurrection from the
dead was by God anointed Christ and Lord thereof. So
that from thenceforth every living soul is called upon by
its Creator to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth for its Lord
and Master; and those his citizens, who say, We will not
have this man to reign over us, shall he, when he comes
again, burn together with their city in fire unquenchable.
This now, being by the Gospel preached to every creature
under heaven, puts every creature, king and subject,
master and servant, into the condition of responsible agents,
tenants and servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, to give an
account to him of their several stewardships whenever he
shall appear; which appearance being hidden from every
creature, puts every creature that hath been, is, or shall
be till his coming, into the dutiful position of having his
house in order, his account ready, his lamp burning, his
loins girt, ready to receive his Lord. And all this as they
shall be answerable to God in the great day; for God,
by the resurrection, hath given all lordship and all judg.
ment to the Son.-The second idea contained in these si-
militudes is, that the church in particular, that is, those
who acknowledge Christ's lordship, do thereupon receive
a charge and trust; and that no mean one, being no less
than all his goods and gifts, whereby they are appointed
to hold up before the unbelieving world such an aspect of
the risen and glorified Jesus as may present him before
the world, and teach them the honour which is due unto
his name, and the blessedness in time and eternity which ac-
crueth unto those who faithfully yield him homage. With-
out such a living witness and image of his glory, it is ma-
nifest that the world could neither know nor acknowledge
the benefit which it hath derived from, and the duty which
it oweth to, its Lord and Redeemer. But if the church,
not keeping her goods and gifts, do but partially repre-
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 873
sent the fulness of her Lord; or if, conceiving selfishness,
she lie unto the world, and say, He redeemed thee not,
He loved thee not, He did for thee nothing at all, then is
she become a faithless, false witness, who for her per-
jury will soon be made away with. And if any church
shall cast the brethren out for maintaining that Christ by
his death purchased the whole world, and will not repent
of her misdeeds, she shall, after certain days of grace, be
utterly destroyed. The third idea which goes to the com-
position of these parables concerning the kingdom of
heaven, is, that the Lord of the world and the Head of
the church, shall come to exact an account of every mortal
creature, with respect to all his words and works, at a
time which no mortal creature knoweth of, nor can by
any means attain the knowledge of, so as to be able to
say positively, It shall be at or after such a time; or ne-
gatively, It shall not be till after such a time. This in-
scrutable uncertainty of the time of the Master's coming
is that which imposes continual watchfulness upon every
generation, and upon every individual of every genera-
tion. It is very simple, We know not when he is to come,
and therefore we must be ever ready. It is a blasphemy
to say, Christ will not come to-morrow; and it is a blas-
phemy to say, To-morrow he will come. In what condition
then is the church at present, which dareth to say he will
not come till after a millennium which is not yet begun?
This is another of your traditions by which you have made
the Scriptures void; and yet these are the people, who,
speaking against the manifest truth, do say, that we who
study prophetic events, and prophetic numbers, have fixed
the day, and month, and year, of Messiah's coming to
which we answer, first, It is a lie; and, secondly, Take the
beam out of your own eye before you look for the mote
in your brother's. How dare you blaspheme by fixing
negatively, that Messiah will not come till after a millen-
nium not yet begun? Poor men, in laying a snare for your
laborious brethren, who are doing God's work the best way
they can, you have stumbled into a trap, and are there
fast holden. Get out the soonest and the best way you
can; for until you explode that opinion, or rather I should
say that dogma,-for it is your creed upon the subject,
aye, and your practical faith,-you never shall be able to
:
4 F
874
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
watch for a coming of the Son of Man which you believe
to be so far off; and so you are fain to construct a new
ground of watchfulness out of the uncertainty of life and
the certainty of death. O men, the life which you have
to do with as Christians, is an everlasting life, which knows
no death the death which you have to do with is a death
without a fear, without a sting; "death is yours." What a
thing it is to have turned away, from that manifestation of
the love of God, from that congregation of the elect, from
that joyful meeting with the Son of Man, and dwelling with
him in his Father's glory and kingdom; from this consumma-
tion of all that is blessed, to have turned away, in order to
contemplate the terrors of death, and the painful separation
from the body, and from all friends we hold dear; not only
to have bereft us of the Lord's coming, but to have con-
jured up again the terrors of death and the grave, which
Christ had conjured away from his church for ever. O
what spoliation! O what mockery! O what unfeeling
cruelty, have these doctors been guilty of towards Christ's
poor flock! Sure there is a day of fierce and fiery retri-
bution at hand, for all who love not, who set light by, and
speak against, the coming of the Lord.-The fourth, and
last idea contained in these passages of Scripture, which
connect watchfulness with the coming of the Lord, is this,
that when he comes, the whole house, both church and
world, shall be in a deep sleep, as a house at the midnight,
which for this reason is called the dead hour of the night.
And as the thief comes upon the house all at unawares,
so upon the world shall its Redeemer come. Not indeed
like the thief, to take what is not his own, but all unwel-
come as he, and all unexpected; and as the thief, with
stealthy foot, advanceth upon a peaceful slumbering house
to break into it, and take whatever is most precious and
carry it off, so shall Christ come into the strong man's
house, into Satan's usurped princedom of the earth, and
thence convey whatever is most precious, the gold and the
silver, and the precious stones, rifling the grave for precious
dust, and searching the corners of the earth for holy
men, and thus shall the Dove prove himself wiser than
the serpent, and the Lamb mightier than the roaring lion.
That symbol of the thief hath in it more than men
suppose. It is not for nought that Christ took so mean
VIII.] Sardis--Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 875
and unworthy an epithet. It distinguishes between the
act of his privily conveying away his elect into the cloud of
his apparent glory, and the act of his presenting them
on the earth in the manifested glory of the new Jerusalem.
It is as if our Alfred, when he stole his way into the Nor-
man's camp, had taken thence his crown secretly and
privily, with which being royally adorned, he should come
in no harper's disguise, but in the right of England's king,
to destroy the leaguer of England's foes: so Christ comes
stealing on in midnight calmness, and having carried off
his royal queen, in base captivity and thraldom held, he
returns in triumph along with her, and with strength of hand
beats the usurpers to the dust, and casts them forth for
ever. And accordingly they for whom he comes as the
thief, are those who have their garments clean; and those
with whom he comes as a king, are the same company
arrayed in those garments which they had kept undefiled.
(Rev. xvi. 15; xix. 14.)
These are the considerations which bind watchfulness
upon the church, and upon the world, as an unceasing
duty; to wit, our responsibility to Christ for all our gifts
natural, purchased by him from death and the grave, and
for all our gifts spiritual, bequeathed by him from on high;
the inscrutable secresy which hangs over his coming, in-
somuch that, without trespassing upon the Father's pre-
rogative, we may not cease daily looking for the giving
up of our stewardship, and the inspection of all our ac-
counts; the forewarning, that when that day shall come,
the world and the church shall alike be found unpre-
pared, the servants smiting their fellow-servants, and say-
ing, The Lord delayeth his coming, the kings of the na-
tions and the rulers of the people combining against the
Lord. These considerations, together with the blessedness
which is every where assured unto the watchful, were in-
tended by our great Bishop to preserve in the church a
continual good order and readiness for his appearing. And
doubtless they are well fitted, and altogether sufficient for
that holy end; for never yet did sentinel sleep on his post,
when he was expecting his captain to make his rounds, nor
porter neglect the gate when he was expecting his master
to knock. But the church, yielding to the flesh, and in-
clining to the world, and ceasing from the desire of Christ's
4 F 2
876
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
glory, and consulting only for her own safety and worldly
welfare, did cease from loving or desiring the appearance
of her Lord, to whom her conscience testified that she
had been unfaithful; and so breaking the inscrutable
secret of the Father, she took upon her to say, The Lord
delayeth his coming, and began to eat and drink with
the drunken. By and by the coming of the Lord was
altogether forgotten, until it hath become, as we now
find it, the thing least thought of, instead of being the
thing most thought of,-the thing at the far end of all
things, instead of being the thing nearest at hand. And
now that God hath stirred up his faithful servants to tell
her of that glorious event, with all its celestial accompa-
niments, behold they smite us on the cheek, and, being
smitten, let us turn unto them the other also. Meanwhile,
because watchfulness is a Christian duty, which cannot be
dispensed with, the church, disconnecting it from its true and
right motive, hath cast about to find some other ground on
which to enforce it, and hath pitched upon the uncertainty
of a man's life, and the account which, upon his death, they
deem that he hath to render up, of all the works done
in the flesh. And so have we death in all its natural and
artificial terrors represented to the church, and the fear of
death with all diligence propagated abroad, from which Christ
died to deliver us. Along with this, a whole system of extra-
vagance, if not of error, hath come in concerning the time
of the judgment, and the state of the separate soul, and the
resurrection, and the glory, and the kingdom; and a high
way hath been made for all sorts of airy speculations, con-
cerning the elysian and the infernal regions, into which the
souls of men depart at death. Purgatory and the nume-
rous limbos of the Roman church have all come trooping
in by this open breach, to do the work of watchfulness,
which Christ would have done by the hope and desire
of his coming. And we Protestants have only been pre-
served from the same figments, by having the Scriptures
in our hands, without using those Scriptures to enlighten
ourselves as to the true form of doctrine concerning the
future: nay, we have gone farther than the Papists in this,
that we have flatly dared to assert, and commonly to
preach, that the coming of the Lord means the day
of a man's death; as they hold forth in almost all the
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 877
churches. The liberty which is taken with the word of
God passeth all comprehension, they might with as much
propriety aver, that the creation of the world in the be-
ginning of the Bible means the day of my birth, and
nothing more, as that the coming of the Lord means the
day of my death. Rather many times would I confess
my ignorance of the text, and, with respect to the com-
mentators, say with the old Scottish minister, "Better let
sleeping dogs lie," than so distort and falsify the holy word
of God.
The consequence of this divorcement of the duty of
watchfulness from its proper motive, bath been, to bring the
church into the most unwatchful and unready condition; for
God's method of producing morality is not to be meddled
with. His system of doctrine is commensurate with his sys-
tem of duty; and if you will not know or believe the one,
you shall not discharge the other. As well might you ex-
pect, without the doctrine of the atonement wrought by the
blood of Christ, to bring cleanness upon the conscience,
and peace towards God; as well might you expect without
the doctrine of Christ's holiness in sinful flesh, to produce.
holiness in us who have sinful flesh; as well might you ex-
pect without the doctrine of election to produce dependance
upon God, and without the doctrine of Christ's headship to
produce unity in the church; as you may expect, without
the doctrine of the Lord's coming at an unknown and un-
knowable time, to produce watchfulness in the church. You
may get up any substitute you please, you may adorn it
with what eloquence you please, and it may look very well
to the carnal eye; but it will never work the effect upon
the spiritual mind. You want the power, the heart-power,
in wanting the doctrine; and it is a vain and idle attempt
to produce the heart-obedience without the heart power.
Watchfulness, with all its sister graces of diligence, order,
hope, desire, and faithfulness, can only be obtained through
the knowledge and belief of the coming of the Lord in his
glory, to reward, with the presence, and the city, and the
kingdom, and the priesthood of God, all those who are
found diligently looking for his appearance.
Before leaving this topic of the epistle to the church of
Sardis, it is further to be observed, that his coming on any
one as a thief, is put forth as the punishment of their re-
4 F 3
678
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
(6
[LECT.
missness and indifference and neglect of watchfulness:
If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee
as a thief." And to make the threatening more effective,
it is redoubled in a new form: "And thou shalt not know
what hour I will come unto thee." How then is this?
If it be as we have said, that no one can know that hour,
and that the Son of man himself knoweth it not, how is it
that it should take the form of a threatening and a punish-
ment upon a certain class of men? How should that
which is a universal and unchangeable condition of the
whole church, be now applied as the particular and ap-
propriate visitation upon a certain class of offenders?
Does the good Shepherd mean, that upon them who are
watchful he will not come as a thief; and that they shall
know the hour of his appearing? The answer to these
questions is two-fold: First, It is universally true that all
who are not watchful shall be taken by surprise, and find
themselves in a miserable case. To convince ourselves of
this, nothing more is necessary than to refer to the passages
of Scripture treating of watchfulness, and quoted at the
outset of this topic. Though, therefore, nothing were to be
said upon the reverse side of the question, the thing asserted
in the text is true; that as a thief, and at an unexpected
hour, shall he come upon the unwatchful and unwary: and
how great an evil this will prove to them, we shall shortly
see. But, secondly, Upon the reverse side of the question,
we have to say, that Christ will not come as a thief
to those that are watchful; and though the hour of his
coming shall be hidden from all till he burst upon the
world's view in the clouds of heaven, as heretofore the
deluge did in the upbreaking of the fountains of the great.
deep, and Sodom's overthrow in the opening of the fiery
reservoirs of heaven; yet shall it be so announced to the
observant by preceding signs in the heavens and the earth
and the sea, and over the nations, that they shall be well
prepared, and standing all ready for his coming; and
though the slumbers of that most sleepy hour shall also
steal over them, as over the other virgins, yet shall they
not therefore suffer loss from their most gracious Lord;
who, seeing by their well replenished lamps that they were
thinking of his name, shall welcome them right gladly to
share with him the marriage supper, at that table which
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 879
shall never be drawn. The signs of the times, I say, shall
keep the watchful alive and alert, and be the means of
their deliverance, as heretofore at the destruction of Je-
rusalem: and this is one reason for which the destruction
of Jerusalem is so skilfully interwoven by our Lord with
the destruction of the world at his coming; in order to
shew us that, by the same observance of his instructions
which they gave, and, for giving, received deliverance
out of Jerusalem, we also shall receive deliverance out
of this doomed world. How firmly I believe that the
first Christians were saved by observing when the things.
spoken by Daniel the prophet took place, and then,
without delay, seizing the moment of the truce to escape
from Jerusalem unto Pella; so firmly do I believe that it is
by the diligent observation and clear understanding of
the things which are at this moment taking place, that we
shall have our lamps burning, and our loins girt ready to
meet the Bridegroom when he comes. I have no doubt
that those professing believers in Christ who despise the
subject of the signs of the times, and of unfulfilled
prophecy which these signs open to the studious, will, if
they repent not, and that speedily, be found unwatchful,
and surprised by Christ as the household wrapped in sleep
are by the midnight thief. This is no subject to be trifled
with, nor to be spoken upon but with awful earnestness.
I take shame to myself, and guilt also, that I do not speak
of it in every company, and to every mortal creature :
woe is me, if I hide it. Woe is me, if I be ashamed of his
testimony. O it is not a time for smooth and flattering
speeches. It is not a time for nice and delicate manners
when the ship is creaking in every timber, and the ocean
stream flowing in at every seam. What loud, what vehe-
ment cries from man to man do then arise, what shrill
what sharp orders from the commander, what tight what
bracing work, what manly vigour in every arm, what
eager looks in every eye! Ah me! the manly activity, the
noble and true-hearted devotedness of a crew of British
mariners in the midst of the whirlwinds and hurricanoes of
the deep, are the proper emblem of what we, who know
these times and the seasons, should now be doing and
speaking in the midst of the church.
That by some means or other, those who are looking for
880
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Christ's appearing shall be prepared for the same, though
they continue ignorant of the very hour and day, is mani-
fest from all the Scriptures, and particularly from that
passage of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, to which
we have already referred; wherein it is distinctly said,
that while the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the
night to others, it shall not so come to the brethren who
know the Lord, and look for his appearing: "But ye,
brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should over-
take you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and
the children of the day we are not of the night, nor of
darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but
let us watch and be sober." (1 Thess. v. 4-6.) Now
what is the reason here assigned for their escaping the
common surprise? First, because they are children of
the light and the day, and not in darkness as others; that
is, because they are full of information and knowledge
upon the subject of the Lord's coming, being taught
by the holy Apostles, as well as by the Lord himself:
Alas! would it were so still with the churches. Secondly,
because in consequence of this, their light and knowledge
of the subject, they do not sleep as others, but watch,
and are sober; in one word, it is signified in this re-
markable passage, that the knowledge and hope of Christ's
coming worked the same effects upon the church to pre-
serve her from sleep, and to keep her wakeful, as light
doth upon the natural world; and that it is as unnatural
for her to give herself to chambering and drunkenness,
and deep sleep, when illuminated with the knowledge of
the Lord's coming, as it is for men to drink and sleep in
the day season. Some reckless and regardless persons
there be, who will, even in the day time, be found drunk
and weighed down with sleep; but this is rare, and can-
not be taken as the ground of any similitude. Yet is
it an exception worthy the attention of those, who are
walking in the light of the knowledge of the Lord's ap-
pearing, to warn them that it is possible, even for them, to
become worldly, sensual, and wicked, as was the case with
the early heretics of the Millenarian school, and with the
Fifth-monarchy men of our own country. And as the open-
day drunkard is the most desperate and incurable of all,
so are those who, having the light of the coming of the
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Threatening. 881
Lord, do yet permit themselves in the worldliness and
wickedness of others.
It doth but remain that we should explain wherein
consisteth the point and pertinancy of this rebuke, and
the nature of the evil which it threatens. It is pertinent,
because not otherwise than by watchfulness, can the
direful calamity of being plundered of all our hopes as
Christians, be prevented, and watchfulness cannot be
promoted otherwise than by the knowledge and belief
of the Lords coming. In this, as in all other cases, the
punishment is after the nature, and in the way of the
offence. The offence consisteth in neglecting all the
glorious promises connected with the event of the Lord's
coming. The judgment is in changing that event from
being one of glorious promise, to become one of awful
threatening; for, that direful judgment will fall upon the
church for neglecting to watch for her Lord, is declared in
many parts of Scripture. Take, for example, the following:
"Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye
think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful
and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his
household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is
that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so
doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him
ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall
say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall
begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink
with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a
day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is
not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him
his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. xxiv. 44-51.) This pas-
sage, though it refer chiefly to rulers of the house, whether
civil or ecclesiastical, doth point out to us the awful con-
sequence, to all, who keep themselves in the dark upon the
subject of his appearing, and say within their hearts, "My
Lord delayeth his coming;" which the church at present
sayeth, not in her heart, but openly boasteth, saying, He
will not come for at least a thousand years. That false
thought leads on to the evil consequence of cruelty and
carnal indulgence; in the midst of which Christ makes an
end of them and of their doings for ever. That it is vain
for them to flee for succour and redress then, is put beyond
882
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
doubt by the Parable of the Virgins, wherein they are re-
presented as at length courting those whom they had
smitten, and making preparations for that which they had
despised; but neither the one nor the other avail to deliver
them from the fearful doom of being excluded from the
marriage chamber of the Bridegroom. Not only so, but in
the corresponding passage of the xiv th chapter of the Re-
velations, they are exposed as hypocrites to the gaze of the
world,—"lest be walk naked and they see his shame :"
pretending to be believers in Christ, they are proved to be
unbelievers; pretending to be looking for him, they are
proved not to have been looking for him. When their bre-
thren, walking with them by the way, sleeping with them in
the same bed, grinding at the same mill, have been caught
up by Christ, and openly acknowledged as his people, they
are left exposed to their shame, and fairly convicted be-
fore the world as hypocrites and deceivers, dishonoured of
God, dishonoured of men; they shall be cast out like salt
which hath lost its savour, to be trodden under foot. Ah,
let us search ourselves, for the Searcher is at hand; let us
judge ourselves, for the Judge is at the door. Ye, my
brethren, who know the truth of the Lord's coming, be-
ware how ye walk in the sight of God. Be watchful in all
your hearts' thoughts, in all your life's occupations; and
strengthen the things which remain and are ready to die,
and make your works perfect before God. Remember
how ye have received and heard, keep, and repent; for if
you will not watch, even upon you shall he come as a thief,
and your exposure shall be the greatest of all. God pre-
pare and make us ready. Amen.
THE APPROBATION.
It is the surest mark of a good man that he is observant
of what is good in others, and delighteth in all ways to
foster and perfect it; and if this disposition of the mind be
guarded by righteousness, and prevented from degenerating
into flattery, it is the best means of cultivating what is
good in all soils, even in the worst and most neglected.
It is the law established throughout all nature, that every
thing should produce its likeness by the communication
of itself. God's love shining forth from him, and by us
received, produceth love in return: nor did ever any
soul love God until that soul had both known and felt
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 883
that God had loved it; and because love is the keeping of
the commandments, it cometh to 'pass that the preaching
of God's love is the foster-mother of all holiness. But as
the love of a parent towards his child is not moved by the
desire of being beloved in return, but flows spontaneous
from his heart; even so the goodness of God is not served
out to his creatures with any view of advantage, but be-
cause he is good, and of very goodness loveth to make his
goodness to be known and felt by all. If his goodness fail
to produce goodness in return, then is our heart hardened
and made insensible, and at length grows utterly reprobate;
but his goodness remaineth all the same, shedding itself
upon the evil as upon the good, upon the just as upon
the unjust.
I am led into this train of thought by having ever pre-
sented to me in these epistles the goodness of Christ unto
the worst of his servants; of which another instance comes
before us in the next topic of our discourse, contained in
these words, vers. 3, 4: “ Thou hast a few names even
in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments: and
they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy."
It is not for that Lord who delivered Noah, a preacher
of righteousness, from the destruction of the old world,
and Lot, a just man, from the overthrow of Sodom, to
fail to notice and distinguish in the church of Sardis those
persons, however few, who kept their garments undefiled :
and this he doth, in the language appropriate to that good
Shepherd who "calleth his own sheep by name," "Thou
hast a few names;" also, perhaps to rebuke the meanness
of the angel of the church, who preferred a name to live
in the mouth of men, to a name to live in his Master's
estimation. And moreover he doth use this form of ex-
pression, to signify that his people are all written by name
before him in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the
foundation of the world. The remnant whom the Lord
had reserved for himself in the days of Elias, are deno-
minated " seven thousand knees," because in bowing the
knee to Baal's image stood the act of renouncing the
worship of the living and true God: but here, where the
temptation stood in the favour of the people, in the good
opinion of the public, Christ payeth his approbation to the
faithful in terms of their faithfulness, saying, "Thou hast a
884
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their
garments." I know that it occurs more than once in Scrip-
ture, to apply the word names for persons; but I think there
is a meaning in the case before us, from the terms of the
promise contained in the following verse, whereof two
parts concern the name: "I will not blot out his name,
out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before
my Father, and before his angels." The temptation, the
approbation, and the promise, are all expressed in terms
of the name. And wherein the dignity of a name con-
sists, and the corresponding guilt of pretending to a name
which is not ours by right, we have already sufficiently
shewn; and how the wisdom of law confirms our conclu-
sions is seen in this, that to sign with another's name is
counted worthy of death, the truth of the name being
regarded as equally sacred with the life of the person.
Perhaps also there is a note of dignity contained in the
use of the word "name," to those faithful servants, whose
commendation is given in these words: "who have not de-
filed their garments."
This language implies, first, That a Christian hath pure
garments given him to keep, and is responsible at all
times for their cleanness and purity: and that this is no
secondary part of his charge, we gather from these words.
of chap. xiv. "Behold, I come; blessed is he that watcheth,
and keepeth his garments;" which point out the clean-
ness of our garments, as the thing which Christ will
look to when he comes to make discrimination between
his faithful and hypocritical servants. In the day of
his coming, our blessedness shall stand in having gar-
ments white and clean: such only he will take with him,
and such also he will bring with him to triumph over
the wicked (xix. 4). And this is confirmed by the
Parable of the Marriage Supper, which addeth a new
and important feature, that the Father, when the church
is presented to him by Christ, will by no means endure in
that glorious company, one single person, who hath not
these robes of righteousness. Moreover, if it be inquired
how the filthy garments of nature are purified, and pre-
served pure for us, the answer is given by one of the
elders, who said unto John (Rev. vii. 14), "These are they
which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 885
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb." If then, by the purity of the garment, Christ
distinguisheth those whom he will present unto his Father,
"without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," and should
any other intrude himself into that holy presence, he
would be "bound hand and foot, and taken away, and cast
into outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of
teeth;" we may well understand how Christ, looking
upon the church of Sardis, doth express his approbation
in these terms: "Thou hast a few names that have not
defiled their garments." Such were ready for his appear-
ing; they were well pleasing in his sight, and in the sight
of his Father.
And now it cometh before us as a most worthy inquiry,
why the holiness and acceptancy of the saints should be
set forth by such language.
Originally as man was created, he was without a garment:
the man and the woman were naked, and they knew it not:
but in the eternal estate of glory the saints are represented
as clothed in white raiment. This difference between
man's original state of innocency, and his eternal state of
glory, represented by the matter of their garments, hath
its explanation, first, from considering that the garment
is that part of a man's presence which is not of himself,
but derived from a foreign source. In the state of inno-
cency, he was unclothed; in the state of glory, he is
clothed upon in the state of innocency, he was simple
man; in the state of glory, he is man, with an addition
derived from God; having the glory of God, glorified with
that glory with which Christ is glorified beside the Father.
Manhood created, is manhood alone: manhood saved, is
manhood brought into union with God, through the flesh
of Christ, and sustained by God, and informed in God,
and giving forth the words and ways of God. In one
word, it is man clothed upon with glory superhuman and
Divine. If we follow down the stream of God's revela-
tions, we shall find this idea fully confirmed. The first
thing, which, upon his fall, man became conscious to,
was his nakedness: he came to know that there was
another, and a higher state reserved for him, than the
nakedness of creation. His fallen nature put forth, by
seeking to clothe itself with the leaves of trees, an in-
4 G
886
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
stinctive appetite for salvation; which sense of nakedness
and hope of being clothed upon, God encouraged and re-
warded, by making for Adam and his wife coats of skins,
with which he clothed them. These skins, I make no
doubt, were taken from the animals which God had taught
man to offer in sacrifice, and for not offering which, Cain
was rejected. The sacrifice is the shewing forth of Christ,
the Lamb slain to take away the sin of the world. The
blood of the sacrifice takes away our guilt, the flesh of
it supports our strength, and the skin of it clothes our
nakedness; that is, Christ gives us life of his life, body of
his body, and appearance of his appearance, beauty of
his beauty, and glory of his glory. Under the law the
garments of the priests, and of the high priest, were ap-
pointed with exactest ceremony by the commandment of
God himself: and they might never do the service of God
in other garments than those which He had prescribed;
white for the priests, and white for the high priest when-
ever he went into the presence of God; which doth sig-
nify that God, in his house, will have none but such as are
clothed upon with purity and righteousness, for the white
raiment is the righteousness of saints. Now, the church
is called with a heavenly calling, to dwell in the heavenly
Jerusalem, which is the city of God; and Christ said unto
us before he went away, " In my Father's house are many
mansions: behold I go to prepare a place for you." Before
he departs, he gives us righteousness to keep until he
shall come and call us to himself; and when he goes, he
goes to sanctify the heavenly things, and to prepare the
tabernacle of God for our reception. Excellent love!
most provident mercy! who, there or here, thinks upon
us; so let us think only of him. We are those priests of
Christ and of God, set to do the service of God upon the
earth, in his spiritual house, and therefore we should be
ever arrayed in undefiled garments. In the Prophets also,
there is a time spoken of, when not persons, but places
also, shall be clothed upon with garments for beauty and
for glory, as the high priest was clothed in his outward
manifestation. "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O
Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem."
Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee." And of the new Jerusalem
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 887
which cometh down from heaven, it is said, "that it hath
the glory of God, and that there entereth into it nothing
that defileth or maketh a lie." And of the earth also it is
said, that it is "full of the glory of the Lord," for all the
things which we now behold "shall wax old as doth a
garment, as a vesture shall Christ change them, and they
shall be changed." This new garment in which creation
shall be clothed, is not of itself but of another; and what
other than creation is there, save the Creator. Creation
now standeth arrayed in vile and filthy garments; which
mantle of darkness and defilement its own sin hath spread
around it. This the Creator himself, by uniting himself
to it, and it to him, doth purge away into the lowest hell;
and instead thereof, he arrays his original work in holy
beauties from the womb of the resurrection-morn.
Besides the idea expressed above, of the garment as
signifying something beyond and beside the person arrayed
in it, there are other ideas which we shall mention, with-
out illustrating or enforcing them. The garment makes
no change in the person whom it covers. No more does
the communicated glory of Godhead make any substantial
change, or bring any addition to the creature, as originally
made by God. Creation hath suffered no diminution of
its substance, but shall be in number and in quantity, in
law and in subordination, what it was when originally
made; but it shall have impressed upon it a power
and life, a stability, and beauty, and glory which it
possessed not at first, but receiveth through union of
Godhead to its substance in the mystery of the Christ.
To take an instance; Christ's creature-part, his body and
soul, were not more or less than another man's; yet,
through Godhead-union, it was not only able to maintain
original innocency, such as Adam's had, but to cast off
innate impurity, such as the virgin had; and that same
body and soul of Christ in glory, is not less or more than
ours here on earth, as ours is not more or less than
Adam's created: but yet, though numerically one nature,
and no more, it hath something far beyond any thing
created at first, or now extant and how shall that be
represented in natural imagery, but by the garment, which
is something in addition to the man, and yet making no
change upon him? This is a great principle, sacrificed
4 G 2
888
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
entirely, or indeed never thought of, by those speculators.
who say that Christ's human nature was a new creation.
Redemption is not creation added to, as if it were origi-
nally defective; but creation upholden against sin's deadly
assault, and glorified by God's grace and love. Now this
idea of the new dignity, grace, and loveliness, and ma-
jesty which the work of redemption giveth to creation,
without in any thing changing its essence, can only be
expressed by that magic power which there is in well-
chosen attire, to set off the native graces and properties
of the person.
Another idea conveyed under this figure
of clothing, is derived from the completeness with which
it enwraps us round, and covers us on every side, leaving
no part naked but the countenance, which is the imple-
ment of the soul rather than a part of the body. In this
respect, no image is so fit for representing the idea of com-
plete, and not partial, righteousness. Yea, and something
more than completeness, an exuberance and superfluity;
for that person would think himself but meanly clothed,
who had only wherewithal to cover his nakedness. Such
is not the clothing of a king and of a priest it is the
ample robe, the flowing mantle, and not the mere cover-
ing, which is spoken of in this book. These three ideas,
to wit, first, of a thing not our own, but derived to us
from another source; secondly, of a thing which alters
us not, though necessary to our well-being and beauty;
thirdly, of a thing which completely, and more than
completely, enfolds us,-seem to me to make up the sub-
stance of the truth contained under the symbol of cloth-
ing. "The white raiment is the righteousness of saints;'
a true, not a fictitious righteousness; a real substantial
purification of soul and body, notwithstanding the law of
the flesh, but not self-originated, not self-supplied, de-
rived all from Christ, by him wrought out, and out of him
derived to us: for "he is made unto us wisdom, righteous-
ness, sanctification, and redemption."
:
Like all other precious truth, Satan hath converted this
also to his own false and unholy uses; making men to be-
lieve that, because it is derived from Christ, and by him
sustained, it is therefore not really a righteousness wrought
in us, but only a garment covering us; and that withal we
continue under the cloak to be the same filthy creatures as
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 889
before, whom God, for Christ's sake (as they, with seeming
piety, express a most impious sentiment), is pleased to look
upon as righteous. If this be what they mean by the doc-
trine of imputed righteousness, and it is what they com-
monly express, then is it the vilest of all vile doctrines;
comforting and encouraging a sinner in his wickedness,
under the false notion that faith entirely covers and
protects sin from the judgment of God. The church, by
this word "imputed righteousness," means to express the
great truth that the righteousness which we have in God's
sight is altogether derived from another, and becometh
ours, not for any worthiness or desert on our part, but
wholly from an act of God's grace making it ours. The
church hath been careful to hold two things with respect
to righteousness; the first, That it is nowhere to be found in
any creature save in the creature part of Christ, and from
no other quarter whatever to be derived: the second, That
being there in abundance sufficient for the whole world, it
is not conveyed to any sinner, otherwise, than by an act of
God's grace moving him so to do ;-the latter securing to
God the right of dispensing it; the former, to Christ the
honour of being the thing dispensed. He is made of God
unto us righteousness and sanctification. I stay not to
argue whether the word "imputed "be the best that could
be chosen, for it is not with words but truths that I am
occupied; and I clearly perceive that these two are the truths
which that word was intended by the church to contain.
She never meant to assert, that because it was of Christ's
working out for us, and of God's serving out to us, it was
not therefore true righteousness, heart righteousness, righ-
teousness in the inward parts, and in the outward also;
holiness of body, and holiness of soul; obedience of every
member to the law of the Spirit, and to the service of
righteousness unto holiness. The church never meant to
convey, by the word imputed, that the righteousness wast
only skin-deep, or, if we may so speak, only cloak-deep,
while all beneath was foul as ever; or that it was a suppo-
sititious righteousness, and not a real and substantial; or
that it was only a transfer done over from Christ's folio, in
the great book of accounts, to ours; or that it was only an
insufficient and still impure righteousness, which God ekes
out from Christ's inexhaustible store: all these are most
4 G 3
890
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Oh
unholy and blasphemous insinuations of the devil, under
the disguise of that word "imputation," which, when in-
terpreted truly, means God's conveying to us a righteous-
ness which is Christ's property, made ours by an act of
God's grace. But because it is Christ's it is perfect; and
being made ours, it loseth nothing of its perfectness. God
will accept nothing less than perfect holiness; and any one
who thinks he will, must be undeceived before he can be
saved. What is in Christ for me is perfect righteousness;
and if my faith be eating Christ's flesh and drinking his
blood, I receive a perfect righteousness, in thought, in
word, and in deed-in body, in soul, and in spirit. Faith
embodies Christ in the believer; and Christ is in the be-
liever a body of holiness, a complete man of holiness;
an inward and an outward man as well as a garment. Does
any one say, What hard doctrine? And must I leave off
every sin? Yea verily. And must I be always and alto-
gether holy? Even so. And is there no salvation for me
on other terms? None. What a fearful doctrine!
then thou lovest sin, brother, dost thou? No. Why then
should it be fearful to tell thee to get rid of it altogether?
Thou wouldst have reserves, wouldst thou? No. Why
then start at a doctrine which asks thee to give thine un-
reserved self to God? Did I ask thee to work out this
perfect righteousness for thyself, thou mightest complain.
But when I tell thee that it is in Christ for thee at any
time, and at all times to possess thyself of, why complainest
thou? If God draw upon thee large bills, is not Christ ready
with the supplies and art thou honoured or dishonoured
by the Holy Ghost in being made the agent through whom
Christ's fulness might meet his Father's demands. The
Father asks perfect holiness: Christ hath wrought out
perfect holiness for thee: why murmurest thou? I mur-
mur because I am conscious of past sin. There is forgive-
ness for it in Christ. But my conscience is defiled by it.
There is cleanness of conscience for thee in Christ, and
peace with God, and enjoyment of his sweet and gracious
face. That is what forgiveness means.
what forgiveness means. Dost thou believe
this word? then hath this word made thee clean. Why still
murmurest thou? Because I am conscious of present sins.
Lovest thou them, or lovest thou them not? I love them
not.
Then thou shouldest be glad to get rid of them: I
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 891
have told thee how thou mayest completely get rid of them,
by relying on Christ for a perfect righteousness. And yet
thou murmurest to be informed how thou mayest be deli-
vered from that thou lovest not. Ah, brother! there is a
love of that state of sinning and repenting; thou lovest to
have room to come and go with God: thou cravest for
licence; thou art in love with imperfection, and while thou
art so thou canst not be in love with God who is perfect;
nor be living in charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
"The garment undefiled," therefore, is not a complete
outward seemliness without a corresponding inward saintli-
ness; which was the evil case, not of those few approved
ones, but of the many whom he rebuketh in the church of
Sardis. Nor is it a complete knowledge or faith in the
finished work of Christ, without any finished and perfected
work in us corresponding thereto; but it is Christ formed
within us by the Spirit, and subduing us wholly unto God,
and making us to become perfect and complete in him;
so that we sin not, but walk in his footsteps always. But
where is the person to whom this did or could apply? and
if it doth not apply to any, how should the Lord find even
a few in the church of Sardis to whom it was applicable?
Whether these were perfect, even in those times, or whe-
ther there be any now, or whether it be possible that
there should be any, is a question, not needing to be set-
tled, in order to understand the case of those whom the
Lord commendeth: it is only necessary to perceive that
they were believing on Christ for a perfect righteousness;
holding him up as pledged to work this in his members,
and in that faith honestly setting about the work of per-
fecting holiness in the fear of God. They might, and I
have no doubt did, come short of, and transgress against,
the law of the Spirit of Life; but they confessed and
grieved over it, and came to Christ not only for purifica-
tion from the stain, but likewise for redemption from the
power of their sin; and receiving it, they went forward.
The man that is keeping his garments undefiled, and
hating even the garment which is spotted by the flesh, is
one who resteth on Christ for perfect righteousness, not
only for, but in, the believer, and in that faith holdeth on
his course; and if he stumble, confesseth his heedlessness,
and lamenteth his declension from God; then riseth again,
892
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
and "presseth towards the mark, for the prize of the high
calling in Christ Jesus." It doth not require perfection to
have been attained, not to have been for a while enjoyed
without interruption; but it requires perfection to be be-
lieved to be ours in Christ, and to be unceasingly ensued in
our life; and every shortcoming or deviation to be confessed
over the Lamb slain, and its guilt purged with his blood;
and so forgotten and forgiven, no longer to impede our
growth towards the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus.
The doctrine which I have maintained is as much for the
publicans and sinners when they first hear it, as it is for
the most advanced saint, who hears it with gladness: and
none but the hypocrite and the pharisee will cavil with it
when he hath rightly understood it. This will more clearly
appear when we shall have answered the question, And
when doth a man receive this "pure garment " for the un-
defiledness of which he is ever afterward held responsible?
I answer this question by one word, At his baptism: in
token of which every baptized person in the primitive
church used then to receive a white garment, to be kept
and produced as a witness against him, if at any time he
should dishonour the purity of the Christian name. At
baptism our old man is put off; which truth to represent
in the primitive church, they were stripped naked in
order to baptism: and being buried with Christ we rise
again with him, and are quickened in newness of life ; that
"henceforth we being dead to sin should live no longer
therein." Therefore saith the Apostle, "Let not sin
reign in your mortal body, that ye should obcy it in
the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as in-
struments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves
unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your
members as instruments of righteousness unto God." (Rom.
vi. 12, 13.) Again, it is written of baptism, "Know ye
not that as many as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ?" If the word Baptism hath not changed its mean-
ing, or the sacrament lost the force and efficacy, which
were ordained to be in it by God, that holy ordinance
doth contain under it the complete sanctification of the
person; and his salvation from all the consequences of a
guilty conscience; being to the soul what the ark was to
Noah, according to that word of the Apostle, "the like
VIII.] Sardis--Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 893
figure whereunto even baptism doth now save us (not the
putting away of the filth of the flesh), but the answer of a
good conscience toward God." Every baptized person, I
say, therefore, under warranty of all Scripture, doth receive
a complete purgation from sin in that holy ordinance, "being
baptized into the remission (away-putting) of sin, and in
order to receive the Holy Ghost." We are answerable,
then, for an act of divorcement and separation between
our body and sin, for a marriage union of every member
of our body to the true body of Christ, which is the source
of all holiness. This is the true doctrine of baptism: let
the thoughtless, and unlearned, and unbelieving, gnash upon
it with their teeth however they may. I say to every bap-
tized man, Thou shouldest be stainless and unpolluted,
beautiful and holy in the midst of this evil world, and
pleasing in the sight of God as one of the members of his
own risen and glorified Son. And it is thy guilt that
thou art not so: it is thy pure love of sinning; it is not
any necessity of sinning, or any load of temptation, above
and beyond thy power to endure; but it is thy pure and
simple love of sinning, which hath brought thee into thy
present defiled state. And if thou wouldest be brought
back to thine original baptismal purity, thou must wash
these thy defiled robes, and make them white in the blood
of the Lamb: for which end, that precious blood, for the
cleansing away of all wilful sins, done within the church by
baptized persons, is placed for thy use upon the table of
the Lord; and thou art earnestly entreated at all times to
come and drink inward purification to thy soul. And
doing so in faith, thou canst at any time restore thy lost
purity and, therefore, thou art altogether without excuse
in being ever found without thy garments, thy body, and
thy soul and spirit spotless in the sight of God and of
Christ. How much this was the doctrine of the primitive
church will appear by the following extract from Bing-
ham's Ecclesiastical Antiquities.
66
Whit-sunday is said to be so called from this custom
of wearing white robes after baptism. These being laid
aside were preserved in the vestries of the churches, as an
evidence against men, if afterward they violated the pro-
fessions which they made in baptism. A remarkable in-
stance of which we have related in Victor Uticensis, con-
894
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
6
•
cerning one Elpidiphorus, a citizen of Carthage, who
having a long time lived in the communion of the church,
at last turned Arian, and became a bitter enemy to the
orthodox in the Vandalic persecution. Among others
whom he summoned before him as their judge, was one
Muretta, a deacon, who had been sponsor for him at his
baptism. He, being ready to be put upon the rack, pro-
duced against him these white robes, with which he had
been clothed at his baptism; and with words melting all
the whole city into tears, he thus bespoke him :- These
are the garments, O Elpidiphorus, thou minister of error,
'which shall accuse thee when the Majesty of the great
Judge shall appear: these I will diligently keep as a tes-
timony of thy ruin, which shall depress thee to the bottom
of the lake which burns with fire and brimstone; these
are they that were girt about thee, when thou camest
'immaculate out of the holy font: these are they that
'shall bitterly pursue thee, when thou shalt begin to take
thy portion in the flames of hell; because thou hast
'clothed thyself with cursing as with a garment, and hast
cast off the sacred obligation of thy baptism, and the
true faith which thou didst then profess and take upon
thee.' So that the design of this significant ceremony
was, first, to represent that innocence and angelical purity
which every man obtained by the remission of his sins in
baptism, and then to remind them of the obligations and
professions they had entered into, which, if they violated,
would rise up as so many accusations at the day of judg-
ment." (The Antiquities of the Christian Church, book
xii. sec. 3.)
C
To those few names in the church of Sardis who were
keeping their garments undefiled by a firm faith upon
Christ their risen Head, for perfect holiness, by a diligent
pursuit and practice of the same, and a continual applica-
tion to the blood of sprinkling, for the cleansing of every
stain which sin brought upon their conscience, the good
Shepherd doth promise, as their proper and acceptable
reward, " they shall walk with me in white, for they are
worthy." The undefiled garments I understand to be a
holy walk and conversation, in the midst of a sinful world,
and begirt with sinful flesh, continually presenting occa-
sions of pollution, calling for the utmost watchfulness and
^
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 895
self-denial: the white garments, I understand to mean,
the same flesh given to us, in that glorified state which it
assumed in the person of our Lord on the mount of trans-
figuration, "when his face did shine as the sun, and his
raiment was white as the light." Now, forasmuch as the
thing which undergoes a change in the resurrection is not
the soul but the body, which, from its present vileness, be-
cometh fashioned after the likeness of Christ's glorious body,
we are forced to the conclusion, that it is specially to the
holiness of our flesh, to which the undefiled garments hath
reference in the passage before us. The soul being quick-
ened, by the seed of the word, which liveth and abideth
for ever, being born again of water and of the Spirit,
hath given to it the charge of all the members of the
body, to reclaim and recover them from the law of sin
and death, unto the dominion of the law of the Spirit of
life. As Christ being generated man of the Holy Ghost
in the virgin's womb, had from thenceforth the charge of
all the members of his body, to present them holy unto
God always, and bring them immaculate to the sacrifice
of the accursed tree; which also he did, and so achieved
the redemption of man, and of man's dependent world;
even so every Christian, having received from Jesus power
to become a son of God, and being regenerate into the
body of Christ, is required from that time forth until
his change come, to present the members of his body
blameless and faultless in the presence of their righteous
God. In which work of sanctification, standeth the tri-
umph of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, and of
the Holy Ghost, over a rebellious and sinful creation ;
of Christ, in that he doth empower the sons of men to
yield themselves obedient to the law of holiness, in despite
of the law of sin, which is in their members and the
world; of the Father, in that Christ, who thus triumphs
in his members, triumphed himself by the Father who
dwelt in him, and glorified the Father, and is the monu-
ment of the Father's glory, which he doth perpetuate in
every saint; of the Holy Ghost, in that the Father and
Christ being out of the world, he doth fetch forth their
unction and power, and implant it in the believer in the
world, and doth make it there to live and reign, despite
of a sinful and unbelieving world; of God, in that He
896
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
:
receiveth the end of creation in the service of his creature
man, and is testified to have had no hand in the fall, and
to be no party to sin, by means of a race of men, the
church, who triumph over sin, and shall triumph over
death, through faith in his name. All these Divine tri-
umphs are wrought by means of men in sinful flesh, and
are made only the more gloriously apparent, by the condi-
tion of natural sinfulness in which our members are found,
and continue till the end. For, through that law of na-
ture, they sympathise with all the forms of wickedness
which are in the world, and would fain draw aside and
seduce the soul, to become the queen and the mistress of the
mystery of iniquity, which is working in all the chambers
of nature but the soul, informed with the knowledge,
love, honour, and obedience of God the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, believing that Jesus, the righteous one, came
in flesh of sin, and in flesh of sin was holy; and believing
also that he is Lord of all, to hold up the obedient, and
the disobedient to put down, doth, notwithstanding of
the heaven which the flesh pourtrays in natural things,
cleave unto the heaven of faith and hope, which is to be
revealed unto her at the coming of the Lord; and of very
willingness (willingness made willing by Christ in her)
doth set at nought, despise, and trample under foot all
natural beauties, attractions, and pleasures, and draw
every member of the body and the mind forth from under
their base thraldom, into the glorious liberty of holiness;
fulfilling to the letter that amplest precept, "I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye pre-
sent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. And be not con-
formed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renew-
ing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (Rom. xii. 1, 2).
Let no one despise the body, or give it up as a prey to the
enemy. The body is the very pledge of battle ; in the win-
ning or losing of which, God and Christ are glorified or
dishonoured. The soul is the combatant for God; and
Christ is the soul's life to combat; and faith, which presup-
poses knowledge, is the means of preserving life and
strength in the soul to sustain the combat: but the prize
is indeed the body, the members of the body, to present
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 897
their perfect holiness unto the Lord, and to take them out
of the hands of sin, and to devote them to the obedience
of one who is not of the world, even the Father; to one
who is not in the world, even Christ; that it may be prov-
ed that God and Christ do reign, and not the world, that
they are over the world, and are redeeming souls of men
from the world's bondage, and restoring them again to
their lost sovereignty over the members of the body,
and through them over all the chambers of the natural
and visible world. This is the dignity of kings and priests
which we have now; a truly spiritual kingdom which we
do now exercise; the kingdom of God, its power, and its
holiness within us even now.
But this is not otherwise to be attained, than by the
sprinkling of the blood of Christ, so soon as ever a sin-
spot appears upon our raiment, which, being in faith ap-
plied, doth straightway take it away, and leave it unde-
filed as before. But if any one feel that he is thoroughly
corrupt, he must even be washed every whit, "in the
fountain opened in the house of David for sin and for
uncleanness." And this is open to the greatest sinner,
who hath only to be baptized therein, that is, to exer-
cise faith on the worthiness of Christ's blood to atone for
all sin,- and to receive it as the boon of the grace of God
to a guilty soul, in order to be delivered from his guilti-
ness. Baptism unlocks the fountain: he who hath been
baptized hath it unlocked; one who hath not been bap-
tized comes to baptism in order to to have it unlocked,
and ever afterwards, he is to look upon it, as open to
him at all hours of the night and of the day. But if he
should never after baptism have to go thither, how honour-
able to his faithfulness! Alas! that we should have so
often to present ourselves anew to be cleansed. It is our
guilt, and it is our heavy affliction; it is not our infirmity,
it is our sin; it is not to be palliated, because every time
we do apply to the fountain, we honour its wondrous and
Divine virtues. We are not to do evil, that grace may
abound: nor yet to palliate our evil deeds, because grace
hath thereby been shewn to be abundant. It should be
our shame and dishonour, the hanging of our heads, and
the covering of our loins with sackcloth, our pain and
our penance, our tribulation and our anguish, that being
4 H
898
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
members of the church of God, and clothed with its holy
robe, we should ever be less than pure and holy and un-
defiled. Every spot upon it should make us hang our
heads before men who behold it; and these which men be-
hold not, should cost us no less grief because they grieve
the Holy Spirit within us, and are odious in His sight,
who understandeth heart-secrets, and trieth the reins of the
children of men. To men so proved, and exercised with
trials from sinful temptations, and occasionally to their
soul's humbling, overtaken of sinful desires and actings,
what an acceptable promise is this before us, that they
shall walk with Christ in white, in a body which cannot
be any more disputed for by sin, or assaulted by Satan;
in robes which cannot be defiled, but are ever beautiful,
as on that bridal-morn, when we were first arrayed in them
to meet the bridegroom! "To her was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for
the fine linen is the righteousness of saints" (Rev. xix. 8).
This is quite another condition of the saint from that un-
defiledness in which he is now required to preserve him-
self: just as Christ's body glorified, was different from his
body humbled; both holy, the one holiness under proof,
the other holiness rewarded ;—the one, the holiness of God
burning up iniquity in the flesh; the other, the same flesh
glorified by the mighty power of God;-the one, God's
goodly creature, which sin had darkened and defiled,
cast into the furnace to prove its Creator's handy-work
still to be in it; the other, the same goodly creature
brought forth from the furnace like gold seven times re-
fined. The present duty of a Christian is to be holy in all
manner of conversation, notwithstanding all temptations
to the contrary: this is his very calling, his profession, and
his use in the world, to yield a holiness perfect and com-
plete. When James would define what religion is, what
terms doth he use, but those which I have been labouring
under this head of my discourse to unfold?
"If any
man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his
tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is
vain. Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the
Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world"
(James i. 26, 27). Now, what sort of a man he meaneth,
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 899
by one that bridleth his tongue, himself declareth in these
words: "If any man offend not in word, the same is a
perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body'
(iii. 2). Those who do thus honour and glorify the holiness
of God with their bodies, are counted worthy of partak-
ing the glory of Christ: those who are faithful unto the
death, are counted worthy of the resurrection in holy
beauties from the womb of the morning: those who per-
severe in the word and testimony of God, and count not
their lives dear unto them, so that they might finish their
course, and keep the faith, have given to them this robe
of eternal and incorruptible righteousness; according as it
is written of the martyrs, -"And white robes were given
unto every one of them, and it was said unto them, that
they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-
servants also and their brethren, that should be killed
as they were should be fulfilled" (Rev. vi. 11). But this
leads into the subject of the promise; before entering upon
which, we have one remark to make as to the worthiness
of those who receive these white garments.
And that they are worthy, no man believing the word
of Christ, may doubt, who says, "for they are worthy."
We might as well dispute Christ's "worthiness
to open
the book, and to receive the seven-fold homage of the
angelic host, recounted in the vth chapter, as dispute
the worthiness of the saints to receive these white robes
of glory. Wherein then consisteth this their worthiness
of such resplendent glory and inestimable reward? In
their having kept themselves, body, soul, and spirit blame-
less, until the coming of the Lord. And how did they
this great thing? By faith in the sanctifying blood of
Jesus, who offered himself upon the cross without spot
and blameless. For by no other element in the wide world
besides, can sins be washed out; as it is written, "They
have washed their robes, and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb:" "The blood of Christ cleanseth from
all iniquity:" "How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?" One who is clean, is one who is
believing in the power of Christ to cleanse, and honouring
him as our righteousness and sanctification: one who is
4 H 2
900
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
ever clean, is one who in all his thoughts and ways is so
giving the confidence of his heart unto the Lord's Christ,
whom "God hath exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give
repentance and remission of sins." And more than this,
God requireth not of any creature, nor is more than this
necessary for the perfection of any creature.
No more
doth God require than to be trusted in: there needeth not
to bring a price besides, or to add a work beside; for that
were paying God with his own. He never required any
more at any creature's band since creation's birth, than
that it should look up to its Creator for the continuance of
that well-being which he hath made it to enjoy. To sup-
pose that God requireth any more than to be trusted in
is to suppose him less than good, and ourselves greater
than creatures. That goodness which created, is an
everlasting goodness, ever streaming forth in the same
gushing fulness, which at first wrought blessedness out of
nothing, in order to preserve blessedness in being. The
worthiness of any creature, therefore, consisteth in de-
pendence upon its Creator, which is at once the ex-
pression of gratitude for its existence, and the acknow-
ledgment of its Creator as the continuance of its ex-
istence. This was what Adam failed in, what Christ
perfected. Christ's whole life was an act of dependence
upon the Father, without whom he spake nothing, with-
out whom he did nothing: and when he is glorying over
the completion of his work, it is in these words, "Now
they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given
me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words
which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and
have known surely that I came out from thee, and they
have believed that thou didst send me" (John xvii. 7, 8).
His will was tempted the other way, as ours is; but it re-
sisted and overcame the temptation: he made himself
nothing, he made his Father all. The deceived of these
days are labouring to make him every thing, his Father
nothing; and so to mingle the creature and the Creator,
which it is the great wisdom of God to preserve separate,
and in their proper relations one to another. Christ's
worthiness came all from this, that he had glorified the
Father; that he had manifested the Father's name, by
living, moving, breathing, and having his being wholly
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 901
in him. It was the worthiness, not of self-righteousness,
but of righteousness emanating from God. Now, when
the Father sets Christ into his own throne, and possesses
him with the completeness of Godhead power, his own
seven-fold Spirit of light and life, and sends fiery tongues
from heaven upon men, to proclaim him Lord of all, and
with his own signet of signs and wonders, and divers
miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost, attests
their word to be a word from Heaven, he totally turneth
over the reverence, homage, and dependence of the earth
unto the hand of this man, he glorifies him with his own.
glory, he girds him with his own girdle, he arms him with
his own sceptre, he exalts him to his own dignity, he fills
him with his own Spirit. He either makes a creature
God, or the creature to whom this is done is very God;
is, and ever was, though as a creature apparent, God
manifest in flesh. This great revolution being wrought,
and this new authority being proclaimed abroad, all
creature-worthiness standeth, in looking unto this man, the
Christ of God, and he who doth thus depend upon him, is
worthy in the sight of God, in what way a creature is worthy,
that is, not in, nor of itself, but as it looketh to the su-
preme Creator. Ah! what a wonderful, what a stupen-
dously wonderful work of God is this bringing in of his
Son to be the head of all creation, ever exhibiting him as
creature, and yet bringing it to pass that not the creature
but the Creator shall be seen in him; without resigning
his rights as Creator, to make them manifest in a creature
form. This is "the mystery of godliness, God manifest
in the flesh." Our worthiness is therefore exactly of the
same kind as Christ's, when we look continually to Christ,
and are strengthened for good; as he looked continually
to God, and was strengthened for good. God hath not
changed his rule of approbation, his sense of worthiness.
It is the same dependence upon the Creator which was
required of Adam and the angels, yielded effectually by
none but Christ, and by all others yielded only through
him, whether in the way of anticipation or of retrospec-
tion. He was to the angels a head of sustentation, `and
to us he is a head of redemption. God, in thus interpos-
ing a Mediator as the object of confidence, doth not with-
4 H 3
902
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
draw himself thereby, but shews himself therein, while
he teacheth all saved and redeemed creatures, that not
without an Incarnate God, a God in creature form, sup-
porting creatures, are creatures brought into blessedness.
Faith upon the fountain-head of its being is, and ever
hath been, and ever must be the worthiness of every crea-
ture. In being turned upon Christ, it is merely proved
that Christ was the fountain-head of our being, the Alpha
as well as the Omega, the first as well as the last, the
beginning as well as the beginner of the creation of
God, the first-born as well as the former of every creature.
In one word, that God, having assumed the limited form of
the Christ, having limited himself within creature bounds,
having done this in the person of his Son, did thereafter,
and by this person thus circumscribed, create all things;
and to this person of the Son of God as the Christ, all
created things, with Adam as their head, ought to have
looked, and for not looking are brought low, and are fain to
look again, ere ever they can be redeemed from their present
sinful and miserable estate. So much have I to say upon
the nature of worthiness in the sight of God: it is faith in
Christ," who is the image of the invisible God, the first-
born of every creature: for by him were all things creat-
ed, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or prin-
cipalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and
for him and he is before all things, and by him all things
consist. And he is the head of the body, the church:
who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that
in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For it
pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell
(Col. i. 15-19). If any one object to these forms of
speech which I use concerning Christ, I answer, That they
are those used by the Holy Ghost, and that they are the
only ones which can satisfactorily establish his Godhead ;
that I am no minister of any book, so as to be bound to
use its words, but of that book alone which is the word
of God,"quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-
edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
903
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight
but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him
with whom we have to do" (Heb. iv. 12, 13).
I do therefore most earnestly entreat as many as read
these things, to consider whether they are worthy of that
glory which is to be revealed no one knows how soon.
Are you, my dear brethren, keeping your garments un-
defiled-your members servants of righteousness—your
whole man holy in the sight of God? Are you standing
for the faith, and striving after the attainment of perfect
righteousness? Are you loving God because of his per-
fect holiness, and delighting in his law because it is per-
fectly holy? Is Christ precious to you because he came
in your flesh, and under your conditions of trial, and therein
perfected holiness? Why will not men believe this glo-
rious truth? How will they feel when their Brother comes
to judge them? He will tell them, that it was no impos-
sible thing to serve God in human nature.
THE SPIRIT'S EXHORTATION AND PROMISE.
The language of these epistles is so rich, the matter
in every sentence so weighty, and the current opinions
in the church, feel to me so much out of harmony with
the spirit which breathes throughout them, that, in my
desire of exhibiting each several point of truth, I seem
sometimes in danger of losing sight of the beautiful sym-
metry of the whole, and the adjustment of the parts to
one another, in the system of truth. There is, however,
as we have often observed, a harmony of parts in this vi-
sion bespeaking the infinite wisdom from which it came
forth. Each of the seven epistles holdeth up to view
its own side of the truth, and presents it in a practical
and embodied form, struggling with the co-relative form of
falsehood in the midst of this dark and erroneous world.
Among these, this epistle to the church of Sardis is in-
tended to hold up the form and aspect of honour and
dignity wherefore so much of it is expressed in terms of
the robe and the name. The chief Shepherd first presents
himself, with two titles of dignity, as the Possessor of all
heavenly power, and the Head of all earthly supremacy;
which he had attained by seeking the honour of God's
name, and thinking nothing of his own. Then he challenges.
904
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the bishop of Sardis for his low and unworthy estimate of
the true source of dignity, as if it lay in the tongues of
men, directs him into the channel of true nobility, and,
having complimented those of his flock who were drinking
of the true fountain of honour, he here proposeth unto all
the churches, and to every one who hath an ear to hear,
the prize of heavenly honour and a glorious name;
name;—the
white robe being the outward aspect of glory, the name
in the Book of Life, the intrinsical honour in the sight of
God and of Christ. This high eminence of dignity and
honour is presented to every one who overcometh all tempt-
ations, especially those of worldly honour and reputation,
which stood in the way of the church and angel of Sardis.
Now in the present day, there is certainly no tempta-
tion so great as to stand well with the voice of public
opinion, to be well spoken of and applauded. And of
all classes of men thus beset, none seems to be so
sorely tempted as the angels of the churches, perhaps
from their addressing popular audiences.
The clergy
of our church, in particular, have been praised and ap-
plauded of a long time for their sobriety, piety, and pas-
toral faithfulness. The credit of a well-educated, well-
principled, and well-behaved people, hath decidedly been
given to them; for Scotland had every disadvantage when
compared with other nations, and no advantage but her
humble and unadorned church. This hath not been lost
sight of by the envious and evil men, who are desirous to
upset the more costly and splendid and influential hie-
rarchy of the Church of England; against whom to act
with the more force, while they serve their own malice,
they have continually brought forward the Church of
Scotland as their covert. In these days of economy,
also, when existing institutions are scanned with a severe
and inquisitive eye, those of our church, for education and
for the poor, have been found at once so wise and efficient
as to draw great observation upon the clergy, from whom
they emanate. These and other means acting upon the
character of our nation, which is forward and daring, most
reverend of dignities, and somewhat too much so of appear-
ances, have brought it to pass, that, all retired from pub-
lic observation, as the clergy of the Church of Scotland
are, we have, as a body, no small consciousness of our
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
905
good name; and when we come to act ostensibly, as
in ecclesiastical courts, perhaps no judges in the island
act so much under the impression of what will be thought
of the decision out of doors. In the Church of England
also, the same regard for appearances hath of late begun
to shew itself, and somewhat to reduce the proud and
stately bearing which she used to carry towards the
people; and this hath introduced many salutary outward
reforms into the administration of her diocesans, as also
into the character of her parish clergy. The hunting
parson is almost hunted from the church; as also are the
drunkard and the openly profane; and, beyond question,
her outward aspect is much improved within the last ge-
neration. It is very curious that, within the same period,
a similar change should have taken place in the Roman-
Catholic priesthood of Ireland; which, from having the cha-
racter of good-natured sensualists, hath, chiefly by political
influence, taken that of smart, active, and ambitious church-
men. Nothing is able to resist the force of public opinion:
it bears down every thing but a thoroughly honest man.
No institution, no office, not the king's nor the prime
minister's, can stand upright and walk according to its
proper rules and laws. It is a temptation of wonderful
strength; and I know not whether it be not more powerful
to prevent men from the way of righteousness, than the
fire and faggot of Mary's reign in England, or the impri-
sonment and torture, the heading and hanging of Lauder-
dale and Mydleton's supremacy in Scotland. I feel, by
the form and pressure of this temptation, how well worthy
it is of a place in the seven trials of the church. The
gradual invasion of worldliness and decrease of love to Him
who is no longer in the world, the tenfold persecutions of
the Pagan empire, the flood of false doctors, canons, and
councils, the establishment of the Papacy itself, with its
perfect system of superstition,-these four successive trials
of the church, brought to view in the four preceding epi-
stles, were none of them more severe to truth and godliness,
than this form of public opinion; which, taking occasion
from the right of private judgment, so nobly asserted at the
Reformation, and finding vent through the art of printing,
is now exercised daily, and weekly, and monthly, and
yearly, in such infinite ways, and hath brought the bravest
906
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
and the best of men into pusillanimous fear; is shaking
thrones, and overturning dynasties, and oppressing per-
sonal liberty to an extent which I doubt if the Papacy
ever surpassed.It is now pressing very closely upon
the forms and institutions of the church. In England, it
is crying down the church patrimony, with which it hath
nothing to do, and venturing to feel its way towards
the alteration of her symbolical books. In Scotland, it is
crying down orthodox doctrine, and hurrying on the
clergy to cast the maintainers of it out of the church. At
Geneva, it prevailed to shut the mouth of the pulpit, and
interdict the liberty of preaching, upon five of the cardinal
points of the Christian faith. God grant that the same
spirit of compromising the truth may not come nearer
to us than the state of Geneva. Measures of peace are
fearful things when they are not governed by the love and
knowledge of the truth. However it may end, the fact is
certain, that the appeal to the people as to the voice of
God is pressing us very hard, and a few men hardly sus-
tain themselves against it. This is the temptation which
is held out as the next to arise after the adulterous doc-
trines of Jezebel; and beyond question it is now in the
world. It is the tare sown beside the truth in the Pro-
testant church; it hath grown up with Protestantism, and
is now the only thing to be seen over the wide field.
Few, very few, servants of Christ are there in the Reformed
churches, compared with the servants of public opinion:
few, very few, asserters of Christ's supremacy, compared
with the asserters of the supremacy of the people. I have
often my doubts whether amongst us, the influence of
public opinion be not as strong and as detrimental to the
truth, as the influence of the pope and his synagogue of
Satan in Roman-Catholic countries. This exact coinci-
dence of the temptation of the church of Sardis with that
of the Reformed churches, convinces me the more that
our view of the succession in the seven epistles is sub-
stantially true, though the catholic view be the great one,
which the other doth but corroborate. Now as each
soldier in an army, and each brigade, is expected to
stand fast and meet the enemy who comes up against
them; so we, having our several places and stations along
the line of time, are expected to combat with that parti-
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise. 907
cular form of war which comes up against us: and there
being no doubt that the force of popular opinion is our
particular enemy in this day, to contend with and over-
come this is our special calling, in the good occupation of
which we shall do for our Captain the service required of us.
Our fathers the reformers did God's work in casting out
Jezebel from the church, and our kings in casting her
out from the land: they suffered her not any longer; they
removed that offence of the chief Shepherd: they over-
came her, and are entered into their reward. The Culdees
before them both in Scotland and in England, and at the
court of Charlemagne, and over all the bounds of Chris-
tendom, resisted the Balaamite and Nicolaitan doctors,
who had come in like locusts, and eaten up both truth and
purity in the church. And now who are the chosen men
in the church, to arise, and in the strength of Christ, to
face and overcome the popular voice, which is now ruling
all things with a rod of iron? This is the peculiar voca-
tion, as soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called
with; this is the particular form of battle which we have
to wage, and those who overcome therein are promised
the robe of everlasting glory and the name of everlasting
renown.
This whole subject clears very much before my mind
as I proceed; and I am made to feel the importance of
that which I am called upon to put forth, even though it
should be only for a testimony, and no eye of man should
read, or heart of man should believe it. Let me, there-
fore, proceed in the fear of God, and do my work in His
sight, who is ever walking among the seven golden
candlesticks, and looking upon the seven stars which he
holdeth in his right hand.
Concerning the influence of public opinion, or the
temptation of a name to live, I would now discourse in
a few words; and concerning the way of overcoming it.
The principle of all private judgment is this, That while
the word of authority is with the angel of the church, the
answer of approbation is with the body of the people; who
being the members of Christ, put the word of prophesying
to proof, trying it by its fruits, and holding fast that only
which is good. No pride of office must be permitted to
undervalue the right of private judgment and the response
908
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of the Spirit in the members of Christ. If there be a jus
divinum, a Divine authority with the angel, there is the
same with the people, of the church; and these are not to
stand up against, but to reverence one another. The
Apostle John appeals to the unction which the people had
received from the Holy Ghost, as the test of all truth;
and writes to them not as to those "who know not the
truth, but who know it." This right in the body of the
church, in every two or three of Christ's members, "to bind
and to loose," "to ask what they will, and it should be
done unto them," the Roman hierarchy took altogether
away, usurping it unto themselves; the Reformers restored
it again to the people. And from the abuse of this most
precious boon, hath arisen that tyranny of the popular voice
which now puts down the dignity of personal freedom and
responsibility as effectually as ever did the tyranny of the
Romish priesthood. This abuse hath crept on from for-
getting that those high privileges of the people arise not
from themselves, but from the Holy Spirit dwelling in
them as the members of the body of Christ; and stand
not in the number or multitude of the people, but
in each person giving forth the testimony of the Holy
Ghost within him. As members of Christ, obedient to all
Christ's ordinances, not as men living how they list; as
individual persons whose will is set free from the bondage
of the world and the flesh, and enlightened in the knowledge
of the truth by the Holy Ghost, not as a mass of persons
giving up their liberty to a common influence, and acting
with one another through good and through bad report, it
is, that this most sacred privilege of private judgment is
guaranteed to every man by the laws and constitutions of
the church, and even of nature itself. Now the angel of
the church, the king of the state, or any other office-bearer
whatever, instead of being called upon to yield to the
influence of popular opinion, however rightly exercised
and fairly gathered, except in as far as it hath the response
of the Spirit within his own conscience, is bound to set
them all the example of an honest man and of a good
Christian, by refusing to sacrifice the voice of God within
him to any power or influence whatever. This is the very
end of God in setting one man up in the sight of others, that
through this man he may teach them in what way it be-
VIII.]
Sardis― Universal Bishop: The Promise.
Sardis
909
comes every man to act the part of a servant of the living
God. He is the person, in the sight of all others, to fulfil
the offices of a responsible person. And when the heads
of the churches, and of the kingdoms, do thus give to the
people the example of godly and conscientious persons,
and the people follow it in seeking for the answer of a
good conscience within themselves, the result is harmony
and unity, through the unity of that Holy Spirit which is
within them. To yield to no foreign influence as an au-
thority, while we weigh it as evidence-to respect the
opinions of all men, while we reverence the voice of God
in our own conscience, this is the part of an upright and
godly person. Every man ought to have the witness within
himself, or else he is no honest man, nor servant of the
Most High God.
It is a mistake, therefore, to think that mere numbers
give authority to any judgment or deliverance, so as to
put it beyond question that the right is on that side; for
the promise of infallibility is to two or three, not to two
or three thousand. On the other hand, when great mul-
titudes coalesce in one judgment, it is almost constantly
found that they are following, not the voice of the Holy
Ghost, whose followers are always a little flock despised of
the many, but their own ruling passion, or feeling of present
interest and advantage. And this is, beyond doubt, the
case, when that verdict or judgment of the many would
trespass upon the rights of private persons, and especially
when it would subvert the authority of office-bearers, in
the church or in the state; whose responsibility as men,
and as men bearing trust, obligeth them to acquit their
conscience to that Master unto whom they stand or fall
and to give an example of conscientious servants of the
living God, to all the people over whom they have the
oversight. For example, if I, the minister of a church, were
required by the unanimous voice of my flock to cease from
preaching any of the truths of God, it would be my part
to refuse such an unholy demand, and maintain that very
truth more firmly than before. If again, I, as the angel
of a church, were required by my brethren in the pastoral
charge of other flocks, to trespass against some of the
positive commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ in mat-
ters of discipline, it would be my part to serve God rather
4 I
910
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
than man, and bear the blame and the burden, whatever
it might be, which they might impose. The misrepresen-
tion of truth, the charge of schism, the loss of place and
preferment, the odium and disgrace which follow upon
such actings, are in God's sight of great price, and to be
accounted subjects of great joy and rejoicing. But if I
were to admit into my own bosom, any spirit of the like
kind, by seeking to control the Holy Spirit's witness in the
hearts of my people, and to require of them to take my
word for His word; or if I were to propose in the councils
of the elders any injunction of mine, or partial interpreta-
tion of Christ's injunction, and require them to sacrifice
their judgments thereto, then were I found guilty in the
sight of God. And what in cases of difference is to be
done? Disagreement is to be made the subject of deep
sorrow, and humble penitence before God, and diligent
self-examination, to discover from what root of bitter-
ness it hath sprung up and peace and charity on both
sides are to be carefully preserved, and the right of pri-
vate judgment respected, until, by mutual forbearance,
it please God to remove the infirmity and disease; which
is generally by our outgrowing it, through the strengthen-
ing power of the Spirit of truth and love. But how shall the
Holy Ghost ever grow to any maturity within our hearts, if
we suffer another voice beside his to have a share in the
council? Be that voice dear as a father's, be it revered as
a pastor's, be it awful as a king's, be it terrible as the
voice of an assembled multitude, be it impetuous and
overpowering as the tide of public opinion, roaring through
its thousand channels, we are meekly but manfully to re-
sist it, come what will; and if we be overborne, to appeal
our cause to the great assize, when every secret work shall
be called into judgment, and all disputes rectified by un-
erring justice.
These are the doctrines which will support a man against
the masses of the enemy, and enable him to preserve his
personal liberty against such fearful odds: and without
the steady recognition of a witness within us, an infallible
witness to truth, even Christ, it is a vain thing for a man
to think of keeping his feet for one single hour. It is not
public men, as heretofore, who are called in question by
the people for their public acts, and rightly, seeing the
VIII.]
911
Sardis—Universal Bishop: The Promise.
people are constituted one integral part of the powers that
be; but it is private persons, persons living in the utmost
privacy, who are assailed and attacked on every hand, if
in any thing they dare to differ from the common opinion.
The modesty of woman cannot shield her, the confidence
of the most sacred friendship cannot preserve you, the
sacred laws of hospitality cannot protect you, nor the laws
of the state defend you, from being invaded and attacked
upon all points where you think and act differently from
the mass of men. It is really come to this, that if you will
exercise any part of personal liberty in your house or your
office, in your opinions or devotions, in any way whatsoever,
you will be attacked for doing so. That is to say, if you
will not serve God according to the rule of public opinion,
you must be arraigned before the tribunal of public opinion.
In other words, public opinion will oversway and overturn
God in your conscience. You may serve God as much as
you like, so that you offend not this or that party of men ;
but if you serve him otherwise than they will authorise,
then you must suffer for it by all the means of offence
which they possess. It is a very easy matter to please
them: you have only to dethrone God in your hearts, and
enthrone them in his room. Well, who
Well, who is for the Lord?
Let that man prepare to suffer scandal and reproach, and
all manner of evil which the law permits.
Of all the forms of this temptation, which it is our special
calling to contend against and to overcome, that which is
brought to bear upon us, by what is called the religious
world, is by far the most formidable. The true principle
of the church, after baptizing every one into her com-
munion, is to say, "Now go thy way and act the part of a
free man of God; do, and be, no offence to the brethren ;
and the less I have to interfere in thine affairs the better."
This is to reverence the dignity of a person, and righteous-
ly to fulfil the part of a mother who teaches her children
to obey their father, and to hear his voice, not hers. But,
now that a system of things is introduced instead of a
system of persons, and called the Evangelical Body, or the
Religious World, behold what they say: "Thou must read
books by rule, and adopt opinions by rule, and speak thy
thoughts by rule; thou must eat and drink by rule, and
marry by rule, and do every thing else by our rules; or else
4 12
912
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
}
:
be thou warned, that thou shalt have the lash of our newspaper
and magazine upon thee: name and surname thou shalt stand
blazoned, be thou man or woman, preacher or parish priest,
in our columns, covered with our contempt, and stigma-
tized with the reproach of all who read our writing. The
religious world must be warned against thee as an unruly
person thou must be brought under, and, if not, thine
influence must be destroyed, and thy name cast out as
evil." This is the truth: many helpless women have
proved it, whose name to make public, is almost to break
their peace for ever. Oh, it is a shameful, a shocking, a
most sinful ostracism this, which is exercised against the
liberty of a person to serve God with a free conscience.
But it must be borne, and meekly borne, and contended
against and overcome. Not courted, but not shunned;
when it arriveth, it must be hailed as the righteous cross of
Christ. And we must pray for the mockers and the crucifiers,
"Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
I attribute all the knowledge of God and Christ, all the
progress in the Divine life which I have made, and all the
service which I have been able to do for the church, in ex-
posing her unlawful expediency and infidelity, and masses.
of heterodoxy, to this one cause under God; that I have
now these twelve years, both as a private person and as
an ecclesiastical office-bearer, resisted the external invasion
of any, and every voice, which would intervene between
my conscience and God. In doing which my temper hath
oft been chafed, and the serenity of my mind beclouded, and
my peace for a season disturbed, and my faith throughout
hath been but as a grain of mustard-seed; but yet, through
abounding and superabounding imperfections and trans-
gressions, I have, by God's grace, been enabled to per-
ceive his truth and to express it, and to awaken multitudes
to think of their present state, and of the things which are
about to come to pass. Every organ of public opinion in
the land hath declared itself against me, and every vehicle
of abuse hath been employed to pour contempt upon me;
and be it known unto the timorous, for their encourage-
ment, and to the weak, for their strengthening, that I stand
at this hour more assured of the love and presence of my
God with me in all my labours, than I have ever done
before. I may take up the words of my Lord, and say,
VIII.]
913
Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
"The enemy hath not been able to exact upon me, nor
the son of mischief to do me wrong." My greatest tempta-
tion by far is, to be stirred up with a spirit of contempt for
their most ignoble and abject meanness: from this may the
Lord deliver me, and all who are in the like case.
I put
forth my own experience, as every one who knows the dignity
of a person will, as Paul did, and Luther did, and He whom
we are all called upon to follow, in order to confirm the
doctrine which I have been laying down, and to encourage
my brethren to go forward in their work and in their way,
and not to be afraid of this intellectual supremacy, this
Protestant inquisition, this rack of words and reproaches,
which they are sure to encounter. Moreover I add, that
if a man will think to attain to the knowledge of his God,
or to righteousness, without setting public opinion at
naught, he utterly deceives himself: and this, I deem, is of
such importance that I will open it in a single paragraph.
Our Lord says, in a certain place, "How can ye believe
who expect honour one of another, and expect not the
honour which cometh from God only?" and in that word
He expressed an everlasting truth, which perhaps never,
since his own days, was so necessary of application as in
these our times, when man's opinion is wont to be spoken
of in all large assemblies and high places, as co-incident
with the voice of God; said, and not contradicted, for
example, in the houses of parliament, and repeated in the
thousand forms of persuasion throughout the land. The
principle is, that where God may not reign alone He will
not come at all; that Christ will not be on any man's side,
but every man must be upon his side; that the Holy
Ghost alone is true, and every other spirit a liar; and that
no man can entertain these Holy Ones, or profit by them
in faith and holiness, save only inasmuch as he is totally
delivered from other collateral influences. He must sit
loose to all favourite opinions, if he would know the mind
of God: he must sit loose to all private affections, if he
would possess the love of God; and set at nought all con-
sequences, if he would know the peace of God, which
passeth understanding. To a heart thus open to and
confiding in God, God will speak at all times, and by all
means: such a one shall never be brought into error, nor
shall he ever fall. This is not to break up all the bonds
413
914
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
of life, but to put them under the government of their
rightful Lord: it is not to give all our past results of
experience to the wind, but to try them by the test of
unerring truth it is not to despise the brethren, but to
make them come and sit at Christ's feet: it is not to
contemn the church, but to tell the church, Thou also art
a subject, and must be taught to obey. But, be the con-
sequences of following the rule what they please, in the
hands of headstrong and foolish men; the rule is peremp-
tory and unchangeable, that if a man will think with a
double mind, or love with a divided heart, or will look
and make his observations with a double eye, his whole
body shall remain full of darkness: and the darkness shall
only increase by all his attempts to know God, under the
condition of His agreeing with any men, or body of men, to
serve God under condition of continuing to serve any man
or body of men. But when, by clearing our conscience of all
secret reservations, and our purpose of all bye-intents, we do
find ourselves brought into collision with other men, and
these, it may be, in authority or office over us, we are not to
resist them when putting forth against us the powers with
which they are invested; but to yield quiet submission,
and, if need be, to die for the testimony of the truth.
Such I believe to be the true doctrine with respect to
public opinion, that special enemy whom we have to con-
tend against and to overcome. And now hear what is the
reward promised to him who overcometh.
The reward standeth in the two great attributes of
honour, a robe of heavenly dignity, and a name of ever-
lasting renown; but expressed in language the most rich
and exuberant of meaning. Concerning the white raiment
in which it is promised that those who overcome, shall be
arrayed, we have discoursed already. It is the emblem
of that glory into which the faithful soldiers of Christ
Jesus shall, at his coming, be translated. The cloud on
which he comes seated, is in colour white (xiv. 4); and
the horse on which he rides (xix. 11); and the throne on
which he gives judgment (xx. 11); all emblematical of
glorious purity. By declaring that He hath such raiment
to give, Christ declareth himself to be the possessor and
distributor of that glory with which the saints shall here-
after be invested: wherefore also in all the doxologies,
VIII.] Sardis-- Universal Bishop: The Promise. 915
glory is ascribed unto Christ; "To him be glory and do-
minion." God is the " Father of the glory," and be-
stowed it upon Christ, when he "raised him from the dead
and gave him glory;" and to share in that glory we are
called according to that word of the Apostle," that ye
may know what is the hope of your calling, and what the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." Now
what is the nature of the thing signified by this word glory,
which is continually presented in the Scriptures, as the hope
of the saints. It is a new form of creation different from
that form which it weareth now, overrun as it is with sin and
death, and also from that which it had at the first, outward
as it then existed from God. The difference shall be de-
rived from the union of Godhead with it in Christ, diffusing
throughout every region the power of the seven Spirits of
God, which shall not only raise it from its present death,
but also inform it with eternal life, far beyond the reach
of evil accident and change. The glory in it is the
glory of the manifest Godhead, wherefore the new Jeru-
salem is said to have the glory of God, and the nations
of the earth do walk in its light; that is, in the beams of
the Lord God Almighty, and of the Lamb, who are the
light thereof. To accomplish this change upon creation,
requireth the forth-putting of that seven-fold Spirit, with
which Christ investeth himself, to the angel and church of
Sardis, who were ambitious of honour and glory: for to raise
Christ from the dead, and set him in glory, required
"the
surpassing greatness of the power of the Father,'" the
energy of the might of his strength" (Eph. i. 19); and to
change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious
body, requireth the putting forth of "the energy whereby
he is able even to subdue all things to himself." That
the risen man should put forth this power, which is able
not only to bring all creation up again out of its grave,
but also to reconstruct it in a beauty and strength far
surpassing its original form, doth, beyond all witness,
prove that this same person was the Maker of it, and
more than the maker of it; its Redeemer, Sustainer, eternal
Saviour, and Glorifier. He is proved to be the Creator,
inasmuch as, when its creature bands are all crumbled into
dust, he doth raise it up again, bound together by the
same laws, fulfilling God's original purpose, and so glori-
916
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
fying God its Maker: and he is proved to be more than its
Creator, inasmuch as he sendeth through it a life over
which death hath no power, a holiness which shall know no
taint of sin, a beauty which shall never be marred again by
the finger of corruption. This is more than creation, and
more than creation redeemed; it is creation glorified; and
he who out of the materials of dissolved dust, doth bring
forth creation according to creation's laws, with the super-
induced infallibility and glory of God's being impressed
upon its face, doth gather unto himself, not only the Di-
vine attributes of the Creator of heaven and earth, but
still higher attributes of God, even the complete glory
of Godhead, which can in creature be expressed. Now,
because in the reason of man there is no higher measure
of Godhead than the bringing forth of all things out of
nothing, by the word of his power, and because in the Old
Testament there is no higher attribute ascribed to God;
I do, both from reason and Scripture conclude, that this
person who is able to re-organise all creation, and bind it
together with the indissoluble cement of holiness, and inform
it throughout with the strength, and cover it all over with
the beams of the glory of God, is greater than Creator,
and not less than the eternal God. Now, because dignity
and honour were much in the thoughts of the angel of this
church, and of his people, and they sought to occupy
a high and noble place in the eyes of men, the Lord of
glory doth present himself invested with all the power of
God, and proffers to him and all his people, and to all
the churches, and to the whole audience of the children
of men, the fellowship of that supereminent dignity into
which he had been raised, by the putting forth of the
utmost power of God: as much as to say, Why dream
ye of earthly honours, which perisheth in the using, and
is the food of worms, and shall be consumed in the fire
of the holiness of God, which shall go before the face of
my glory? Stand up from grovelling thus in the dust of
the ground; cast the eye of your ambition upward, and
behold the resplendent glory of the new Jerusalem, the
dwelling-place of God: set your affections upon these
things in the heavens, and despise this world reserved for
destruction. Fight against the temptation of earthly state
and splendour. Defile not your touch with these riches
66
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
917
of Sodom, O ye sons of faithful Abraham, to whom I the
great Melchizedek have brought forth bread and wine, the
pledges of the inheritance of glory, and of that holy body
in which you are to enter in through the gates of the city.
O pledged Christians, O betrothed bride of Christ, how
ill it beseems thee to take thyself up with these earthly
things, whose proper dwelling-place and habitation is pre-
pared in the heavens!"
12
The second part of the Spirit's promise by the mouth
of our glorified Head, is expressed in these words: “ And
I will not blot out his name out of the book of life; but
I will confess his name before my Father, and before his
angels." This is twofold; negative, what he will not do;
and positive, what he will do for the valiant and victorious.
Let us examine them in order. The book of life, in which
the names of the church militant are enrolled, and out of
which those who draw back shall be erased, is entitled
(chap. xiii. 8), "the book of life of the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world." And the names inscribed
in it are said (chap. xvii. 8) "to have been written there
from the foundation of the world:" and one effect of be-
ing therein entered, is to preserve us at the day of judg-
ment from the lake of fire, the just desert of our sins; for it
is revealed (chap. xx. 15), "And whosoever was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire;'
which "is the second death." Of this life the seat and
habitation is declared to be the new Jerusalem; of which
it is said, "And there shall in no wise enter into it any
thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomina-
tion, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in
the Lamb's book of life" (xxi. 27). This life of the
new Jerusalem is purchased by the death of the Lamb,
slain in the purpose of God before the foundation of the
world. These heavenly things are sanctified by better sa-
crifices than bulls or goats, even by the blood of Christ,
as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot (Heb.
ix. 23). And this is the reason for which it is called the
"book of life of the Lamb slain," because the life, unto the
inheritance of which it conveys the title, was by his death
purchased; not that life conferred by creation on Adam,
nor the mortal life into which we are begotten by genera-
tion, but that eternal life, to give which unto the world,
918
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Christ, the Bread of Life, came down from heaven; the
life which is not otherwise to be had than by eating his
flesh and drinking his blood (John vi.); the eternal life of
which John speaks, both in the beginning of his Gospel,
and First Epistle, as having been with the Father, and
which Christ takes to himself, as one of his names,
am the Life." The glorious form of that life is not yet
manifested; but "is hid with Christ in God. And when
Christ, who is our life shall appear, we also shall appear
with him in glory. It doth not yet appear what we shall
be; but when he shall appear, we shall be like him.”
"I
Concerning the origin of the term "book of life,” I
have been able to discover nothing specific in sacred or
profane history; and therefore suppose that it is taken
from the common, and we may say universal, custom of
all kings, to take from time to time a census of the living
persons in their dominions, and enrol them in a book.
The Jews were very careful to preserve such registers in
every family; and the Book of Genesis is full of such lists,
shewing us that the custom was coeval with mankind.
When the children of Israel had offended God so grievously,
by the idolatry of the golden calf, Moses interceded in these
words: "Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin;—and if
not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou
hast written" (Exod. xxxii. 32). To which God answered,
"Whosoever hath sinned, him will I blot out of my book."
It is hard to say what book Moses here referreth to; a
book written by God, in which his own name was entered,
and out of which God would blot none but the wicked.
There hath been no book mentioned as yet in the holy
Scriptures, save that book (xxiv. 7) in which were written
the words of God's covenant with the people, to give them
the inheritance of Canaan. In this book, Moses had a
place, as well as all the rest of the children of Israel: for
they were all parties, and as such sprinkled with the blood
of consecration. Sometimes I have thought that among
the originals shewed to him in the Mount,-the heavenly
things, of which the earthly things he framed were only
patterns, one might be a book, the book of life, the book
of the new covenant for the inheritance of the heavenly
Jerusalem; the book sprinkled not with blood of bulls
and of goats, but with the blood of the Lamb slain from
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
919
the foundation of the world. This expression "from the
foundation of the world," twice applied to it, requires that
it should have been then in existence; and being one of
the heavenly things, it may have been made known to
him as the true form of the eternal covenant: after which
he should cause a book of his typical covenant to be writ-
ten, the original according to the pattern of which the
children of Israel should be required tribe by tribe, and
family by family, to write up their genealogies, for the in-
heritance of the land of promise, when they should arrive
there. Certain it is, that from this place forward, through-
out the Scriptures, allusion is made to this book of God,
and once or twice under the name "book of the living."
In the xlth Psalm, Christ speaks of his body as being
written of therein; and in the cxxxixth of his members,
which I take to be the church. In Isaiah iv. 3, the holy
remnant who shall inhabit Zion and Jerusalem, are said to
be" written among the living [marg. to life] in Jerusa-
lem;" and Daniel useth similar language of all the holy
people," Thy people shall be delivered, every one that is
found written in the book."
Besides the expressions, "book of life," "the book of
God," "the book," there are others which indicate books
for particular ends or objects; as for example, "the book
of judgment," wherein are written the actions of every
man who hath lived (Dan. vii. 10; Rev. xx. 12): "A
book of remembrance written before him for them that
feared the Lord, and thought upon his name" (Mal. iii).
Laying all these things together, it seems to me as if God
would represent by these expressions the various depart-
ments of his government of the world, after the similitude
of earthly kings, who have books for various ends; one
for the laws of the kingdom (Esth. i. 19), another for its
chronicles (Esth. vi. 1), another for its daily occurrences,
another for persons, according to their various stations
and offices, merit or demerit, &c. Of these books of
God, containing the several parts of his administration,
the book of life grows out of his purpose to sacrifice his
own Son. It was not for nothing that he made so great
and precious a sacrifice: many souls were thereby to be
brought into glory: by the righteousness of this one man,
were many to reign in life. From that death many lives
920
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
should come; a city of life, the central life of the world,
from which, as from the heart, the whole creation should
be supplied with the vital stream. As the church in all
times, places, and persons subsisting, is only the members
of one body, whereof Christ is the quickening Spirit, so
when the new Jerusalem shall be revealed, I judge that it
shall be the source of light and life to the populous uni-
verse. What office the sun in the firmament doth now
fulfil for this productive earth, being the source of vegetable
life, without which all were dark, dead, and desolate as the
frozen pole; that office will the new Jerusalem, the globe.
of spiritual life, fulfil for all creation raised again from the
corruption of the tomb. From this, the form of spiritual
being, shall the world drink its spiritual blessedness, there
see the origin of its spiritual life, and thither trace up the
variety of spiritual operations. At present the spiritual is
not manifested, though we know it to be the fountain-
head, and feeding spring of all corporeal cnergy. Then
it shall be manifested in the new Jerusalem, of whose life,
glory, and infinite goodness, the single origin shall be
seen in the sacrificed body of the Lamb. As the river of
life which followed Israel through the wilderness, and sus-
tained that numerous camp for forty years, flowed all from
the rent side of a flinty barren rock; so shall the full river
which floweth out of the city of God, and watereth every
corner of the renewed creation, be known and seen to rise in
the humble fountain of the sacrificed Lamb. Death, which
threatened creation, is thus made to yield forth the ma-
terial, and the life, of creation's eternal blessedness. So
that the distinction of being enrolled in the Lamb's book of
life, I conceive to stand not merely in our being saved from
the penalty of the second death, but chiefly in our being
raised to be the bride of the Lamb, who hath life in him-
self, to be the spiritual living body of that spiritual living
Head; and to be looked up to with Him as the parents of
that new and everlasting life with which all creation shall
be filled in the ages to come.
Now this dignity, the highest in the world that ever
shall be, is no man's right, would not have been Adam's
right though he had never fallen; nor is it claimed by the
Son of Man as his by right, but besought from the Father,
in consideration of his having glorified him on the earth,
VIII.]
921
Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
((
and to the end he might glorify him for ever. Glorify
thou me, with that glory which I had with thee before the
world was." "It PLEASED the Father, that in him all
fulness should dwell." Least of all, being an honour and
an office of so wondrous a height, can it be the desert in
any way of poor wretched sinners, whose proper desert is
the deepest pit of hell? And though Christ's death bath
made it a just thing in God to justify the believer: yet is
there even in that death, all precious as it is, nothing what-
ever beyond the purgation of the sin of the world: " Be-
hold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the
world.' Whence then doth the admission of any one into
the new Jerusalem, and their registry in the book of life
for that glory proceed, but from the Divine attribute of
grace which would shew itself forth in eternal alliance with
that Divine glory, which the new Jerusalem will for ever hold
up in the sight of the world? Grace must be its floor, if
glory be its superstructure; mercy its pedestal, if the
schechinah presence, and cherubic powers of God be its
form. It is the free-will and sovereign grace of God which
moveth him to take men, and not angels; and of men to
take the fallen, and not the unfallen, for that pre-emi-
nency over creation. And in the same purpose of his will,
in which he proposeth to bring Christ in as the Head and
soul of that celestial body, doth he propose to bring sin-
ners of mankind in as the members thereof. This eternal
purpose or decree of God is that which constitutes a book
of life of the Lamb slain; and a new Jerusalem composed
of sinners glorified. It is not till after much considera-
tion, that I have come to be convinced that inscription in
the book of life is one and the same mystery with elec-
tion. I long doubted, by reason of the threat of blotting
out SO constantly connected with this book; but a
thorough consideration of the matter hath satisfied me
that this arose from a false way of considering election,
which, the right study of this symbol of a book, may serve
among other good purposes to correct. These are the
reasons for which I believe the inscription in this book to
be one with election in Christ Jesus :--First, Because both
are from the foundation of the world: the election indeed
is declared to be before creation (Eph. i. 4); but so is the
slaying of the Lamb (1 Pet. i. 20). There may however
4 K
922
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
be a distinction in this: if there be, I have not been able
as yet to perceive it. Secondly, Not to be blotted out of
the book of life, that is, to remain inscribed in it, secures
for us the end of election, which is to be one with Christ
in the heavenly Jerusalem. Thirdly, Twice over in the
Revelations (xiii. 8, xvii. 8) is the entry in the book of
life held up as the only protection from universal apostacy.
Every thing fails but this; all save those therein entered
fall away.
Now this is exactly what in another place
(Matt. xxiv. 24) is said of "the elect." Fourthly, The
elect, when the end of their ordination is mentioned,
are said "to be ordained to eternal life" (Acts xiii. 48).
Finally, The new Jerusalem, to which registry in the book
of life is the passport, is the number of the elect accom-
plished, being in truth the honour to which they are raised,
the election manifested; the heavenly calling, the holy
calling, the hope of our calling, so often and so variously
spoken of in the holy Scriptures; the inheritance, the re-
ward, the glory, and the consummate blessedness. These
things, if the elect attain unto, it must be through a previous
entry in the book of life; for no one who is not entered
therein obtains admission into the city, and all the rest
are cast into the lake of fire (Rev. xx. 15). Holding
therefore, that enrolment in the Lamb's book of life is the
figurative way of expressing the decree of election: we
are now, by the help of grace, from the way in which the
figure is used, to find out the way in which the idea ought to
be handled as an essential doctrine of the Christian church.
As this book, for all the honour, security, and glory
connected with enrolment therein, is continually represent-
ed as in God's hand to raze out of it whom he pleaseth
and as Christ doth threaten that he will do this in certain
conditions, and in certain others will not, it seemeth to
us a clear point, that the elect should be in likewise
spoken to, and spoken of, as indeed they are in
these words: "Work out your election with fear and
trembling :" "Make your calling and election sure."
For the practical conscience of man, to which God always
addresseth himself, it is necessary to believe, and hold fast
both sides of the truth: the one, that our establishment in
Christ Jesus is sure and stedfast as the purpose of God,
and not to be shaken by any accidents, occurrences, or
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
923
conditions of this changeable estate; the other, that
God may at any time, for causes which he seeth to be
good, remove us from that foundation. The one is neces-
sary, in order to give us some ground of confidence which
cannot be shaken; the other is necessary, to make that a
moral and not a physical ground,-the basis of a spiritual
system of obligation, and not of a mechanical system of
fatalism. To take me into the number of his chosen ones
is of God's free grace, and to keep me there, is always
of the same free grace. To suppose otherwise were to
suppose God not to be free, which were to disqualify him
from being the Governor of the world; to behave other-
wise, were to overthrow the very basis of morality and
responsibility. While, therefore, we rest upon the con-
stancy of God's will as the ground of our preservation, we
rest upon the same constancy of his will as the ground of
our holiness. Once knowing what this will is, that it is
an undeviating goodness, we feel that, in order to stand
with it, we must cleave to goodness; and, in cleaving to
goodness, we feel that we have the Eternal on our side,
and his arms around us. When election is looked upon as
an act in time, it becomes most destructive to the soul;
when it is a continual expression of the sovereign and
unchangeable will of God, which we must acknowledge and
bow to and obey, and, by obedience, abide in, it is the
life of the soul, and its security, and its stability. "If ye
keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love, even
as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in
his love." God is sovereign always: if the sight of his
sovereignty comforted you once, it should comfort you al-
ways. You should not, as it were, wish to have him commit-
ted to you, but always free to deal with you according to
his unchanging and unchangeable mind. By knowing that
his will is to love, to be pitiful and gracious, and, in one
word, by seeing his will working in the word and life
of Christ Jesus, we fall in with it, and are obsequious to
it, and delight to depend upon it always for our salvation,
and we desire no securities, but the security of holiness,
which is conformity to his will.
The next thing to be gathered from this figure of elec-
tion is, the pre-requisite to or ground of election. Seeing
that every name is written in the book of life before
4 K 2
924
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
the beginning of the world, it cannot be for any worthi-
ness in one man more than another; but for some cause
which is wholly anterior and exterior to ourselves, like
the cause of our creation. That cause is contained in the
name, "The book of the life of the Lamb slain." It is
in the fore-view of the Lamb slain, that such a book ex-
ists at all; and he is foreseen as slain for the sake of
sin, to be taken away by his death, and of life from the
dead to be brought in by his righteousness. Such a
book, therefore, exists wholly in virtue of Christ's death;
which is the procuring cause of all the benefits flowing
either from the enrolment or the permanent abiding therein.
Election is a consequence of redemption, made possible
only through the previous purpose of redemption. The
eternal inheritance cannot be attained until the transgres-
sions done against a holy God be entirely taken out of the
way. And Christ, by accomplishing this as the Lamb
slain, becomes the Mediator of the New Testament, the
giver of that inheritance, the master and sole proprietor of
that book. The law, or book of the covenant, the inheri-
tance of Canaan, Jesus of the seed of Abraham, and made
under the law, with the whole Levitical system, are, as
were, dramatic persons and things; by the right exhibition
of which God doth teach the universal principles of cre-
ation, bondage, and redemption. In this dramatic mystery,
the law standeth for the perfect righteousness which God
requires at the creature's hand; Canaan, for the eternal
inheritance of the new Jerusalem, with its dependant cre-
ation, Jesus, under the law, to bear the transgressions
of the whole Jewish nation, representeth the Lamb slain,
before the foundation of the world, to bear the sins of a
creation foreseen as about to fall into sin, through him to
be redeemed, and brought into the condition of eternal
glory. And this is certainly the usc made of the whole
Levitical ordinance, in the ixth chapter of the Hebrews,
from which we extract the following words, as contain-
ing the great truth we are now in quest of; namely,
that election is in consequence, and not in precedence, of
redemption. "And for this cause He is the Mediator of
the new testament, that by means of death, for the re-
demption of the transgressions that were under the first
testament, they which are called might receive the pro-
VIII.]
Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise. 925
mise of eternal inheritance." Be it acknowledged then,
that there could be no eternal inheritance otherwise than
through a redemption for a fallen world; no book of life
otherwise than through a Lamb slain; no election other-
wise than through a previous reconciliation.
:
But besides this work of Christ in the salvation of any,
and of every one, who enters by the gates into the city of
the new Jerusalem, there is a work also of the Father; who,
as he originates the work of Christ, in giving him for the
whole world, doth likewise originate the work of applying
the benefits of his death to every person who shall even-
tually come into the eternal inheritance. This continues
the act of giving the Son; and from being an act done
once for all, doth make it to be an act ever doing, as are
all the acts of God. In giving his Son, God takes the
attitude of a reconciled and reconciling Father, and that
attitude he preserves for ever and ever, in the sight of all
creation, who in looking for ever upon the Son as the
Lamb slain, do in that look ever behold God as the Father
who gave him. These two things are inseparable, the
acknowledgment of Christ as the Son of God, and the ac-
knowledgment of God as the Father of Christ the ac-
knowledgment of Christ as the Lamb slain to take away
sin from the world, and of God as the Father who of his
mere grace gave him for that most merciful end. Foras-
much, then, as it is necessary, in looking at the new Jeru-
salem, containing the compliment of those who are blessed
with eternal life, to have respect not only unto the Lamb,
who purchased it for all, but also to the Father, who gave
the Lamb, and who giveth persons to the Lamb, (“thine
they were, and thou gavest them me,") we must have in
every promise, deed, or document, which concerneth that
city, the prerogative of both these Divine parties, distinctly
yet harmoniously represented. And this is done by the
name "Lamb's book of life." Inasmuch as it is a book
it is proper to the Father, whose is the purpose, the writ-
ten recorded purpose: inasmuch as it is the Lamb's, the
lives of all entered in it were purchased with his blood, and
are given to him for an inheritance by the Father. "The
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." The
Father hereby asserts his right to creation as God who
created it, and to every sinful creature as his to punish
4 K 3
926
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
with eternal death, or freely to forgive and bring into
eternal glory. Every advantage which we have, above
the corruption of death, or which we hope to have here-
after above hell fire, he will have us to acknowledge to his
own free grace, and not to our own deserving, and if we
refer it to Christ, it must be to Christ as the expression of
his love. God the Father will be acknowledged as the
principal; his free will, his self-originated grace, as the
only cause of every good thing which we enjoy, or hope
to attain to: and because "the life" of the New
Jerusalem is the best and highest of all things, he will
have his hand therein to be above all measure acknow-
ledged; and of such acknowledgment Christ is himself the
brighest example, both as respecteth himself personally, and
as respecteth all his people. As respecteth himself, when he
hath finished his work, he meekly asks from God, to be
raised from the dead, and to be re-instated in the glory
which he had before he took this low descent into our
miserable estate. And throughout all the Psalms he re-
joiceth mightily in this, that God did not leave his soul in
hell, nor suffer his Holy One to see corruption; but shewed
him the ways of life, and made him glad with the joys and
pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore. And
every one that is given to him out of the prison house of
sin and death, he most thankfully acknowledgeth to the
Father, and oft times declareth that for them specially He
gave himself to die. Not that, in such expressions, "I
give my life for the sheep," "I lay down my life for my
friends," "I pray for them, I pray not for the world," He
gainsays his other expressions of universal love, "I am
come that the world through me might have life," "and
the bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the
world," "O Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered
thee!...but ye would not;" but that, in these exclusive
forms of speech, He introduceth another idea, besides that of
universal love contained in the other; which is the idea of
the Father's right to be acknowledged both by him the
Shepherd, and by every one of the sheep, as the origi-
nator of their deliverance out of darkness into light,
of their being given to the Son, of their being pre-
served in him, and of every benefit of Godhead, which
through him they do enjoy. These two ideas of the uni-
VIII.] Sardis--Universal Bishop: The Promise.
927
versal benefit, and the way of its becoming personal
through the acknowledgment of the Father, are beautifully
wrought up together in one discourse, both in the vith
and the xvii th chapters of John.
But the acknowledgment of the Father as the originator
and continuer of every blessing in Christ contained, and
through Christ received, is no reason for limitation or cir-
cumscription of that benefit to a few, which in itself is
designed, and fitted, and effectual for all. God hath, in
giving Christ for all, testified the very contrary of a limited
or circumscribed love; of an unwillingness or unreadiness
to save all and I consider it little short of blasphemy, to
say that there is in him any unwillingness or slowness to
forgive and accept and favour all mankind.
There is no
radical difference between the God seen in election and
the God seen in redemption. He is the one living and
true God, who, see him as you may, is the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever. What then occasions the circumscrip-
tion and limitation? The rebellious will of man, which
either will not acknowledge God as the Lord, depend upon.
him for life and breath and being; and, if it acknowledge
Christ, will grasp him as its own and make its own use of
him, without seeing its own sinfulness and wretchedness
in the need of such a gift, and God's grace and goodness
in the giving of it; or, if it acknowledge this, doth acknow-
ledge it only once for all, or if continually, in words only,
but spurneth the doctrine of election, which secures for
God the Father the continual homage of the will wherein
is the power of a spirit, for all which we receive. As man's
wickedness, therefore, made redemption necessary, so
man's wilfulness to be rebellious still, though living en-
sphered with the blessings of redemption, is what preventeth
the common redemption from becoming universal, and ren-
dereth election necessary in order to bring any one, and
every one, to Jerusalem, the throne of glory. Now, as
God, foreseeing that all flesh would sin, did purpose that his
eternal Son should come in flesh, and be the Lamb slain
to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself; so, foreseeing
that man's rebellious will would not be melted by that
manifestation of his love, but rise up against the Lordship
of his Christ, he did, in the foreknowledge of this, purpose
to give unto Christ for his reward, and for his use, a
928
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
certain portion of the grace-despising and love-rejecting
world, in whom he would shew forth, the power and efficacy
of that God and Saviour whom all the rest should reject and
cast out, as also his own power to reclaim and restore
and glorify that which his hand had originally created.
Thus is election the mystery of the Father's will, as re-
demption is the manifestation of the Father's love; the
former affecting us as persons, the latter affecting us as
a community. And because election is addressed to the
will, which is a man's personality, its form must necessarily
be partial and particular, otherwise it would be altogether
unable to produce any effect upon the will of a person.
For, be it observed, of the truth of election, as of all truth,
that it works its effect upon a responsible person by a cer-
tain adaptation to his being, and not by a brute or physical
force. And, being intended to work submission in our will
to God's will, it must in its form be particular and per-
sonal; representing the power as well as the willingness
of God, to reduce our will into obedience to his own, and,
through the obedient will, bringing the whole man into
the obedience of Christ. But truth, because it is pre-
sented to man considered as a person, is not limited on
that account, because man is by his spirit personal, as by
his flesh he is common. It becomes, limited only by
our resistance and rejection of it. And, therefore, I think
the doctrine of election to be erroneously stated when it is
represented as an exclusive doctrine, and not a doctrine
for the edification and conversion of all men ; which all men
are as blameworthy in rejecting, as in rejecting the doctrine
of God's love, whereof election is the form proper to an indi-
vidual. When I discover my wickedness in rejecting Christ,
the common sacrifice for my sins and the sins of all the
world, I would be in utter despair, did the doctrine of
individuality not come in, and tell ine, "Be of good courage,
for God dealeth with men personally, in order to work
them into a mind and heart and will for receiving Christ :
and this He will do for thee and for any man; and hath
done for every man who ever came to Christ." This news
is as life from the dead to the poor self-condemned soul,
driven to its wit's end by its own obstinate wickedness.
Now of all ways which could be taken for representing
this personal work of God the Father upon single persons,
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
929
and setting forth its vital necessity at all times, towards
our attaining unto eternal life, no method that could
have been devised is so effectual, as that of fixing upon
our names, which distinguish us from one another, and
entering them in a book, each with his proper account
and remarks, keeping a continual oversight over us, to
see how our account standeth, and holding it up as the
ground of all stability to keep our place there, of all
safety to stand well there, and of eternal salvation to be
found there at the last. And this I believe to be the
principal reason why the symbol is chosen, and combined
into one with the Lamb, in order to combine the two
great principles of personality and community; which
union, as it is the constituent principle of the Godhead, is
also the constituent principle of all truth of manhood,
made in the image and likeness of God. This book being
given into the hands of the Lamb to keep, doth signify
that He is not only the unsealer of the book for entering
names therein, but that he is also the keeper of the ac-
count of every one who is there entered. Or, in other
words, He that is the Redeemer of all, is the Head of the
church; He that is the Saviour of all, is specially so of those
that believe that all judgment is given to Him, and all
safe keeping; and every thing which concerneth the persons
of his people, as well as the commonness of their nature.
In flesh, he was the Redeemer of all flesh, because flesh is
the element of our community: in spirit, He is the Saviour
of persons, because in the element of spirit standeth our
personality. But if we were to follow this tract further
we would pass into regions which are beyond the scope
of the practical lecturer, and therefore we will conclude
this negative part of the blessing by a word or two con-
cerning the way by which we come to know, and ought to
preserve our standing in this book of life.
To know that we are written in this book, is to know
that Christ hath died for our sins; to know that God hath
elected us unto everlasting life, is to know that he willeth
our salvation, and hath given his Son to procure it; and
to persevere in this knowledge is to make our calling and
election sure, and to retain our place unto the end in this
book of God. To know that the Lamb was given of God
to be slain for us, is to know that our name is written in
930
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
that book; and knowing this, to fall away from the love of
God and of Christ, and from the way of holiness, is to cause
our names to be blotted out. We cause it not to be en-
tered; God's grace and Christ's work cause it to be
entered; but we cause it to be erased when we deny
the Lord that bought us, crucify the Son of God afresh,
count the blood of the covenant with which we were
sanctified an unholy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of
grace. No one hath any right to have his name entered
therein; God of grace purposeth to save, and Christ of his
grace proposeth himself as the Mediator through whom
God may be just, and the justifier of him that believeth.
This grace of God is to all men; this work of Christ is for
all men. It becomes mine in particular by having the
faith of it wrought in my proud rebellious mind, and the
love of the Doers of it shed abroad in my hard and stony
heart. This done, I am an elect person, and ever done I
shall never fall away; because He who hath begun this
good work in me will carry it on unto the end. But his
carrying of it on is by the same means, and with the same
effects, as his beginning of it; and I for my part know only
this, that I love God and Christ as I did at first, and serve
them, and depend upon them, and in every way feel to-
wards them as I did at first. I am supported by them
continually, and in the strength they give prevail mightily
against all mine enemies. I see no other security but the
security of their sameness yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
I look at them, and not at myself. In their light I see
light, and in their life I enjoy life. If I were ever to cease
to depend upon the love of that God who gave his Son,
upon the redeeming love of that Son who buried himself
in the mortality of my nature, and made it all quick with
everlasting life, I would lose my hold and standing, and
sink away into the deepest limbo of apostasy. I feel that
the love which wrote my name there is the only thing
which cannot change or be broken; it held on towards me
through all my backslidings and total death in sin. God's
creature, I knew him not, set him at naught, trampled
upon his laws, despised his Son, and was living in open
rebellion; yet his love clave to me. I wearied all men, all
men forsook me. I was hateful to myself, and ready to
abandon all hope and to be swallowed up in atheism; but
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Approbation. 931
he loved me, and made me to know his love, and taught
me that he had written my name in the Lamb's book of
life. This is the last, the greatest act of constancy which my
sin, which perseverance in sin, could not divide from me.
When I come to know this, I have a security above all
securities; and I say to myself, I shall surely never fail, for
I am written in the book of life. God's love was not alie-
nated from me, but continued fixed upon me, and wrote
me there.
How should it ever fail me? If unworthiness,
if sin could have divided me from his love, I should never
have been called with this holy calling, or brought to
know this precious truth, that my name was written in
heaven.
To be enrolled in the book of life is therefore to be ac-
knowledged as the highest and most perfect grace which God
can bestow upon a creature, being no less than the complete
fellowship of that estate and dignity which he hath appointed
for his own eternal Son, the well-beloved and only-begotten
of the Father. And as our admission thereunto is not for
any merit of our own, but in spite of our utmost demerit,
arising purely out of that purpose of his will which he pur-
posed in Christ Jesus before the world began, so our con-
tinuance therein must ever be referred to the stedfastness
of that unbiassed will which placed us there ;-insomuch
that if any man should feel that he needeth other securi-
ties than the will of God, ever free to do what seem-
eth to him good,—if he should feel desirous to bind
God for the future by some thing which he hath done in
the past; if, to return to the plain language of the text,
he would wish to take away from God the liberty of blot-
ting out of that book whom it pleaseth him to blot out; in
harbouring such a wish, or feeling, or thought, he doth
declare himself to have most insufficient and dishonourable
ideas of God, and to be still in the state of one who knows
not God's electing love, and hath no faith in his own per-
sonal election. God, to be truly appreciated and honoured,
must be depended on for himself, and loved in his freedom.
We must not wish to have him pledged to us by any other
bonds than his own unchangeable being. We must honour
the awfulness of his will, and feel in perfect security,
though he be in perfect liberty at any time and at all times
to blot us out of his book. His will is the only security
932
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. [LECT.
and stability of the world; and because it is free, and not
acted upon by any thing without or beside itself, I can
confide in it. The reason why it is the only safety to be
written in that book is this; because God, and Christ who
is one with God, alone have to do with the entries and
erasures thereof.
It hath oft occurred to me, in writing these things upon
the book of life, and upon election, which is the common-
place in theology answering thereto, that those who pro-
fess to believe in election, the High Calvinists as they
are called, are in truth further from the feeling and power
of that blessed truth than many who in words deny it, but
in heart and life act under its holy influence. The reason
is, that this and every other orthodox truth in our reforma-
tion divinity have passed over from being ideas for the
responsible will, to become meie conceptions for the ab-
stract understanding; instead of being moral truths, to be-
come mere mechanical and numerical truths, holding not
of the reason, but of the faculty which judgeth by the sense.
Thus systematical Calvinists cannot bear the idea that
God should have the power of blotting out a name from
the book of life: they think it dishonourable to his sted-
fastness and unchangeableness that it should be so:
they stand up for his liberty before the foundation of the
world to take whom he pleased; after that they would give
him no liberty, but bind him fast. To them I would say,
as Paul doth to the Galatians, "Having begun in the
Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" You
err by bringing that noble idea of God's free and sovereign
will under the conditions of time. Keep it always so free;
assert for him free and sovereign will as his unchangeable
attribute, and you present to the will of man the firm
and fixed centre round which to revolve. Do otherwise and
you make God the creature of fate, and your religion be-
comes a system of fatalism. That man acknowledgeth a
will in God who will at any time say, 'I may not act thus,
lest he should blot me out of his book.' That man be-
lieves in election who says, I may not do this, because
God hath chosen me to eternal life, and it is contrary to
that will of his which is my only hope and security of sal-
vation.' If I set light by that will, what have I to trust
in? I can only feel what a great strength there is in God's
6
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
933
will according as I stand under it. His will is my con-
fidence of standing, and it is my terror of falling. Would
a wife treat her husband nobly if she were to say within
herself, Ab, now my husband must love me, for I have
got marriage-lines ?' Would she be expressing either a
noble feeling, in herself, or addressing a noble feeling in
him? She confesseth uncertainty and doubt of her own
standing in his love, and implieth that his affection to her
is not such as she can depend upon for its own strength
and stedfastness. In truth, she both dishonours him and
herself as free persons, and honours a thing, an outward
action past and done, instead of a will continually willing to
love. So it is with a person, who, from a present God free
to love, free to adopt, and free to cast off according to his
own mind, begins to think of a God who hath passed
such and such an act before the foundation of the world,
or entered into such and such a contract and covenant in
time: not but that God doth make contracts and cove-
nants, and keepeth by them; but this he doeth for the end
of shewing to us the constancy of that will, and the holi-
ness of it-in one word, the nature and form of it, that
from the covenant we may rise to the Covenant Head, from
the creature to the Creator, from the decree of election to
the gracious and loving God, who made choice of one so
unworthy, and depend upon him to love us still notwith-
standing our unworthiness. Much more could we say upon
this matter, were we at liberty to use it otherwise than as
one topic in the great subject of Jesus Christ, the great
Head of the church.
It appears, therefore, that not only the redemption but
the election also is under the administration of our blessed
Saviour and Elder Brother. The Father hath given into
his hand the book of those whom he hath written for life,
and leaves it with him to blot out whom it pleaseth him;
thereby teaching the elect to know that their election
cometh to them from Christ as well as from the Father,—
Christ the procuring cause of it to any; the Father the
chooser of those to whom it shall be given; and Christ the
effecter of the purpose, by preparing the unworthy outcasts
for redemption into the high and holy presence. If the
Father be free to inscribe or to blot out, so is Christ: as
the Father is, so is Christ. "Hitherto the Father worketh
4 L
934
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
C
and I work:""The Father hath committed all judgment
to the Son, that men may honour the Son even as they ho-
nour the Father." Christ
Christ is not the mere book-keeper;
he is the book-owner, and the subject matter of the book;
for the Spirit of the eternal God is in him, even the seven
Spirits of God: they are in him for judgment as well as
for power; not only as the seven horns but the seven eyes
of God which run to and fro over the earth. The Father's
will is in him. The Father giveth to him the election, and
saith, Keep them by my name;' and Christ keepeth them
by teaching them the name of the Father, which is his
unchangeable being, and this he doeth by shewing them
himself. In the human will of Christ, a free will and a
perfectly good will, the will of man reads and understands
the free and perfectly good will of God. God's absolute
and incomprehensible will ever expresseth itself in form of
THE WORD, which, apprehended of reason, becometh know-
ledge of God and a rule unto our will; which thereby
discovereth its own obliquity, and feeleth its own bond-
age, and desireth the strengthening of the Supreme
will, and receiveth it by the Spirit, and so working out-
ward, brings the members of the body and mind into con-
formity with the will of God, expressed in The Word,
Christ, therefore, is to the creature the ALL IN ALL of
God, in whom God is seen and known, and through whom
God is approached unto, and worshipped, and depended
on: and therefore it is that in his hands the book of life
resteth, to retain whom it pleaseth him to retain, and whom
it pleaseth him to reject.
In the exercise of this Supreme Administration over
those who shall be heirs of salvation, Christ, the Head of
the church, gives us to know, that he will not blot out of
the book of life any one who overcometh, but will confess
his name before his Father and before his holy angels.
Upon this word we are required by God to rely, and to go
forward in the warfare with the devil, the world, and the
flesh; to stand stedfastly, and to fight boldly, as we would
not be cast away; as we would continue in the love and fa-
vour of Christ, and at the end be presented in the presence
of his Father and his holy angels, and be confessed to by
Christ as one of those whom he hath found worthy to in-
herit all things. The language of the last clause of this
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
935
blessed promise is taken from the charge or commission,
which our Lord gave to the twelve Apostles, when he sent
them forth to preach that the kingdom of heaven was at
hand (Matt. x. 32, 33): “ Whosoever therefore shall con-
fess me before men, him will I confess also before my
Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me
before men, him will I also deny before my Father which
is in heaven." The corresponding passage in Luke (chap.
xii. 9) hath it," confess before the angels of God;" and both
are joined together in the words of the promise before us.
In both these passages, this blessing is set over against the
fear of man, to preserve us from denying his name in the
august presence of kings, and rulers, and potentates of the
earth, by assuring us, that all such earthly vicegerents have
no power, but as it is given them from above" from your
Father," who numbereth the hairs of our head, and hath
a watchful oversight of the sparrows which fly in the midst
of heaven. To neutralize the fear of man, who can only
kill the body, he setteth before his followers the fearful-
ness of God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell fire
for ever. And to comfort them under the persecutions and
castings out by father and mother and brother and sister,
and all the world, he assureth them, that their dishonoured
and rejected names, he will confess before his Father which
is in heaven, and before the holy angels of God. This
throws great light upon the temptation of the church of
Sardis, and brings no small confirmation to the view thereof,
which we have entertained and held forth in this lecture;
shewing that it is the temptation of a name with men, and
the fear of reproach, which did most withstand their faith-
ful testimony; and so I feel it to be in this day.
There is certainly a league, amongst all respectable and
reputable men, to cast out the name of God and of Christ,
and to substitute in their stead a conventional religion,
which shall embrace all that is decent and decorous, mo-
derate and praiseworthy, among men. All that is rational
and moral in philosophy, all that is liberal and enlightened
in politics; which presents Christ as the great Teacher and
Exemplar of the system, God as the great Overseer and
Protector of it, and man as its responsible observer and
doer. Redemption and regeneration, the new man and
the old man, are but the technicalities of the system; and
4 L 2
936
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
the Holy Spirit is the name for one who is embued with
it; as we say, a poetical and a philosophical spirit. Such
a system as this is the thing, which the ministers of reli-
gion are holding up to the faith and obedience of the
people; and around this all that is called good in the sys-
tem of the world confederates. The country gentleman
applauds it, as a very proper doctrine to be taught the
people, and very much respects the well-bred and judi-
cious clergyman who teaches it: the magistrate of the
burgh, burdened with the good order of his townsmen, is
full of gratitude, that the pulpit should be such an able
auxiliary of the police-office. The judges and governors.
of the land understand, and are in perfect sympathy with a
religion of this natural and reasonable sort, which none
but thieves, and adulterers, and drunkards, and the like
enemies of good society, have a right to complain of. The
minister and the Bible take their place in the great system
of worldliness; and religion is of the world, and the church
is the wedded wife of the world. I declare that this is the
religion which I find among Churchmen and Dissenters,
from one extremity of this land to the other. It is a sys-
tem of refined and sanctified worldliness which the world
are entirely satisfied with, and will any day turn out to de-
fend. And, oh ye ministers of Christ! is this the re-
ligion of your Master? and, oh ye members of Christ! is
this the religion of your Head? Is Christ merely the
Head Teacher, God the Head Constable, and the Holy
Ghost the Spirit of good society? Is this Christian
religion, I ask you, ye angels, ye doctors of the churches,
who have a name to live, by sleeking down, and feeding,
and courting the dragon spirit of this evil world? Is it for
nought that Paul says, "Is any man wise in this world,
let him become a fool, that he may be wise: for the
wisdom of the world is foolishness with God?" that the
Lord says,
"The cares of this world choke the word?"
that the Apostle says, "Be not conformed unto this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind," and
identifieth the course of this "world" with the "prince
of the power of the air," and calleth the devil “its god.”
O false and treasonable prophets! why speak ye not
out for the truth, that God is in all Christians, working
their works and speaking their words,-even that God
质
​VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
937
of whom is nothing in the world; that we become fit for
his habitation only through Christ uniting us to himself,
and putting in us that life which is contrary to and the
death of, the fleshly or natural man, with his wisdom and
his way; and that the Holy Ghost worketh both the life
of Christ in us and the power of the Father; and that
from first to last the life of a Christian is not natural, but
supernatural; not ordinary, but extraordinary; not within
the reach of human power, but above it and beyond it,
only through the miraculous power of God. The reason
why many do not deliver themselves of the truth of this
matter, is that they do not believe it. Such, according to
the word of God, are properly named unbelievers, in
whom the God of this world hath blinded their mind.
Others there are who do not know it, and therefore are
not as yet to be classed with unbelievers. And wherefore
do they not know it? because they are not honouring God
only in their hearts, but preferring to Him some other ob-
ject, most frequently the approved system, or the approved
persons, or something which man hath approved. And
a good many there be who both knowing and believing it,
do yet follow flattering courses, because they are afraid
of the world's scorn and persecution, nor speak boldly
out the truth, which God hath made them to know and
believe. These are they to whom Christ saith, "Fear
not man; confess me before men, and I will confess thee
before my Father. Be not ashamed of me, and I will
not be ashamed of thee." Ah me! how many there are
who take credit to themselves for being slow of conviction,
and cautious of committing themselves by words, which
should be their shame. Why is thy chamber dark at
noon-day? Because thou art slow to open the blinds which
let in the light. Is that thy honour or thy shame? Why
liftest thou not up thy voice aloud when the thief is
entering the house? Is that thine honour or thy shame?
I also am slow of receiving and uttering truth? And where-
fore? Because I am afraid of man. Of this I am asham-
ed, and I confess it unto my God. Do you likewise, O
my brethren, confess your sin of slowness of belief. Re-
member whether it was with approbation, or disapproba-
tion, that Christ spake, when he said, "O fools, and slow
of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken."
4 L 3
938
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
The truth should be told to these bangers on between
Christ and the world, between a God-confessing, and a
God-denying church, that their slowness of conviction
springeth from the want of entireness in their heart's affec-
tion to God. There is another there besides God. Be it
man, or be it woman, be it flesh, or be it the world, or
be it the devil of hell, there is another in thy heart besides
God. This know and cast out, or else thou shalt never
know God, nor have him with thee. I feel it as certain
as Scripture and experience can make me, that the reason
why men are not all filled with the light of Christ, and the
power of God, is, because they love the darkness, and
will not come to the light, lest their evil deeds should be
reproved, which they love, and have not yet made up
their mind to part with. What that work of darkness is,
I know not: it may be the love of the most beautiful
forms of art, of the most perfect forms of reason, of the
most finished works of systematic truth; it may be the
love of that power over others, which by these means we
have attained, of that place and station to which we have
been promoted, and for the well filling of which we labour
as a life's work: whatever it is, that is a work of darkness
wherein God is not first, middle, and ending, which
brings ourselves or our usefulness, or our station, or any
thing that is ours into the question of our duty; and so
long as this remains, it will present an effectual barrier to
the knowledge and avowal of Christ.
That this is the temptation of the present time, I feel
and know, and cannot be mistaken. It is popular ap-
plause, the favour of men, the credit of a good name,
the genial course of a quiet life, the fear of being branded
in public newspapers, the dread of being exposed in reli-
gious magazines before the religious world, the love of
standing well with those that stand well with the world,
of being taken into the sweep and circle of a party; it is
shameful cowardice, mean sacrifice of personal diguity,
for the approbation of a multitude; in one word, it is the
desire of a name to live with religious and respectable
people, though we be dead, that hath spell-bound men in
the thraldom in which they are so basely holden, which is
shutting their eyes to the light, and their hearts to the truth,
and sealing their lips to the utterance of words, for the
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise. 939
want of which, Christ's church is at her last gasp. God will
bless my witness against this abomination as base as the
Papacy; therefore I have lifted up my voice boldly and
strongly against it, and will now lay out in conclusion the
consummate blessedness of standing stedfast and true in
the midst of it all.
"The Father and his angels" are the court above, the
heavenly King and his heavenly powers, before whom
Christ promiseth to confess the name of every one, who
hath confessed him, before the kings and potentates of the
earth, and for that confession is content to lose his name,
and have it cast out. To those who are not afraid of re-
proaches for God's sake, but give their hearts, as Christ
did, to be broken by the reproaches of them who reproach
God, he giveth the congenial reward of gaining a name
of renown in heaven, and having the public entrance into
the presence chamber of the great King, and of all the
celestial hierarchy. Of whose numbers and glorious array,
as they come forth harnessed against these deceivers of the
earth, if ye would have the account, hear it as it was
seen by Danic! the prophet: "I beheld till the thrones
were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose
garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like
the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and
his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came
forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered
unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
before him the judgment was set, and the books were
opened" (Dan. vii. 9, 10). To this glorious company,
behold how he, who manifested the name of God, and
made it glorious in the world, is introduced as the first-
fruits of our introduction to the same presence chamber
of Omnipotence: "I saw in the night visions, and, be-
hold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought
him near before him. And there was given him dominion,and
glory,and a kingdom, that all people, nations,and languages,
should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed" (vers. 13, 14). Again, if we
would have the same glorious presentation and acknow- ·
ledgment as it was in the ascension, the picture of what
:
A
940
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
shall be, when we have our assumption into the cloud of
the Father's glory, it is thus written in the lxviiith Psalm:
first, of the glory of the court and company to which he
ascended: "The chariots of God are twenty thousand,
even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as
in Sinai, in the holy place" (ver. 17). Then of the trium-
phant welcome and glorious reward of the ascended
Christ: "Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led cap-
tivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for
the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among
them" (ver. 18). Again, if we would know the respec-
tive parts which these angels of the Father will do for
the evil and for the good, in the end of the world, or
consummation of this age, they are written severally in the
xiiith and the xxiv th chapters of the Gospel by Matthew.
And if we would behold the honour and glory of their
estate, we have it represented in the four living creatures,
and the twenty-four crowned elders, in the ivth and vth
chapters of the Apocalypse, with the ministry of angels
all around; and if we would have their blessedness and
joy in the company of the Lamb, we have it in the white
robed and palm-bearing ones of the viith chapter; and if
we would have their glorious action, it is to be found
in the xixth; and their supremacy of the earthly things
in the xxth: but if we would have the full mystery of
their glory and blessedness displayed, it is in the new
Jesusalem, at whose gates, the place of service and dis-
patch, stand twelve angels ready to go forth with orders
from the city of the great King.
The present servants and ministers of God are the
angels: they wait upon his throne in the heavens, and are
by him employed in their several dignities to carry on the
administration of his government, and they are sent by
him also, on errands of service, to those who shall be the
heirs of salvation. Yet they, even they, were created by
Christ, who, when he would take into union with himself
a creature's nature, through which to manifest himself for
ever to all the creatures whom he had made, assumed
not theirs but ours, as being in the purpose and counsel of
God the fittest for that noble end. And so he stamped
the nature of man, to be the royal and supreme form of
creature-being; and having perfected that nature, accord-
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: The Promise.
941
>>
ing to the intention of its Creator, he ascended up on
high as man, and as man, ❝ in man (Psalm lxviii. 18,
margin) received the gifts of the Seven Spirits of God
and rebellious men also, with which to construct a house
and habitation for the Most High. God determining to
have his habitation not in any body of angels, but in a
body of men, whom to that end he giveth to Christ, like
rough unhewn stones from the quarry, that he may quicken
them with his own life, and fashion them according to his
own mould, and build them into a temple where Jehovah
might for ever dwell, and thence put forth the word of
his wisdom, and the strength of his power over all things
visible and invisible. When the new Jerusalem is thus
builded up, the angels take their station at the gates, to
go forth on errands from the house and tabernacle of God.
And even now, we weak and silly churchmen, do give to
the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, con-
tinual lessons upon the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. iii).
And into the things with which we are conversant, they
do continually stoop down from heaven to look into
them and learn (1 Peter i.). But, because the time to
glorify the church is not yet come, albeit she hath vir-
tually received her glory in her Head, who is far ad-
vanced above every name in heaven and in earth; when
Christ would speak to his servants on earth concern-
ing honour, he speaketh of mentioning their names before
the holy angels as being the present depositaries of the
power of God, and the dignitaries and functionaries of the
heavenly region, well worthy to compensate us by their
acceptance for the rejection of our names by the dignita-
ries and functionaries of this world, whose God is the
prince of darkness. Yet this he doth without any preju-
dice to our future elevation above them into the higher
dignity of bearing up the throne, containing the presence
and putting forth the strength of God; and being the
body of Christ, who is the fulness of the Godhead. For
as there are "earthly things" so also are there "heavenly
things," and as there are earthly bodies" so are there
"heavenly bodies," and as there is "one glory of the
earthly" so is there "another glory of the heavenly;" and
as it is not to be doubted that the Jews in their regenerate
"
942
[LECT.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
state, having the washing of regeneration, and the law on
their hearts written, are to be the royal priesthood over
the earthly things; so is it certain that the church, the
body of Christ, will rise in the likeness of his glory, and
as his bride, have the supremacy and sovereignty, the
royal priesthood over the heavenly things; principalities,
powers, and dominions, and every name that is named both
in this world and in that which is to come, being put
under the feet of that body whereof Christ is the head,
and the church the members. Yet as Christ's glory
depicted in the Old Testament by the way in which he is
presented and accepted, and rewarded with pre-eminence
of place in the glorious assembly of the heavenly host, so
also in the New Testament doth he hold out to his church
the hope of the same preferment and glory.
Now for any one rightly to apprehend the exceeding
grace and excellence of this promise of Christ, he must
bear in mind what God is, of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity; in whose sight the heavens are not clean, and
who chargeth his angels with folly; and of what kind we
creatures are, whose foundation is in the dust, rebels,
enemies of God, doomed for our sin to the presence
chamber of the worm, and the bed of corruption. And
we must remember how we have been driven forth of pa-
radise into this fallen and miserable world; and that we
are no better than animated clods of the valley, filled with
all ungodliness and wickedness; Satan's thralls, hell's vic-
tims, God's deceivers, his troublers, the most ungrateful
and wicked of all his creatures. To obtain for such crea-
tures admission into the heavenly presence, to bring them
from the banqueting house of the worm and corruption's
couch, to make them clean, to purify and sanctify them,
and bring them into the presence of God and his angels:
moreover to take away their heart-hatred, and give them
a heart-love of God; their mortal darkness and weakness
to expel, and to make them sons of light and strength;
to bend and incline their will, to take away their innate
rebellion against God and hatred of one another, to har-
monize them into one, to build them up into glorious
beauty, to furnish them with powers and faculties, and in
all ways to qualify them for being Godhead's palace and
VIII.] Sardis-Universal Bishop: Conclusion.
943
throne, and chamber councillors, and faithful kings; His
royal priesthood over all creation. Whoever will think of
this, and weigh it well, will understand both the grace
and the love and the power of Christ, the dignity and
honour and superlative preferment of the church. These
things are too high for me: even now I can go no further.
My heart is sick with thought and admiration. Oh, my
God! what a prize is this to think for, to act for, to speak
for. Away, away far from me the fear of man: cease,
cease for ever from the applause of men, oh my soul!
CONCLUSION.
And thus have I done my endeavour to open and unfold
to the church of God, the disease, the peril, and the cure
of nominalism, which now threatens to sink the Protestant
church. I have had upon my mind father, and brothers,
and kindred, native country, and mother church, and
whatever is dear to the natural or to the spiritual man.
I have written as in the presence of the Heart-searcher,
with much prayer and painful thought; and I have re-
ceived into my own soul much light and consolation. And
I have been called upon to act the thing which I have
written, and to stand for the canons of our Lord, and to
deny myself to the love and fellowship of brethren for my
faithfulness to him. And I am prepared to do and to
suffer much more for him who died for me. Much of what
I have written under this epistle I have addressed to the
Church of Scotland, whose responsible servant I am, and
through her to all the Protestant churches. The Lord, in
the mean time, hath enlarged my heart with love, and
opened my mouth with intercession for her. She will have
to take the van in the approaching battle, as she did from
the seventh till the eleventh century, when no church in
Europe was found to peep or to mutter against the Bishop
of Rome; and she will have to beat down the fabric of
that infidelity which her Humes and her Smiths have had
a chief hand in setting up, as she beat down the fabric of
the Papacy, and ground it into powder. When I say she, I
mean her children, some ones that have come out of her
loins, or rather out of her laver of regeneration. I wish I
could see that the whole church would hold fast her in-
944
Conclusion.
tegrity, and stand up the champion of the faith: but,
whatever I may desire, I have no conviction to this effect,
but rather to the contrary. But it is not good
"To cast the fashion of uncertain evil."
May the Lord fulfil every good work of his servants,
and avert all the evil which our sins have deserved.
Amen.
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X
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